Summer Breeze.. Makes Me Feel Fiiine..
Oops.. wrong genre (sorry! been off doing summertime things with family lately)
Hey All! This blog is now linked HERE!
Now.. Back to the topic at hand
There are so many fave 80's dance songs that I came to know by initially hearing them on WLIR or in the area nightclubs. Whichever happened first, there was a unmistakable synergystic interplay between the two which further fueled the popularity and 'must have' desirability of those tunes during my club kid years.
My earliest recollection of such tunes came in the summer of 1983 when I transitioned from the area 'watering holes' to my first NW club, Paris NY. Certainly by then a host of NW annointed artists (Bowie, Culture Club, Duran Duran, Eurythmics, Naked Eyes, Police, etc..) were basking in the glaring spotlight of top 40 radio crossover fame.
However, aside from all this Z-100 & (then recently flipped) WPLJ embraced radio format fodder, came a new and very different musical vibe over the dancefloor soundsystems of numerous LI clubs I came to know like 007, Camouflage, Malibu, PNY, Rumrunners/Heartbeat, 007 etc..
IMO, What helped make WLIR so influential was that some of the airstaffers (DJ Bird, Larry The Duck, Maxx to name a few) would DJ at those very same clubs!
This intimate relationship with the metro NY area music scene was indeed a signature hallmark of 92.7 .
Years & decades later, even crudely home taped live WLIR 'dance party' broadcasts would become sought after musical 'time capsles' from those halcyon years.
The following songs were ones I fondly remember from my early clubbing days ('83 - 84)
A Girl In Trouble - Romeo Void
Amok - Ledernacken
Around My Dream - Silver Pizoli
Blue Monday- New Order
Brand New Lover- Dead or Alive
Electric Dreams- Phil Oakey & Georgio Moroder
Generals & Majors - XTC
Head Hunter - Front 242
Heart Goes Bang- Dead or Alive
Images In Heaven- Pete Gotwin
Indigo Eyes - Peter Murphy
I Travel - Simple Minds
Join In The Chant - Nitzer Ebb
Just Can't Get Enough - Depeche Mode
Kiss Me - Steve (Tin Tin) Duffy
Love Tempo- Quando Quango
One More Chance (original 1984 ver)- Pet Shop Boys
One Thing Leads To Another - The Fixx
Say It Again - Danse Society
She Sells Sanctuary - The Cult
Shoot U Down- APB
Smalltown Boy - Bronski Beat
State Farm - Yaz
Temptation - New Order
Thats Good - Devo
Thats Love That It Is - Blancmange
The Hardest Part - Blondie
The Mask - Roger Glover
Trommeltanz (Din Daa Daa) - George Kranz
Two Hearts(Beat as One) - U2 (S. Lillywhite Remix)
Uncertain Smile - The The
West End Girls (original 1984 ver)- Pet Shop Boys
What I Like About You - Romantics
Sadly, some of them would follow the earlier aformentioned artists into the dubious pantheon of 'overplayed' 80's top 40 & comp classics (Arghh!)
Funny how some of them (such as Simple Mind's 'I Travel') predated my initial listening experience by 4+ years!
Saturday, June 24, 2006
When I Got 'Hooked' (For Real)
Like I said before, WLIR's signal reception was not that great in my neck of the woods.
There were few occasions (in the car) when the signal was consistently strong enough for me to listen long enough to make out any of the songs being played.
In the meantime (1981-83), my NW musical taste was primarily influenced by the everpresent TV music videos on Niteflite (remember that one?) and MTV.
Sure, during that time I was catching some wave music (Cars, Clash, Police, Squeeze, Talking Heads, U2 etc..) on other metro NY stations such as WPLJ, WBAB, WAPP.
Other area stations such as WBLI would play ubiquitous genre tracks such as 'Pop Muzik' and 'Cars', while WKTU and WPIX (for a short time)would play club remixes of 'Rock The Casbah' and 'Glad To Know You'.
Seldom would I hear songs from featured TV video artists like The Cure, Devo, Duran Duran, The Fixx etc..
