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Pre-Album Rock WBAB Airchecks at Wackradio

D

DavidRJ

Have you had a chance to listen to the early-1970s WBAB airchecks recently added to Wackradio's WBAB/WNYG site?

Not only did the airchecks bring back some young memories for me, but I also noticed some interesting things.

In the Marty Curley aircheck with the Mutual News report, I noticed a general WABC-ish presentational sound and feel. (Based on the news headlines, I estimate this aircheck was from the evening of April 29, 1971.)

Even more telling was the October 1972 composite aircheck (Bob Evans in for the Original Mark Alan, the Original Mark Alan himself a few nights later and Steve Elliott). In the October 1972 aircheck composite, the WABC-ish "Happening Sound" jingles are gone, having just been replaced by generally more rocking jingles. (These new jingles, however, would only last a few months before being scrapped with WBAB's switch to Album Rock 102.3.) Also, WBAB was playing James Brown's then-current hit "Get On the Good Foot." (Imagine! A Long Island Top 40 station was actually playing a James Brown current in October 1972!)

There was a very active request line at WBAB in October 1972, particularly on the Original Mark Alan's show, and some of the songs 'BAB played would never be heard on WABC. (i.e. "Rock Me Baby" by David Cassidy, "Elected" by Alice Cooper, "Slaughter" by Billy Preston, and "Loving You Just Crossed My Mind" by Sam Neely.)

And here's another tidbit: back in October 1972 you oculd pick up WBAB surveys at White's Department Store in Massapequa and Linden Records at the South Shore Mall in Bay Shore.

What do you remember about WBAB's short-lived Top 40 era?
 
I was a student dj/guest one saturday afternoon up there, I remember doing an intro to Diana Ross' "Remember Me"(which was a Top Ten single at the time);
they played great glam rock singles by Alice Cooper, T.Rex,Mott The Hoople, Gary Glitter, The Sweet,David Bowie, etc that WABC wouldn't play, even though they were hits in the market/area
 
I worked at WBLI (top 40/oldies) in early 70s when WBAB was top 40 competitor: Gary Macfarlaine (Chuck Garabedian), Marty (thinks he's Dan ingram) Curley, Steven Mark Clark (same of KHJ, ORFM), Roy Reynolds (WPTR), Barry Neal (Millen), Mutual News, bad jingles which gave way to good Tom Merriman stuff later, Scott Robbins (Mark Werboff-deceased), Bobby "Wizard" Wayne (desceased)...the station evolved from Top 40 to progressive top 40 (ala the original WCBS-FM) to The Original Mark Allen and Bob Buchmann (Q104) progressive rock. Metaphysical show at midnight ("midnight or thereabouts on Long Island") during the rock era.
 
that midnight show was hosted by Joel Martin, and i infrequently co hosted with him,on 'music specials' as the writer from GOOD TIMES Magazine; we hosted glam /glitter /Bowie era stars like Cherry Vanilla, Wayne(now Jayne) County, Leee Black Childers,a two hour show with Lou Reed in 76,LI spotlights, as with our pals The Good Rats, and a number of Beatles specials(as I was a key player in the early,Mark Lapidus-produced Beatlefests;
Joel Martin was the first person I ever heard talking about the"men in black",back in the late 70s...
www.goodtimesmag.com/rhythm.html
 
WBAB was a much better rocker than top 40 station. I produced all those commercials for the rock clubs Speaks, Hammerheads, Rumbottoms, Detroit, etc. in that era and read GOOD TIMES weekly. Great times back then. So many exciting genres of music in that era: glam, punk, disco, rock, and indeed fun bands like THE GOOD RATS, TWISTED SISTER, ZEBRA, BABY, RAT RACE CHOIR and STANTON ANDERSON, to name a few. I even got to do a GOOD TIMES MAGAZINE spot which ran in Florida using the same DETECTIVE backing track we used for Speaks!
 
Haven't spoke to him since I helped him get the production director job at WBIX (Big 105) NYC thru Bennett Zier around 1995. Rumour has it he teaches computer (?) [EDIT]



[EDIT-truncated for privacy concerns]
 
Thanks Tony,

I see it was edited for privacy reasons but I saw that he might be teaching computers. The Speaks spots you guys did were everywhere, but so were you..on every club spot in area. Cool. I thought of Andy because a well known audio guy, Fletcher from Mecenary Audio, posted somehwere that he got into recording from listening to the Family Electric Theater. I hope Andy eventually finds that post with a Google search.

Jim
 
I remember listening to Gentleman Jim Carter on the overnights of WBAB. He had a shtick pre-dating Howard Stern...he called Imus at W N-N-N-N-BC and heckled him over the phone and replayed the call.
Fun stuff!

Shout out to Tony Marzocco from Bruce Barlowe formerly WBAU.
Tony I met up with Andy Bleiberg again when I worked at Classic-FM/SW Networks. He was an engineer there and I worked weekends air. He was the same Andy: "what?"
 
"Buffalo" Bruce Barlow, as I recall! Greetings from sun & fun South Florida!
 
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