Contemporary Authors

• Outside Is America: U2 in the U.S. Faber & Faber (Boston, MA), 1992
• The Decibel Diaries: A Journey through Rock in 50 Concerts ForeEdge (Lebanon, NH), 2017

1.  The decibel diaries : a journey through rock in 50 concerts LCCN 2016038513 Type of material Book Personal name Alan, Carter, author. Main title The decibel diaries : a journey through rock in 50 concerts / Carter Alan. Published/Produced Lebanon NH : ForeEdge, [2017] Description xv, 332 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm ISBN 9781611687927 paperback CALL NUMBER ML3534 .A425 2017 Copy 1 Request in Performing Arts Reading Room (Madison, LM113) 1.  Outside is America : U2 in the U.S. LCCN 92003302 Type of material Book Personal name Alan, Carter. Main title Outside is America : U2 in the U.S. / Carter Alan. Published/Created Boston : Faber and Faber, 1992. Description xi, 248 p. : ill. ; 23 cm. ISBN 0571129269 : CALL NUMBER ML421.U2 A8 1992 FT MEADE Copy 2 Request in Performing Arts Reading Rm (Madison, LM113) - STORED OFFSITE CALL NUMBER ML421.U2 A8 1992 Copy 1 Request in Performing Arts Reading Room (Madison, LM113) 1.  U2 : the road to pop LCCN 97228526 Type of material Book Personal name Alan, Carter. Main title U2 : the road to pop / Carter Alan. Edition Rev. and updated. Published/Created Boston : Faber and Faber, c1997. Description xi, 285 p. : ill. ; 23 cm. ISBN 0571199305 CALL NUMBER ML421.U2 A8 1997 FT MEADE Copy 2 Request in Performing Arts Reading Rm (Madison, LM113) - STORED OFFSITE CALL NUMBER ML421.U2 A8 1997 Copy 1 Request in Performing Arts Reading Room (Madison, LM113)

• Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN - 2013 Northeastern, Lebanon, NH

• @U2 - https://www.atu2.com/news/25-years-of-war-an-interview-with-carter-alan.html

  25 Years of War: An Interview with Carter Alan

  @U2, March 01, 2008
  By: Maddy Fry
   
  Carter Alan is a DJ for the Boston-based radio station WZLX, and has written two books about U2, Outside Is America and The Road to Pop. As one of the key people behind U2's rise to fame in America, he talks to @U2 about his thoughts and experiences of the War album as we celebrate its 25th anniversary.

  You're probably most well-known among U2 fans for being the man who first helped to break U2 in the USA by playing them on radio before they were famous. How exactly did you first discover them?

  At the time (August 1980), I was doing a college radio show on the station WMBR 88.1 FM at M.I.T. plus working as a part-time DJ on WBCN-FM, Boston. I also worked for a record store called New England Music City, ordering import records and working the registers and floor. One day, a shipment of import albums and 45s (seems so ancient to talk about a 45 these days!) came in and my buddy and I took advantage of a slow day at the store to preview a few of the records on the store sound system. I remember Echo & the Bunnymen's "Rescue" being in the pile, plus two singles by a group named U2: "11 O'Clock Tick Tock" and "A Day Without Me."

  We had no knowledge of the band or its origins, which says a lot because both of us were regular readers of NME and prided ourselves in knowing about the latest bands. The second 45 really impressed me -- the guitar work and band -- plus the middle break in "A Day Without Me" was similar in sound to a passage from the middle of Led Zeppelin's "How Many More Times." I was intrigued that a "punk" band would have the desire and ability to even approach that comparison.

  I bought the single and that week played it on both stations I worked at. Then I bought "11 O'Clock." When the import album showed up a couple weeks later -- I took it to WBCN and my music director was so impressed that we added it the playlist, and "I Will Follow" and "Out of Control" became the breakout hits. Three months later, WBCN did a co-promotion at the Paradise Theater with U2 and we met "the boys" (because they were!).

  What were your initial thoughts on the War album when you first heard it?

  When I first heard the War album I was immediately impressed, especially since October had been so untogether. Oh, there were some great moments on October -- "Tomorrow," "Gloria" -- but it really wasn't ever finished. In that regard, it shares some of the problems that cropped up in Pop years later. But to have War arrive in such a realized condition -- ideas fully formed and a concept developed, an album that cried for peace -- was just a joy. There was a professional pleasure in being able to play it on the air and also to enjoy it personally. Whereas October only held the ground that U2 had gained on Boy, (and almost lost it actually), War took U2 to the next level sonically and lyrically as well as in commercial success.

  You've previously mentioned that your most memorable concert experience was seeing U2 perform at the Paradise Theatre in Boston in 1980. After having experienced the band at such an early stage in their career, did they strike as having changed much between then and the War years?

  U2's earlier tours showed the band as a raw and somewhat unfocused entity onstage. The energy was mostly pouring out from beginning to end with some deliberate breaks ("October, "The Ocean"). Bono was all over the place and singing without much discipline. (To be honest, I was an Edge freak. I used to go to the shows, walk up to the stage and put my coat against Edge's monitor and stand there all night -- until they got into the theaters).

  But by the War tour, Bono had begun to come into his own. There was a sense of balance between him and the band -- plus they had more organization with the backdrop, the white flags and Bono's stage show of carrying the flag about. During the tour, the balance would tip overboard a bit as Bono did more and more outrageous things, carrying that flag up balconies and lighting grids, but at first the War show was a U2 show with each member balanced in his part and knowing what to do and where to be throughout the set.

  What are your thoughts on the War tour and the ideas that the band were promoting?

  The idea of focusing attention on peace was honorable, needed and welcome. It still is today. As a Christian, I also believe any mention of core Christian values like brotherly love and responsibility towards your fellow passengers on planet Earth can only be a good thing, even if one doesn't share the faith. I was impressed that the band members wanted to go beyond just reaching for stardom to deliver a message.

  When they eventually played Live Aid, their presence would make more sense than many of the artists who were there. Not to take anything away from people's contributions, but to make anyone with ears to hear aware of the problems and the need for love was right on U2's track. This is something they had begun on the War tour of 1983.

  The two books you've written on U2 have mainly seemed to be concerned with the band's relationship with America. What do you think their relationship was with the country around the time of the War album? Do you think it's changed much since?

  When the War tour began in America, most people were completely unaware of U2. Many of the small number of people that were fans knew of Bono, Edge and Larry's Christian beliefs, but beyond that there was no impression that this band would be committed to sending a message. They were (just) a very good band. It should also be said that at the time very few groups were sending out any political messages in their music and it was quite unfashionable.

  When War appeared, it became immediately obvious that the members of U2 had matured and developed enough confidence to express their disgust at war and the need for peace. In that regard, the band has never turned back. They continue to express their innermost feelings in their art -- and in fact only continue to exist because they are still able to do that.

  As someone working within the music industry, how do you feel that history has treated the War album?

  History has treated the War album well because it is recognized as a point where music regained some sort of conscience after a few years of shallow dance-happy fascination. U2 played rock music that actually had a message and worked on a visceral as well as a mental level. In our culture it has left more of an impression because it achieved so much more than just a musical statement. Plus, the "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "New Year's Day" singles and videos have maintained a steady popularity over the years and can be heard and seen (often with frightening frequency) on radio and TV. (I'm a DJ -- guilty as charged!)

  Can you see any obvious signs of the War album's musical influence in the new bands you hear now?

  I suppose -- but I haven't heard any particular group mining that musical sound effectively.

  Do you think that the current music scene does much to espouse the kinds of themes that the album promoted?

  U2's influence is much more noticeable in how many modern bands are unafraid to back causes, give light to injustices and do good charitable work through their songs and lyrics. There's no shortage of causes, is there?

  Many thanks to Carter Alan for taking the time to speak to us.

