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Celebrating 40 Years of Great Music

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On the way home the other day, I hit a ridiculous amount of traffic on the highway heading home from a doctor’s appointment. I swerved at the last possible exit and created a series of detours that took longer than if I’d just stayed put on the highway and let the traffic die out. I did a couple of errands and photographed some old stomping grounds and was still in the car when the Vermont station I listen to hit noon for their retro lunch beginning with People are People by Depeche Mode.

I dialed it up to glass shattering volume and sand along gustily, and when it ended, I decided it was time for a new Spotify list, this one celebrating the fortieth anniversary of my high school graduation as well as the fortieth anniversary of some of the best music ever. No question.

Radio

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Mexican radio. Wish I was in Tijuana; eating barbequed iguana. I grew up in the 80s, one of the best times for music. People may scoff, but it is the most imitated, most reunioned, most innovative music. Synth pop, new age, punk, alternative. The second British invasion. We were home to one of the best alternative stations, now defunct, WLIR 92.7. We used to stalk the DJs when stalking had a good natured connotation. We’d call and believe it or not, they remembered us.

Willobee, Larry the Duck, Malibu Sue, Donna Donna, Bob Waugh – just a few of the countless DJs who were themselves near iconic.

On the weekend, they used to have special themes like WLIR goes to the park or goes to college. This was before the prevalence of the internet and you could only listen if you were in the broadcast area. I was told when the weekend of ‘goes to college’ was when I was at college in Oneonta and I called them.

Collect.

And they accepted the charges.

Now, I listen to WEQX out of Manchester, Vermont. Some of you may have recognized the name I mentioned earlier: Willobee. The one and the same. He has since moved on to Scranton (with wife and baby), but I was able to call on his last day and thank him for a lifetime of good music and influence.

People might not believe me, but I like to say, and it is true that the music I listen to is either twenty years old or twenty minutes old.

I may have to change that to thirty and thirteen in another couple of years.