We're looking for you stories about WCSB. Tell us about your fondest WCSB memories.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2006 05:54PM by admin.

WCSB's executive staff is currently putting together our 30th anniversary Program Guide. We took a close look at our archived program guides from earlier years, done in a variety of styles and layouts. Some of our favorites were the cut and paste, do-it-yourself program guides, and many included comments from listeners, record reviews by DJs, and advertisements for local businesses that support WCSB.

Send us your stories, memories and comments, and you earn the chance to be included in this year's 30th anniversary Program Guide. Post them here, or send to anniversary@wcsb.org.

Remember the program guide where Tim Ski gave step by step instructions on how to brew beer?!

When Steve Wainstead lived at WCSB, the station had a certain, peculiar odor to it that permeated the whole 9th floor, you didn't need your eyes to know what floor you were on. In some freakish way, I kinda miss it.

Back in 1996, a certain 'CSB deejay began receiving obscene phone-calls during her show -- and she thought it was ME! I was appalled to say the least, especially considering that she knew I knew she was a married woman. Other staffers managed to entrap the guy and he was brought to justice, but it was sad that she would assume that a loyal fan would act so inappropriately. Still, I am more than happy to know that that misunderstanding is over, and that since that time I am more than glad to know I have and will continue to have nothing but sincere and trustworthy friendship from your wonderful radio station, and may I always prove a sincere and trustworthy friend to all of you.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2006 09:17AM by baronightwolf.

This was back in 1999. There were two young DJs,I don't think I ever knew their names, and they perpetrated a horrible hoax on the most loyal listeners...they kept broadcasting that the station was being sold or taken over by some dudes from Texas, and at first I thought it was a joke, but over time I was fooled into believing this. I remember that they gave a specific date and said that as of midnight WCSB would be going into a more "standard" format because of the ownership change. It so happened that I was recording an album with a friend at Don Depew's 609 studio that night, and as I drove home after midnight I turned on the station to verify this, and indeed there was some very crappy music playing. My heart sunk. I didn't listen to the station for like three days but then decided I had to check again, and thankfully the hoax was over and there was good music and happiness in the kingdom again forever and ever.

I remember that hoax, Slull. If memory serves, it was the first appearance of the Scruggscorp characters on WCSB. I'm pretty sure that Keith Newman was involved.

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"This is No Money Mark. Why are you listening to WCSB Cleveland?"

It may surprise some people, but I don't really have interesting, snorting-coke-off-of-hookers'-netherregions-type stories about WCSB.

I think that the one story that I tell the most is about how in May 2003, near the anniversary of the Kent State shootings, Steve's Folk was having Alan Canfora, one of the students who was shot, on his show (right after mine) on Thursday morning. On my show, I played the Dandy Warhols' version of "Ohio" because I liked to try to mention the anniversary ever year. When Alan Canfora came in, he actually asked about that version of "Ohio" and said it was the coolest he ever heard and asked for a copy of it. That's a hell of an endorsement to get for your version of "Ohio"--from one of the students who was shot.

It's kind of funny to me now because of what the Dandy Warhols would become after that era when they did "Ohio" (that was the "Tales from Urban Bohemia" era). Yuck!

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Sergio Van Lukenstein's Unjustified Power Trip...
THE BEST POP MUSIC IN CLEVELAND!!!
Tuesday 9-11 a.m.

My fondest memories of WCSB are of the listeners. They were and still are a dedicated bunch, very supportive of our formats and DJs. At times they brought albums up for me to play that WCSB did not have, one guy even wrote to independent labels, got their records, and made compilation tapes for me (thanks Spot)! To this day former listeners that I run into make a point of telling me how much they enjoyed listening to my program (Millions of Dead Chickenheads, 83-91). Lots of them were in high school back then and stayed up late friday nights after Joe Mack. It really blows my mind how nice and appreciative the listeners are, I always tell them I was very glad to be of service. Some of my listeners have gone on to greater things and I am so proud of them (ex. Derek Hess - artist; Robert Banks - filmmaker). It is great to know that creative people found some pleasure and inspiration from my show and others at WCSB. The local bands we played back then were also very appreciative of us playing their material. I plan to spotlight the local hardcore bands in Clevo we saw every week down at the Pop Shop and Lakefront during my guest DJ stint during Eric M's show Into the Void, 7 - 9 pm on Wed Sept 20th of Retro Week. The Dark, Agitated, Guns, Plague, Numbskull, Knifedance, Offbeats, Spike in Vain, ODFX, Civilian Terrorists - a lot have new CDs of vintage 80s recordings, never pressed or released due to $$, now they are coming out. Some have new recordings as well so I will be sampling them and also lots of the familiar tunes from the MDC days in the metal and underground roots vein. Thanks to the WCSB staff for putting this anniversary celebration together and allowing us to do guest DJ shows - you guys are pure class, we found that out during the 2003 Retro Week!!!