• Boston Globe - https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2013/11/06/carter-alan-wbcn-and-making-rock-radio/axyAT4JCeILrje2ZILF0JM/story.html

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  Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe
  Carter Alan, music director and midday DJ at WZLX-FM, at his Hopkinton home. Alan was a DJ at WBCN from 1979 to 1998.
  By Ethan Gilsdorf Globe Correspondent  November 06, 2013

  If the tale of WBCN were told in a rock song, would it be a defiant Sex Pistols-like punk anthem? A wistful narrative, sung in the key of Bob Seger? A woeful U2-ish wail of heartbreaking loss? Or a Led Zeppelin-esque epic of victory over the frozen wasteland of American radio?
  More than four years after the rock station exhaled its last breath at 104.1 FM comes a chronicle that rekindles that time when magic ruled the airwaves. The book is “Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN,” and the bard is 19-year-veteran WBCN DJ and music director Carter Alan.

  “ ’BCN was a groundbreaking station for a lot of different things,”said Alan, now music director and midday DJ at WZLX-FM (100.7), ’BCN’s former rival and later sister station. “The legacy goes in a lot of ways.”
  Alan’s book traces WBCN’s unassuming birth from the ashes of a classical music station in 1968, through its heyday as the “Rock of Boston” in the ’70s and ’80s, to its demise in 2009, when, Alan writes, the station was “drained of its blood in the consolidated radio industry of the new century.”
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  To recount the story, Alan interviewed most every personality involved and willing to speak on the record.

  View Story
  Book review: ‘Radio Free Boston’ by Carter Alan
  In this captivating chronicle, former deejay/music director Carter Alan recalls WBCN’s crazy days — and its eventual demise.

  “There was not a lot written about ’BCN in the early days,” Alan said. “I wanted to find the people because I wanted their words to carry most of the weight of the book.”
  Alan almost didn’t write it. The task seemed impossible. Alan’s wife, Carrie Christodal, finally persuaded him.

  “If you don’t write it,” she said, “someone else who didn’t work there will.” Alan rose at 5 a.m. each weekday to write at his Hopkinton home before his shift at ’ZLX, and logged hours on weekends, interviewing, transcribing, exhuming rare photos and ephemera.
  “I love writing,” said Alan, also the author of “Outside Is America: U2 in the U.S.” and “U2: The Road to Pop.” “It does make you a social recluse.”
  Key to the story? Charles Laquidara, legendary morning jock and a ’BCN fixture from 1968 to 1996.
  “None of us expected it to be so huge,” Laquidara said during a recent visit to Boston from his home in Maui. “We were all just a bunch of people that had thought, you know, we really loved this kind of music, and we loved the idea that we could play any songs we wanted.”
  For sure, WBCN captured the zeitgeist. The station emerged from the counterculture and came of age in a booming market for FM radio and AOR, or album-oriented rock.
  Laquidara’s “The Big Mattress” effectively invented the idea of the acerbic, prank-filled morning show. The on-air staff agitated for social change, from the station’s own strike in 1979 to its anti-apartheid news coverage. Jocks championed then-unknown bands such as the Police, the Cars, Aerosmith, and U2. “Nocturnal Emissions” showcased cutting-edge music, and the Rock and Roll Rumble, ’BCN’s annual “battle of the bands,” helped launch local groups such as ’Til Tuesday and the Dresden Dolls.
  “I remember one night, I was on the radio and the person who was answering the phone said, ‘Hey, there’s two guys downstairs that just played this concert,’ ” Laquidara recalled. “ ‘They wanna come up and just kinda hang.’ And I said, ‘OK, let ’em up.’ It was Duane Allman and Jerry Garcia and a couple guys from the [Grateful] Dead.”
  ‘We were all just a bunch of people that had thought, you know, we really loved this kind of music, and we loved the idea that we could play any songs we wanted.’

  For many local listeners (this writer included), ’BCN served as teacher in the School of Rock. News of shows at Metro and the Rat and in-studio concerts gave a peek behind the curtain otherwise inaccessible to a small-town teen. Live events and wild publicity stunts like giant pumpkin “drops” made the station seem like a party.
  “We’d meet people who thought they knew us for part of their lives,” said Ken Shelton, longtime midday DJ. “They thought we were cousins. They wanted to hug us. It wasn’t just ‘Thanks for the T-shirt.’ ”
  A phone bank called the Listener Line was the “Facebook and Google of its time,” said Bill Lichtenstein, director of a forthcoming documentary about WBCN called “The American Revolution” who began volunteering at the station in 1970 as a 14-year old news reporter. “If you need a ride, we’ll connect you. If you were taking some bad acid, and need to talk to somebody to talk you down, call us.”
  The jocks’ unpolished, no-nonsense demeanors connected with the audience.
  “We were fortunate, those of us who were there, that we were part of not only a Boston institution, but we were the cultural focal point. We were the cultural mecca,” said Oedipus, the station’s longtime program director. “We were as important as The Boston Globe and the Boston Red Sox. Everybody listened to
  WBCN.”

  Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe
  From left: Former WBCN DJ Charles Laquidara, Carter Alan, and WZLX DJ Chuck Nowlin at Alan’s home recently.
  Same for Carter Alan himself, who tuned in with his college pals as an undergrad at New England College in Henniker, N.H, in the 1970s. “We’d listen to ’BCN and then we’d come down and go to concerts,” Alan said. “I thought it was the coolest station I’d ever heard.”
  Alan first met Oedipus at MIT’s radio station. He was hired by WBCN in 1979.
  Another task of the book was to debunk many a myth. One, Alan said, “which has been the accepted dogma for 40 years” is that ’BCN’s first rock ’n’ roll broadcast emanated from the backstage area of local club Boston Tea Party. Nope. It all started at the 171 studios at 171 Newbury St. Did Laquidara once go on the air while tripping on mescaline? Yes. Did he once ask his listeners (as his alter ego Duane Glasscock) to mail a bag of excrement to Arbitron, the radio industry’s ratings service company? Again, yes.
  The final chapters of “Radio Free Boston” end, inevitably, where the station ended. Which raises the question, what killed ’BCN? Was it the Internet or satellite radio? Howard Stern? Many ’BCN vets, such as Oedipus, pointed to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allowed corporations to own multiple stations in a single market.
  Alan, who left the station in 1998, takes a wider view. “I think ’BCN was always in a state of perpetual brokenness. That was part of its charm. It wasn’t a perfect, tiny machine.”
  In its Golden Age, WBCN was wild, avant-garde, and authentic. But vestiges linger. Carter Alan recently raided a storage facility full of WBCN’s 30,000-strong vinyl collection, which were discovered to harbor marijuana stems and other drug residue when packed up from the studio’s longtime home at 1265 Boylston St.
  During a visit, he grabbed a Queen album from his WZLX office floor to demonstrate ’BCN’s pre-digital record keeping system. To keep songs from being overplayed, on a slip of paper affixed to the front of each record, jocks would note in a different colored pen whenever they played a song.
  “Oedipus was orange,” Alan recalled. “Let’s see if I can remember. [Mark] Parenteau was red. I was turquoise. But this,” Alan said, holding up a copy of Santana’s “Amigos” from 1976, “was before my time.”

  Carter Alan will talk about his new book, “Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN,” at 7 p.m. on Nov. 13 at The Book Shop, 694 Broadway, Somerville (www.thebookshopsomerville.com), and at 6 p.m. on Nov. 22 at the Barnes & Noble in Braintree, 150 Granite St.

  Ethan Gilsdorf, author of “Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks,” can be reached at www.ethangilsdorf.com and on Twitter @ethanfreak.

