Last month, I went with a really awful-looking color scheme (or theme) based upon WMUR’s T-shirts (WMUR as in Marquette University, not the TV station in New Hampshire). Even 20 years ago, that combination wasn’t “in” but it was Mike “Bax” Baxendale’s design. His baseball jerseys with just red and white the following Spring went over with less complaining.
November or December 1987 was a memorable time for me with the radio station. Around then I was named the new Promotions Director under the newly designated General Manager John Bryson. I had already joined up immediately the year before as a freshman to get a show. Through WMUR I met my future roommate Chris Dotts because we were made interns under the same guy for his 4-7 PM Thursday shift. I also ran into Sheila Guinto during the initial orientation; she graduated from Clear Creek in League City, TX; one of the five high schools I attended. When I was a Freshman, I only focused on doing the show with Chris (he was my co-host for two more semesters). With my sophomore year I became more involved in the non-music elements of the station, namely promotions and production. I really liked music yet I didn’t know as much as I thought and if you weren’t a pretentious alterna-dickweed friend of David Breen (the current Music Director), your opinion never mattered.
I remember some encouragement from the outgoing GM Mike “Wookie” Wukitsch. He said he thought he knew the Alternative format growing up in Chicago thanks to WXRT: they played XTC and the Police. Then all the smaller labels and obscure bands widened his horizons. I felt I had received a similar opportunity over my Summer in Philly by listening to tapes of old shows, looking up more material by the bands we played (how the Internet would’ve helped) and getting a good sample of Philadelphia’s personality through its radio stations. I could’ve picked up more if I had the smarts to remember to record MTV’s 120 Minutes while it was still good.
When I came back sophomore year, things were looking up. I made friends with station’s current Production Director John Bryson (the guy who’d become GM) so he was receptive to my numerous ideas for station IDs, promos, etc. It also helped that he shared my dislike of the Music Director. Those first couple of weeks were great. John led a handful of us into cranking out over a dozen station IDs which rocked since there had been practically none before. I still have a cassette of them I want to one day digitize to share. They’re pretty amateurish yet they’re slick for the subpar equipment Marquette gave us for the amount of tuition we paid. It didn’t matter in the bigger scheme of things, the station was a three-watt carrier current operation: means it could only be heard in the dorms near campus, on a good day.
As the semester progressed, we noticed how the promotions department languished. I think it was run by another person Mike Wukitsch thought would work out. Meanwhile, another DJ named John Rubelli scored a station ID from Gene Loves Jezebel when they played at UWM. It made me wonder, why wasn’t anyone else from the station pursuing this? I got my chance when Emo Philips, Rita Rudner and Larry Bud Melman came to Marquette for their stand-up tour. Through a bit of investigating, asking politely (uncharacteristic of me then) and being tenacious, I managed to have Emo’s people arrange a recorded interview with Mike Baxendale (an aspiring comedian) and permission to go back stage for the show to record station IDs from the other performers. I was amazed how relatively easy it was to coordinate when you find the right people. I also thank the great advice I received from Dr. Havice later on: when interviewing them, don’t fawn or gush, treat them like a peer.
My position as the new Promotions Director was later announced at the annual WMUR banquet and despite Chris dropping out of school from a nervous breakdown, matters in my life were going pretty well. I took a more aggressive stance on pursuing ticket giveaways to every decent show coming to Milwaukee. A pretty difficult feat in the Cradle of Classic Rock or the Land Where Led Zeppelin Never Broke Up. I developed a working relationship with a guy named Tony Selig from Stardate, the most honest of the three concert promoters, and Peter Jest of ACG, the most temperamental one. I made sure there were posters promoting WMUR’s involvement placed in the dorms. I tried getting station IDs from the acts we played or plugged. Lastly, I had a new show with Sheila on Monday evenings. By then, we both had polished our on-air skills so we were one of the better blocks. Compared to the others, we were slick. In the real world…we probably needed much more work. I am proud that when we did talk between songs, we had something to say and weren’t in love with our voices (*cough!* Rush Limbaugh). Outside of the mandatory public-service announcements, we would do wordplay jokes or gags involving sound effects (the record-stealing engineer installed a CD player over the holiday break). Sheila came up with at least half of our jokes including my personal favorite: interrupting the New Order song “Bizarre Love Triangle” at the same point in the video to recite an argument over reincarnation.
It was one of my happier memories of Marquette. Unfortunately, the volatility of people in their teens and early twenties led to infighting. I’ll keep it brief, I wound up quitting some time around September 1988 to be an intern at WQFM. Looking back, I blame myself for a good chunk of it but I don’t regret being disillusioned with radio. Thanks to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, over 10,000 jobs in that field/business have been lost as Clear Channel, Emmis, Viacom and other Media Baronies gobbled up stations faster than cocaine at a Lindsay Lohan party. I only feel bad over the loss of being friends with John Bryson, we had more in common than either of us probably knew then. Before I left under a cloud, I did get WMUR back on the mailing lists of the all the major music labels which were not sending records. I always remembered hearing people in the Spring of 1987 complaining about why WMUR didn’t have the new U2, Cure or 10,000 Maniacs? David’s rote response was, Island and Elektra never sends stuff, thus, the station isn’t going to buy a copy to put those artists into rotation. I think he just wanted to open up space for the horrendous noisy, elitist crap he liked. By taking the same approach I did with promotions, I spent the Summer of 1988 investigating who to talk to with Island, Elektra, Asylum, and so forth. When school resumed, the station received albums from all the major labels, proving David to be either lazy or a liar. Probably both which made him the ideal candidate for graduate school: as they say, those who don’t know anything, teach.
Jose convinced me to do a show with him in the Spring of 1989. He probably did some begging of the next GM, Sandy Patyk, to let me be on after all the bridges I burned. Our Sunday-morning block was only fair in my opinion. Jose had gallons of enthusiasm and I the experience through my internship; I had access to WQFM’s superior production studio for promos, effects and gags. It just wasn’t the same. I don’t think our show gelled adequately due to my ego, his unbridled energy and all the open wounds. It’s also hard to work with inferior equipment after being spoiled with access to a commercial station’s gear. I bailed on Jose by April and he went on to have his own gig until he graduated. He did let me on his show before I graduated to do a Sheila-esque gag that fell flat with him. Either he didn’t like it or he was caught off guard by it.
On occasion, I check out MUR through the Internet (they’re not allowed to use the W or the FCC has to be paid). It’s still the same which isn’t a bad thing. College and high school radio are supposed to be raw, rough and unpolished. No one learns a thing from being perfect. I did ask Jose’s brother Hernan about the station during Jose’s recent wedding. He told me about the changes, namely it being streamed over the Internet and cable TV. When I was there, broadcasting via cable was unthinkable to the administration, namely the Jesuits, because they feared a student would say something inappropriate or for some other control-freak reason. I guess Marquette finally joined the late Twentieth Century while Hernan attended. That or they gave up their foolish crusade against the cable company; it’s rather hard to defeat a city-granted monopoly.
WMUR was a great, exhausting and painful time. It’s a good thing I didn’t know ahead of time that it would turn into learning experience on numerous levels, namely the monarchical nature of the Jesuits and the University. If my 19-year-old self were told ahead of time, I probably would’ve bailed earlier to change majors like my parents wanted.