This left me to fill the musical void with regular visits to Record World and Sam Goody.
During this time it became clear to me that the local radio market was not getting anywhere near the amount of NW music exposure that the equivalent TV viewing market was (how strange is that?).
Unbeknownst to me that in 1982, WLIR G.M. Denis McNamara made the decision to go TOTALLY New Wave, featuring virtually the same song and artist lineup as MTV! (which was not coincidence mind you- more on that another time..)
It wouldn't be until the following year when I started working for Huntington TV Cable, that I would really become a NW music 'purist'.
How so? Well, turns out my office duties entailed working at a computer terminal, answering phones, issuing and accepting CATV equipment from customers and service technicians, all the while watching a TV monitor that had non other than MTV on 95% of the time.
It wasn't long before I became well acquainted with tracks like 'That's Good', 'Send Me An Angel', 'Mexican Radio','In A Big Country' etc..
Being so well versed in the NW genre made it clear that local radio wasn't gonna cut it for me anymore.. I had to find a station that played this stuff!
Interestingly enough, it was during that time I started going to Paris New York (which was literally just blocks from my house).
I was immediately struck by the club music being played there, 'Blue Monday', 'Go!', 'Shoot You Down' and others.
By the time I left the CATV job in the summer of '84 there were names of songs and artists I wanted to hear on the radio but wouldn't get consistent airplay on any one particular station, if at all..
It was when I got this two bit part time job at a local Flowertime nursery that I got to hear WLIR on a regular basis (Courtesy of this tinny little radio that somehow pulled in the station). WHAT A REVELATION!
I remember EXACTLY which two songs that subsequently got me hooked.
The original Bobcat label (Bobby O.) version of West End Girls and the haunting strains of Romeo Void's 'A Girl In Trouble'(which for some reason, I could never catch the title or artist credits).
NO WHERE ELSE would I hear those two tracks ('cept for Paris NY). This is what prompted me to get that attic FM antenna and signal booster mentioned in my earlier post.
That's my story of what did it for me..
(Now let's hear some of yours gang!)
There were few occasions (in the car) when the signal was consistently strong enough for me to listen long enough to make out any of the songs being played.
In the meantime (1981-83), my NW musical taste was primarily influenced by the everpresent TV music videos on Niteflite (remember that one?) and MTV.
Sure, during that time I was catching some wave music (Cars, Clash, Police, Squeeze, Talking Heads, U2 etc..) on other metro NY stations such as WPLJ, WBAB, WAPP.
Other area stations such as WBLI would play ubiquitous genre tracks such as 'Pop Muzik' and 'Cars', while WKTU and WPIX (for a short time)would play club remixes of 'Rock The Casbah' and 'Glad To Know You'.
Seldom would I hear songs from featured TV video artists like The Cure, Devo, Duran Duran, The Fixx etc..
This left me to fill the musical void with regular visits to Record World and Sam Goody.
During this time it became clear to me that the local radio market was not getting anywhere near the amount of NW music exposure that the equivalent TV viewing market was (how strange is that?).
Unbeknownst to me that in 1982, WLIR G.M. Denis McNamara made the decision to go TOTALLY New Wave, featuring virtually the same song and artist lineup as MTV! (which was not coincidence mind you- more on that another time..)
It wouldn't be until the following year when I started working for Huntington TV Cable, that I would really become a NW music 'purist'.
How so? Well, turns out my office duties entailed working at a computer terminal, answering phones, issuing and accepting CATV equipment from customers and service technicians, all the while watching a TV monitor that had non other than MTV on 95% of the time.
It wasn't long before I became well acquainted with tracks like 'That's Good', 'Send Me An Angel', 'Mexican Radio','In A Big Country' etc..
Being so well versed in the NW genre made it clear that local radio wasn't gonna cut it for me anymore.. I had to find a station that played this stuff!
Interestingly enough, it was during that time I started going to Paris New York (which was literally just blocks from my house).
I was immediately struck by the club music being played there, 'Blue Monday', 'Go!', 'Shoot You Down' and others.
