January 1983

In January of 1983 I was attending Trans American School of Broadcasting in Wausau learning to be a disc jockey.  Along with my schoolmate Marty Richards it was a first time off the farm experience. It is still not safe to mention some of the tomfoolery that happened because the statute of limitations has not expired yet.  Mornings were spent making aircheck tapes and writing news and commericals. We practiced trying to do 'man on the street' interviews but noone would talk with us.  The rest of the day was spent playing all of the classic arcade games at the Shopko Mall,  gorging on the $5.00 buffet at Shakey's Pizza (or the 4 for 1 dollar hamburgers at Burger Chef),  and watching MTV.  We listened to a lot of radio as well and on the weekends it was time to mobile d.j. at high schools and bars.   The music was very good in that era.  There were a lot of very danceable tracks. Some of the early '83 tunes that made it to the mix tapes I made for my girl friend include:  Rock the Casbah-The Clash,  The Other Guy-Little River Band,  You Got Lucky-Tom Petty,  Your Love is Driving Me Crazy-Sammy Hagar,  Stray Cat Strut-Stray Cats,  Hand to Hold On To-John Mellencamp,  You Can't Hurry Love-Phil Collins,  Gloria-Laura Branigan,  Africa-Toto,  Dirty Laundry-Don Henley, and Down Under-Men At Work.  

This Saturday night during my Those Were the Days radio show, I will spin some hits from early '83 and all of your requests from the fifties through the early '90's.  It is a rare time when the old and young can agree on a song being great.  We talked with more new friends last Saturday and I hope more will join the Saturday night  'cool kids club'.  Check out WRCO FM 100.9 and wrco.com Saturday night from six to midnight.

Phil