• MM One - http://mmone.org/carter-alan/

  Carter Alan, disc jockey and writer, began his career at MIT’s all-volunteer radio station, WMBR, before joining WBCN in 1979. Within a year he was heading up the station’s annual local battle of the bands, the WBCN Rock ‘n’ Roll Rumble. Carter became music director at the station in 1986 and remained in that position until 1998 when he transferred to BCN’s sister station Classic Rock WZLX where he currently resides as assistant Program Director and host of the midday show and “Sunday Morning Blues”.
  Carter can lay claim to first introducing U2 to America. In 1980 he discovered and played “I Will Follow” which became a hit at WBCN. He went on to not only befriend the group but to write two definitive books on the band: Outside is America and U2: The Road to Pop.
  In addition, he co-authored Life on the Road – the Incredible Rock and Roll Adventures of Dinky Dawson, a colorful story of an English roadie living in Boston who worked with Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan, the Byrds and many more.
  Carter’s 4th book is the definitive Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN, a comprehensive story of the legendary radio station that was dissolved by CBS Radio in 2009.
  Winner of numerous “Music Director of the Year” awards from Billboard Magazine, Carter has interviewed countless artists and has MC’d rock shows across New England. Throughout his illustrious career his passion for music remains nonpareil.
  (Oedipus)

• From Publisher -

  CARTER ALAN is the midday DJ and music director at WZLX-FM, Boston, one of the nation’s first classic rock stations. He is the author, most recently, of Radio Free Boston, and previously of Outside Is America: U2 in the U.S.

The Decibel Diaries: A Journey Through Rock in 50 Concerts

264.1 (Jan. 2, 2017): p46.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
The Decibel Diaries: A Journey Through Rock in 50 Concerts
Carter Alan. ForeEdge, $19.95 trade paper (328p) ISBN 978-1-61168-792-7
Boston deejay Alan's memoir focuses on his experiences of 50 different rock concerts and their influence on his life. Each episode is meant to bring insight into the artists that have driven American music and culture at different junctures of history. Alan (Radio Free Boston) bore witness to many bands in their prime, including U2 and Pearl Jam. He profiles pivotal concerts in the history of bands such as the Clash, whose first American tour in 1979 is discussed in the book. Alan was present at their show in Harvard Square, where they opened with "I'm So Bored with the U.S.A." He was also lucky enough to see Prince before he became a major star. Alan mostly sets out to communicate his impressions of the artists in the moment, providing matter-of-fact summaries without necessarily knowing for certain that these musicians would eventually become legendary acts. In some key moments, Alan recalls revealing facts about particular artists, such as when Joe Stummer walked around the Harvard Square crowd talking to concertgoers. (Apr.)
Source Citation   (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Decibel Diaries: A Journey Through Rock in 50 Concerts." Publishers Weekly, 2 Jan. 2017, p. 46. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA478696520&it=r&asid=99d34962eca9ff2ac7483638e77a7d13. Accessed 22 Sept. 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A478696520

U2: The Road to Pop

Lloyd Jansen
122.14 (Sept. 1, 1997): p183.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 1997 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Alan, music director for Boston rock radio station WBCN and an early supporter of U2, updates his Outside Is America: U2 in the U.S. (Faber & Faber, 1992) in this sometimes fawning profile of what is now perhaps the world's biggest band. He covers U2's career from their first American visit in 1980, and this revision includes events since 1992, including the release of two albums and the mammoth Zooropa and Popmart tours. Most interesting is watching the band try to maintain its heralded devotion to its fans as its popularity explodes. Unfortunately, Alan often takes on the role of U2 apologist when discussing criticisms leveled against the band. Also, the U.S. bias keeps this from being a comprehensive biography. Still, this book nicely complements Bill Flanagan's in-depth look at the band during the early 1990s, U2: At the End of the World (LJ 11/15/95). Recommended for most popular music collections.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th Edition)
Jansen, Lloyd. "U2: The Road to Pop." Library Journal, 1 Sept. 1997, p. 183. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA19779294&it=r&asid=78b635a15a0adfe8d195ef9ec774f27e. Accessed 22 Sept. 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A19779294

Outside is America: U2 in the U.S.

Marilyn A. Gillen
104.33 (Aug. 15, 1992): p33.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 1992 e5 Global Media, LLC
From a December night in 1980 when he saw four Irishmen, in or just out of their teens, ignite onstage at Boston's Paradise Theater as the opening act for a brand called Barooga, Carter Alan has tracked their heady ascent, holding his breath as he watched them shoot skyward, knowing the inevitable fallout of fame. That trail is "U2 In The U.S."
That Alan is fan and friend is clear; his enthusiasm is evident, and contagious. He is also a radio pro (music director of WBCN Boston), and the combination of the unique access afforded him and his knowledge of the business shapes his narrative: Sharply drawn details gleaned from years of personal contact and interviews are set within the broader perspective of the game plan used to break the band. The small moments are priceless (a shoestring-budgeted Paul McGuinness, for instance, valiantly trying to steer a dining companion to a cheaper bottle of wine), as are the photographs tracking the progression from that impossibly young band onstage in 1980 to the self-assurance of Bono in 1992.
U2's ability to electrify an audience ("people tell us during our shows we sell very little in the way of hotdogs," the Edge observed) is vividly chronicled, from its $1 admission (and free beer) days to stadiums. It is the personal link the band most feared losing, but the tour stories show the evermore-necessary barriers and the evolution of the group's stage show in response, an attempt to connect in different ways. Likewise, the evolution of the music as U2 remade itself, including in its latest incarnation on "Achtung Baby," is carefully documented, its genesis explained.
"Outside Is America." Inside is an illuminating story.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th Edition)
Gillen, Marilyn A. "Outside is America: U2 in the U.S." Billboard, 15 Aug. 1992, p. 33. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA12817925&it=r&asid=529d279613fee9dfbcca37cc8fa8ffd1. Accessed 22 Sept. 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A12817925

"The Decibel Diaries: A Journey Through Rock in 50 Concerts." Publishers Weekly, 2 Jan. 2017, p. 46. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA478696520&asid=99d34962eca9ff2ac7483638e77a7d13. Accessed 22 Sept. 2017. Jansen, Lloyd. "U2: The Road to Pop." Library Journal, 1 Sept. 1997, p. 183. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA19779294&asid=78b635a15a0adfe8d195ef9ec774f27e. Accessed 22 Sept. 2017. Gillen, Marilyn A. "Outside is America: U2 in the U.S." Billboard, 15 Aug. 1992, p. 33. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA12817925&asid=529d279613fee9dfbcca37cc8fa8ffd1. Accessed 22 Sept. 2017.

• Boston Globe
  https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2013/10/03/book-review-radio-free-boston-the-rise-and-fall-wbcn-carter-alan/n1J4ozmJMtbaiu3S7eds4N/story.html
  Word count: 799

  By Sarah Rodman Globe Staff  October 03, 2013

  Bob Dean/Globe Staff/file 1972
  Charles Laquidara in 1972.

  Frank Kearns
  Carter Alan writes about WBCN’s heyday.
  The first two-thirds of “Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN” reads almost like a fairy tale: Once upon a time there was a radio station in Boston where a bunch of like-minded lunatics who loved music ran the show, joyously playing and saying almost whatever they wanted on the air. They talked politics, cracked jokes, and spun tunes by everyone from Eric Andersen to Frank Zappa. Unfortunately, they did not live happily ever after. But they certainly had a lot of adventures along the way.
  Many of those exploits are collected in this<< exhaustively reported and captivating chronicle>> by former WBCN DJ/music director and current WZLX midday man/assistant program director Carter Alan. For all of those who came late to the party — when the station had reached its sophomoric, testosterone-infused nadir in the late ’90s — and wondered why WBCN was so revered, Alan explains what the fuss was all about. And he does so in a clear-eyed and entertaining account that aims for, and mostly achieves, a kind of objectivity even though he witnessed much of it from the inside.

