Society's Child
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code, took the disc home to his FM Rock may prove to be more castle and made it work for him. than a bothersome splinter in the The knight is WOR-FM, the paw for the AM giants. FM city’s newest rock outlet and produces tonally clearer music, without even trying its boldest due to its wider band. The new and best. sounds, which demand careful WOR-FM makes the rest of the listening and high fidelity, make pop radio scene look like a WOR the only place to hear vital teabag on its third cup of water. new music and hear it well. Its staff of disc jockeys, veterans By broadcasting excerpts from The song is “Society’s Child.” of the AM frenzy are quieter and important new albums, the One year ago, it would have oddly, less formal than the good- station reaps the tonal benefits of been a folk-rock bonanza. guys, who pour a puddle of songs too experimental to be It has Janis Ian singing like forced cheer into their released as singles. WOR breaks every girl in Brighton Beach microphones. the most impregnable rule in the who has made it at the Dom and The new station programs for AM game when it plays the dared to bring the schwartze an audience which doesn’t complete “Sad Eyed Lady of the home. regard the big beat as an Lowlands” (the song takes a And it has the good sense to impediment to pleasure or to whole side of the Dylan album) admit its own defeat. Our sanity. WOR is rock without the without a break. The big boys heroine is tormented not by love, AM shlock. on the AM dial blanch at the but by her own failure to defy Says program director Tommy thought of a 30-minute song, The Way. She is society’s child Reynolds: “We’re selling because a station like WMCA, all right and the hint of rebellion quality music. We don’t shout, actively competes with its music, in the distant future is more a we don’t ring bells, we don’t while WOR flows with the self-justification than a threat. intrude over our vocals or talk sound. The difference in style is But nothing is more old down to our listeners.” more than mere nuance; it is a fashioned than a fad one year WOR’s charts are based solely vital difference in function. after its time. And folk-rock has on record sales from outlets all The AM format serves as entered the great Diaspora. over the city. And the backbone background noise for an Hang onto those yellowed of its air policy–a chart which urbanized existence. This means photos of Barry McGuire. lists the top 130 and includes you don’t listen to WMCA; you Treasure those nasty editorials “extra” discs which have not absorb it. External sound– on John Lennon’s latest heresy. broken anywhere–makes it the constant and monotonic–has Frame that Bob Dylan shopping first station in New York to become the beat by which city bag. Because folk-rock is cover the pop scene before it people measure their existence. already something to tell your fossilizes. And it makes WOR When the metronome stops, the grandchildren about. this radio market’s first authentic melody goes awry. And nobody knows that better breakout station. So, WOR is The housewife’s obsession with than Janis Ian. At 15, she is the only place in New York noise in an empty apartment (all already old enough to be passé. where you can hear “I Can’t those unwatched TVs, turned on And the ones young enough to Control Myself” by the Troggs. anyway), the omnipresent be “in” this year are graying at It’s the only station playing success of car radio, the the temples. “Society’s Child” “Bend It,” (a smash hit in student’s habit of studying has scratched the toes of the Hot England, but overlooked in this oblivious to ear-shattering 100, but radio program officials country because of alleged background noise–all reflect a are keeping it well out of earshot sexual directness). It played vital need to live within sound. for the multitudes. So, despite “Eight Miles High” long after The city makes silence an critical dotage (notably by WMCA phased it out. It stuck admission of loneliness and Robert Shelton in the New York with “Mind Excursion” after disc defeat. Times), and promotional jockeys labeled it “a commercial AM pop radio fills this need mother’s milk from Verve- for LSD.” with screeching sound and disc Folkways records, “Society’s And it plays “Society’s Child” jockey patter which sounds like Child” would have expired as thought interracial love were an amphetamine psychosis. quietly in the mass grave being busting out all over. The WMCA plays much more than dug for folk-rock by the little station’s patronage is the hits; it programs life noise. men who program what you understandable. If the Janis Ian Good guy plugs appear on hear. ballad takes off after exclusive waxed milk containers, on shirt But Janis Ian’s testimony was exposure, it will be conclusive wrappings from the cleaners and snatched from the jaws of proof of the station’s power. in most subway stations. They anonymous death by an errant And it will make a good case to greet us wherever we are and knight who, true to his feudal insiders for the new freer music. however we try to avoid them. And what they emphasize is not (including some of the most defied her parents and stayed youth but community: bar- circumlocutious references to with her schwartze–the station mitzvah announcements, lost- draft-dodging, politics, and might have refused to play the dog calls, sweatshirts. Two LSD) represents at least a first single. years ago, ad copy featuring a stab at serious consideration of What is ultimately important proto-Italian mother listening to meaning in rock ‘n’ roll. The about WOR is not its rock ‘n’ roll on her transistor new Swinging Soiree is nothing metaphysica, but its sound. would have inspired laughter. to do your homework by. Murray the K calls AM Today it makes for reader The new Murray has got “sharecropper” radio; FM is for identification. kulchuh (“Rock ‘n’ roll no the aristocrats. WOR sells WMCA’s restricted airplay list longer exists; it’s an archaic sound. Though it hasn’t quite would put WOR out of business term. To call this music is rock stolen the audience from the AM in a month. The FM audience is to say it hasn’t matriculated”). dial, 98.7 has discovered a tidy wants to be stimulated, not Murray has got the non-partisan niche. It’s looking to turn that lulled. The lyric style of folk- enthusiasm of a politician (“I toe-hold into a vantage point. rock (narrative rather than chant- have no attitude other than the Seasons change with the like) and the technique in the fact there are many attitudes”). scenery. The search for success best rhythm-and-blues creates And Murray has got Dylanesque is leading WOR into a program music that sounds better on FM, suave (“Words are crystals. policy independent from the Hot where more of the structure is Hold them up to the light and 100 miasma. The freedom from audible. you can see whatever you imitation shows. It makes sense. The more involved the melody, want.”) It makes sound. the more suggestive the lyric, the At first, Murray’s voice was all And if it makes money, those more the listener has to listen. valley. Maybe once a night, it sacred scarlet bullets may be Says afternoon DJ Scott Muni: rose suddenly to the old WINS relegated to their proper place – “WOR is the only station in New whine and Murray’s teeth would indicators, not dictators. York that has any freedom of clench in a vicarious “mee-a- expression. And it’s the only sow” for old times sake. But station where disc jockeys aren’t then, a repentant descent, and Note: Because of the poor part of a juke box.” back to the sober-tongue master quality of the original, this article What Muni means is that FM of FM mob appeal. has been retyped. radio encourages the kind of You get the feeling that Murray critical rapport likely when a was happier in the old days when commentator speaks to an adult there was falsetto and bass audience in a normal tone of harmony in his voices, when his voice. Disc jockey freedom on patter was a rock ‘n’ roll song in AM radio is impossible, not itself. Now, to thousands of fans because of autocratic censorship who grew up stomping in the but because the high-pitch nature aisles twice a year at his rock of the medium makes it difficult shows (Murray in a golden for personality, not to mention blazer and tight silver-threaded opinion, to evolve. The AM pants moves across the stage like jockey is a conglomeration of a marlin, hands against his grunts, horns and football cheers. thighs, hat flipped over one AM makes abstractions of air arching eyebrow, Murray personnel. Some use rapid-fire reaches the mike and picks it up rhyme, some hold dialogues with and–oh god the rumbling in the howling beasts and some even balcony because you know invent a new phraseology and a what’s coming–Murray swings new identity–like Murray the K. his head back and everyone In the two years since Murray shouts ahead of him until the old Kaufman (last name changed rococo chandelier groans– legally to “K”) watched Aaaaa-vay .