BEFORE: It's Pride Weekend here in NYC, as I'm reminded every time I ride the subway, which has essentially been turned into a giant moving gay club for the duration. And so we're going back to a time where the boys wore more make-up than the girls - the EIGHTIES! Today I'm celebrating the music of that time, including the Pet Shop Boys, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Joan Jett, the B-52's, The Cure, Blondie, and so many others... (look, I'm not an expert here, I'm not going to parse out which 80's rock stars were gay, maybe all of them? None of my business, really. Lou Reed? Michael Stipe? whatever...)
Mike Score carries over from "Bitchin': The Sound and Fury of Rick James" - if you don't know him by name, you may know him as the lead singer from the band A Flock of Seagulls, aka The Guy with the Most 80's Haircut Ever, as seen in the music video for "I Ran (So Far Away)". He appeared in yesterday's film in a clip that was just a few seconds long, but he's interviewed in today's film for a much longer time. I've added below the names of the 80's bands everybody was in, just in case you're not an expert - it was a long time ago, who the hell remembers the 1980's, besides me? Where are my fellow 80's kids-turned senior citizens at?
This is one of two documentaries about radio station in this year's line-up - and for the longest time I had the two films next to each other in the chain, and, well, then things changed around, but it was in the interest of adding MORE films to the line-up, which is always encouraged here at the Movie Year. This film is about Long Island radio station WLIR, and the other one, which I'll watch next week, is about WBCN in Boston, the rock station that I grew up with, and that other film will go back a bit further, into the 1960's and 70's - but today, it's all about the 80's, so get your hair styled up, put the shoulder pads back in warm up with a game of Ms. Pac-Man and settle in...
THE PLOT: In 1982, a small Long Island radio station battles to bring the New Wave to America.
AFTER: As I said, I didn't grow up in NYC, so I wasn't familiar with WLIR, but it was kind of like indie rock, the alternative station before there was "alternative" music. They broadcast out of Garden City, then Hempstead, Westbury, Garden City again, and then finally Floral Park. Please note that the map shown in the film is completely WRONG, it depicts the transmitter somewhere out in the Rockaways, which is in Queens, part of New York City. Technically, this would be ON Long Island, but it's not what New Yorkers would CALL Long Island - to be considered Long Island, you have to go out past Queens, into Suffolk County and Nassau County, where Garden City and Hempstead are. On a good day, if the wind was right, and if the station had paid the electric bill for the transmitter, their signal MIGHT have reached Manhattan.
WLIR started in 1959 by playing a mix of show tunes, jazz and light classical, but switched over to progressive rock in 1970 - and at that time, "progressive" meant Jackson Browne, the Allman Brothers, the Doobie Brothers, Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel, none of whom would be considered "progressive" today. Though many staff members moved on to Manhattan radio stations like WNEW, a lot of them stuck with WLIR, and the format didn't change again until 1982, which is when things got interesting. The station owner gave program director Denis McNamara a choice between "adult contemporary", aka "commercially viable", aka "safe", or new music, and Denis chose the latter. What's that saying about the road less travelled by?
Things were changing in NYC because of clubs like CBGB's, and things were changing in the U.K. because the punk era was essentially over, and there were a ton of bands calling themselves "post-punk" or "synth-pop" or the hated (at the time) term "new wave". It turns out that "New Wave", the gritty, shocking, raunchy, openly gay, sound that was about to tear America a new one, means absolutely nothing, at least in terms of being descriptive. It's a bit like learning that the Canadian province Nunavut just means "Our Land", or that Antarctica just means "There are no bears here." It comes from nonsense, essentially - there were just so many acts breaking out of the U.K. in 1981 or 1982 at the same time that it was regarded as a wave, a 2nd British invasion, if you will, but then when Duran Duran caught on and Billy Idol and Pet Shop Boys and Frankie Goes to Hollywood followed closely behind, the name stuck, and nobody really ever came up with a better term. Hey, we still haven't named the first decade of the 2000's, and it's been in the rear-view for 12 years now. Collectively, we're all kinda dumb, and there really should be some English language department in charge of this.
