OUR STORY SO FAR: It's December of 2006. This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio has managed to hang on for eight years, find an audience on the internet as the radio station's music programming migrated to webcasting, release two compilation CDs, score an eensy bit of notoriety, and continue its unique quest to perform sight gags on the radio. A Syracuse New Times cover story on Dana & Carl is followed immediately by Syracuse Community Radio informing us of its decision to cease webcasting and pull the plug on TIRnRR.
We are not pleased with this.
Having just been informed that our show had less than a month left to live, Dana and I seethed our way through The Eighth Annual (and presumably final) This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio Christmas Show. We were pissed. I was especially angered that we had managed to get some much-needed publicity for the station with the New Times cover story, and it was all being tossed away. It was reminiscent of the situation back in June of 1992, when WNMA, the host of our TIRnRR predecessor We're Your Friends For Now!, similarly told us the end was nigh as we soldiered our way through a Sounds Of Summer show. But there was one key difference between the end of We're Your Friends For Now! in 1992 and the sight of the Grim Reaper's scythe descending upon in TIRnRR in 2006.
This time? Man, this time we were gonna fight back.
In fairness, I have to say that we understood the why of the SCR Board of Directors' decision to kill the webcast. Syracuse Community Radio's whole raison d'etre was and remains to establish and maintain a community radio station, and that meant getting and staying on the air, not necessarily on the internet. We still had WXXE-FM out in its remote Fenner, NY location, struggling to beam its paperweight signal to someone somewhere. WXXE's programming by then was purely a placeholder, kept on the air with a cheaper talk-radio format--prohibitive licensing costs made music programming out of the question--and continued only to retain our FCC license. That license was more valuable than the station itself, and even though its signal was virtually worthless, SCR needed to keep it going if there was ever to be any hope of advancing to something better.
Although the webcast was the only way anyone could actually hear any of SCR's original programming, it was hemorrhaging money. Something had to be done, and it had to be done quickly. The board didn't kill the webcast out of spite or pettiness; it did what it had to do for the organization to survive.
The fact that we understood and appreciated all of the above did nothing to appease our ire. It was if Joe Strummer himself whispered in our ears: Let fury have the hour, anger can be power...!
Danny Danhauser was the board member most sympathetic to our cause. If Andy Chertow was also on the board at the time--I don't remember--then he would have been on our side as well. By whatever means of negotiation and finagling, it was agreed that the programmers themselves could be allowed an opportunity to find some way to save the webcast.
"The programmers" in this example basically meant Dana & Carl. As self-aggrandizing as that statement may appear, it was also true. TIRnRR was the only show on SCR with any consistent record of bringing in donations from listeners. Our support wasn't nearly enough to keep that ship afloat by itself, but our fans had always stepped up when we asked them. And we had fans. Those fans helped SCR out of budget crunches before. It was time to call upon them again.
Within days after we received the webcast's death sentence, we sent this notice to the friends and fans of TIRnRR:
Is this the end of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio? We hope not, but things could look a lot better than they do right now.
On January 7th, Syracuse Community Radio will hold an emergency meeting to discuss whether or not to pull the plug on SCR's webcast, a project which has proven to be an enormous drain on the station's worse-than-limited resources. Currently, we have about $3600 in immediate debt, with an additional $1800 in licensing fees set to kick in on January 1st. On top of what we already owe, the webcast costs $407 a month, yet brings in only about $150 a month in contributions. This situation can not continue, and our system needs to be revamped, but right now we're asking for your help.
First, we need a lot of money, FAST. Our timing stinks--the week before Christmas may not be the best time to hit people up for donations to keep The Bay City Rollers on their media player, but we can't control that. We don't expect anyone to go into hock on our behalf, nor do we wish you to bypass donations to any of your other favorite causes. That said, we know that if someone doesn't step up, This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio is history.
