On Racist College Radio Playlists, 1981
Wrote this for my college newspaper (the weekly extracurricular not daily Journalism School one) about University of Missouri-Columbia’s student-run radio station when I was 20. Sometime before, I’d been invited on as a guest of KCOU’s Sunday night new wave show and for some reason the host didn’t show up, so I wound up spinning Prince and Grace Jones and Grandmaster Flash songs with only an engineer there to help me, until the music director physically came down to the station and removed me from the air since dreaded “disco” wasn’t allowed. When I tried to include this piece in my fourth book, some clueless faculty administrator representing the maneater insisted on charging me $50 to reprint it (only time that’s ever happened), so I left it out. I apologize for the fuzzy appearance and even the callow tone. But I was still, obviously, right — and the music director later admitted as such (quite possibly in print as a letter the editor, I forget the specifics). I’d like to think I changed something for the better.
via facebook:
Steven Erickson
For comparison, I took a look at this week's college radio top 30: https://naccchart.com/charts/. Blood Orange is #5 and Debby Friday #24. I think they're the only Black artists on the chart, but I might be wrong. (At #1, the Beths' singer Elizabeth Stokes is half-Asian.)
via facebook, 2020:
Jaz Jacobi
I recently found a copy of this promo comic book STARRING Steve Dahl, where he battles “Discoman”!
Kenny Mostern
I’m mostly fascinated by this from the point of view of having DJed on Georgetown’s WGTU from 1984-87, immediately after this was printed. I’m not sure if the differences were more about Missouri vs. Washington DC, state schools versus private schools, or the rise of indie rock and CMJ that occurred between ’81 and ’84. What I will say is that for me the playlists provided by the station management and the CMJ were much *more* racially exclusionary than that described by Chuck Eddy here, because all-white “college rock” was more firmly and narrowly in place. There was simply no Smokey Robinson or Bob Marley at all. We were supposed to play Costello/Dury/The Clash and such, we were supposed to play music from the Chapel Hill/Athens nexus (R.E.M., Let’s Active, etc.), we were supposed to play the Replacements/Husker Du, we were supposed to play the Slash Records bands. Note this is all music that I love and has felt like “my” music in a way that nothing else ever has or will. I wasn’t complaining about it then or now. And these playlists were supposed to be roughly two thirds of our shift. On the other hand, what I played in the one third of time I wasn’t playing the current CMJ playlist (Washington DC version) was 100% up to me – so I, and maybe a quarter of the other DJs, played Grandmaster Flash and Run DMC and Prince and P-Funk right next to the other stuff and got no flack for it, while the other 75% of the DJs didn’t. And of course there was a token black show, probably even two, where the DJs played go-go and whatever else they wanted to play with no outside interference. Overall, I’m suggesting that in my experience the racism was stronger and more reified – the categories had congealed harder and were snobbier – at the same time that indie rock ideology left more independence for individual DJs to do what they wanted without the station manager rushing down to the station to stop us.
Peter Stenhouse
Not many black artists got played on Boston rock radio back then, even on anything-goes WBCN. I remember hearing “A Real Mother for Ya” by Johnny “Guitar” Watson a lot. Later, “Mama Used to Say” by Junior. Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. Not much else.
Sara Quell
Significance of this man can’t be overestimated. “Ghostbusters” was like “‘Suspicious Minds”-era” for me, and pretty much everyone I knew who had good enough taste for me to know them https://www.thelastmiles.com/interviews-ray-parker-jr/
Chuck Eddy
Author
“The Other Woman” should have been a *huge* AOR hit. It’s like the best Bad Company song of the ’80s.
Sara Quell
Believe me, where I’m from it was bigger than every Bad Company song combined. Everybody Knows That Was Nowhere but it’s amazing what invisible-market stations could get away with in the early 80s
Sara Quell
Just cued it up and Prousting the fuck out. Awww shuxx
Sara Quell
I love how the singing is so laid back he makes Snoop Dogg sound like Henry Rollins’ coffee buyer. Amazingly awesome classic
Chris Kelly
Awesome, thanks. NC State’s radio station WKNC played only the harshest metal during the 80’s and 90’s. After years of protest they finally started playing rap one night a week after 9pm. Today they sound like most college radio stations, interesting but a bit boring.