Oh, yeah, and there was this little thing called MTV, which (get this, kids) for YEARS played music videos 100% of the time, and NO reality shows. At all. No "Teen Mom", no "Jersey Shore", no "Road Rules", no "The Hills", no "The Challenge". Nada, zip, just 3-minute or 4-minute videos. Umm, yeah, MTV started airing in 1981, and WLIR switched their format in 1982, so most likely they took inspiration from MTV, not the other way around, which this documentary might have you believe. I'm willing to believe that they had a direct Heathrow-to-JFK connection to import records from the U.K. faster than previously possible, and I'm willing to believe that they broke some songs before the record companies would have liked, but the real driving force in changing the world of music was probably MTV, since suddenly bands had to not only sound good, but also look good, or at least interesting.
Still, it seems like WLIR was the radio equivalent of an indie film studio, with a constant stream of characters both on-air and off-air. They worked out of ramshackle studios with an expense budget of zero dollars, maybe on a good day the management might spring for a box of donuts or remember to buy some instant coffee for the break room. I know those situations well - but those people will bond together as co-workers and they had each other's backs, and they all got drunk and got high and fooled around together, I'm sure. Famous rockers were in and out of that studio daily, and security was minimal, fans frequently swarmed the studio if they thought they had a chance of seeing the Pet Shop Boys or the guys from Tears for Fears getting interviewed. Meanwhile the studio managers were questioning the life choices that brought them there and trying to land better jobs anywhere else. So I imagine...
WLIR also had the "Screamer of the Week", the station's equivalent to those "Staff Pick" books you see on a special table in the Barnes & Noble. Each DJ chose a new song or one that hadn't broken yet, and the audience phoned in to vote - which song by New Order, or Depeche Mode or Ultravox was likely to be the next hit? All this started to catch on, and people were tuning in, which meant that the station was starting to draw advertising dollars away from the giant NYC market. And that's when the troubles began, the "little station that could" drew a bit too much attention to itself.
It turns out that the radio station's license, which is controlled by the FCC, had been changed in 1972 to a temporary license, due to a previous slow-moving legal battle (they try to explain this in the doc, but it's beyond comprehension, a lot of what I call "legalese".). When WLIR started to draw listeners away from the bigger stations, somebody phoned the FCC or got their lawyers to investigate the station, and they found out that WLIR had changed formats without giving the FCC the proper notice, and apparently that's illegal. So the "temporary" license was revoked after 15 years of operation, and the station was forced to shut down in 1987. Really, there's nothing more "rock and roll" than playing rock and roll illegally, right? Congratulations, you've been running a pirate radio station for years!
The documentary says that WLIR "never returned", but that's not exactly true, either. One company took over their frequency, 92.7, and another company started using their call letters for an AM-radio station in Rockland County. But neither of these stations had the same feel, the same on-air personalities, the same bent toward the new wave sound.
Ah, but then there's online streaming - according to Wikipedia, WLIR.FM began streaming online in 2005, with a lot of the same songs and on-air talent from the old station - it's just that by then, New Wave had become "classic rock" and so they mixed in some new music, which by then was called "alternative" - only, alternative to what, exactly? The streaming lasted until 2020, then that operation got sold to ABC Radio and changed its name to WDARE-FM. By then almost everybody who listened back in the 80's was either dead or a grandparent - too old to rock and roll.
I wish the documentary had stuck more with the Long Island DJs and staff of the station - after it takes a left turn into the Long Island "club scene", with old person after old person saying, "Yeah, I went to the Malibu Club" or "I spent Thursdays at Spit, Friday's at Hammerheads" it all becomes a little tedious - nobody cares where you drank on which night! This all goes on way too long and is ultimately pointless. Same goes for the stories from musicians like Fred Schneider discussing his target audience and the lead singer from Bow Wow Wow regretting her haircut, what did any of this have to do with WLIR?