  From the first note of Cream’s “I Feel Free” carried by the FM signal at 104.1 in 1968 to the final note of Pink Floyd’s “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” bringing the story to a close in 2009, Alan traces the station’s wild ride from its roots as a foundering classical music operation (WBCN stood for Boston Concert Network and employed a young Ron Della Chiesa), to its evolution into a free-form, counterculture outpost, and finally to a tightly controlled, corporate enterprise with two of its most popular, and controversial, shows emanating out of New York City.
  Alan talks to most of the major players — including high profile jocks like Peter Wolf, Charles Laquidara, Mark Parenteau, Ken Shelton, Oedipus, and Matt Siegel (who went on to a still-thriving career at crosstown signal WXKS-Kiss 108) — and dozens of others who were not behind the microphone but were integral to building the station’s legend.
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  The book also <>, one of the first of its kind in the country and ultimately influential in both the radio and record industry in formatting, discovering bands, progressive news programming, and innovative promotional schemes cooked up by a marketing department that was as inventive as the on-air staff.

  RADIO FREE BOSTON: The Rise and Fall of WBCN
  Author:
  Carter Alan
  Publisher:
  Northeastern University
  Number of pages:
  334 pp.
  Book price:
  $25.95
  While success in the music business involves a mysterious chemistry of talent and luck, it is fair to argue, as Alan does, that the careers of several popular artists and bands might’ve taken different trajectories without the support of WBCN DJs, including locals like Aerosmith, J. Geils Band, and ‘Til Tuesday as well as national acts like U2 and Bruce Springsteen.
  The heady early days are described in detail, and <> in the Boston concert world<<, inside the studios>> of popular shows like “The Big Mattress” and “Nocturnal Emissions,”<< and on the streets>> at events as jocks with insanely disparate tastes introduced artists, comedians, authors, and politicians to an audience hungry for new ideas.

  The fractious latter days, with the arrivals of Howard Stern and Opie and Anthony among others, may receive less time but not less care in Alan’s telling, even if a tinge of bitterness creeps in. (And the less said about the unfortunate David Lee Roth interlude the better.)
  Although Alan is understandably loyal to former co-workers and does his fair share of gushing about the importance of the station, he also forthrightly discusses the eccentricities, egos, and drug problems of the players in both the studios and the executive offices who lapsed into a smug complacency toward competitors and failed to deal with the demands of a bottom-line-driven business that ultimately gutted WBCN of its personality.
  The fairy tale of WBCN may not have had a happy ending, but <>

  Sarah Rodman is a pop music and TV critic at the Globe. She can be reached at sarah.rodman@globe.com.

• PopMatters
  http://www.popmatters.com/review/176364-radio-free-boston-the-rise-and-fall-of-wbcn-by-carter-alan/
  Word count: 1174

  Do You Remember When WBCN Was the Leader in Progressive Rock 'n' Roll Radio?
  by Holly Cara Price
  22 November 2013

  WBCN catapulted the careers of the likes of Aerosmith, the Cars and U2, provided a comfy road stop for guest DJ’s like Joey Ramone, and hosted Bruce Springsteen’s first radio interview.
   

  Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN
  Carter Alan
  (Northeastern University Press)
  US: Sep 2013
  Amazon
  Carter Alan’s meticulously researched book, Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN documents the life and death of a radio station that was a crown jewel of American progressive free-form radio, birthed in the thick of the counterculture in 1968 by lawyer/entrepreneur Ray Riepen. Riepen, who was independently wealthy, was also the publisher of alternative weekly The Boston Phoenix (itself a victim of the death of print journalism earlier this year) as well as owner of the legendary rock club the Boston Tea Party.
  At a time when FM radio was lively and fascinating and political, WBCN went to the next level; it was a true leader and pioneer in progressive rock ‘n’ roll radio for decades. For most of its 41 year lifespan, the station was the most well known brand in the Boston radio market, whether or not it commanded the top market share at the time. Even more impressively, the station served as the musical, cultural, and political voice of Boston’s youth for many of those years.
  Author Alan got his start in radio as a DJ on WBCN, where he stayed for 19 years before moving on to become music director across town at WZLX-FM. When the station ended its on-air days in 2009, Alan was contacted by the publisher asking if he’d be interested in writing a book about the station’s long and storied history.
  The counterculture had hit a fever pitch in the late ‘60s with anti-war protests, civil rights marches, and youth who had grown up listening to rock ‘n’ roll beginning to actually dictate the choices of a changing marketplace. As for WBCN’s place in all of this at that time in Boston, “We really felt it was our radio station and we were acting, in a broader way, for the entire community,” Danny Schechter AKA The News Dissector, WBCN’s famed News Director, told Alan.
  “There was an immense freedom,” Peter Wolf (a DJ in WBCN’s early days, pre-J Geils Band) is quoted as saying, “You were defined by your personality and your musical tastes. That was very intoxicating and exhilarating for everyone involved because you realized you were part of something incredibly new.” In fact, at the time WBCN hit the airwaves, the only place for such freedoms was college radio, which had a very small reach outside of a school’s insular community.
  Aerosmith’s Steve Tyler wrote the forward for Radio Free Boston, reminiscing about the days when a band built an audience by playing in local bars and clubs and when radio was run by people instead of machines: “Real human personalities owned the music as much as the bands that wrote it; they frequented clubs, knew personally the pulse of local talent, and knew the goings-on of a community or city.”
  Throughout its years the station featured larger-than-life radio personalities such as Charles Laquidara, Mark Parenteau, Ken Shelton, and Oedipus. For those who lived in the listening area, which I did in the mid- to late ‘70s, the station was more like a religion than mere numbers on the FM dial. Everyone in Boston listened to WBCN; everyone knew what the station was playing and who and what they were talking about. It’s difficult to imagine this kind of reach now, with niche internet music portals like Spotify and Pandora catering to individual whims. It was true word-of-mouth before the internet made the world a whole lot smaller.
  As popular music and pop culture itself began to morph in 1981 with the advent of MTV and became, more than ever, a vehicle for targeted advertising, WBCN’s days – as well as progressive radio in general—were numbered. The station had catapulted the careers of many an iconic band (Aerosmith, the Cars, U2), provided a comfy road stop for many guest DJ’s in the wee hours of the morning (Joey Ramone, for example) and hosted Bruce Springsteen’s first radio interview in 1973, but it was losing its relevancy. Like most other radio stations in the 80s, it became all about the ratings, market share, and advertising dollars.
  Still, even with the changes looming in broadcast media set in motion with MTV, and with industry behemoth Infinity Broadcasting adding WBCN to their stable, the station managed to keep creativity in the mix for their on-air personnel. At this point it could no longer be called “free-form”, but DJs still had some say in what was played. They also managed to provide an on-air framework for the political voice of the community even as late as 1985 when an entire commercial-free day was devoted to apartheid awareness in South Africa. WBCN, which in its early days prided itself on turning down ads from napalm manufacturer Dow Chemical, accepted and welcomed all advertising at this point in its lifespan – a fact which makes the South Africa awareness day that much more remarkable.
  Shock radio and screamingly loud, moronic morning shows sounded the death knell for WBCN as the ‘80s wore on, eventually leading to the station adding Howard Stern because, well, ratings and market share don’t lie. Alan doesn’t stint in the telling of this tale. Besides the interviews that he conducted with just about everyone who mattered in the history of the station, the book takes readers into closed-door meetings where policies were created and destroyed as well as providing a fascinating look into the world of rock music programming both when it was dictated by music fans from the heart and later when the playlist originated from machines.
  <>. “At its best,” writes Alan, “WBCN represented what a community of believers, not preoccupied with testing the limits of personal gain, could accomplish. At its worst, the station found itself swept out of that humble place and down the inevitable road of capitalism, losing its innocence as it slid toward a desired stock price at the end of the rainbow. WBCN went from Baltic Avenue to Boardwalk with hotels on it, and it wasn’t a pretty end, but there was magic created all along that 41 year ride past “Go.” That’s why this book is here: to pull out some of that magic before we all begin to forget it.

  Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN
  Rating:

• Boston
  http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2014/07/29/wbcn-oral-history/
  Word count: 5005

  WBCN: An Oral History
  On the fifth anniversary of ’BCN’s death, key players from its halcyon days reminisce about a time when Boston was all about sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.
  By Ethan Gilsdorf | Boston Magazine | August 2014
  62843641

  The WBCN staff, circa 1978. / photograph courtesy of the david bieber archives
  Is it possible that WBCN, the greatest rock ’n’ roll radio station in American history, died five years ago this month? Like the biggest rock bands, it began as an underground revolution, then—in a haze of sex- and drug-fueled mayhem— transformed radio, went mainstream, enjoyed unimaginable financial prosperity, and was ultimately undone by that success, as its corporate masters foisted upon the Rock of Boston a series of edicts so stringent that it ended up as boring and pre-programmed as the AM-radio dinosaurs it had so creatively displaced.
  But even after its run, ’BCN won’t go away. Last fall, former music director Carter Alan published a history of the station, Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN (Northeastern University Press), and a documentary film is in the works. There isn’t a museum yet, but Boston archivist David Bieber—who, as a grad student, profiled the nascent WBCN for this magazine in 1970, and later worked at the station—has leased key artifacts to the Verb Hotel, a boutique hotel opening this month next door to WBCN’s former studios.
  The station had unlikely roots as a classical music outlet (its call letters standing for “Boston Concert Network”), but on the Ides of March, 1968, disc jockey Joe Rogers fired the first rock salvo—Cream’s “I Feel Free.” From that moment, ’BCN became one of a handful of FM radio stations seeking to supplant AM’s supremacy with freeform programming that captured the cacophonous sound of the counterculture. Emerging acts like Led Zeppelin and the Who segued into jazz, classical, and trippy sound montages.
  Innovations at ’BCN—like the mix of music, talk, and humor that Charles Laquidara brought to his morning show The Big Mattress—were soon replicated across the country. So was its sound: Now-famous megagroups, from Aerosmith and the Clash to the Ramones and U2, all found early support on 104.1.
  During the station’s heyday, its DJs, the music scene, and listeners were all intensely interconnected. Callers to the WBCN Listener Line got advice on everything from new bands to how to survive a bad drug trip. Jocks weren’t shy about getting political, either, ranting about Vietnam and apartheid, and sometimes becoming news themselves. Every night, these same jocks rode in vans plastered with the ’BCN logo, straight to the town’s hottest gigs to greet packs of fans. Early jocks included J. J. Jackson, who later became one of the first MTV VJs, and Peter Wolf, the future leader of the J. Geils Band.
  The station survived and prospered through generations in spite of tumultuous turnover, not to mention a 1979 strike by its DJs and staff. At ’BCN’s peak, its top DJ raked in more than a million bucks a year. But in 1996, the new Telecommunications Act spawned a sudden nationwide consolidation of the radio industry, and that’s when things for ’BCN went south. There were other conspiring factors, too: The alt-rock format was souring. Syndicated shock jock Howard Stern turned mornings into all-talk radio. And the Internet’s savage evisceration of the music industry finished off what was left. On August 11, 2009—following a weeklong farewell from many of the station’s past contributors—WBCN died to the strains of Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.”
  On this, the five-year anniversary of ’BCN’s demise, we tracked down key players from those halcyon days—disc jockeys, news reporters, producers, and programmers—to get a behind-the-scenes look at our fair city, back when Boston sat at the epicenter of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.
   
  PETER WOLF 
  At WBCN: DJ, 1968–’69
  Since then: Lead vocalist for the J. Geils Band; solo artist; rock ’n’ roll legend. 
  The fellow who put it together, WBCN founder Ray Riepen, who was sleeping on my couch, asked me to buy into the station. I think it was $10,000. I didn’t have $10. So he said, “Why don’t you just come in and play your music?” So on the first night, I was the second DJ. I took the late-night shift, from 12 to 7 in the morning. I got to interview people like Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Rod Stewart, Ronny Wood, Smokey Robinson. Van Morrison would come by a lot.
  Even college radio stations were not quite like WBCN. You didn’t have someone playing Hank Williams then Muddy Waters then Van Morrison then Velvet Underground, in 15 minutes. I would have paid to do it. I didn’t get paid to do it, but it was that kind of important experience for me.
   
  CHARLES LAQUIDARA
  At WBCN: DJ, 1968–’96, host of  The Big Mattress.
  Since then: DJ at WZLX; inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2009; retired and living in Maui, currently working on an autobiography titled Daze in the Life. 
  A bunch of us were sitting around, possibly experimenting with drugs. We were thinking how great it would be to have a radio station. At the time, they were all Top 40. They would play the same songs over and over. We thought, Wouldn’t it be great to have a radio station where they played Benny Goodman, “Sing Sing Sing,” from 1938, maybe mix that with the Carmina Burana, and then mix that with Jimi Hendrix and the Stones, and then come back with a folk song?
  I didn’t talk fast, and I wasn’t sharp at all. My character, an alter ego called Duane Glasscock, had a heavy Boston accent. And he screwed up all the time! People really related to that. Especially here in Boston, people loved that. It was like I was one of them. We didn’t think of our listeners as being fans. Most of my listeners knew more about the music than I did. They were totally my peers.
  Duane Glasscock went on the air one Saturday and complained about the ratings—that’s how radio stations got their money, if they got high ratings from Arbitron, which was based in Maryland. A really good rating in Boston at the time was a 3- or a 4-point average. Duane got 13. Duane went on the air and complained, “All these fat cats down in Maryland, they’re driving around in their Cadillacs, smoking cigars, and these guys decide what radio stations get all the money from the sponsors. They gave Mark Parenteau a 3, and they gave Charles Laquidara, that old guy, like a 3.6. Are you kidding me? Everybody, send a bag of shit to Arbitron.” Duane gave out the exact address, every break, for four hours. Arbitron got a lot of bags of shit. They still gave us good ratings the next time.
  The following Monday, my boss, Klee Dobra, called me in. He said, “Charles Laquidara is a professional. Charles deserves every bit of respect he gets in the radio community. But Duane Glasscock is a fucking idiot. Duane Glasscock is fired. Do you understand me?” I said, “Klee, you can’t fire Duane. He’s got a 13, the highest rating ever in the history of ratings. All the rest of us have got 4s and 5s.” And he looks up at me. “Are you playing with a full deck? You’re acting like Duane and you are separate people.” And I said, “But you just fired Duane! And you kept me!” Anyway, he ended up firing Duane, but in less than three weeks he ended up bringing him back.
  I quit radio in ’76 because it was getting in the way of my cocaine habit. When I came back in ’78, I didn’t want to come back, because I still wanted to continue being able to do cocaine. Luckily I’m still alive.
  I remember one night, Paul Ahern, a record promoter, and I were sitting in his car, maybe smoking a fatty, and he said, “Charles, I want you to hear something. I’m thinking about retiring, and just managing this group and trying to get them going on tour.” He puts this cassette in. I said, “Paul, the guy singing with the high falsetto voice sounds like he’s Mark Farner, a Grand Funk Railroad wannabe.” The song was “More Than a Feeling” from the band Boston.
  There was a time when you could hear ’BCN without a radio. Literally. You could start in downtown Boston and walk to Cambridge, to Harvard Square. Between the cars playing ’BCN, with their open windows in the summertime, and all the dormitories, apartments, and houses, you could hear ’BCN from one end of the city to the other.
   
