DESCRIPTION
It’s taken our longtime Contributor J.R. Russ quite a while to gather his latest aircheck contributions, but this time straight from his personal collection of tapes from several decades in radio, he’s given us a group of 20 newly-digitized gems… so we can all hear what radio was like in some of the more unique corners of the broadcast universe!
DESCRIPTION BY CONTRIBUTOR
The career of J.R. Russ to that point including WZGO-FM and before that WWSH-FM Philadelphia after an imaging change. J.R. Likes to say he worked on the 106.1 frequency “Seven formats and TEN sets of call letters ago” in 1984-85, Also heard is WECK-AM Buffalo in both its Adult Standards incarnation where he was promoted to P.D./Afternoons from nights on a “Rockin’ Oldies” format that was known as “The Roll that Rocks” referencing the famous Buffalo sandwich Roast Beef on WECK (Kimmulweck or Kummelweck-Kaiser roll). SANDWICHED between the two station incarnations is an A/C aicheck from Nearby WBTF-FM in Attica, NY. (Yes, J.R. did time in Attica). All are from 1980-1983.
TECHNICAL
This recording is of decent quality. Russ says his contributions this time around were digitized from cassette tapes, and knowing that cassettes were not exactly broadcast tools in ANY decade outside of use in aircheck skimmer machines, stations usually had a few spare tapes laying around… either the PD had old ones from jock demos they didn’t use or some religious program came in on them or some other cheap tape. That is, unless the jock himself bought high quality tape for his own shows in the skimmer machine. Either way, this is full of dubs from a few stations as he describes and out of the production room… especially the second half where it’s mainly commercial stuff. There’s really no discernable tape hiss, however the high end is lacking on some of the dubs (dubbed from old ‘carts’, perhaps). You be the judge. However, this is perfectly listenable, and we think you’ll truly enjoy the creative genius that J.R. Russ is in this sample of work done from 1985!
LISTENING OPTIONS
Click the player below for an audio-only listen to this aircheck.
