Was - Custom Versions of Songs (was Some WBUR history) slidng over to WRKO in the past...

[EM1 GITCHIER <RGITSCHIER@doyle.navy.mil>]

Ah, yes, the day the music died... a sad moment; I had already flipped to FM
due to the A/C-ish format lean in the last year(s). It was a great ride and
I get to remember it still through airchecks. The whole history of WRKO
doing the top 40 format basically fit the years of my youth end to end when
I enjoyed that kind of personality-oriented format. We had AM radios that
seemed to have a bit wider bandwith at home and in cars, living in Lowell -
listening to the Big 68's whopping signal (a paint burner) overrode
virtually any source of pesky noise around the home or from power lines on
the roadside... so the S/N ratio was great.... 

Many songs seemed to have some sort of WRKO or local reference insert. For
this post I was trying to recall a Beach Boys song done as such in the
mid-later 70s, had Fenway Park in it and many more things... something about
summertime diversions (duh --). I can't seem to recall exactly what it was. 

The later 70s they did a version of Calling Occupants of Interplanetary
Craft by the Carpenters, and I believe after the song, they had some big
ballsy voiceover dude come in with some experiment in cooperation with the
Jet Propulsion Laboratories, CA,  where they cease broadcasting for 10 or 15
seconds for such beings to radio in and announce thier presence... I don't
know if they actually dropped current on the plates in Burlington or not. My
kid sister, unpon hearing the anncmt for the first time, sought me out to
advise  me that "ailens knocked out the WRKO radio station"!!

Do they still do the July 4th deal I recall hearing about in ('96-ish?). I
have the aircheck at home but not with me at sea... WABC sure does a great
job doing their retrospective WABC Rewound. Some jeer at living in the past
- it's not my lifestyle, just a neat diversion now and then...  what the
hey, there's nothing wrong with it.. 

Ron Gitschier
(Formerly of Lowell, MA, now of Jacksonville, FL, US Navy)
(Who, as a very young kid worried that low flying helos in Lowell were from
the VietCong... he he watched too much news in the 60s)

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Joseph Pappalardo and others
> 
> > > I also remember the Pointer Sisters..
> > >
> > > "Im driving in my car....turn on the radio,(W)RKO....."
> > >
> 
> > > I remembered that when I wrote the Harry Chaipin post but when I
> thought
> > about it, I figured that I was mistaken.  I was trying to place when
> WRKO
> > flipped formats.
> 
> Ask someone who was there...  ;-)
> 
> (Fall of '81)
>