[bomp] CBS-FM saved my life

["Immortal Porpoises" <immortalporpoises@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

But nothing could save them, or any 11 year old kid crushed under the weight
of automated corporate pop playlists today. It's the FCC'ing Infinity/Clear
Channel/Cumulus IPod for you, kid, the DJ-free bastard offspring the
Apartheid Radio of the late 20th century. You, like most of our generation
before you, have been anesthetized.

I was in the fifth grade when CBS-FM went "oldies." It didn't register with
me at first. I was 10 years old and like everyone else, I was listening to
WABC-AM without knowing or caring why. Nobody had set me about listening to
WABC. I was about 6 when I got my first transistor radio, and after I spun
around for a bit, that's where the dial got stuck unless there was a Mets
game. If I had other options I didn't know about it. Until 1972.

It was a holiday weekend, I think it was Thanksgiving because I have some
vague memory of being next door in my aunt & uncle's house, when my brother
(a year older than me) told me some new radio station was playing the top
500 songs of all time. We went looking for it primarily because we had no
idea what that meant. Nothing really registered during that first listen,
and since I did not have an FM radio, I never heard from them again until
the following May. That's when the miracle happened.

My family was going away upstate to a dumpy little resort motel outside
Kingston, NY called Twin Lakes this particular weekend with our Scout troop
& families. I was sick and running a fever high enough to distress parents,
like 102, and my parents were talking about staying home if my fever didn't
return to normal by the next morning when we had to leave. I started taking
my temperature over and over again trying to will it down. I was doing this
in my parent's bedroom, and took the opportunity to switch my father's new
alarm clock-radio to FM to see what made it different. Within a few moments
I heard a sound unlike anything I'd ever heard before. The pounding beat and
wailing vocals hit me like a thunderclap. Some guy was screaming "Good Golly
Miss Molly" over and over and I started running around the room banging the
furniture. It didn't take long for my folks to burst in trying to figure out
what the hell was going on in there.

So I started pointing at the radio yelling "that song, that song, who is
that?" but when my mom felt my forehead the only response I got was "he's
burning up, get the thermometer!" I was up over 105, hadn't seen anything
like that since the chicken pox back in first grade. My mother panicked. It
was too late to call a doctor. They made me sit down and stop pounding. In
went the thermometer again. 104. Ten minutes later, 103. Then 102, 101, all
the way to 98.6. The fever had broken, and we all woke up the next morning
and went on our little vacation. It was a great weekend. I played softball,
rowed on a lake, and even fired a shotgun at little clay frisbees.

I started spending too much time sitting next to my father's night table, so
my brother and I were proud recipients of our own AM-FM clock radio shortly
thereafter. Now, nothing was going to stop me from listening to Harry
Harrison and catch "Howard Cosell, Speaking of Sports" before heading off to
school, but after dinner I was in my room hunting for Little Richard. I must
have heard 500 '50s tunes, never once aware that they weren't current hits,
until my mom & dad broke the awful news and told me they would take me to
see a movie called "Let The Good Times Roll" that they thought I might like.
Man, was that ever an understatement. Little Richard and Chuck Berry were
over the top, Chubby Checker almost missed his set taking a leak, and there
was this way-cool cat with a way-cool guitar named Bo Diddley who wasn't
even on the radio.

Once my favorite DJ's had left WABC, it was nothing but CBS-FM for me all
through the 1970's, which was no problem because all the DJ's moved over
with me. I think I was already in college the first time I heard Stairway to
Heaven. Ponderous metal, disco, mellow California, whatever was going on
back then I missed all of it because it was doo-wop, Chuck Berry, Elvis,
Dion, Bill Haley, and Little Richard night and day on my radio (except
Sunday nights when I took the mandatory Dr. Demento break way past
lights-out with my earphone). That's probably why I never developed a
personal radio rebellion that might have lead me towards the Ramones in a
more timely manner.

Nearly twenty years later, shortly after leaving the Fleshtones, a trumpet
player friend of mine (who plays on the Immortal Porpoises EP) called me up
and asked me if I've ever heard of the Cleftones, Vito and the Elegantes,
the Rob Roys, or LaVerne Baker. I rattled off a quick list of their hits. He
asked me if I know the sax parts on those tunes, and I did, and he said "I
got a gig for us at the old Brooklyn Paramount. The regular sax player
cancelled and I told them I thought I knew a young guy who probably knew
most of the tunes." That began a several year association with oldies acts
that I cherish amongst my finest musical experiences. That stage of my
career would eventually culminate with a 9-hour marathon in a tuxedo at the
Nassau Coliseum, featuring dozens of name acts from the '50s and '60's,
hosted by the one and only Cousin Himself. So profound was this event that I
was forced to set aside my long-standing personal resolve to never play
"Wooly Bully" in public ever again. It wouldn't have been fair to Sam the
Sham, who had traveled a long way to do that show.

That all-day concert was a benefit by the artists for Richard Nader, whose
immediate family had just perished and been severely injured in a tragic
fire. Yes, the same Richard Nader whose first oldies show was turned into a
documentary called "Let The Good Times Roll."

I'm not mourning the CBS of recent years, because the station had long since
become nearly unlistenable. When Don K. Reid was booted off the air and I
heard poor Bobby Jay trying to sound upbeat while playing "She Works Hard
For the Money" in the middle of the night during my long drives home from
the city after gigs, I knew the death knell had sounded. But I'd still enjoy
those phone calls into Cousin Brucie's Saturday Night Sock Hop, you know,
the ones where you can hear people in the background on the phone, and the
Cuz asks the caller who's over there, and he says "This is Cousin Mikey from
Mill Basin, and Cousin Angela, and Cousin Richie, and their two little
Cousins Joey and Jennie are over here listening to your show, and we'd like
to hear Denise by Randy and the Rainbows, and send it to my wife Denise."

RIP WCBS-FM

Steve Greenfield, still trying to work this out of my system.

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