The Rock of Boston, da FM al Web

Sono andato a vedermi ieri sera The Boat that rocked (I love Radio Rock, in italiano, titolo meno bello, ma gradevole), il film ispirato alla storia di Radio Caroline e delle altre emittenti off-shore che nella seconda metà degli anni Sessanta diedero un fondamentale contributo di cambiamento in una società ingessata da secoli di formalismo. Un bel film, pur con le comprensibili forzature della commedia di costume, surreale e dissacrante, in perfetto stile British: giusto dosaggio di nostalgia capace di non piangersi addosso, grandi caratteristi in scena, grande selezione musicale (e del resto in quegli anni d'oro sarebbe stato difficile scegliere i brani sbagliati). Persino per uno come me, ricoperto di ragnatele musicali anche loro vecchie di secoli e irrimediabilmente tagliato fuori dalle tendenze, la forza del rock e della sua cultura "laterale"; la capacità di sovvertire gli schemi e i pregiudizi, di far pensare con quattro accordi musicalmente banali ma stravolgenti, di tirare fuori dalla gente le sensazioni profonde, la loro voglia di dire basta a coperchi e cinghie e fasce di contenzione, la forza di tutto questo appare nella sua dimensione più radicale, rigenerante. La musica pop per risvegliarsi da un torpore, una necrosi sociale di portata ormai neurologica. Il ritmo come farmaco della mente e del sentimento. E del resto basterebbe leggersi le straordinarie annotazioni di Oliver Sacks a proposito degli effetti della musica sul morbo di Parkinson e le sindromi post-encefalitiche descritte in Awakenings - Risvegli e nel più recente Musicophilia. Sacks a questo proposito è il protagonista di uno straordinario programma della PBS che spiega come la "musica faccia rivivere il cervello".
Anche Boston, la grande e colta capitale del New England, ha la sua station that rocked. O meglio, l'aveva. La proprietaria CBS ha infatti deciso di togliere dalla banda FM la stazione WBCN, fondata nel 1968 e per quarant'anni all'avanguardia delle proposte rock americane e internazionali. Una radio che ha contribuito direttamente al lancio di cantanti e band, che ha rappresentato una frontiera della musica progressiva. WBCN continuerà a trasmettere, ma solo in streaming su Internet. Evidentemente la musica dei giovani deve percorrere altre strade.
Il paradosso volle, come scrive il Boston Globe nelle sue rievocazioni, che in quel marzo del '68, pochi mesi dopo l'entrata in vigore (nella Gran Bretagna laburista!) del Marine Offences Act che chiuse i microfoni dei pirati galleggianti, WBCN aveva deciso di passare da un format di musica classica a un genere completamente diverso. E nelle radioline della città "I feel free" dei Cream, il complesso di un certo Eric Clapton, prese il posto di Bach e Schubert. Oggi che il rock è diventato non meno classico di Schubert, la musica non cambia formato ma viene messa a tecere, almeno via etere. WBCN perde ascoltatori da almeno dieci anni, è andata avanti a fatica, infarcendo la programmazione musicale con le cronache di football dei Boston Patriots. Oltre al coverage assicurato dal quotidiano a questa circostanza un po' triste, c'è da consultare il sito di WBCN e quello di Charles Liquidara, che per trent'anni è stato il conduttore dello show mattutino di WBCN e oggi vive alle Hawaii distribuendo in podcast le sue collaborazioni con WBOS di Boston e con la stazione no profit KEAO Mana'o Radio. Ciao, Rock of Boston, nonostante tutto we still feel free.

Rocking no more

Its eye on sports, CBS pulls plug on legendary WBCN
By James Reed and Erin Ailworth, Globe Staff | July 15, 2009

