Favoriting Aircheck: Archives

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Once again, an hour of radio ghosts recaptured: once in a lifetime occurances and remembrances (some from WFMU's own archives). This is no mere nostalgia trip; Aircheck seeks out some of the more unusual and unpredictable moments and personalities in radio that probably wouldn't get attention anywhere else.

On WFMU | 91.1, 90.1, 91.9 FM & wfmu.org
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  • Favoriting July 26, 2021: 9/11 Recordings from New York Radio. An episode of "Aircheck" hosted and produced by Evan "Funk" Davies which features radio coverage of 9/11 from local radio stations recorded on the day of the attack. | See the playlist | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting October 6, 2006: "Supa Rockin" Mr. Magic's Rap Attack, Part II | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting September 29, 2006: Famous Coachman, host of the nation's longest continually-running blues show. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting September 22, 2006: Assorted NYC Hip Hop Radio 80's-90's. Billy Jam presents a mix of snippets from a wide variety of New York radio stations, spanning from the early 80's to the early 90's, that gave love to the "fad" that refused to go away. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting September 15, 2006: A legendary show that was the catalyst for Jeff Feuezeig's documentary "the Devil and Daniel Johnston". On then WFMU DJ Nick Hill's show in 1990, Daniel Johnston played a whole elaborate cast of characters. He's joined for three songs by Yo La Tengo. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting September 8, 2006: Radio Odds and Ends / Bands Behaving Badly: DJs Dominic Trix and the Unitelligible Cowboy; KROQ fans w/ messages for Morrissey; Tallow Cross crashes WFMU uninvited,the DJ leaves in disgust & they interview themselves; the Sex Pistols take over KSAN. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting September 1, 2006: Al Benson, The Ol' Swingmaster, ruled Windy City radio for nearly twenty years. A true pioneer, Benson influenced celebrated jive-talking jocks like Jockey Jack Gibson, Herb Kent, and legions of others. Hear him ride the airwaves again tonight on Aircheck | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting August 25, 2006: Jean Shepherd from 1969: First Day of Kindergarten. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting August 18, 2006: In 1979, "Supa Rockin" Mr. Magic's Rap Attack was the the first rap on the radio. Mr. Magic introduced countless MCs: Kurtis Blow, Whodini, Biz Markie, Big Daddy Kane, Starski, Afrika Bambaataa, Run DMC, and LL Cool J to name a few. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting August 11, 2006: Sanctified Gospel Visionaries. Two gospel visionaries, The Apostle James Moses White from WLGO-AM and Deacon Jesse McWhorter on WMGY-AM, & one hoodoo root workin' radio genius, the Reverend Izear recorded off of WZTN-AM. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting August 4, 2006: Bob Lassiter (Pt 2 of 2). | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting July 28, 2006: More from Bob Lassiter (Pt 1 of 2). More from the feisty Floridian radio enigma, previously unaired on Aircheck. Compared to the lock-step right wing bozos that dominate talk radio today, Lassiter's mischievous & misathropic style is practically high art | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting July 21, 2006: More old school freeform antics, dating way back to 1947, unaired on Aircheck before. Jim Hawthorne collaborated on some Slim Gaillard records and later became a TV weatherman where he continued his strange behavior, including making fun of sponsors. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting July 15, 2006: Radio First Termer was a pirate station that operated for 21 days in 1971, offering a somewhat irreverent alternative to regular broadcasts to G.I.'s during the Vietnam War. How irreverent? Well, for starters, it broadcast out of a Saigon brothel. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting July 7, 2006: Dave the Spazz presents the wacky age of country broadcasts. Rare live radio performances: Loretta Lynn, Spade Cooley,George Jones, Wanda Jackson, Carl Perkins and Hank Williams VD soap opera! June Carter vs Chuck Berry & Johnny Cash shills doughnuts. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting June 30, 2006: Who is Ken Sims? We'd love to know. What we do know is that in the 1980's he recorded his local rock radio station onto a cassette every time he won tickets to a concert, or prank-called its DJs. Also Jean Shepherd's "Caterpiller In Salad" from 1969. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting June 23, 2006: Brush Creek Follies was the second-most popular hillbilly radio show in the country, second only to Chicago's "National Barn Dance" program. Here's a rare chance to hear the "Twins Night" episode from 1941 of this classic program. . | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting September 29, 2005: This season of Aircheck concludes with more insanely over-the-top gospel radio from from the Reverend Lester Knox of Tifton, Georgia, whose self-financed religious broadcasts were heard from around 1980 til 1992. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting September 22, 2005: On 8/28/69, WFMU's air staff walked out, thus stalling the inevitable rise of loopy freeform broadcasting by at least ten years. Presented here is FMU's final night on the air featuring DJ's Kevin Taylor and MC5/Doors/Stooges/Ramones manager Danny Fields. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!

