The Fall of ’88

September 18, 2024 11:27 AM CDT

In September of 1988, I was two years into my hobby job at WRCO. We were busy broadcasting football games and attending fairs and homecoming events. My air shift was from eight until two and the station was playing a combo of soft rock and soft country during the day. It is hard to imagine that now, but it somehow worked. At night we would switch to a Top 40 format from seven to midnight. It was the late days of vinyl 45’s. As Music Director, it was my job to once a week go to the Music Shop in downtown Richland Center and order records. Most labels sent us free records in the mail, but we still did not get all of the tunes. Companies were purposely starting to move toward cd albums and cd singles. Some companies were sending us cassette singles. These were not high quality and did not sound great on the radio. The first cd ever sent to the radio station by a record company was by the group Double (pronounced doo-blay) and the song was Captain of Her Heart. WRCO did not own a cd player and since I was buying digital music for my own use, I bought a Walkman that played cd’s for Those Were the Days. It was not very shock resistant and often I would bump the counter space and make it skip or stop. In September of 1988 there were iconic songs playing on the radio such as, Sweet Child O’ Mine, Simply Irresistible, Love Bites, I Hate Myself for Loving You, Fallen Angel, Forever Young, Groovy Kind of Love, Never Tear Us Apart, Roll with It, and All Fired Up. Those are tunes that still play on our Saturday night program from time to time.

This Saturday night I will return to spin the oldies of the fifties through the nineties from six to midnight. It was a fun wedding last weekend that even featured a mariachi band at the dance! I missed you, though. It will be great to be able to take your song requests and play the trivia games. Thanks to Miss Shari for her donation to be a guest disc jockey last week. It is great to hear from folks that are learning about our shows. Hello to Thomas from Houston Texas who checked in this week. He appreciates the vintage stuff we do. Thanks to everyone for being a part of it.

Phil