DJ Handi's Archive Picks: Early FM On FMU

I'm always driving my ex-hippie aunts and uncles crazy, asking what was played on those first FM rock broadcasts, around 1967 and 1968. Much was music we now almost never hear. Music that did not become "classic rock,"  but disappeared as more streamlined AOR formats replaced free form. I found some in the archives. You need a Real Player where indicated

Joe McGasko on Surface Noise played "Endless Tunnel" by Serpent Power following Fat Mattress. Listen to this 1967 acid-washed piece about riding a train to nowhere. An electric banjo is used in a modal, eastern-jazz improvisation.

Serpent Power were on the Vanguard roster with Circus Maximus with Jerry Jeff Walker. "The Wind", played by Irene Trudel, fits perfectly the long, contemplative alternative to top forty singles FM tried to provide. This may sound a bit lounge-tinged now, but in 1967, easy-listening program music still was entrenched in pop culture. "The Wind" made this sound jazzier, deeper and darker for FM..

On Elektra Records, Clear Light released "With All In Mind," which Irwin played.  Earth Opera with Peter Rowan recorded "The Red Sox Are Winning" played by Evan "Funk" Davies--notice the "Kill The Hippies!" tag line. David Ackles issued the scathingly anti-Vietnam War "Ballad Of The Ship Of State." Irene played this in Real Audio in her second set on September 8, 2008, following another early FM favorite, Biff Rose

You may think horn rock was an AM construct from hearing David Clayton Thomas era Blood Sweat & Tears. But Ten Wheel Drive was horn rock for progressive radio.  Charlie played "Pulse." on Busy Doing Nothing. The Loading Zone's 1968 "No More Tears," played by Meghan on Underwater Theme Park, has a sexy funk-blues crunch that fit the edgy nuance of FM stations new to the air. Even Chicago, when they were the Chicago Transit Authority in 1969, were forward-thinking. Listen to the latin drive they give Steve Winwood's "I'm A Man." which Scott Williams played, adding audio to the track. You'd never guess the band who created this daring acid groove gradually devolved into vapid synth pop. 

We hear "Layla" and "Stairway To Heaven" in perpetuity while other great music is buried deep in the remote past .But dozens of such bands are waiting--many with CD reissues--for anyone who wants to research the first days of FM rock radio.

Comments

[torch]

It's so true what you write. I was a freshman-sophmore in those days & Boston had it's hip FM station, WBCN, that only broadcast at night out of the back room of the Boston Tea Party concert hall, after the shows were over, with Charles Laquidara & Peter Wolf as the first DJ's. During the day the station played classical music.
Those first couple of years of FM rock, everything was free form as WFMU is now. You would hear lots of the early Mothers of Invention stuff next to Cream, next to bands from the SF hippie underground next to Ornette Coleman jazz or Sun RA next to deep album cuts from obscure bands even then.
But when my wife listens to the classic rock stations now, all you ever hear is the same 100 or so songs & usually the ones that crossed over to become top 40 hits in the early 70's. They are not even the songs that the early FM stations played.
I mean Deep Purple - Smoke on the Water is the only song ever played, what ever happened to the great songs of Machine Head.
Sheesh, no wonder I started listening to the college stations by the time 1975-1976 & punk rolled around.

[Ralph Goldstein]

This is a good collection of off the beaten track classics. One of my favorite groups of that era aside from Cream was a group called Rotary Connection. They recorded in some called Cadet concept in 1968 they released the album Aladdin and one of the tracks that got a lot of play on Wabc~fm a station that eventually became wplj was I took a ride (caravan) featuring the late Minnie Ripperton who hit the "high" notes like no one else. The Aladdin track is also a favorite.

[Irene Trudel]

Having started my FM listening back in the early FM rock days, these tunes have formed the basis of my listening habits to this day. A lot of these tunes couldn't fit in an easy category-- somewhat rock but heavily seasoned with jazz or artsong elements. I really miss the eclectic, pre-consultant nature of early FM rock formats, but WFMU fills that void pretty nicely for me.

[DJ Handi]

stan makes it a point to play the first rotary connection album each xmas wk

[fxo@wfmu.org]

Ultimate Spinach: Mind Flowers

[Henry]

I remember when WOR-FM started out. Just music no adverts or news or DJ.I heard beautiful songs that I haven't heard since.
Also around the same time WQXR-AM would shut down for maintenance early Monday morning and a very hip engineer would play
the same exotic rock jazz folk stuff to set levels to.In both cases no artist or song title were given.
I'm still trying to find them.

[Henry]

Correction- upon deeper reflection I now remember there were ads for Pepsi and Honer harmonica.
A scab read may be 20 seconds of headlines each hour during prime time.

[DJ Handi]

you know, there is a site about radio history in new york--www.nyradioarchive.com
and it has a lot of soundbytes from Alison Steele and other NEW, PLJ (ABC) and wor djs and i can't figure that out a lot of the backdrop music either. a lot of those guys really were not coming out of rock, but were just really good DJs--show people-- given freedom with new music. god knows what albums they were using-for talk overs probably weird 50s and 60s stuff they got in their parents attics

[Henry]

Here's one I found - Norma Tanega- Bread.