    This recording is from the personal archive of former WFMU engineer Ed "Tex" Krusheski
  • Favoriting September 15, 2005: Acerbic, witty and downright mean, Neil Rogers is the king of talk radio in South Florida. talk host like no other, Rogers is openly gay, furiously liberal, and always at odds with his employers and any caller who gets on his nerves. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting September 8, 2005: 9/11 On The Air. It seemed like an accident: a plane somehow hit one of the WTC towers. Through radio broadcasts recorded that day the true scope of what has happened becomes devastatingly clear as the day goes on. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting September 1, 2005: From WWOZ, New Orleans, Billy Dell hosts "Records From the Crypt" with the R&B sounds that the city is famous for including Fats Domino, Irma Thomas, and Frogman Henry.(From 12/04) Destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, WWOZ is trying to return via the internet. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting August 25, 2005: WDIA's revolutionary decision in 1948 to turn the programming over to Memphis's best black talent was not only profitable, it paved to road to fame for many great black musicians & DJs like Rufus Thomas, Dwight "Gatemouth" Moore, and "Hod Rod" Hulbert. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting August 18, 2005: Jingles All the Way. Vintage jingles from radio stations across the country -- although most of them came out of a handful of production houses. Plus a couple of rarely-heard promos used by the jingle companies to promote their wares. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting August 11, 2005: The Black Pope. "You're listening to the greatest black radio personality in the world" was the boast the Black Pope made during his shows. He ruled radio in New Orleans in the 70s and 80s screaming over soul records and taking dedications. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting August 4, 2005: Coyle & Sharpe: In the early 1960s, encounters by two wandering misfits with a sick sense of play and a microphone with unsuspecting citizens were recorded and then rebroadcast on the now-legendary "On the Loose" radio program. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting July 28, 2005: Phil Hendrie:One of the most original and creative voices in talk radio today. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting July 21, 2005: Paris Hilton and Wolfman Jack to sort of illustrate the now-and-then spectrum of personality-based broadcasting. Or in Paris' case, podcasting. Six days of Paris bringing you into her inner sanctum. Then, hear a real master, Wolfman Jack. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting July 14, 2005: An encore presentation (with some new material) of the legendary unknown Eskimo janitor of a striking CBC radio station & Jean Shepherd presents "American Dream Sales Pitch". | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting July 7, 2005: Unshackled! The longest running dramatic series in radio history, running weekly since 1950. The show still features live cheesy organ music, folie artists with live sound effects & original morality plays. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting June 30, 2005: Brush Creek Follies was the second-most popular hillbilly radio show in the country, second only to Chicago's "National Barn Dance" program. Here's a rare chance to hear the "Irishman's Night" episode from 1941 of this classic program. . | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting June 23, 2005: 1960's Soft Drink Jingle Jungle. Some highlights from amazing stream-of-consciousness collection of nonstop soda spew, from the likes of the Troggs, Nancy Sinatra, Tom Jones, the Box Tops plus plenty of random jingles creating a mind-numbing blur. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting June 16, 2005: Murray Saul: For years we knew him only as the "It's FRIIIIDAYYYYY!" guy, until finally landing his identity and recordings. We present one hopped-up DJ today for the inaugural show of Aircheck's return to WFMU. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting October 2, 2003: Daniel Johnston from Nick Hill's 2nd Anniversary Show of 2/90, featuring Johnston via phone from WV and many characters played by Daniel himself. He's joined for 3 songs by Yo La Tengo, then Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, & Dave Schramm live in the studio. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting September 25, 2003: WFMU ID Mania!!! In case you weren't sure, our station ID is WFMU East Orange, WXHD Mount Hope, wfmu.org. Tonight's we hear WFMU ID's past and present, edited together and preserved in a flowing, audio river. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting September 18, 2003: The Sex Pistols, on eve of their '78 self-destruction in SF, on KSAN. INSANE elegy to punk icon GG Allin. "Paul McCartney Is Dead" speculation from '69, the legendary Rosco (aka Bill Mercer) departs his microphone on WOR. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting September 11, 2003: Lost WABC tapes! In the 80's, Chris T. pulled several unmarked reels of quarter-inch tape out of the garbage, board recordings of WABC's 1967 Go-Go-era content, including jingles, news, Stan Freberg, local battle-of-the-bands & more. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting September 4, 2003: In 1968, Frank Zappa was one freaky Mother, and SF's KSAN was pioneering serious freeform radio. Tonight, Zappa sits in with the Freeform granddaddy of us all, KSAN's Tom Donahue. Their conversation gets wily & contentious at times, and iconoclastic. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting August 28, 2003: Monica presents a full hour of the late NYC radio legend Frankie Crocker, one of the flashiest and most flamboyant radio personalities ever. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting August 21, 2003: Huey Meaux. Best known as a record producer, Huey "The Crazy Cajun" Meaux lit-up late night radio. Broadcasting out of Pacifica's KPFT in Houston back in the 70s, Meaux mixed in raunchy rock and roll with drunken call-ins and prison dedications. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting August 7, 2003: Radio Nordsee under attack! Carl Nordsee, a British DJ manning a pirate station off the coast of England, is merrily minding his business in 1970 when two boats approach his ship and try to take him off the air. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting July 31, 2003: Reverend Lester Knox. Insanely over-the-top gospel radio from Tifton, Georgia. Knox purchased tons of time on DIT-radio to spread the word, and it's up there with the greatest stuff by the likes of Rev. Louis Overstreet, Elder Beck, & Claude Ely. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting July 24, 2003: The Professor with the second in his two-part overview of the career of Bob "Mad Dog" Lassiter (See 7/17/03). Compared to the lock-step right wing bozos that dominate talk radio today, Lassiter's mischievous & misathropic style is practically high art. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting July 17, 2003: The Professor, of Audio Kitchen, with the first in his two-part overview of the career of radio veteran Bob "Mad Dog" Lassiter. As a talk host, Lassiter specialized in pissing off the elderly, Christians, and other intellectually-challenged listeners. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting July 10, 2003: DJ Spoke, a psychedelic version of the Mad Daddy, on WLS-FM in Chicago, circa 1968. Spoke was a deep-voiced biker personality rapping through heavy reverb who played some insanely heavy acid jams. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting July 3, 2003: Jim Hawthorne. Bizarre freeform antics from way back - 1947! Hawthorne collaborated on some Slim Gaillard records and later became a TV weatherman where he continued his strange behavior, including making fun of sponsors. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting June 26, 2003: Sonny Hopson. Aside from being a general music svengali and independent label-owner, Philly's "Mighty Burner" Sonny Hopson ruled the AM radio waves. This 1969 WHAT aircheck serves up scorching soul, ad-libbed commercials, wild chatter, and more. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting June 19, 2003: Ernie K-Doe will always be remembered for his 1961 hit "Mother-In-Law" but nothing can compare to his on-air antics at radio station WWOZ in the 80's. He played his own records, plugged upcoming appearances and told outlandish stories. Tonight on Aircheck | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting October 2, 2002: Part Two of the infamous eskimo janitor, who takes over a striking Canadian station and does his freeform thing in native tongue, this week extolling the virtues of acid rock and pot. Also, Jean Shepherd's "Tattoo" from 1964. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting September 25, 2002: GG Allin's Dead, Man plus Jean Shepherd's Inventions and Myth. Chemical-addled, wailing and screaming aircheck of "The Sheik", clearly upset over the death of punk legend GG Allin. Also, Jean Shepherd's "Inventions and Myth" from 1970. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting September 18, 2002: Lord Haw Haw aka William Joyce, a Brit who joined the Nazi movement in the '30's, spent WWII broadcasting to England for Goebbel's Propaganda Ministry. He was hanged by the British government after the war. + Jean Shepherd's "March On Washington", 1963. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting September 11, 2002: 1970's smooth-talking Frankie Crocker took Harlem-based WBLS to the top spot for the city's young listeners. Crocker offered great diversity and mic style and influened today's jocks immensely. Also, Jean Shepherd's "Ping Pong" from 1963. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting September 4, 2002: Bob Lassiter vs. Rocky the Racist, plus "Paul Is Dead" broadcast on WABC, 1969, plus Jean Shepherd's "Jersey Devil", 1977 | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting August 28, 2002: WFMU's Vanilla Bean plus Jean Shepherd's "Showbiz Uber Allies" from December 21st, 1964. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting August 21, 2002: Eskimo Janitor gets stoned and takes over striking CBC Station / Jean Shepherd's "A Box To Hide In" from 1961. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting August 14, 2002: Dewey Phillips plus Jean Shepherd's "How To Make Money In Radio" from Aug. 22, 1964. | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting August 7, 2002: The Mad Daddy, whose reverb-soaked banter sounded direct from Pluto, spun R & B through the early '60s in Cleveland before shooting himself in 1966. Also, Bob Lassiter feels the wrath of an angry 1980's PTL supporter, + Jean Shepherd's "Straws In the Wind | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting July 31, 2002: Bob Lassiter on Friendliness and Radio plus Jean Shepherd's "Soothing Sounds for Baby" | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting July 24, 2002: Lassiter & the Dominant Male + Jean Shepherd's "Cockroaches" (1966) | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting July 17, 2002: Lassiter Talks God / Jean Shepherd's The Age of Total Showbiz (1966) | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting July 10, 2002: Lassiter and the Callers Who Hate Him, and Jean Shepherd - Party for Elizabeth Taylor | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting July 3, 2002: Beatles Hysteria and Jean Shepherd | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting June 26, 2002: John Lennon takes over KHJ, 1974, plus Jean Shepherd's | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting June 19, 2002: Radio drama from 1998: Florida radio station WFLA calls up cop killer Hank Carr while he's surrounded by police and holding a 7-11 clerk hostage. Plus, 5 minutes of unknown 70's DJ. Also, Jean Shepherd broadcast from 3/2/61, "Underground Network". | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting June 12, 2002: Spotlight on Huey Meaux. Also: Jean Shepard's The Roscoe & the Diner (2/26/65 airdate) | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!
  • Favoriting June 5, 2002: Pastor John Rydgren from WABC-FM ca. 1967, and Jean Sheperd from WOR from 7/28/65: Summer Festivals and The Whoopie Instinct | Listen: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!

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