Here's another tale, and it's quite sweet. Back in 1991, my fave musical programme on 'CSB was 'JELLO WITH MARSHMALLOWS', with Laura Filipkowski. I had requested a song by an obscure British group called Sad Lovers And Giants one day, and Laura let me know that a lot of people had subsequently called her in regards to the band and its music. Neither Laura nor I had any info on them, and the station had only a couple of the band's EPs at the time -- and these did not feature any enlightening liner-notes. So not long after I went over to the old Record Exchange/Stiff Records on Coventry, and managed to acquire a copy of what was apparently the band's only full-length release: a comp LP called IN THE BREEZE. I took that album home, put it on, and promptly fell in love! God, I must have played that album a hundred times that month! The liner-notes featured a partial history and complete discography of the band, as well as a fair photoimage of them. I made a photocopy of the notes and forwarded them to Laura. Ah, but then I thought -- considering how much I loved this LP -- that I should donate it to the station. And I did. Inta Ievins often played the tracks "Echoplay" and "Imagination" on her show, and the latter song is still occasionally heard even now. What's interesting is that the band had already split up by 1983, and yet college radio has been able years later to actually get them fans, albeit "posthumously". This demonstrates the true power of college radio: no artist is out of date here and any artist can get a second chance ( or even an ONLY chance) through college radio. I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/14/2006 09:21AM by baronightwolf.

sleepy gee Wrote:
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> When Steve Wainstead lived at WCSB, the station
> had a certain, peculiar odor to it that permeated
> the whole 9th floor, you didn't need your eyes to
> know what floor you were on. In some freakish
> way, I kinda miss it.

Don't just hang that on Wainstead. We all smelled bad.

I've always believed it was the cork that lined the walls of the production studio, main air, and what was the old newsroom. I would go home and it would be remarked that I 'smelled like the station'. Truly, the last time I was at WCSB (Oct '02), I could smell the cork from the 9th floor elevators.

I've always been told that the smell is from the cork, especially when it has been musty outside. However, certain dj's (from the recent past) had a personal odor to them, and of course, certain dj's have/had an odor to their shows.....LOL kind of like "The Ladies' Man," except it might not always been mood incense. Myself, I guess I don't help, because I work a full sweaty shift prior to coming up, and CSU is too cheap to air condition or put in operating windows, which makes a big difference if you're doing 5 hours, weekend overnights in the summer.

Hmm. Here's another tale from around 2001 or possibly 2002. Lawrence Caswell (did I get -- let alone spell -- your name right?) was doing his show 'THE FOURTH WALL', and the subject was "bug movies". Well, you know me. When the conversation turned to a Dario Argento movie known in America as "Creepers", I got out my PSYCHOTRONIC VIDEO GUIDE and phoned in with details concerning the flick. I also told him and his partner about William Castle's final film "Bug", and mentioned a number of other bug-films (probably including "Them"), and then reminded them of the ultimate movie-bug: MOTHRA! I even managed -- don't ask me how -- to sing a snatch of the Mothra theme-song IN THE PROPER KEY! My voice doesn't actually go high enough to match the vocals of those two 12-inch-high "Mothra priestesses", but somehow it did at that time! How about that?! And as always: HARK TO THE BRILLIANCE IN THE DARK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/2006 09:16AM by baronightwolf.

"Moth-er-ah!" If anyone cares to check it out, there should be a copy of Frank Chickens' LP,
"Get Chickenized" in the stacks, stickered as being donated by Emi and Yumi Ito, who played The Peanuts, the girls who sang to Mothra. My pick to click from that album was "Island Inside Island."

There were so many moments of just total asshole-dumb.
for instance :

Kole and I closing out the push bins but actually too lazy to put all the new CDs away, so we just stacked them up in the corner and duct taped the Bill Kennedy drawers shut.

Getting Huggy Bear to play a set on FAGGOT: A Small Bundle of Sticks in the staff lounge.

All the theft of equipment that summer when Vaigl was acting GM when Kennedy was chasing the ponies.

Wendell handing out Ho-Hos whenever anyone on Executive Staff tried to get him to do something for his stipend.

Kole faking his own assignation on the air.

The year I actually LOST money during a radiothon on SMOKING SPIFFS WITH SATAN show.

John Brakeman's prom picture which I took out of some folder he left in the station. Mentioning it on the air and then having him staring me down in the middle of the studio area during Xtina's radiothon show. Lou, Cellura, and Vaigl were all there, pissing their pants in laughter.

Joe Sweeny coming to NYC when I lived there. We drank for nearly 12 hours straight that one day. It was the most horribly brilliant fucked-up I have ever been.

That long night I spent at kinkos laying out the fold out CUTNPASTE program grid guide the night/morning it went to the printer's.

Bill Kennedy's mustard sandwiches.

Fighting in Executive Staff meetings about whether or not we should build new shelves for the CDs. Trying to get more people to play older vinyl on the air. Towing the good line against the corporatization of underground music.

The show Kole and I did the night after Kurt Cobain killed himself. The show I did after GG died. The whole show where I played nothing but station id carts, the weekend before we added the disc machine thingy.

Trying to stop wainsted from putting the station's broadcast feed on the "internet."

etc. et. al.

I would like to officially and heartily apologize to anyone who's feelings I might have hurt.

Kole faking his own assignation on the air.
???????????????????????????????????????

