On December 28, 1998, my co-host Dana Bonn and I arrived at Westcott Community Center in Syracuse, ascended the stairs, and made our way to a tiny little radio studio tucked away in the corner. Calling it "humble" makes it seem more palatial than it is. Dana had been there before, and I think I had been there, too.
But this was the first visit that counted. After years of effort, our mutant collective Syracuse Community Radio had finally succeeded in getting on the air. WXXE-FM had just begun broadcasting within the past day or two. When we got to the studio that Sunday night, DJ Eric Strattman was nearing the end of his first show (Unsupervised, I Hit My Head), and announcing on-air that listeners should stay tuned for the debut of Dana & Carl on The Kids Are Alright!
We politely corrected him. We'd planned to use my 45 of The Pleasers' cover of The Who's power pop classic "The Kids Are Alright" as our opening title theme--It's Sunday night, and the kids are alright!- but Dana informed me on the way in that the studio's turntable wasn't working yet. So we defaulted to another title. At 9:00 pm Eastern on December 28, 1998, WXXE-FM gave the world the first edition of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl.
Dana and I had already developed (if that's the word) a format over the preceding seven years or so, beginning with a show called We're Your Friends For Now from January to June of 1992, and continuing with various similar (albeit short-term) ventures through the years that tumbled after. This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio was a continuation of that, and it has somehow endured over the course of 19 years and 903 shows (plus a few special editions). We outlived WXXE, as that weak signal proved ineffectual in actually, y'know, allowing people to tune in and hear us. We outlived our first webcast operation, scuttled as too costly at the beginning of 2007, and replaced it through the will of our listeners (and a few thousand dollars in listener donations) with the independent Westcott Radio. And recently, we returned to the airwaves stronger than ever, with the launch of The Spark WSPJ-LP 103.3 and 93.7 FM. The webcast is the same, but it's migrated to a link within Spark's page at sparksyracuse.org.
People in Syracuse can hear us now. I can tune in at home, and I can listen to Spark in the car, cruisin' down the highway to the sounds of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Everyone's Invited with Mark Hughson, Play I Some Music with Papa Andy, The Record Farm with Mike Adams, Old Time Tunes with Darlin' Clementine, and Hit 'n' Mix with Larry Hoyt. It's a vast improvement over the ol' WXXE days, when The Double X's wimpy widdle whisper was heard primary by (presumably) disinterested cows loafin' near our transmitter in rural Fenner, NY.
Much has changed in 19 years, but much has not. We're still in the same cramped excuse for a studio. We're still doing what amounts to a slight weekly variation on the same damned show. We're still there Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern. And we're still The Best Three Hours Of Radio On The Whole Friggin' Planet.
This Sunday night, New Year's Eve, we're going to try to close out 2017 with a celebration of some of the year's best music, a celebration of our own essential 2017 compilation CD This Is Rock 'n' Roll Raduio, Volume 4, a celebration of a few milestone anniversaries that occurred in 2017, and a celebration of the work of some of the cherished performers we lost in 2017. That latter sad category includes the late, great Pat DiNizio, and we'll salute his life with lots of great stuff from this week's Featured Act, The Smithereens.
19 years. It has been a lot of fun. Year # 20 starts Sunday.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl, Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse on The Spark WSPJ-LP 103.3 and 93.7, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/
Spark Syracuse is supported by listeners like you. Tax-deductible donations are welcome at http://sparksyracuse.org/support/
You can follow Carl's daily blog Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) at
https://carlcafarelli.blogspot.com/
Our new compilation CD This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4 is now available from Kool Kat Musik! 29 tracks of irresistible rockin' pop, starring Pop Co-Op, Ray Paul, Circe Link & Christian Nesmith, Vegas With Randolph Featuring Lannie Flowers, The Slapbacks, P. Hux, Irene Peña, Michael Oliver & the Sacred Band Featuring Dave Merritt, The Rubinoos, Stepford Knives, The Grip Weeds, Popdudes, Ronnie Dark, The Flashcubes, Chris von Sneidern, The Bottle Kids, 1.4.5., The Smithereens, Paul Collins' Beat, The Hit Squad, The Rulers, The Legal Matters, Maura & the Bright Lights, Lisa Mychols, and Mr. Encrypto & the Cyphers. You gotta have it, so order it here.
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