1986 Go Back to Ithaca

April 10, 2024 1:50 PM CDT

I was very busy in 1986 playing mobile d.j. and part time farm hand. I was building my resume for my big-time radio debut on WRCO in August of that year. Some of my mobile d.j. gigs got a bit wild. Once as I bent down to pull a record, and I felt a breeze over my head. A crash was heard, and someone had thrown a motorcycle helmet intended for someone on the dance floor. It missed them and me and hit a glass door beer cooler. On another occasion a wild crowd did not want to quit at bar time. When I announced that we had to shut down and would not play another song one patron exclaimed “Go back to Ithaca, you *“$%@! jerk”! I said, “thank you very much” and I jumped in the farm truck and away I went. There were many nights that ended much better and it was always fun to play the hits of the day. Most of the time I had to play the hits from my cassette players because the wooden dance floor would vibrate which made my records skip regardless of how much padding I put under the turntables. There was a wild wedding dance in which a large group from a motorcycle club showed up and went wild for one song…. Down by the Lazy River by the Osmonds. They may not have known what they were dancing too, and I did not want to tell them for fear they might beat me up! Some of my favorites from the spring of 1986 include Manic Monday-Bangles, West End Girls-Pet Shop Boys (the girls at Weston high school changed the lyric to Weston girls!), Why Can’t This Be Love-Van Halen, Rough Boy-ZZ Top, What You Need-INXS, Tuff Enuff-Fabulous Thunderbird’s, and Your Love-Outfield.

I will be spinning all kinds of favorite music from the fifties through the early nineties on Saturday night’s edition of Those Were the Days on WRCO FM 100.9, WRCO.com, and the Civic Media app. We will play trivia and have a radio party between six and midnight. There are many new friends checking in every week from throughout the state and country. Spread the word about us.

Phil