When WMMO 98.9 FM first signed onto the airwaves in Orlando in 1990, it was clear that the guys running the station wanted a very different experience for the audience than was the norm for commercial radio.
One of the most frustrating things about listening to radio of the time is that most stations would identify the song and artist every now and then but more often than not assumed the audience already knew who was playing.
For an often-played track from a well-known artist, this wasn’t much of a problem. But if it was something new from someone you’d never heard of before, it was a complete pain in the arse to figure out this information so you could actually go to the record store and buy the bloody album!
Remember, the Internet wasn’t really available to anyone but us nerds and even that didn’t really help in terms of researching a song. Oh and streaming and digital music wouldn’t really take off until the appearance of the iPod (yes, I know there were earlier digital music players but it was the iPod that really signaled the death knell of actually buying CDs though the irony is that vinyl has made quite the comeback in recent years provided you can actually find a diamond needle for the turntable!).
That’s why WMMO’s policy of identifying *EVERY* track and artist and never talking over the music was such a godsend to those of us who actually were in the habit of spending a few dollars for the actual album because even though that popular track might have been the one I would buy the album, I’d often find other tracks that didn’t get much play on air that I’d love as much if not more!
Sadly, that policy of always identifying the track and artist eventually went the way of the dodo in 2012 (and I suspect the unofficial policy of stacking adverts at two well-known times during the hour so you could plan on when you’d pop away for a snack or a wee likely died when the station was sold to Cox in 1997) and it was painfully obvious those features I loved whilst at university were well and truly gone when I tuned into WMMO for the first time in a long while in 2016 whilst dealing with Dad’s estate and I switched right back to WFOX in the Traverse.
The reason I mention this is that when I’m spinning tracks for the Ironclad beer league hockey players, I’m usually playing the tracks I really like when the Zamboni is working on the ice and often during the warmups which happens once on Monday and Tuesday and twice on Friday night sessions. It’s a shocking abuse of power but when you’re the one whose hands are on the turntables… 😉
Every now and then these pregame sessions have a theme to the tracks that might well be reacting to news from the musical world (such as the tribute to Ozzy Osbourne when he passed away where every track played that night including during stoppages in play were from the Prince of Darkness!) or a holiday such as sets played on Ben’s day (otherwise known as Halloween to pretty much everyone else).
Sometimes the themes can be a little more subtle (and in a couple of cases very obscure when I’m riffing on current events in the news of the world or the realm of politics as you’ll see below).
This gives the participants (and the spectators depending on the time of the game!) a bit of variety and I get to have a bit of fun coming up with a creative set that does wonders for keeping me from getting bored playing the standard league playlist. 🙂
So with that in mind, I’ve decided to honour the legacy of my favourite Orlando radio station for the latter half of my time at university and use these posts to identify the tracks that were played and give some background to the more obscure themes and track selection as needed.
After all, that was the most important part of the DJ’s job when they were spinning the tracks on radio…the best DJ’s were those mates you’d want to hang out with and listen to some tunes and maybe get some expertly researched behind-the-scenes info on the music and the artists!
To with that in mind, I’ve broken out the playlists of Ironclad season XI from when I really started tracking what was being played during my shocking abuses of power over the playlists and tagged them all so that if you want to know what was playing over the rink speakers, you can find it grouped by season and then date.
Enjoy! 🙂