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  SAM KOPPER
  At WBCN: Program director, morning DJ, 1968–’71; live music broadcast producer and weekend DJ, 1975–’91.
  Since then: Program director, DJ of WBCN Free Form Rock on wbcn.com and 100.7HD3.
  In the early days, each shift was a DJ with a mike and three turntables and some cartridges, interacting with the audience on the phone. We could talk about anything: sports, weather, politics, sex. We could talk about all aspects of life along with the music. Jukebox stations are not radio; they are jukeboxes.
  Rhapsody and Pandora and Spotify aren’t going to go away, but they are jukeboxes. They are not radio, because there is not a human being there. People don’t listen to technology; they listen to content. People are losing interest in radio, I’m talking twentysomethings, because there’s nothing compelling there. The jocks now are continually selling you something. It’s just constant marketing, and not enough soul. The idea of just listening, not being distracted by images, is an art of its own. The idea of the radio, and crafting it, and being a person on the other end, that will never die.
   
  BILL LICHTENSTEIN
  At WBCN: Newscaster and announcer, 1970–’78.
  Since then: President of Lichtenstein Creative Media; director of  The American Revolution, a forthcoming documentary on the early days of WBCN.
  WBCN came along in Boston at a time when virtually every aspect of cultural, social, and political life was changing dramatically in this country—the intersection of the women’s movement, the gay and lesbian rights movement, basic rights, what it meant to be an American. At the time, it was hard to find what was going on. In that way, WBCN was the Facebook of its era. Not just because it played radically different music, which it did, or that it had a socially or politically aware newsroom, which it did. The station served as a kind of conduit between the station and its listeners. It was never a one-way experience.
  The Listener Line had positioned itself almost as the Google of its time. If you needed a ride, we’ll connect you. If you were taking some bad acid and needed somebody to talk you down, call us. If there was a skirmish with police, people could call and say, “I was there and this is what happened.” There was an immediacy to it.
  One of the things that it pioneered is a style of production, those highly edited montages: Nixon with music and comedy. As a young person, that mix of political comedy and rock ’n’ roll was very powerful to me. There’s a direct lineage to Jon Stewart. ’BCN was arguably the most credible news source in Boston, in the same way that Jon Stewart is arguably the most credible journalist on TV.
  In that final week, CBS said to the staff, “Do anything you want. We don’t care. Play anything you want, say what you want. Just don’t lose us the license.” Suddenly for a week, it was amazing radio. They played taped interviews with Springsteen, the Clash, an interview with Tim Leary. It was like the old ’BCN, and it was remarkably brave radio.
   
  OEDIPUS
  At WBCN: DJ and program director, 1977–2004.
  Since then: Director of the Oedipus Foundation. The Oedipus Project (oedipus1.com) champions new, alternative, and experimental music.
  We were fortunate that we were part of not only a Boston institution, but also a cultural mecca. We were as important as the Boston Globe and the Boston Red Sox. Everybody listened to WBCN. Yes, in the years that followed, we had competition. But still, it was always WBCN. Everyone listened to WBCN, until it started to fall apart.
  We reflected the culture of the city. I like to think we made the city and the people listening to it, we enhanced their lives. We not only entertained them, we also educated them—whether it was the Vietnam War, Nelson Mandela, apartheid, inequality, women’s rights, the labor movement. WBCN was more than simply an entertainment vehicle. We raised millions of dollars for charity.
  When I took over as program director, we were getting our ass kicked by WCOZ, “Kickass Rock ’n’ Roll.” We needed to turn it around, and we were able to turn it around. There was just a belief that we could do it. What was great about that period, in the ’80s, was they let me program the radio station. The company let me take chances. I remember the owners telling me, “You’re gonna make mistakes, and you’re gonna learn from your mistakes. But we like you because you’re intelligent and you’re not afraid to take chances.” Who says that today? I was the artistic director of a 24-hour opera of the mind. Twenty-four/seven, we were writing scripts, we had a musical backdrop, we had music going. But we were also out in public. We had to dress, we had to make appearances, we had to interview.
  We’d go out and hang out with the bands. Usually, we’d be going to see bands that nobody wanted to see, when they were brand-new. People forget that there was a time when the Police were brand-new and they played the Rat, in Kenmore Square. I remember when I first played “Roxanne” on the air, people thought it was the end of the world. People were going, “This sucks! This guy can’t sing! He’s singing about a prostitute!” The Ramones, they play them at football games now. There was a time when we first played them, it was like, “Oh my God! This is awful! This is noise!” As program director, I made sure we always had at least one local band in rotation. When I say local, I don’t mean Aerosmith, I don’t mean the Cars, I mean local. That played the clubs. So these bands, because we thought they were good, could be heard next to the Clash, or could be heard next to Fleetwood Mac. They would be heard next to the great bands of the time. The Del Fuegos is a perfect example, or O Positive, or the Blackjacks. There were so many of them, and there was always at least one in rotation, if not more.
  Radio’s fate was sealed in 1996 when they signed the Telecommunications Act. That killed radio. Suddenly, you can own multiple stations in one market. You can own multiple stations across the country. And when I say multiple, I mean hundreds, if not a thousand, stations. So that effectively destroyed radio. It was just a matter of time before it became centrally controlled and they could put all of these cost-cutting measures into effect. And once you control everything, you don’t need to be creative, you don’t need to be dynamic, you don’t need to deal with a bunch of weird characters. Suddenly all of my decisions were vetted. I wasn’t allowed to run the radio station the way I wanted to. When these new people came in from New York, they just didn’t get it. They weren’t part of this culture, and they weren’t part of this kind of radio culture. They were just business guys who only looked at numbers. They started questioning decisions we made, because all they cared about was ratings and dollars.
   
  MATT SIEGEL
  At WBCN: DJ, 1977–’79.
  Since then: Host of  Matty in the Morning on Kiss 108.
  I had horrible taste in music. I was only there for a short time. I was there at the end of the heyday in some ways. I was a kid then. Their reputation was extraordinary across the county. They were just a bunch of crazy hippies. That just doesn’t exist anymore.
  Charles Laquidara was the biggest star of them all. Back in the day, Charles was really my mentor. He took me under his wing. That, for me, was the best thing about working at WBCN: He took a liking to me. He was 10 to 12 years older than I. I was like his kid brother. He thought I was good. He gave me confidence to find my own style. He reminds me, every time I see him, that I’d be nowhere without him. At Kiss, for an entire decade in the ’80s, I was up against Charles. I was competing against him. It was a friendly rivalry, but it was definitely a rivalry.
  I can trace my success to ’BCN. I don’t know how I would have developed differently had I not had the ’BCN experience.
   
  DAVID BIEBER
  At WBCN: Creative services director, 1978–’94. 
  Since then: Director of special projects for the Phoenix Media/Communications Group; director of the David Bieber Archives. 
  We did incredible events. I remember we were doing this promotion for the Cars. Elektra Records said, “Hey, why don’t we give away a car?” Okay: That’s easy, that’s ordinary. So we said, How about the car we give away, it’s suspended from a crane tied into the Strawberries Records on Memorial Drive and hanging over the Charles River? Mark Parenteau was up in the car, doing a live broadcast. It was probably not OSHA-sanctioned. We always tried for an element of humor and drama.
  I don’t want to say it was nonstop partying. There was an element of partying, yes. Partying in the 1980s was different than partying in the 2000s. But there was a responsibility and a mission to get the job done.
  There was a period in the mid- to late ’80s when ’BCN was regularly the number one station in Boston. Once you reach number one, once you reach that magical economic success, once you reach X number of millions of dollars in billing, where do you go? You can’t go backward. You have to be exceeding your success. And when you exceed your success, that leads to excess.
   
