A Companion Unobtrusive: Spirit of Radio by Rush

There’s something about hearing a song for the first time at the right time. It can make you a fan of a band about whom you weren’t sure. It takes the right person and the right moment to open the flood gates.

The person: Turner Watson

The band: Rush

The song: Spirit of Radio

Turner and I went to college together and worked at the college station. Turner, a huge Rush fan, was talking up their latest album (at the time, and boy am I dating myself!), Roll the Bones. I regarded this input the same way all guys react when their buddy is trying to set them up with a girl who has a “really nice personality”. All I knew about Rush was that they were Canadian, sang Tom Sawyer, and Geddy Lee was the vocalist on the Mackenzie Brother’s “hit single” “Take Off”. So I didn’t give Rush a fair shake until I was out of college and working with Turner at WGBF.

As with most of my stories, this one starts off with the line, “So there’s this girl…” She worked in our building, and we were sorta dating. On the night that she told me that she was getting back together with her ex, I instinctively went to the radio station. When I told Turner what happened, he took me outside and gave me a half full two-liter.

“I want you to throw this in defiance of all the girls who have wronged the both of us (even at that time, we both had already accumulated an impressive list). Watching the bottle explode on impact made me feel a little better, but I knew that this childish act of misplaced anger wasn’t the long term solution.

We went back inside and sat in the studio. The next song that was scheduled was “Spirit of Radio”. Turner turned up the music, and it all hit me; the music, the lyrics. I don’t know how it happened, but I instantly found myself being absorbed into the music. That night, I became a Rush fan and I became totally devoted to my chosen field.

Even as I started to explore their catalogue and absorbed more of their music, I still kept going back to Spirit, for many reasons.

Spirit of Radio is the most balanced song in their repertoire. Alex’s guitar riff at the beginning, Neil’s drums, and Geddy’s vocals meshed together in a perfect blend. It’s not a Neil song, or a Geddy song…it’s a Rush song.

But I must confess that the real reason it’s my favorite is that I lived that life.

All this machinery making modern music
Can still be open-hearted.
Not so coldly charted
It's really just a question of your honesty, yeah,
Your honesty.
One likes to believe in the freedom of music,
But glittering prizes and endless compromises
Shatter the illusion of integrity.

As Hunter S. Thompson once wrote, “The radio business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." Everything in music oriented radio is measured by charting and has lost its credibility. It’s slow to adapt to its new competition, the iPod. It’s so dysfunctional, I could write a book about it…oh, wait…

People in charge make very stupid decisions, sales people have weaseled their way into the programming side, the on-air talents are treated like seamstresses in a sweatshop, and I miss it every day of my life.

It’s unknown if I will ever get back on the air. I’d love to do it, but there are many things that I would have to consider (lower wages, going to work knowing that it could be my last day with a job).

I still believe in the freedom of music.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: There is a one night showing of the documentary Rush, Beyond the Lighted Stage at the Riverview Theater in Minneapolis at 9.

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I Heard the News Today, Oh Boy – WOXY Off the Air

Just days after SXSW ended in Austin, the radio station that aired a lot of the bands who got their start at that music festival signed off. WOXY was generally regarded as the first commercially viable alternative station, and the first “X” on the air. Its origins started, in all places, Oxford, Ohio—home of the Miami University (Ohio). “The Future of Rock N Roll” signed on 97.7 FM in September 1983, the first song being U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday”.

The station would go on to great success, commercially and critically. The station got a shout out in Rain Man, and received multiple national media awards. It was one of the first commercial stations to play a Seattle based band named Nirvana.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise that WOXY woud be one of the first stations to branch out on the internet. The live stream launched in 1998. The website got hits from around the world and, and message boards quickly grew making WOXY.com the first online music community.

When the owners of the station, Doug and Linda Balogh, decided to retire and sell the station, they refused to sell the music collection and the station image to the new owners. Instead WOXY.com would continue to broadcast with the current staff running the operation.

Like most online only radio stations, WOXY.com struggled to stay on the air. It briefly signed off, only to be resurrected by Lala.com in 2006. The station was sold again last year when Future Sounds Inc. purchased it from Lala. The station moved operations later that year to Austin, TX, which has now become the capital of independent music.

At 9:13 CDT, WOXY ceased operation. It was 27. Hopefully someone will step in and revive the station, but the future doesn’t look good.

As for me, I will always remember a job interview I had at WOXY. Obviously, I didn’t get the job, but I got to meet the owners, and had the chance to snoop around the station. The studio was an awe inspiring Valhalla of music. Even in 2000 (while other radio stations were installing automated computer systems with mp3s of songs), WOXY had a turntable and a huge collection of vinyl stacked on shelves. On that day, I learned that the station had almost 10,000 songs in active rotation. WOXY was the inspiration for Erik Randal’s “The Plan” in my book Radio Radio. I continued to listen to that station. It’s where I first became acquainted with Black 47 (which “Funky Ceili” on Anthology 6 references my tour of 97X), the Decembrists, and the Fratellis.