goodbye old friend, but you passed away years ago...

If there ever was a media outlet or form of mass communication that had a profound effect on my becoming who I am, it was WBCN. I’ve spent the past day going over the memories of my formative years and ‘BCN played a huge part of my life. Granted the station hasn’t been relevant for years, so as other commentators and bloggers have mentioned, this eulogy is belated.

Growing up in the Boston area my earliest memories of music on the radio was Dale Dorman on WRKO. It was 1974, it was on the AM dial, it was Top 40 and I didn’t know any better. I was addicted to it and started to branch out and listen to other stations until I found a daily Top 20 countdown over on the FM side on WBZ-FM. (The station that would one day be the home of Kiss 108) It was Top 40 and this was when rock & disco dominated those charts. I listened each day, charted the progress and the most eclectic thing I heard was a Queen song. I “discovered” WBCN one night at my friend Jay’s house. We were messing around, playing pool and he had turned to a station that was playing some different, but pretty cool music. It must’ve been a local music show because I’ve since heard nothing from the bands that played that night, but we were hooked.

WBCN became the soundtrack to my adolescence. The music, the jocks, the sense of community, the politics and the games all melded me into who I became. Of course, since I was in school those years, the jocks that had the most profound effect on me were Charles in the morning and Mark in the afternoon. Their sense of humor, the music they played made me want to do become a DJ. During the summer when I’d listen all day, I’d play Mishegas with Chuck & Ken everyday (I was a fortunate player one day but I don’t remember a thing. I was terrified). I first heard Elvis Costello. The Clash, U2, The Alarm, The Jam, Mission of Burma, Big Country, & X on ‘BCN. I made my sister buy me The Vapors “Turning Japanese” 45 when she went to England because ‘BCN was playing it as an import. The first day of my first ‘real’ job, Charles played “Welcome to the Working Week”. Later on, Nocturnal Emissions with Oedipus, Carter Allen, Albert O. became my musical mentors as my horizons broadened. The memories flow….

Of course things change. The landscape of radio is vastly different than it was 3 years ago, let alone 30 years ago. Radio as an entity has changed over it’s entire lifespan so it would be foolish to think that WBCN would remain unchanged forever. Its ultimate demise just gives us a chance to thank the people who helped shape who we are. Charles, Ken, Mark, Tami, Bradley, Carter, Oedi, Shred, Albert and yes, even Duane Glasscock…Thanks.