1987-1989 weekend Hot Mix dance shows on WNCI & 92-X

[full_brain]

In the late '80s, every Top 40 station was running a dance mix show on the weekend evenings. I remember WNCI was airing the syndicated Hot Mix show on Saturday nights, but they also ran a less-polished show on Friday nights: Friday Night Live, I think it was called. At the same time, 92-X was still doing CHR and ran a competing show called Club 92.

I would listen to these in my dorm and tape them, then dub them to another cassette, editing out the parts I didn't like. Often I'd just end up keeping the transitions and none of the songs. The only thing that survives is one little clip: http://www60.zippyshare.com/v/96259172/file.html

It's not why I'm posting, but if anyone wants to take a crack at it...I'd like to ID the freestyle break at 1:04 (before The Cover Girls "Show Me" fades in), and I'd like to ID the beats at 2:10, before it cuts over to "Electric Youth". I've got everything else ID'd.

Also, kinda funny... at 1:57 there's Alisha "Baby Talk" w/that familiar voice (Mark Driscoll?) going "Jammin' at the speed of light: Club 92 on 92-X", and then over the intro of Company B "Fascinated" there's the very similar "WNCI: home of today's modern music" .. hahaha ... when was that ever true?

I used to work at a secondhand record shop near campus. We had radio people coming in pretty regularly to dump their promo overstock. I remember in the early '90s someone brought in a few boxes of Hot Mix LPs to sell. They had to have come from WNCI. It was quite the reality check. I had already learned about remixes and 12" singles at that point, so I knew they weren't making extended mixes and razorblade edits live in the studio. But until I saw those records, like a lot of kids, I thought they were at least doing all those flawless, key-matched transitions there at the station! :

Anyway, what I was wondering is whether Club 92 and Friday Night Live were locally produced, or if they were syndicated as well... anyone know the story behind those? In hindsight, I'm guessing they were canned, too, but I'd like to know the details, as they didn't sound the same as the Hot Mix sets. Any info / further reality checks appreciated.

 

[the marv]

WNCI started the Saturday Night Hot Mix show in 1987 and ran it from 7PM to 3AM every Saturday Night till 1993 when they decided at that time to be a Sunny 95 wannabe. The Friday Night Live show they ran was ran from 1987 to 1989. It went off for 2 years then returned in 1991 when Hot 105 debuted a club show on Friday nights. Of course that show stopped in 1993 for the same reason Saturday Hot Mix stopped. Club 92 was the shortest one on the air. It started at the beginning of 1989 only to end in August of 1989 to switch to active rock as The New 92X. WQIO ran the syndicated Open House Party on Saturdays till they returned to satellite AC in 1990. I myself never cared for those mix shows but I did enjoy hearing the extended remixes of those songs when they not mixed together.

 

[alans613]

Believe it or not, Open House Party is still on the air. I listen to it on Star 102.1 out of Tennessee. It's no longer remixes though. There's a Sunday night version of OHP as well that they also air.

 

[full_brain]

Wow, I can't believe people remember such detail. I do remember the format flips... there's a great thread about it in this forum.

I know that the club music from this era was a niche market at best, and nowadays has sub-microscopic nostalgia potential, not even enough for a 3AM specialty show on college radio. But man, those mix shows mean a lot to me; they got me through some hard times, and are associated with a lot of memories of that time and place: the OSU dorms, High Street, the hot summer of '89... patiently listening to a Taylor Dayne remix in hopes that the next song might be by Fast Eddie or Depeche Mode (and usually being disappointed).

Part of what makes it mean so much was because I was personalizing of the shows through recording and editing them on cassette, and seeking out 12" singles of songs I heard for making my own car tapes, and sharing all this new music (or new twists on old music) with my friends. It was also partly the experience of listening to the shows themselves. Long breakdowns and beatmatched segues were such a novelty to a teenage radio listener back then (as opposed to the last 10 years, where everyone's a "DJ" and software does all the work). And it was also just the novelty of the extended versions and remixes, getting a taste of the sounds of the clubs I was too young or not quite ready for. So it had an aspirational quality, and it was also just a nice way to breathe some life into songs I was burning out on. It was fresh, very modern sounding, yet still very much tailored for the mainstream, which I wasn't quite ready to abandon yet.

