1974 was a VERY long time ago – in radio years it’s an eternity! Listening to Tom Birch and his SCREAMING upbeat show, one would think this is a major market station in competition with the biggest and best. But, that’s what WAXC sounded like in it’s prime!
We dug deep into the vault to pull this superb, right-off-the-skimmer tape out for presentation. It shows just how hard AM Top 40 stations tried to capture and maintain their audience of young people. Young listeners have always been radio’s life blood, even if advertisers didn’t necessarily think so. One must think Tom Birch had most of Upstate New York listening on this particular night!
WAXC has been gone for quite a while now, having gone through many format changes and even call letter changes. 1460 even used WWWG and the current WHIC call letters. No heritage with those calls, but they must mean SOMETHING? Or not.
Aircheck courtesy of longtime contributor Steve Bleecker.
*NOTE: There are NO duplications of our airchecks, unlike other sites where different versions of the same one are counted separately to inflate their numbers. 1,364 is the correct number that you can listen to right now, with no signup fee, no membership fee, and no whining about our financial condition! You may, of course, ask. Donations are welcome but not necessary.
Enjoy our content, browse our archives, and learn how radio used to sound in the days when everyone wanted to be a cool DJ!
The good old days! My predecessor in the WAXC 6-10PM slot was the vastly more-talented Greaseman! A very tough act to follow!
Well, doggone it, Tom, I sure liked it!
Tom, at 4:13, you mentioned that J Frank Wilson’s “Last Kiss was from ’64, which it was. However, he rereleased it in late ’73, at the same time Wednesday’s version came out. At 4:55, though it was just the last few bars, it was the first time in decades since I’d heard “The Lord’s Prayer” in song version. I got a kick out of when you said (at 5:36) that you’d like to see Sister Janet Mead and Sister Mary Elephant meet one another. One other thing about “Last Kiss.” I’m sure there have been many cover versions, but Pearl Jam did a cover inn 1999. I believe it was a on a benefit album to help the victims of the Balkan War.
1460 was originally WHEC co-owned with Channel 10 WHEC-TV. the call letters stood for Hickson Electrical Company, the original owners. I believe it was Rochester’s second oldest station next to WHAM.
Is this the same TOM BIRCH was was program director of 1520 KOMA-AM Oklahoma City back in 1975 ?
Not 1974 Is Called February 14, 1973 Tom Birch WAXC
Besides Greaseman and Tom Birch, there were other people who talented deejays who passed through WAXC, destined for larger markets, including Dave Mason and Bob Savage, Larry White, Springer Jones, and Chris Bailey.
Besides Greaseman and Tom Birch, there were other talented deejays who passed through WAXC, destined for larger markets, including Dave Mason and Bob Savage, Larry White, Springer Jones, and Chris Bailey.
I visited the WAXC studios in 1973 and PD Larry White welcomed me on that Saturday afternoon. He was followed on the air by the legendary Greaseman who I had the pleasure of watching about a half hour of his show. I say watched because in those days WAXC still had union engineers who ran the board in one booth (where I stood) looking into the DJ booth. Behind the DJ stood a small podium that would be used by the newsman when delivering a newscast. Greaseman would talk and then flick his right arm into the air to cue the engineer to start the music, commercial or jingle. It wasn’t too many years later that this type of radio operation would fade into history because of more and more automation and computer based technology.