  PAUL “TANK” SFERRUZZA
  At WBCN: Listener Line operator, van driver, producer, sports reporter, 1978–’95.
  Since then: Sports reporter for WATD and WBCN Free Form Rock, now retired.
  The station went on strike in 1979 because the new owners, Hemisphere Broadcasting, came in. When that happened, loyal staffers set up a faction of people to try to get hold of advertisers, to get hold of musicians, to ask them to pull their support. The WBCN Strike Alliance was set up in a house just down the street from Boston College. We got musicians to ask the station to stop playing the music, and the advertisers just walked away. I was put in charge of getting that up and running.
  When the strike was over, Charles needed someone to be his brain. I was one of Charles’s personal producers—coordinating Mishegas, the prizes, the contestants, the wake-up calls. That’s how we found Billy West, from The Ren & Stimpy Show and Futurama. He called up wanting to be a contestant. We needed someone who could do Bugs Bunny. Billy called up doing bacon frying. Eddie Gorodetsky, who went on to do The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men, he was our head writer. It was a blast for me. I was just a kid who went to high school to be a baker. I had never been to college for anything.
  The music meant something to the DJ, and to the moment in which it was being played. That does not exist anymore. Now it’s just the play list, and you play it when it’s time. But then, if it was kind of vicious out, you could play “Riders on the Storm” by the Doors. Now it’s just the luck of the draw.
   
  CARTER ALAN
  At WBCN: DJ and music director, 1979–’98.
  Since then: Assistant program director and midday DJ, WZLX.
  The myth that WBCN started at the Boston Tea Party, which has been the accepted dogma for 40 years, isn’t true. This is what happened: WBCN started on Newbury Street, 171 Newbury Street. They had a studio upstairs, that’s where the classical music station was, and that’s where it started. Back then, ’BCN was a full-service radio station. You went in there, you got your tires checked, they washed your windshield, put the gas in, and you didn’t even have to get out of your car. But now radio is more of a specialized thing. You go to a station for a specific reason and it’s just the way things have gone.
  We would all play a consistent amount of new music, and then there were times every hour when you could go to the outer library, which was 30,000 albums. You could play anything. We had a grid that we taped in front of the albums, and everybody had their own color pen. So if today’s October 15, you’d put “10 slash 15,” and then depending on what hour you played it, if it was the first hour, you put a little diagonal X up in the upper-left corner. We all had our colors. Oedipus was orange. Parenteau was red. I was turquoise. The next jock on would be like, “Hey, I’m going to play—oh, man. Parenteau played that at 4. So I’ll wait.” If a certain jock was playing a record we liked all of the time, our answer was to put it in the REO Speedwagon section so he couldn’t find it.
  WBCN was a top station in the country. It was also a groundbreaking station. The morning-show format with Charles, The Big Mattress, every station uses that idea now—a “morning zoo” where you’ve got a couple of hosts, you’ve got sidekicks. The whole idea of it being a parody of a Top 40 thing with humor, but poignant humor that made you think. When he started doing it, nobody was doing that. In a lot of ways, what Howard Stern does really grew from what Charles did. Howard Stern went to BU listening to Charles. Charles Laquidara is fearless. He would do all kinds of stuff. There was the time he got dosed on mescaline from eating laced matzo ball soup and went on-air. I’ve heard that story six times, and it’s told differently each time. That’s why I say it’s a fable. It happened!
  There were all the artists—Springsteen, Led Zeppelin, U2—that the station broke and changed lives. There was the Rock ’n’ Roll Rumble. Some bands weren’t as big, like the Psychedelic Furs, but they were important. Take the Clash. Oedipus was one of the first to play the Clash. Because the station got involved in giving these bands a higher profile, people could see them in clubs. Now the clubs are making some more money, so they keep booking the bands. Now bands don’t have a second job—they can actually survive on playing in the band. Now they can actually afford to put out a halfway decent independent record which gets noticed by the major label, and now they get signed by the major label and become stars. Also, back in 1981, people didn’t have station vans driving around and going to events. ’BCN did that.
  ’BCN was creative and successful for a long time. It got a little harder as time went on. Putting Howard Stern on the air was certainly a good decision financially, but it brought our defenses down quite a bit. It led us to all of the other decisions. I’m not a real fan of what he did or what he does. But you’ve got to admit he’s creative and managed to make it successful. Suddenly, you have two talk shows on in the morning and afternoon drive, so what is ’BCN? Is it a talk station? Is it a music station? The Patriots on the weekend: Is it a football station? Once Oedipus left, the station was kind of in a free fall. There were valiant attempts to bring things back on track, but it was rough at that point.
  If you go to the ’BCN storage lockers, everything is in there. All the records are still in there, a lot of the old reel-to-reel machines, a lot of the old tapes and commercials and their reel-to-reel boxes. WBCN was always in a state of perpetual brokenness. That was part of its charm. There wasn’t bitterness; there was just sadness at the end.
   
  LISA TRAXLER
  At WBCN: DJ, 1984–’90.
  Since then: DJ at WZLX and KISS; editor in chief at Citysearch; marketing director at Ticketmaster Online.
  The women at WBCN, we had to carve out a place for ourselves. It was not just your talent—you had to be able to hang with the boys and you had to take a certain number of lumps that the boys didn’t have to. It was harder to do, but also a tremendous amount of fun to be the rose among the thorns. I had been at a number of other radio stations before WBCN. You’ve seen the movie Almost Famous. The kid comes into the station. I was like that kid. I was the rare DJ from somewhere else. ’BCN was already its own entity, its own country, its own reality. There was a very strong sense of history being made at the time.
  I’m absolutely positive of WBCN’s legacy. Its legacy was in the artists it helped break. The Police, the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, and the Clash. Without that cornerstone, you would not have the direction that music took. You have a world with just the Eagles. Can you imagine a world with just the Eagles? The entire musical landscape of America, and maybe the entire world, would have been different.
  WBCN wasn’t just the jocks and engineers and sales and support staff. You were ’BCN. It was a club for everyone. We were the big mouth for it. It was about everybody. We’re all on a mattress together. That’s the station by extension. Let’s drop a pumpkin, let’s drop some cash, let’s drop some acid.
  I always thought it would have been good to put a recording device on the station intercom. That told the story of what the station was really like. If anyone had anything to say, it went on the intercom. So many of the best stories would get me or somebody else in trouble, which is probably why they’re great stories.
   
  ADAM “ADAM 12” CHAPMAN
  At WBCN: DJ, 2003–’09.
  Since then: DJ at WFNX and Boston.com’s RadioBDC.
  I listened to ’BCN when I was little, because that’s what my parents listened to. I can remember sitting in the back of my parents’ Plymouth Valiant. It was a Sunday night, Oedipus was hosting Nocturnal Emissions, and he played “Never Say Never” by Romeo Void. I remember hearing the lyrics, “I might like you better if we slept together,” and I remember not knowing what it meant. But I remember my parents changing the station.
  I was the last full-time DJ that Oedipus hired. I’ve become the de facto spokesperson for the final era. We all wish we could have been around in the ’70s and ’80s. Oh, the stories you heard. You heard the stories of the camaraderie that they had back then. The freedom that they had.
  In spring of ’05 we moved from Boylston Street to Brighton. Boylston Street still had the old-school spirit. After the move to Brighton, the space was different. They put us in the basement in a building with ’ZLX and Oldies, and then Mix 98.5 moved in there. It felt more like a bank. We were next door to an Acura dealership. It didn’t have that cool radio vibe. The old Boylston Street studios were all beat up. When we moved out, they were taking all the old records out of the cabinets in the studios. There was coke residue on the records, and marijuana stems in the back.
  ’BCN was part of the fabric of Boston. If you grew up in the Boston metro, ’BCN was part of your life in some way, shape, or form. WBCN was a cultural phenomenon through its music, events, and personalities—it united Boston. It gave people points of parity with one another. I still can’t go to an event without at least one person mentioning WBCN.

• Arts Fuse
  http://artsfuse.org/92795/fuse-book-review-the-ecstasy-and-agony-of-wbcn/
  Word count: 1777

  Sep
  24
  2013
   
  I found myself most interested by the fact that so many of the changes that took place at WBCN made absolute sense to me, even if I had an aesthetic beef with them.
  Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN by Carter Alan (forward by Steven Tyler) Northeastern University Press, 352 pp., $25.95.