I forgot about the Open House Party, but yeah, I used to listen to that one, too. IIRC, it made no bones about being national; they'd air phone calls from different cities, giving it more of a live feel, right? Or maybe that was later.

Re: Saturday nights, the syndicated Hot Mix being a 4-hour show, how did WNCI fill the 8 hours? Did they run two different shows, or run the same one twice, or lots of commercials? (nothing would surprise me)

And who was producing Friday Night Live and Club 92?

 

[the marv]

If I remember right Friday Night Live was done from a nightclub while Saturday Night Hot Mix was done in studio. When Saturday Night Hot Mix first aired Tim Kennedy was the DJ that hosted the beginning of the show and at midnight the overnight DJ took over till 3am. Club92 started out when a new PD took over after Adam Cook left for Houston.

 

[full_brain]

As for the voiceover IDs for the clip I posted, I went to the top and asked Mark Driscoll if it was him. He informed me that both voices ("Jammin' at the speed of light: Club 92 on 92X" and "WNCI: Home of Today's Modern Music") are Brian James (RIP).

This conflicts with the opinions posted in 2007 in the Worst format flips thread:

I'm also a huge fan of Bryan James. I think he also has a great voice for radio imaging. The late Ernie Anderson, however, is my all time favorite. The creative way he used his voice to enunciate words (and the fact that he was such a character in real life) made him the greatest in my eyes. WNCI used an old Ernie Anderson top-of-the hour ID a couple of years ago .......... nobody else can say "W-N-C-Eyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye-Effffffffffffffffffffffffffffff-Emmmmmmmmmmm", "Channel SSSSSSSSevennnnnnnnnnnn. Eyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye-witness News" or "The Loooooooooooooooooooove Boat" the way Ernie could.

Here is a sample of an aircheck with Ernie Anderson:
http://home.att.net/~tomasheski3/new1989.wav

Who was the voice-over guy for 92-X back in those days. He used to do lots of voice-overs for CHR stations all over the country back in that era.

Here's an aircheck with the voice I'm talking about. This is from WHTZ New York ....... http://home.att.net/~tomasheski3/NEW10.wav

I think it's Mark Driscoll.

 

[rageradio]

Was googling info on Hot Mix and found this post.

How I came to doing so is because I've been digitizing my old tapes.

Well.. I used to record a mix show on KRBE Houston back in late December 1987, called The Saturday Night Power Mix. (they had a friday night show as well). Just recently I discovered on one of those tapes just before the start of the show a voiceover credit (produced locally by KRBE, I recognized the VO persons voice) it mentions Hot Mix produced and mixed by, names I cannot remember right now, for Power 104's Power Mix shows. I never knew this was a nationally syndicated show. All this time I thought the show had been produced live in studio at KRBE.
What seemed to reinforce that also was KRBE did a special New Years Eve mix that night with DJ Jellybean Benitez spinning in studio. He was there as the KRBE DJ's did a live remote countdown at the Adams Mark Hotel right behind the station, and they were speaking to him back at the studio. Kind of interesting finding that out and come to find other listeners were aware of this particular program.

Now I have to add that our other top 40, 93Q, also had it's own weekend mix show called Club 93Q. Now I'm wondering if theirs was locally produced or another syndicated offering. Were there others? 93Q's didn't seem as well produced as the Hot Mix shows, mixing was almost amateur, like they were slapped together just to have something to counter KRBE with. Don't get me wrong, they did play some good music too.

In case anyone is wondering, I do have audio from both shows, not complete recordings as I would only record short segments and flip back and forth between stations.

 

[Zugstar]

I just got a late 1980's box of 25 RtR broadcast tapes tapes 7.5IPS half track on 7" reels labelled as "PARTY MIX Wknd X-XX-89, Hour X on the tape reel and the tape box. The tapes are in white boxes.
Some tapes have a secondary hand written labeling "Saturday Night Hot Mix" scribbled on the front.
The tape format is 2 mins commercials, 26 mins mix, 2 mins commercials, 26 mins mix, and ending with about 35 sec 1 kHz ref tones. Each show was 4 hours long, comprising 4 tapes. The tapes are wound heads out. I don't have a complete set of 4 tapes for a full show but I have tapes 1-3 for the 8-19-89 show. All the other tapes are 1 or 2 show segments. This set also has the track sheets for all 4 reels. The tapes have very good sound and were obviously played very little, and some even not at all. The mixes are custom mixed in that the songs are not like those on the top 40 radio stations.