By the time I left the CATV job in the summer of '84 there were names of songs and artists I wanted to hear on the radio but wouldn't get consistent airplay on any one particular station, if at all..
It was when I got this two bit part time job at a local Flowertime nursery that I got to hear WLIR on a regular basis (Courtesy of this tinny little radio that somehow pulled in the station). WHAT A REVELATION!
I remember EXACTLY which two songs that subsequently got me hooked.
The original Bobcat label (Bobby O.) version of West End Girls and the haunting strains of Romeo Void's 'A Girl In Trouble'(which for some reason, I could never catch the title or artist credits).
NO WHERE ELSE would I hear those two tracks ('cept for Paris NY). This is what prompted me to get that attic FM antenna and signal booster mentioned in my earlier post.
That's my story of what did it for me..
(Now let's hear some of yours gang!)
Monday, June 19, 2006
Update..
Two fellow NWO'rs /WLIR fans Abacab66 and Glittering Prize have graciously accepted my invite to be contributors to this blog. THANK YOU!
This morning, I spent the better part of 2 hours burning wireless minutes with Glittering Prize just talking about those very memories and recollections of things WLIR .
Great minds certainly do think alike!
So many experiences that centered around or were in some way connected to our appreciation of the music and NW pop culture news emanating from that broadcast studio in Garden City.
Just the kind of stuff that should be posted here..
Well, so where do I begin?
Hmm.. how about... a Signal Coverage Map? ((((Yawn))))
Sorry, but I geek over stuff like this.. Deal With It..
As you can see the WLIR radio signal did not carry over a whole heck of a lot of Metro NY real estate.
I for one, did not get much of a signal up on LI's North Shore (Huntington & Greenlawn).
I first came to hear of WLIR while tooling around in a friends car during the autumn of '79.
I can't seem to recall much about it other than it was a mixed bag of AOR, some new wave and other stuff. (I'll fill in the blanks later.. Although I do recall some of those neat 'Newsblimp' minute news segments)
Like some other determined listeners, I eventually resorted to buying the biggest 'fringe reception' Dx'r model FM roof antenna plus plug in FM signal booster from Radio Shack in order to get something better sounding than.. whrsssssh krshhhh krshhhh You..'re krshhhh Li..ening.. whrsssssh to krshhhh ..LIR whrsssssh ..arden City... (you know what I mean..).
That was in the fall of '84.
This morning, I spent the better part of 2 hours burning wireless minutes with Glittering Prize just talking about those very memories and recollections of things WLIR .
Great minds certainly do think alike!
So many experiences that centered around or were in some way connected to our appreciation of the music and NW pop culture news emanating from that broadcast studio in Garden City.
Just the kind of stuff that should be posted here..
Well, so where do I begin?
Hmm.. how about... a Signal Coverage Map? ((((Yawn))))
Sorry, but I geek over stuff like this.. Deal With It..
As you can see the WLIR radio signal did not carry over a whole heck of a lot of Metro NY real estate.
I for one, did not get much of a signal up on LI's North Shore (Huntington & Greenlawn).
I first came to hear of WLIR while tooling around in a friends car during the autumn of '79.
I can't seem to recall much about it other than it was a mixed bag of AOR, some new wave and other stuff. (I'll fill in the blanks later.. Although I do recall some of those neat 'Newsblimp' minute news segments)
Like some other determined listeners, I eventually resorted to buying the biggest 'fringe reception' Dx'r model FM roof antenna plus plug in FM signal booster from Radio Shack in order to get something better sounding than.. whrsssssh krshhhh krshhhh You..'re krshhhh Li..ening.. whrsssssh to krshhhh ..LIR whrsssssh ..arden City... (you know what I mean..).
That was in the fall of '84.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
To All...
This obviously will be a work in progress...
I'm listening to Tears For Fears 'The Working Hour' as I'm typing this on Fathers Day 2006.
Hopefully the many thoughts and memories of this wonderful FM radio station will start to flow.
I've invited some fellow NW Outpost members (who are devout WLIR fans) to make contributions to what will eventually be a sizable and nostalgic collection of memories.
Stay Tuned...
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