  It probably goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: they don’t make radio stations like WBCN anymore.
  At least it goes without saying if you’re older than 40.
  For the rest of us, the idea that WBCN was special once upon a time might be actual news.
  In the late ’90s and into the new century, when we youngsters were listening, “The Rock of Boston” was just another station that played Limp Bizkit. The nicest thing you could say about ‘BCN at that point was that it was almost, but not quite, as obnoxiously vulgar as WAAF.
  It’s meathead musical decisions like giving airtime to the titans of nu-metal that Carter Alan had in mind when he included “and Fall” in the subtitle of his new book, Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN. This shouldn’t detract, however, from the fact that the “Rise” part was pretty spectacular. Alan was himself a DJ at WBCN for nearly 20 years (he’s currently at WZLX), but to his credit, he hasn’t written a memoir, or an over the top love letter. Instead he’s written a book that is incredibly well researched, deeply interviewed, and as close to being “down the middle” as is possible for a writer who was involved in much of the action. My only real quibble with Radio Free Boston is that Alan points to the station breaking Aerosmith as a good thing. I think we’d all be better off if that never happened.
  Putting questions of musical taste aside, <>He does this without ever writing about anything that isn’t directly related to WBCN. Such a narrow focus on the micro, I know from my journalism school days, is “wrong,” and yet it works perfectly here. Perhaps it’s just that the saga of ‘BCN touches on so much of radio, American, and musical history that the macro is implied.
  Now then, a few facts. WBCN (standing for “Boston Concert Network) was not always a rock station. It began life in 1958 playing classical music. Mitch Hastings started the station, and while he isn’t much more than a significant footnote to our rock and roll story, he’s a hugely important figure in the development of FM radio. It was he who was a pioneer in realizing that while hardly anyone broadcast on the FM band, it offered a far cleaner sound than AM. Being a practical sort, Hastings knew that the only way for FM radio to take off was to invent an FM radio specifically for cars (hard to believe now, but these radios didn’t always come standard). So, along with an engineer from Raytheon, he went off and created just such a device. He also had a hand in inventing an FM transistor radio. Market for his vision created, only then did he get into station ownership, beaming static-free classical music out from the Hub of the Universe.

  Carter Alan in the studio.
  Despite that crisp FM sound, WBCN was no cash cow. Enter Ray Riepen, “the hippie entrepreneur,” as he’s described in Radio Free Boston. Riepen hailed from Kansas City but moved to the area to attend Harvard Law School in the mid-’60s. While he was a fairly clean-cut grad student, he was also intrigued by the countercultural revolution that was blossoming around him. Riepen’s interests in this new youth culture were genuine, but he also knew an opportunity when he saw one, so in 1967 he opened what would become Boston’s premiere rock club, the Boston Tea Party. Riepen soon passed on the chore of managing the venue, first to Steve Nelson (these days, president of the Music Museum of New England), and then to Don Law (these days, master of the Boston concert universe). Freed of worrying about the Tea Party day-to-day, Riepen turned his sights to radio, after reading that an FM station in San Francisco was having moderate success playing rock music. If it could happen in San Francisco, he figured, it could happen in Boston. After all, as he’s quoted in Radio Free Boston, “There were 84,000 students here and they were all starting to smoke dope. They were obviously hipper than the assholes running broadcasting in America.”
  Indeed. Riepen began looking for an FM station that was already in operation but could use some new listeners (i.e., one that had nothing to lose), which led him to WBCN. The rest, as they say, is history. At 10 p.m. on March 15, 1968, the classical music stopped, and “Mississippi Harold Wilson” (real name Joe Rogers) dropped the needle on “Nasal Retentive Calliope Music” by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, leaving it on just long enough to make clear to everyone listening that for the next seven hours, something very different would be happening over at WBCN. Next up was Cream’s “I Feel Free,” and a whole night full of the latest in ’60s rock and roll. At 5 the next morning, right on schedule, the classical music returned, but by May of ’68, Riepen and his salespeople had done such a good job securing advertising dollars for the overnight hours that Mitch Hastings and the station’s board of directors turned the controls over to the rock and rollers full-time. “The American Revolution,” as the station referred to itself, had begun. Roll over Beethoven.
  All of this, not to mention the whole first half-decade or so of ‘BCN’s existence, is of course entertaining stuff and exactly as revolutionary as the station itself claimed, but it’s also already well established (and the subject of an upcoming documentary by former station intern turned on-air talent Bill Lichtenstein). It’s everything that comes next in the story that makes Radio Free Boston such a fascinating read, as we see the station change (often begrudgingly) with the times. Some of these changes are good (the introduction of punk to the playlists), some of them not so good (both the morning AND afternoon shifts taken up by “shock jock”-style talk shows in the first years of the twenty-first century). Along the way, there are heroes (Charles Laquidara), villains (Opie and Anthony), and genuinely decent music fans who are often forced to make decisions they don’t like for purely business reasons (Oedipus).

  One of WBCN’s heroes — Charles Laquidara.
  I found myself most interested by the fact that so many of the changes that took place at WBCN made absolute sense to me, even if I had an aesthetic beef with them. For example, in the earliest years of the station, the DJs could literally play whatever they wanted, and they often did. The results could be thrilling, and a much needed respite from the predictability of Top 40 radio. Or, as Alan is more than willing to acknowledge, they could be completely self-indulgent. That’s why when WCOZ came along in the ’70s there were stretches when they wiped the floor with ‘BCN in the ratings. It’s not that ‘COZ had more musical knowledge or better taste. Actually, they had less musical knowledge and worse taste! But they knew what most people wanted to hear, and it wasn’t a long forgotten B-side by a band that was too out there to be really enjoyed by the masses anyway. This may be troubling to a music geek like me, and it’s easy to blame “the suits” for reining in the DJs, but that was and still is the reality of the market.
  At times, WBCN did go too far to chase ratings (playing the aforementioned Limp Bizkit and co., for example), but it’s still true that the freedom to play whatever the hell you want must be used wisely, or you’ll be the only one actually listening. Ultimately, ‘COZ went off the air decades before ‘BCN did, but not before the former caused the latter to make some very real changes to their approach. This story would repeat itself over the years with WZLX and WAAF (and to a lesser extent WFNX, my all-time favorite Boston radio station, if only by default) playing the role of scrappy upstart out to steal ‘BCN’s listeners.
  When the end finally came, in August 2009, WBCN wasn’t really WBCN anymore anyway. It was the end of an era, but it was more than time to turn out the lights. In a confusing transaction that Alan doesn’t even attempt to explain the minutiae of (I don’t blame him), WBCN, “The Rock of Boston,” turned into WBZ-FM, “The Sports Hub” (that ‘BCN was on 104.1 FM and WBZ on 98.5 FM isn’t worth exploring here). Ironically, the “Sports Hub” has been the biggest success story in Boston radio of the past few years, first nipping at the heels of the long entrenched local sports radio powerhouse WEEI, and then finally overtaking them in the ratings. As a result, WEEI has had shake-up after shake-up to stay competitive. As a loyal “Sports Hub” listener, I love it. But after reading Radio Free Boston, there’s a tiny part of me that feels bad for WEEI. They were trendsetters after all. They invented the sports radio market in Boston, paving the way for 98.5 to march in and trounce them. Then again, that’s radio. Change with the times, or get out of the way.

  Adam Ellsworth is a writer, journalist, and amateur professional rock and roll historian. His writing on rock music has appeared on YNE Magazine, KevChino.com, Online Music Reviews, and Metronome Review. His non-rock writing has appeared in the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, on Wakefield Patch, and elsewhere. Adam has a MS in Journalism from Boston University and a BA in Literature from American University. He grew up in Western Massachusetts, and currently lives with his wife in a suburb of Boston. You can follow Adam on Twitter @adamlz24.

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