Also starring Nancy Abramson, Sam Ash, Tom Bailey (Thompson Twins), Ivan Baker, Jeff Carlson Beck, Eric Bloom (Blue Oyster Cult), Delphine Blue, DJ Byrd, Pete Byrne (Naked Eyes), Vince Clarke (Depeche Mode), Miles Copeland, Paul Cramer, Cy Curnin (The Fixx), Gary Daly, John De Bella, Gary Dell'Abate, Ron Delsener, Rick Dobbis, Thomas Dolby, Donna Donna, Larry "Duck" Dunn, Michael "Eppy" Epstein, Wayne Forte, Chris Frantz (Talking Heads), John French (Twisted Sister), Andy Geller, Mark Goodman (last seen in "ZZ Top: That Little O'd Band from Texas"), Jed "The Fish" Gould, Charlie Greco, Tony Greco, Mike Guidotti, Deborah Harry (Blondie, last seen in "Bad Reputation"), Billy Howerdel (A Perfect Circle), Billy Idol, Joan Jett (last seen in "Bad Reputation"), Howard Jones, Steve Jones, Jim Kerr (Simple Minds), Bob Kranes, Kenny Laguna (last seen in "Bad Reputation"), Steve Leeds, Mickey Leigh (The Rattlers), Max Leinwand, Katrina Leskanich (Katrina & The Waves), Howard Liberman, Eddie Lundon (China Crisis), Annabella Lwin (Bow Wow Wow), Lori Majewski, Ben Manilla, Mickey Marchello (The Good Rats), Bob Marrone, "Malibu" Sue McCann, Paul McGuinness, Denis McNamara, Monte Melnick, Steve North, Susan Ottaviano (Book of Love), Theodore Ottaviano (Book of Love), Michael Pagnotta, Arthur Scott Peacock, Joel Peresman, Mike Peters (The Alarm, Big Country), Matt Pinfield, Julie Price, Nick Rhodes (Duran Duran), Joseph Riccitelli, Seth Rudman, John Scher, Fred Schneider (B-52's, last seen in "The Flintstones"), Carl Segal, Rich Shoor, Bob Shuster, Carol Silva, Curt Smith (Tears for Fears), Darrin Smith, Elton Spitzer, Chris Stein (Blondie, last seen in "Bad Reputation"), Seymour Stein, Ed Steinberg, Glenn Tilbrook (Squeeze), Laurence Tolhurst (The Cure), Midge Ure (Ultravox), David Wakeling, Bob Waugh, Tina Weymouth (Talking Heads), Ray White
with archive footage of Adam Ant, David Byrne (Talking Heads, last seen in "This Must Be the Place"), Bono (U2, last seen in "Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President"), Adam Clayton (U2), Elvis Costello, Charlie Daniels (last seen in "Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President"), The Edge (U2, last seen in "Pavarotti"), Jerry Garcia (last seen in "Fyre Fraud"), Eddy Grant, Robbie Grey (Modern English), Jerry Harrison (Talking Heads), Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders, last seen in "Bad Reputation"), Holly Johnson (Frankie Goes to Hollywood), Mick Jones (The Clash), Ayatollah Khomeini (last seen in "Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project"), Chris Lowe (Pet Shop Boys), Larry Mullen Jr. (U2), Jack Nicholson (last seen in "I Am Divine"), Phillip Oakey (Human League), Pope John Paul II, Ric Ocasek (The Cars), Kate Pierson (B-52's, last seen in "The Flintstones"), Prince (last seen in "Bitchin': The Sound and Fury of Rick James), Sting (ditto), Dee Dee Ramone, Joey Ramone (last seen in "Bad Reputation"), Johnny Ramone, Marky Ramone, Ronald Reagan (last seen in "The Eyes of Tammy Faye"), Lou Reed, Robert Smith (The Cure), Bruce Springsteen (last seen in "Tina"), Michael Stipe (R.E.M., last seen in "Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond"), Keith Strickland (B-52's, last seen in "The Flintstones"), Joe Strummer (The Clash), Neil Tennant (Pet Shop Boys), Sid Vicious (Sex Pistols, last seen in "The Go-Go's"), Cindy Wilson (B-52's, last seen in "The Flintstones"), Ricky Wilson (ditto).
RATING: 5 out of 10 tour managers
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