It started as “The South will Rise Again”, featuring Southern Rock and simulcast live from the strip bar known as Gatsby’s in the Spring of 1978, That quickly evolved into a rambunctious and outrageous music, entertainment and giveaway show and radio program that seemed to take on a life of its own when it morphed into a live remote every Friday night….

At the epicenter of all the crazy intensity was Mark Slaga. In this promo, Slaga, the host of the show, is interviewed by Ed Knych about the “what goes on” at Gatsby’s, complete with sound bites.

Slaga was young, energetic and gave his all each and every week. It took almost until the next week to recover.

Here, on the New Releases show, February, 1991, Jim and the crew play an amusing spot for WIDB classified Valentines. Anybody know how popular these were?

By 1977 advertising was in full operation. WIDB’s production department had several producers who were competent, effective, and also creative. Here’s Luke Banks’ production featuring Mike Hillstrom and others.

The Daytona Beach/Spring Break trip had to be given away at the Bowl-a-Thon in March. The jocks got wasted and bowled, total pins only were counted, and the winner entry was the listener who came closest to guessing total pins. It was one of the first events that took the station into the community for entertainment purposes. Produced by Sam and Gary, this features Michael K. Murphy (now at WMVP), W. Clark Pettit (now farming in New Jersey), Michael J. Cheylewski, Sam and Keith Weinman, as well as Phil Hejtmanek.

More Audio

Throughout the ’90s (when we first posted this) it was not uncommon to hear a radio station promote itself with a vignette of song snippets that were decidedly NOT of their format, followed by a song in their style.
In the late ’70s thru the mid ’80s, conservatism in radio dictated that drawing attention to your competition this way was a bad thing and this type of promotion was practically non-existent.
This spot, produced by Tom, took the former approach to sell what was then the only all “new wave” club in town, and perhaps to also take pot-shots at the local CHR station. Airwaves was located in the basement of ABC Liquors and featured a 6″ high stage.
WIDB held the “Beat Night” promotion there on Thursdays beginning with the club’s opening in Fall 1982, and the club played host to the Circle Jerks, Violent Femmes and Ministry among others in 1983, as well as being the late-night hangout for many of our staff.
Does anyone know how long Airwaves stayed open?