I Was A College Radio DJ In The 80's: Paul Chastain: Halo

[out of print]

Champaign Illinois romantic Paul Chastain refused to hide the R.E.M influences on his terrific 1985 EP "Halo", released a few years before he teamed up with drummer Ric Menck and went all power pop on us in Velvet Crush. The man who produced those early R.E.M. albums, Let's Active's Mitch Easter, got out from behind the board to sing and play on the tour for their second album, 1994's glorious Teenage Symphonies to God. Sadly, there's not much of a market for power pop anymore. The group broke up and the name "Velvet Crush" was adopted by a Dayton Ohio 80's cover band.

I Was A College Radio DJ In The 80's: Art In The Dark - Number

Art in the Dark: Number

[out of print]

Thanks to a door blown wide open by R.E.M., if you lived in Athens GA in the mid-80s, could sing with sincerity and knew enough guys to form a jangly rock band, you were already halfway to getting played on college radio. Art in the Dark was better than most. They often opened for R.E.M in their hometown. R.E.M. producer and Let's Active founder Mitch Easter produced their 1983 EP at his Drive-In Studio. They even covered Big Star's "Way Out West" on their first and only full length album The Icons. At the time, the only way to hear Big Star was to find a used vinyl copy in the back of a record store.

 The Icons had a number of good songs but at WTUL we played the lead off cut, "Number", the most. If expectations were for even greater things in the future, they weren't met. The boys split up. Some went to grad school. Some opened businesses. Most have kids. Humid nights in stuffy Southern clubs are now just a memory.

I Was A College Radio DJ In The 80's: Sex Clark 5 - I Want You Mine

[purchase]

A Southern-friend Young Fresh Fellows, The Sex Clark Five hailed from "Rocket City": Huntsville, Alabama.
In 1985, a copy of their 45-sized  EP Neita Grew Up Last Night made its way to the basement of the Tulane University student center. It was full of short lo-fi Beatlesque pop tunes like "I Want You Mine" ( now deleted) and "Red Shift". Naturally I played it every week.



The EP also caught the attention of legendary BBC Radio DJ John Peel who brought them in for at least one Peel session. A.C. Newman of The New Pornographers nominated the SC5 as one of his "unsung heroes" in a 2006 issue of GQ.

BONUS!

WTUL Promo: Mel Noonard "If"

My first promo for  WTUL was inspired by all the cool band promos we would get and Bill Murray's lounge singer routine. Not sure where I got the backing instrumental version of "If".