{"id":2390,"date":"2014-06-29T16:22:55","date_gmt":"2014-06-29T21:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/widbnetwork.org\/?p=2390"},"modified":"2014-07-03T12:42:54","modified_gmt":"2014-07-03T17:42:54","slug":"punk-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/widbnetwork.org\/?p=2390","title":{"rendered":"Punk 101"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Randy Lynch<\/strong><\/p>\n

My first exposure to punk rock was in late 1976, when I saw The Ramones at the Red Lion in Champaign.<\/p>\n

\"Red<\/a>The Red Lion…Then<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Red<\/a>…And Now<\/strong><\/p>\n

A friend of mine was a roadie for the opening band, Games; so I was on the guest list.\u00a0 Otherwise The Ramones would never have been on my radar.\u00a0 I was into Bowie and Rundgren, Steely Dan and Rick Derringer.\u00a0 I liked prog rock.\u00a0 Musicians for whom the production side really mattered.\u00a0 But hey, I got in free, The Ramones did have a record out, which Games did not, so I stuck around for their first set.<\/p>\n

\"ramones<\/a>The Ramones Debut<\/strong><\/p>\n

Didn\u2019t hate it, didn\u2019t love it, thought they sounded like Chuck Berry, only loud and fast.
\nSo on one level, I got it; but I didn\u2019t really get it.<\/i>\u00a0 And I remained a bit clueless about what punk meant until I worked overnights at WIDB.<\/p>\n

It was April or May of \u201979 when I successfully auditioned for a slot on air at \u2018IDB.\u00a0 It was a lot easier to get in if you were there in the summer.\u00a0 And as a beginner, you knew you were getting Midnight \u2013 4am or 4am \u2013 8am slots.\u00a0 And working one of those shifts in the summer meant you could usually count your audience on your fingers and toes.
\nAlright, on the fingers of one hand.\u00a0 Which is a perfect situation for beginning the craft of performing live radio.\u00a0 And is also very punk rock, as I came to understand.<\/p>\n

In particular, and exclusively, the Midnight \u2013 4am slot is the punk rock shift.\u00a0 Yeah, it\u2019s tough to go in to do a shift at 4am.\u00a0 You learn that you have to sleep for at least a little while before you go in.\u00a0 You learn that coming in at 4am is about showing commitment and about taking the opportunity to get your practice in, and when your shift is in the last hour you have an audience.\u00a0 At the end, you leave in the bright sunshine.\u00a0 Maybe head to Mary Lou\u2019s.\u00a0 But for Midnight \u2013 4am, it\u2019s different.\u00a0 Punk Rock.<\/p>\n

Not that you play punk rock for 4 hours.\u00a0 I personally never felt comfortable playing punk after 2am.\u00a0 Just felt like my peers would be ready to wind down a bit at that point in the day, and chose to push my choices in other directions. But the start of a Midnight shift was often amped up, coming in from good times with friends who would be listening to the beginning of your show.\u00a0 Or just knowing that someone at the station would be listening\u2026you knew that you were expected to entertain.<\/p>\n

So you create the waves you crave to ride, knowing that by 4am you should probably be wound down.\u00a0 And you spit yourself back out onto the street at 4am, alone.\u00a0 And you imagine you are like one of The Ramones, rocking out full bore \u2018til 1, then a rockin\u2019 encore, then you somehow wind down.\u00a0 And when you hit the streets at 4am, you\u2019re hungry.\u00a0 And you hit the 7-11 for a microwave burrito.\u00a0 And if you follow the directions on the package, you\u2019re in for a punk rock slice of heaven.\u00a0 So sweet.\u00a0 So sad.\u00a0 But a little more sweet than sad.\u00a0 Because it\u2019s 4am, and there is absolutely no one to share this with.
\nAnd you realize that you don\u2019t need to share this, because you are doing it for yourself.\u00a0\u00a0 Yeah, it\u2019s for everybody.\u00a0 But if it\u2019s not for you, it\u2019s not for anyone.<\/p>\n

So when I caught The Ramones backing Iggy Pop at the Aragon in \u201988, I completely appreciated what they were accomplishing.\u00a0 And it brought me back to the sandwich tacked up on the wall, with a bite out of it.\u00a0 Authentic punk rock.\u00a0 I learned it firsthand at WIDB.<\/p>\n

EDITOR\u2019S NOTE:<\/strong>
\nThe \u201csandwich on the wall\u201d represents an iconic moment of WIDB\u2019s punk era and will be featured in an upcoming post.\u00a0 Until then it may remain mysterious to those who aren\u2019t
\n\u201cin the know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramones at The Red Lion\u2026…Isn’t the Internet great!<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ligJQEAegHI<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Randy Lynch My first exposure to punk rock was in late 1976, when I saw The Ramones at the Red Lion in Champaign. The Red Lion…Then …And Now A friend of mine was a roadie for the opening band, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-video","category-widb-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/widbnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/widbnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/widbnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widbnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widbnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2390"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/widbnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2441,"href":"https:\/\/widbnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390\/revisions\/2441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/widbnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widbnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widbnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}