Alternative Famous Firsts
Alan Cross
All-round radio, podcasting, and alt-rock guy
About a dozen Corus Radio stations (The Edge/Toronto, Q107/Toronto, Y108 Hamilton, Power 97/Winnipeg, The Edge/Calgary, CFOX/Vancouver, The Wolf/Peterborough, Dave/Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge, CHED/Edmonton, CJOB/Winnipeg, and more)
Not counting the campus closed-circuit radio gig that had me broadcasting for an hour a week to an often-empty hallway, it was CFQX-FM/Selkirk, Manitoba. It was a 5000-watt elevator music station broadcasting from the middle of a wheat field and across the street from a mental health facility.
KISS! Winnipeg Arena on July 21, 1977, with openers Cheap Trick.
Elton John’s Greatest Hits Vol.1 for $4.99 using funds from my paper route. My mother was FURIOUS that I would waste my money this way.
Harlequin (a very popular Canadian band who played my high school) in 1979. Bass player Ralph James later went on to become one of Canada’s most powerful agents. We see each other a lot.
Out in the wheat field radio station, I misjudged the length of a bible tape. I stepped out to get a Big Mac while it ran. But the station was so poorly rated, I doubt if anyone even noticed.
Lynn Barstow
Program Director
KROX (101X)/Austin
Callout research/programming grunt at KTKS Dallas-Ft Worth.
Springsteen 12/8/78 (E-Street Radio on SXM was playing it just last night!). My big sis took me. She hated it, but she hung in there.
I dabbled in both Country and shitty 8-Tracks as a kid, but the first vinyl rock record was Utopia’s Adventures In Utopia (first purchased CD was Queensryche’s Empires, but you didn’t ask that LOL).
Book Of Love, Rio Grande Valley, TX.
It may not have been the first, but the most memorable early one: Night #1, overnights at KKYS Bryan-College Station, TX. The radio station was in a mall, and during a song, I ran outside through a set of unlocked double doors to grab something from the car. I came back to “the doors” immediately & found them locked. Completely distraught, I started thinking about what I’d do for my next career, before realizing that I’d come out a different set of double-doors. Got back to the studio to a turntable thumping along at the end of a 45 record. No one ever knew.
Sophia John
PD
KIWR (89.7 The River)/Omaha
KTGL, 92.9 The Eagle, Classic Rock in Lincoln, NE. I worked overnights and the first song I played at 11:56pm was Carly Simon “You’re So Vain”. Second song I played at 12 midnight was, Carly Simon “You’re So Vain”! I wasn’t about to go off the log, it was my first gig!
INXS (Original Sin Tour) It was like a movie, there was smoke all over the room and INXS was everything you could ever dream them up to be. It was a perfect first show.
(New Order/Low-Life) Ok, I need to confess, my first record purchased was Eddie Grant’s “Romancing The Stone”, but that isn’t as cool as New Order which was actually my fourth purchase!
Live -Ed Kowalczyk made it a point to correct me when I said “The Live”…there is no “The” in the band’s name. I’ve never done that with another band since!
Too long ago for me to remember. Is that a good thing?!