It was more than 40 years ago, on a March night in 1968, when WBCN-FM (104.1) decided to break from its classical music format. Instead of Bach, listeners that evening heard “I Feel Free,’’ by the Eric Clapton-led rock band Cream, and right then Boston’s local music scene was transformed.
Yesterday, it was upended yet again, by the same station.
CBS Radio Boston, which owns WBCN, announced it would pull the plug on the station, which helped make household names of some of the biggest musical acts to come out of Boston, so it could accommodate other changes in local radio.
Next month, a sports talk radio station, The Sports Hub, will replace the music station WBMX, or Mix 98.5 FM, adding a third sports radio show in a town that seems to have an insatiable appetite for all things sports. Mix 98.5 will then take its “modern rock, conservative format’’ to WBCN’s slot.
And WBCN, whose slogan, “The Rock of Boston,’’ had become as seminal as some of the performers the station championed early on - including Aerosmith, The Cars, J. Geils Band, U2, and Elvis Costello - will morph into an online-only station available at wbcn.com.
New sports talk station will take on WEEI.
It was stunning news for generations of Boston music fans, who grew up with the station at a crucial time in rock music’s evolution, and for local bands, who had come to rely on WBCN as the one place that might land them their big break. WBCN came of age with some of rock’s pivotal figures, from Janis Joplin to Jimi Hendrix, and its disappearance from the dial is as much a signal of the changing musical scene as it is of drastically changed listening habits. (One word: iPod.)
“Once their ratings started going down the tubes, I thought to myself, ‘Somebody’s not getting it in corporate,’ ’’ Charles Laquidara, one of WBCN’s quintessential personalities from 1969 to 1996, said from his home in Hawaii. On his Facebook page, he addressed WBCN’s fans: “It was a great station. It was also a great time in radio history. I know we can never go back to that, but there will be something someday.’’
Mark Hannon, senior vice president and market manager of CBS Radio Boston, said in an interview yesterday it is a “sad moment to see a station with 40-plus years of heritage coming out of format.’’ But, he said, “the rock genre in this marketplace is extremely crowded, and ’BCN has struggled in the past few years to stay competitive.’’
The decision, which will take effect Aug. 13, will ripple well beyond the airwaves, too, given the station’s longtime support for local bands.
In addition to “Boston Emissions,’’ ’BCN’s two-hour, weekly program showcasing local talent, the WBCN Rock ’n’ Roll Rumble has been a popular battle of the local bands since 1979. Occasionally, its winners went on to find national success. After winning the Rumble in 1983, ’Til Tuesday, Aimee Mann’s new-wave band, was signed to Epic Records; the cabaret-punk duo the Dresden Dolls emerged victors in 2003.
Anngelle Wood, who organized this year’s Rumble, said yesterday she was not sure of the event’s future. “Boston Emissions,’’ which she also hosts, will move to sister station WZLX in August.
The longtime ’BCN personality who became known simply as Oedipus said the loss of the station will cut deeper than some might realize.
“WBCN was a fabric of the community,’’ he said. “It was part of Boston, like the Red Sox. It was more than just music. It completely enveloped the lifestyle of people in Boston and the Northeast. And it no longer does that. It had to make this change. It’s reflected in the ratings.’’
Word of ’BCN’s demise was greeted with mixed emotions at competing stations, where program directors, many of whom grew up listening to ’BCN, said they’d been expecting the downfall. A Cornerstone Research Inc. report looking at men ages 18 to 49 in metro Boston shows ’BCN ranking in the number 11, 12, and 13 spots from January to May, with roughly 4 percent of the area’s listening market.
“The general public must be very surprised, but industry insiders have known they had their problems - let’s just leave it at that - for a number of years. So, we’re not really stunned,’’ said Ron Valeri, program director at WAAF and Mike FM. Still, he said it’s “a bittersweet victory.’’
At 101.7 WFNX, program director Keith Dakin recalled the heyday of WBCN, when personalities like Laquidara and Mark Parenteau graced the station’s airwaves.
“It’s great for us. We’ve lost an alternative rock competitor,’’ said Dakin. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s sad to lose a legendary rock station in this market, but as far as the competitive landscape, it’s great for a station like ’FNX.’’
Parenteau, a DJ at WBCN for 20 years, beginning in 1978, said that before corporate ownership, the station encouraged its on-air talent to be outrageous and play what they wanted.
“We didn’t make a lot of money, but we had a lot of freedom. We could play jazz, comedy, whatever,’’ Parenteau said. “But as we made more money, we had less freedom. It was like a deal with the devil.’’
Still, the station was enormously influential.
“If ’BCN added a band, 30 or 40 stations would add that band because we seemingly knew what we were doing,’’ he said. “The sort of station ’BCN used to be is definitely dead. Radio today is all driven by boards of directors looking at the stock market. They want the sure thing, and they want to play it over and over.’’
Before he was lead singer in the J. Geils Band, Peter Wolf was one of the founding DJs at WBCN. He started there in 1968, interviewing the likes of Van Morrison, Jeff Beck, Sun Ra, and Roland Kirk. Wolf said he is neither surprised nor upset the station is going away. “For me, ’BCN ended a long time ago,’’ he said. “When it became corporatized, it lost the unique qualities that made it vital to the community.’’
Despite its founding in 1955 as a classical station, ’BCN became “the underground rock station in Boston,’’ said Scott Fybush, editor of NorthEast Radio Watch, an industry trade journal. “They were playing stuff that had no other home on the radio and people who had never had a reason to own an FM radio before were going out and buying an FM radio to hear this.’’ The station struggled for at least the last decade, propped up by its coverage of the Patriots and, at least for a time, Howard Stern’s syndicated show. Fybush called CBS Radio’s emphasis on building a sports station with Patriots coverage, a “smart move,’’ because it gives listeners something they can’t necessarily load onto their iPods - live coverage of games.
Of course, more sports and more talk means less rock for Boston listeners.
But Sean Ross, vice president of music and programming at Edison Media Research, said for many around Boston, that change had already begun. “The ’BCN that most people are going to be sad about losing this afternoon,’’ Ross said, “went away a while ago.’