Radio – Page 21 – Prattling before the Pratfall

Boston RadioBDC

Once again, the landscape of Boston radio is changing and, like the return of Barnes Newberry, it’s found on the Internet. The Boston Globe is going back to what some major city newspapers did way back in the 1920’s, by starting its own station. It’s called RadioBDC, which I’m taking to mean “Radio Boston Dot Com.” The station is online only, and it’s essentially picking up where alternative Rock station WFNX left off, when it was sold to Clear Channel earlier this year.

I’m not the target audience for RadioBDC, but I’m hoping it succeeds. It doesn’t have a TuneIn listing yet, and I don’t have a direct URL for it, so for now I can’t play it on my Logitech Media Server network and the only way I can hear RadioBDC is with the station’s Flash player on a computer, which means I won’t be listening to it a lot. But I’ve already heard something I like a lot — Champagne Supernova, by Oasis. I was never one looking to get high, which apparently was a priority for these guys, but drug references in song lyrics have never phased me. For somebody who had bell bottom pants and a paisley shirt in the seventh grade, this is good stuff.

http://youtu.be/g3C7DECI0jU

A Kind of a Hush

Deep Purple’s recording of Joe South’s “Hush” is one of those songs that takes me back to powerful memories from a particular point in my life. “There’s a Kind of a Hush All Over the World” by Herman’s Hermits it wasn’t! I’d just finished an extremely difficult year in the 7th grade, and “Hush” really excited and grabbed me.

EVERYTHING WAS CHANGING SO FAST! Not just for me as a kid on the cusp of turning thirteen, but for the world. LBJ wasn’t running for re-election, MLK and RFK had been assassinated, etc. And to top it off, a month after “Hush” peaked on the charts my family up and moved from Connecticut to Massachusetts.

Jon Lord of Deep Purple has died. “Hush”, with Lord’s incredible keyboard sound, is one of the last songs that is indelibly associated in my mind with 77 WABC Musicradio in New York. It’s my assumption that Herb Oscar Anderson’s departure from WABC was due to songs like this one.

Rewound Radio picking up the slack

Thanks go to Allan Sniffen on Rewound Radio for playing a tribute to Oldies 103 in Boston, which had been one of my radio presets, but it suffered a format change a few weeks ago. With the demise of the oldies stations on broadcast radio, thankfully there are online stations to carry on, and I think Rewound Radio is the best of them. Click the link and make a request! I did.

[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2012/07/RewoundRadio.mp3|titles=Rewound Radio]

Another favorite online station, Beatles-A-Rama, unfortunately seems to be nearing its likely end. Here’s the story.

I’ll contribute some money, but considering the financial shortfall I don’t see how Pat can save the sinking ship.

Boomer radio goes boom

The Boston radio landscape continues to undergo upheaval. WODS — aka Oldies 103 — has stuck to its format, more or less, for almost 25 years. Some years back it dropped 50’s songs and added the 80’s, but that must not have been enough to keep the money boys at CBS happy.

Tomorrow, the oldies are being moved to the secondary HD Radio slot, and online, so that 103.3 MHz in Boston will be called AMP and play the latest hits. Let’s face it, Baby Boomers, as the most desirable consumer demographic of all time, our day is done.

Click and Clack, “National Treasures”

As a member of WBUR in Boston, where Car Talk is produced, I received this message from the manager of the station, regarding the end of the show:

We all knew this day would come but it is still not easy to announce a milestone on the highway of life. Tom and Ray Magliozzi, better known as “Click and Clack,” will end new recordings of Car Talk in October, after 35 years of continuous production at WBUR.

On behalf of everyone at WBUR which has proudly been the home of Car Talk, I want to express my gratitude to Tom and Ray and Doug Berman and his whole team. Their extraordinary work and endless hours of wit and wisdom and entertainment have delighted audiences across the country and the world. As most of you know, Car Talk began as a little experiment on WBUR and reached national distribution when Susan Stamberg heard about it and put a regular segment on Weekend Edition. The rest is history. Special credit goes to Doug Berman, without whom Car Talk would never have reached its levels of success or been sustainable for all these years.

Tom and Ray are a national treasure. They have a special place in the history of public radio. They taught us all about the broadest possibilities of providing wonderful entertainment that is funny, smart, self-deprecating and surprisingly wise. Because of their work, we have been able to broaden our perspectives on how to serve our communities of listeners like you with creativity, intelligence and warmth. How lucky we have been to have them on our air for all these years!

We’re pleased that Car Talk will continue to be produced from its archival material. Doug assures me that there is years’ worth of material that has yet to be aired.

We hope you’ll help us honor this legacy by continuing to tune in as you always have.

On behalf of everyone here at WBUR, I hope you’ll join me in expressing our gratitude for Tom and Ray.

Sincerely,

Charlie Kravetz
General Manager

It should be noted that a previous manager of WBUR, Jane Christo, got NPR to syndicate Car Talk. When Christo was later forced out of the station, it was reported that she regretted letting the Magliozzi brothers own the show.

The Tappet Brothers close up shop

What the heck is going on with Boston radio? Steve LeVeille retired today and now the Car Talk guys, Tom and Ray Magliozzi, have announced that they’re quitting. I’ve been listening to their on-air antics for more than 20 years. Cartoonist Jimmy “Arlo & Janis” Johnson is a fan of theirs, and some years back he even wrote ‘Click and Clack’ into the strip.