The source for the songs were vinyl as heard with occasional pops and clicks, but the sound quality and dynamics are very good.

The spots are mostly 30 secs each and for these products
Close-up Toothpaste
Caffedrine pills
Nestley Crunch bars
Oxy-10
Bubble Yum
Certs
Dentyne
Clearasil (60 sec spot)

Does anyone know of this show?

 

[2Son]

Was googling info on Hot Mix and found this post.

How I came to doing so is because I've been digitizing my old tapes.

Well.. I used to record a mix show on KRBE Houston back in late December 1987, called The Saturday Night Power Mix. (they had a friday night show as well). Just recently I discovered on one of those tapes just before the start of the show a voiceover credit (produced locally by KRBE, I recognized the VO persons voice) it mentions Hot Mix produced and mixed by, names I cannot remember right now, for Power 104's Power Mix shows. I never knew this was a nationally syndicated show. All this time I thought the show had been produced live in studio at KRBE.
What seemed to reinforce that also was KRBE did a special New Years Eve mix that night with DJ Jellybean Benitez spinning in studio. He was there as the KRBE DJ's did a live remote countdown at the Adams Mark Hotel right behind the station, and they were speaking to him back at the studio. Kind of interesting finding that out and come to find other listeners were aware of this particular program.

Now I have to add that our other top 40, 93Q, also had it's own weekend mix show called Club 93Q. Now I'm wondering if theirs was locally produced or another syndicated offering. Were there others? 93Q's didn't seem as well produced as the Hot Mix shows, mixing was almost amateur, like they were slapped together just to have something to counter KRBE with. Don't get me wrong, they did play some good music too.

In case anyone is wondering, I do have audio from both shows, not complete recordings as I would only record short segments and flip back and forth between stations.

This should provide you with all the information about the origins of Hot Mix:

Dave Rajput grew up on the north side of Chicago, Illinois and began working as a disc jockey (DJ) while in high school. In 1980, Dave Rajput moved to Phoenix, AZ and worked in nightclubs as a DJ.

In March 1985 Rajput was hired by KOPA radio station to air the Chicago house music format a Saturday night program titled "Saturday Night Hot Mix". Due to the shows success, the 3 hour program was extended to 7 hours. By May 1985, Hot Mix Productions was formed and the "Hot Mix" program aired on KOPA until January 1986. Although the station closed due to poor ratings, the only positive ratings KOPA received were due to their "Hot Mix" Saturday night program, which had doubled the radio station's overall ratings.[3]

The show was produced and recorded by Dave Rajput and Art Morales, KOPA music director. While Rajput worked nights as a club DJ to produce and mix the weekly radio show, he also attended Mesa Community College where he took Radio & Television classes. While there, he became friends with Andrew Starr, who ran Windy City DJs that provided music and entertainment for College and High School events. Needing recording equipment to produce the show in a new venue, Rajput partnered at the end of January 1986 with Andrew Starr who had the needed equipment, record albums and assistance in producing Rajput's radio show. In exchange for use of the equipment, Rajput mentioned Andrew Starr and Windy City DJs on each "Hot Mix" show.

In July 1986, "Hot Mix" received a permanent spot on KZZP on Fridays and used the recording studios at KZZP to mix and record their show.

In September 1986, WBJW became the first station to sign up for their programming outside of Arizona and Hot Mix became a syndicated radio program. By the end of 1986, Hot Mix had five stations in syndication. In 1989, Hot Mix was nominated for its first Billboard Magazine Radio syndication award in the category “Radio Syndication - Top 40/Crossover”; Other nominees were Shadoe Stevens, Rick Dees, and the winner, Casey Kasem.

As of January 1, 1990, ABC Radio Networks contracted with Hot Mix Productions to market, distribute, and sell Hot Mix in the United States. The first mix was called “Mix of the Decade 1989-90” and was distributed on vinyl disc to all radio stations signed up to play the program. By 1989 there were 35 stations in the U.S. In July 1990, ABC began producing programs on cd which made Hot Mix the first and only show of its kind worldwide to distributed weekly on Compact Disc. In 1991, Hot Mix was being syndicated by ABC Radio Network and was being heard on over 175 stations weekly worldwide. That year it was also nominated and lost a second Billboard Radio Award in the Syndicated show Top 40/Crossover music category.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Rajput