Here’s the story of how I got a show on RUR. I remember how the knuckleheads running the place were all making fun of the Ramones and the Pistols first albums when they came out in 1976, my freshman year at the U of R. I had to go into the station late at night the first time to listen to the two albums in a dark unused studio on headphones so no one would bother me and make fun of me. I could not believe there was something new that I liked so much as everything else I was listening to when I was in high school was 50’s and 60’s music. I was totally unaware up to that point of some of the early 70’s great bands like the Stooges, the Dolls and the Velvet Underground. It took me nearly two years to be allowed to do a show due to the unwillingness to let anything other than complete crap be played on the station.
The person who let me on the air was the program director at the time Vic Frank, thank you Vic. Vic went on to a career in broadcasting and the last I heard he had been producing NFL football games for CBS TV. I also want to thank the various station managers and program directors who let me continue my show for two years after I graduated from the U of R. DJing at RUR was a blast, it was so much fun each week to do my four hour radio show.
I am especially thankful to three people who influenced me musically — number one was Kevin Patrick who mentored me musically and was a very good friend (I have never met someone with a more incredible knowledge and collection of British 60’s and 70’s music). The second person, although I did not know him super well, was Greg Prevost with his amazing knowledge of U.S. 60’s garage music, Greg in my opinion should be personally credited with starting the entire worldwide retro garage movement that without question started in Rochester. And thirdly Dick Storms of the Record Archive for making the coolest cutting edge music of the day available to take home along with the greatest used oldie records for sale.
Sometime in the early 80’s I got off track musically and little by little started playing more and more British electronic dance music on my show. My salvation came in the form of Willie Alexander. Seeing his Scorgies show was my personal rock renewal. I immediately purged British electronic dance music for my show and re focused toward rock and roll. A little less bloody than Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward.
I really appreciated the terrific following of high school kids that inspired me every week. I particularly remember Weems who went on to DJ at WNYU in New York City the premier college radio station in the country at the time where he played New Math and the Chesterfield Kings regularly and the show’s number one fans the two Valle sisters from Webster who called me every week to play their requests.
The shows I enjoyed the most were the live interviews of bands. I remember The Cramps, The Gun Club, New Math, The Chesterfield Kings and most of the local groups.
I only played the album version of Rock Lobster when I had to take a crap as everything else was too short to take care of business.
I remember in 1979 or 1980 U2 was supposed to play Rochester on their first U.S. tour right after I Will Follow came out. At the time no one other than the punks and new wavers knew who they were so they were booked into the Red Creek which showcased a cool band every now and then. I got there early as I was excited to see U2 and as soon as I got there I learned the show was cancelled for an unusual reason. Apparently, the band who were already huge in Europe, wanted a closed door sound check and the Red Creek management refused due to not wanting to throw out all of the dinner goers that were eating in the restaurant which was the same room as the band played. Before driving away to go home, I remember seeing the band hanging outside their tour bus in the parking lot with no one else around. I still kick myself for not walking up and talking to them which I could have easily done.
Pretenders Ticket Stub
I learned the power of promotion when The Pretenders came to Rochester. They played the same venue twice a few months apart on their first U.S. tour. 150 people maximum came the first time and over a thousand came the next time after Brass in Pocket went top 20. During the second show, Chrissie Hynde asked from the stage how many were at the first show and at least 750 people screamed they were there.
A lot of us thought we had a great unknown music scene as several national acts that came through sucked compared to our local bands — in particular I remember X and the Go-Go’s, two of L.A.’s top bands, had separate shows at Scorigies one year and we were convinced that Rochester had way better bands than L.A. after that because their performances were not terribly good.
Several times a year a few of us would go on a 24 hour road trip to see a rock show in NYC without staying overnight to sleep, 6 hours each way. I especially remember one crazy trip that Peter Presstone and I took to see music at the Peppermint Lounge.
In an attempt to make a few extra bucks I pieced together some portable DJ equipment and ran an advert. Needless to say this business idea bombed because everyone wanted top 40 drivel that I did not have any interest in doing. One time I did oldies for a group of 40 and 50 year couples at a firehouse and I mixed The Way I Walk by The Cramps into the old hits and all of these couples were dancing to it like it the Beatles or the Stones or Buddy Holly. I still laugh when I think about that one.
Only slightly better was my idea of promoting rock events. The first one was a show at the main dinning room at the U of R sponsored by WRUR and promoted as the first New Wave Dance on campus. I booked two or three local bands and prayed someone would show up. It did really well so then I thought I actually knew what I was doing, which was a major mistake. I met Jim Havalack, who at the time was managing the Chesterfield Kings, and he had an in on possibly opening the then closed Parliament Lounge as a live music venue. We met with the owner and we thought convinced him we were his best alternative. Well, it was something right out of The Producers as he apparently thought we were the best bet to fail so that he could get a tax write-off. We, of course, did not know this.
We proceeded to book two months of national acts including The Insect Surfers from D.C. as the first show. We had to put down serious deposits for all of these acts (new club, new promoter). Opening night drew a capacity crowd on what I recall was a warm late Spring evening. The owner was supposedly shocked by this outcome and it seems decided to turn on the heat and water down the drinks so that people would never come back.
Jim and I did a few more shows there, New Math played one of them, and it was clear that if we brought in all of the national acts we would get killed doing them at The Parliament Lounge because of our differences with the owner. So we tried to move some to other venues so we would not lose the deposits but ultimately that was not possible with many of them as the dates were already booked for other events. Needless to say we took a bath and I have still not seen ? and the Mysterians which would have been a great show.
My memory of D.I.Y. was throwing together the photos and lettering for 8 1/2 x 11 promotional flyers and then putting up photocopies all over town for hours for shows that I was promoting. It was always a surprise to me that I never heard about anyone complaining about all the promo flyers that the various music promoters put on telephone poles throughout entire neighborhoods of Rochester for years.
Despite the various setbacks, my biggest financial success was promoting 999’s show at Scorgies. This was one of the shows originally scheduled for The Parliament Lounge and Don Scorgie and Danny Deutsch were nice enough to accept this show for the club which I still appreciate. I lined up ITR/CMF/RUR interviews and made close to $2000 and the next day backed my car smack into the rear bumper of Gary Trainor’s car in the parking lot of the apartment building that a bunch of us lived at and had have to give him $700-$800 to get his car fixed. Despite the successful 999 show, the loss of the deposits for the acts that could not be rescheduled was significant.
I am probably forgetting a whole bunch of people and a whole lot of the crazy and fun times but these are some of the things that come to mind. Thanks for reading.
Rock and Roll Joel
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