Mass DU'rs: Remember the Big Mattress?

[graywarrior]

http://www.bigmattress.com/weblog/

[wovenpaint]

1. Ha! I was just thinking about Charles the other day

Was in my car and tuned to BCN- started remembering how it USED to be...

[graywarrior]

2. How is bcn these days?

I haven't heard it in years.

[wovenpaint]

10. Not the same

Still hard rock, though.
101.7 is now a classic rock station-seems every time I go through the stations, they're playing the Eagles, Steely Dan and other '70's bands...just not the same.
My day wasn't complete without Darrell Martini, the cosmic muffin. That's where I learned about the joys of mercury retrograde!

[AlCzervik]

3. oh yeah, i used to listen to them in the morning and 101.7 in the

afternoon, is 101 still the alternative rock station there?

[graywarrior]

4. Whatever happened to Mark Parento?

Didn't he get involved in a pedophile thing?

[MissMillie]

5. and the cosmic muffin

w/ sambuca in your coffee!

[graywarrior]

6. and Duane Ingalls Glasscock

[YankeyMCC]

7. Talk about a blast from the past

I used to listen to them in the mornings on WBCN.

Years ago I went with a group of friends to some event at the Bay Side Expo - car show I think - and one of my friends bumped into Charles. She just mumbled an "oh excuse me" with a quick glance at him and kept moving while the rest of us had stopped and stared.

"She doesn't realize she just accosted a star does she." he quipped.

I was a big fan, but I remember coming home years later and hearing the show on the new station - ZLX was it? And maybe it was just a bad day but it was a completely unfunny show and Charles sounded like a whiny, bitter old man. He may have had good reason (must've been quiet a toss up when he was moved out of BCN and Howard Stern came in the mornings, I was away during all that) but it still didn't make for an entertaining show.

But I still have fond memories of the old days. :)

[maveric]

8. Memories from my WBCN days.

The Cosmic Muffin, Duane Glasscock (Charles La Quidera), Maxanne, Mark Parento...
What a breakthrough station that was early 70's.

[graywarrior]

9. Yeah. I remember listening to long moments of on-air silence

as they got stoned and forgot what they were supposed to be doing. I think I used to see Charles at the Psychedelic Supermarket on occasion, but I may have been on my own little trip. :istening back then was like a contact high, all that psychedelic music.

[flowomo]

18. just watched Danny Schecter's documentary on the media tonight

the old News Dissector's gotten a bit plump (but haven't we all)

[graywarrior]

20. Amazing he's still around. Yeah, is he in Florida now?

[flowomo]

22. dunno.... this doc was from 2004 and he's still very active

what seeing him caused me to remember was how radio news has dried up entirely. I was the news director at a local AM here in PA for a few years from 1985-1987, and we devoted AN ENTIRE HOUR to a live local news broadcast every weekday -- plus five minutes on at :25 and :55 every hour. Now, it's all network.

[graywarrior]

40. Holy crap! Who knew he'd get to be this?

http://www.newsdissector.org/blog/2004/12/13/about-danny-schechter/#more-909

[seaglass]

11. Do you remember Bomber Leclair (I think)? He used to do

sports (before Tank) and was crazy.:D I remember once he did his show from a bar down the Cape and was out of his mind.

I met him shortly after he went off the air (if I recall he got in a huge fight with mgmt or maybe Charles and got fired or quit). He is a great guy, funny, now a retired firefighter.

I still have my Duane Glasscock for President bumper sticker.

[graywarrior]

12. For some reason I don't remember him.

I do remember Revere's School for Receptionist's, however.

[Kat45]

13. I loved the BIg Mattress.

Loved the Duane Glasscock alter ego too. 'BCN hasn't been the same in years and years. Yes, it's still rock but nothing like it was. Same company owns BCN and 'ZLX, the classic rock station, and a number of years ago they moved any of their remaining 'classic' DJs to ZLX: Charles Laquidera, Carter Allen, I forget who else. Got younger folks on 'BCN; wouldn't even play older tunes on the station. In the last couple of years, they did start including some of the classics, like Zeppelin to create a bit more of a mix, but it's still a shadow of its older self.

Do you remember, way back when 'BCN was a free-form station and one of the things they had was the Dog and Cat Report, where they would list lost dogs and cats? I don't know anyone else who remembers it; I used to love it.

[graywarrior]

14. I remember the Dog & Cat report.

BCN kept my sanity all through art school. It was the first radio station that stayed on all night. I used to stay awake just to hear Led Zepplin and Dylan at 2 am.

First time in my life I didn't feel like an outsider listening to that station.

[Kat45]

15. Cool! Someone else remembers it!

I just thought it was so cool for the station to have a dog and cat report. Then when nobody else remembered it, I started to wonder if I was imagining it. Glad to know it was real.

[graywarrior]

16. I remember that stuff better than what I did yesterday. Go figure.

[Kat45]

29. Me too.

:shrug:

[flowomo]

17. Woo Woo Arnie Ginsburg? Juicy Brucey Bradley?

[graywarrior]

19. I sat in Arnie's car on the Boston commons when I was about 13

He was broadcasting some show on a Sunday afternoon. Woo Woo.

[flowomo]

21. he wound up at WEEI, I think...

low power AM on the Revere Beach Parkway by Wellington Circle then. He was a pioneer!

[graywarrior]

23. He was. Him and Dick Sommer. Remember The Highwayman poem?

Also, remember Billy West on BCN? I think he was the voice of Ren on Ren & Stimpy

[flowomo]

24. can't say I do.....

for some reason, I'm thinking "Dale Dorman" and "Dave Donovan" -- must be two other 'MEXers. But Bradley was big big -- he was the main radio tune-in when we'd hang out at the Himalaya at Revere Beach.

[graywarrior]

26. Woo Woo

[flowomo]

25. oh, by the way, and totally unrelated....

I actually memorized "The Highwayman" (Noyes) in 6th grade. Man, I loved that poem.

[graywarrior]

27. Wish I could get a recording of Sommer's reading that poem

It was "deep" for the 60's.

[Kat45]

30. That's the station that now does AirAmerica

progressive talk. Still low-power; too much interference to hear it at night.

[flowomo]

34. correcting myself....

he wound up at WWEL (the old WHYL) as the GM... that's the station in Medford that was about a mile from my house in Everett.

[graywarrior]

35. Everett. What a town. Almost as great as Lynn.

[flowomo]

37. yeah, except we never burned down....

and didn't have a beach!

[graywarrior]

39. The burning down of Lynn. Now that's an interesting story

[Kat45]

28. Oh yeah! WMEX right?

I used to listen to that station starting when I was about 9 or 10 years old.

[graywarrior]

31. I thought it was so hip.

[flowomo]

32. from the WIMEX MUSIC MUSEUM!

I can still hear them introducing oldies that way. And in 1960, that meant the oldies were from like, the mid-50s.

[graywarrior]

33. Yeah. Brenda Lee & Bobby Darin. Tho Darin still rocks.

[flowomo]

36. check this out:

"In 1997, Arnie was one of just 25 American disk jockeys saluted in a special event at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Arnie is considered personally responsible for the breaking out of dozens of rock 'n' roll records in New England."

http://www.440int.com/namesg.html

[graywarrior]

38. Jesus. You'd think he was Alan Freed.