We offered a promise to fans and contributors: There will be no wasting of your good money after bad. Send what you can. We won't cash a single check unless and until the webcast has a viable path forward. If we fail, we will return all of your checks immediately. If we succeed, you will have saved This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio. Period. A decision will be rendered at an emergency SCR board meeting on January 7th, 2007. Save us. Please save us.
The response was...damn, I still get choked just thinking about it. The response was amazing. They liked us. They really liked us.
News of our desperate plea spread through the internet pop community. Jeremy Morris and JAM Recordings, home of the two TIRnRR compilations CDs, stepped up with incentives to offer potential donors, and other labels and artists kicked in, too. Pop web sites talked us up. Money started to pour in. Our former SCR colleague Eric Strattman wrote us to say he envisioned something like the climactic scene of It's A Wonderful Life, with friends hauling basket after basket of cold cash into that January 7th board meeting, some equivalent of Uncle Billy proclaiming, It's a MIRACLE! Nobody asked why, all they had to hear was Dana & Carl are in trouble, and they all wanted to help!
The reality was slightly less flamboyant, but it was essentially the same. Dana and I showed up for the meeting and informed the board that we had raised thousands of dollars, and not a dime of it could go to anything other than a continued webcast. I will cherish the memory of the shocked look on the faces of the board members for as long as I dance upon this earth.
The meeting was on a Sunday. That night, Dana and I returned to the studio for the final TIRnRR under our old arrangement. We were able to announce the news our fans were aching to hear:
Eight years, brothers and sisters. Eight years, and still here.
Details remained to be finalized. Sensing that the balance of power had shifted a bit, I drew a hard line in negotiations, insisting on some parameters that would not be subject to debate. It was a divorce settlement. We would agree to pay SCR a lump sum of money in exchange for all of the studio equipment, and we would set up a new independent webcast under the auspices of the Westcott Community Center, which had been home to our cramped little studio from the beginning. Some board members wanted more money than we were willing to give, but we made it clear: This is it. Not another penny, because we were saving the rest of the money to operate our new webcast. Take it or leave it.
They took it. And Westcott Radio was born.
Our 1/7/07 show had been our year-end countdown, playing back what we played a lot over the course of the preceding twelve months. Our # 1 most-played track in 2006 was "Should Have Been Mine" by The Catholic Girls, and with that, we bid farewell to the soon-to-be defunct wxxe.org. A new incarnation awaited us. We'd been pronounced dead. But we got by with a little help from our friends.
WHEN BOPPIN' THE WHOLE FRIGGIN' PLANET RETURNS: Reach Out Of The Darkness
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Fans of pop music will want to check out Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, a new pop compilation benefiting SPARK! Syracuse, the home of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. TIR'N'RR Allstars--Steve Stoeckel, Bruce Gordon, Joel Tinnel, Stacy Carson, Eytan Mirsky, Teresa Cowles, Dan Pavelich, Irene Peña, Keith Klingensmith, and Rich Firestone--offer a fantastic new version of The Kinks' classic "Waterloo Sunset." That's supplemented by eleven more tracks (plus a hidden bonus track), including previously-unreleased gems from The Click Beetles, Eytan Mirsky, Pop Co-Op, Irene Peña, Michael Slawter (covering The Posies), and The Anderson Council (covering XTC), a new remix of "Infinite Soul" by The Grip Weeds, and familiar TIRnRR Fave Raves by Vegas With Randolph, Gretchen's Wheel, The Armoires, and Pacific Soul Ltd. Oh, and that mystery bonus track? It's exquisite. You need this. You're buying it from Futureman.
(And you can still get our 2017 compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4, on CD from Kool Kat Musik and as a download from Futureman Records.)
Hey, Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 100 essays (and then some) about 100 tracks, plus two bonus instrumentals, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1).
(And you can still get our 2017 compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4, on CD from Kool Kat Musik and as a download from Futureman Records.)
Hey, Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 100 essays (and then some) about 100 tracks, plus two bonus instrumentals, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1).
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