Assignation = an appointment to meet with a lover, especially secretly OR the act of giving somebody a particular job or designating something for a particular use

God bless (although he probabaly won't) the Rev. John Xerxes Piche (and he probabaly doesn't care)!

My first time up at WCSB was in a cattle call of prospective apprentices. There must have been at least 25 of us cramming the hallway between main air and the exit. We were each brought in front of the Executive Staff, one at a time in the Listening Room. When my turn finally arrived I went in and was met by Program Director Wendell Claytor, Business Director Nancy Tinta, Promotions Director X-Tina White, General Manager Bill Kenedy and Music Director the Rev. John Xerxes Piche.

Bill asked me what I wanted to do with my air time. I wasn't entirely sure but I knew I wanted to play a mixture of Punk, Surf and Classical. I also really wanted to do something involving radio theater (I was a big fan of Brainrot), perhaps doing something from or inspired by the Illuminatus trilogy (by Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson). When they asked me if I had any questions, I responded that I wanted to know what type of equipment the station had that could help me in such an endeavour.

Bill brought up a pending purchse of the DR-4 Digital Editing system (which didn't come through until a year and a half later) and then started taking about a radio theater project he wanted to do.

Piche burst out "Yeah right Bill, like your going to ever do that Bill!"

He then unzipped his fly stuck a microphone in his pants and started convulsing in some sort of mock orgasmic frenzy.

His gyrations grew more lewd as he yelled "Tell me more Bill, tell me more Bill, give it to me Bill!"

I had no idea how to react to this. I wasn't sure how the power structure worked at WCSB or what it took to be brought in as an apprentice. What I saw before me was fucking hillarious but pointing and laughing didn't seem to be a good political move. I wish I could say I came up with something witty. I wish I could say that I had a microphone I could have stuck down my pants and then joined in with RJXP"S chorus of "Tell me more Bill, give it to me Bill!"

Honestly though, I just sat there somewhat bewildered wondering what the hell to do. Thankfully the meeting ended and they brought in the next victim.

God Bless RJXP!!!

Scruggscorp Syndicated Radio
Sunday Nights, Midnight- 2 AM

Assassination.

I grew bored of doing a straight rock show ("propaganda") and was looking for the escape hatch, but I didn't want to give up broadcasting entirely. I was getting into the kook scene- UFO sightings, extremist politics, perversion, JKF conspirators, etc- and wanted to start incorporating that, but I didn't know how to break with the past and move on. The JFK folks gave me my cue. Get killed on the air.

I didn't want to use a canned gunshot from the BBC sound effects library, but I wanted something that would sound fairly real. I used a light bulb. I put in a small box. I put a microphone above the box. I punched the light bulb. I tripped and knocked over the steel chair, which I thought sounded pretty good given what I was trying to accomplish. I put on a Guided By Voices record and let it play out to the end, skipping for about 15 minutes at the end.

Getting Piche to join the show pretty much killed off what ever carry-over audience there was from Propaganda.

Did you know the Tinklers LP on Shimmy Disc is fetching $50 on ebay? Now that's asshole stoopid!

My favorite asshole-dumb Piche stories...

John abstaining from every vote possible.

Asking for the minutes of a General Staff Meeting to reflect that at a particular moment, he was happy.

Sticking those "suck my cunt" stickers all over campus. That brought warm smiles.

Throwing paper clips in Bill Kennedy's wastebasket just to get Bill ranting and raving, "These can be re-used!"

John and I doing alternate readings. I would do a paragraph of Marquis de Sade's "Justine" and John would read Milne's "Whinnie the Pooh". RJxP's voice just demanded that he took on the role of Pooh.

John's call for the CSU Caldron to cease publication immediately, unless it went to a full-color glossy stock. Because the Vindicator called itself the newspaper of CSU's black community, John took to calling the Cauldron CSU's white people's paper. That brought warm smiles too.

John ran for student council vice president or president. Almost won, too. That would have been big fun.

He came up to me one day and declared, after years of straight edge living, that he wished to become an alcoholic. Took up smoking, too, the moron.

I don't believe his apologies for a second. Not at all.

Kole.

The night we did the anniversary of JFK shooting and interviewing all those biker dudes standing in line at the convo centre waiting to see meatloaf...and the interview with the KENNEDY WAS NEVER SHOT author. Fantastic.

Remember shooting cds out the music department office window trying to hit the student center?

Keith.

I do not remember the microphone, but it sounds like how I used to taunt Osama Bin Kennedy, the Amish radiotola. I am surprised he did not fire me, especially when I started coming to ex staff meetings plastered.

The time I tied to suspend the constitution and Luigi Bob was all like, go for it.

I remember interviewing Jimmy Wilson in the staff lounge about Supie T for a film Cellura, Elizabeth, and I were making for class called - Its about love. Robert Banks made one about Supie at the same time. Supie refused to be in ours because he thought we were too low rent for him.

I remember pissing a lot of people off.
Especially Tom Keeper and Nancy Tinta, who I dumped a whole arm load of cassettes on once when she challenged me about processing new materials. She hated me.

Remember when Sergio swore off Of Montreal because he couldn't find a parking spot at the Beachland? It was Afternoon Naps thereafter.