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Saturday Morning Flashback (WXRT in Chicago)

Hulk

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Every Saturday morning, WXRT in Chicago focuses on the music from a single year. I stream it on my phone on a regular basis.

This morning, they did 1990, and I was struck by what a good year for music it was. Here was their playlist from 1990:



SATURDAY MORNING FLASHBACK OCTOBER 16, 2021: 1990

9AM


REMBRANDTS – JUST THE WAY IT IS, BABY

PETER MURPHY – CUTS YOU UP

PETER GABRIEL – SHAKING THE TREE

ROBERT CRAY – CONSEQUENCES

BLUES TRAVELER – BUT ANYWAY

LOWEN AND NAVARRO – WALKING ON A WIRE

THE BLACK CROWES – HARD TO HANDLE

LITTLE FEAT – RAD GUMBO

CHRIS ISAAK – WICKED GAME

CHURCH – METROPOLIS

MIDNIGHT OIL – BLUE SKY MINE

10AM

JEFF HEALEY BAND – WHILE MY GUITAR GENTLY WEEPS

WORLD PARTY – PUT THE MESSAGE IN THE BOX

JANE’S ADDICTION – BEEN CAUGHT STEALING

MORRISSEY – EVERYDAY IS LIKE SUNDAY

CONCRETE BLONDE – JOEY

THE CURE – HELLO, I LOVE YOU

MICHAEL PENN – NO MYTH

PAUL MCCARTNEY – GET BACK (LIVE)

VULGAR BOATMEN – DRIVE SOMEWHERE <-- this is a great song by a great band that very few people have heard of. Check it out.

DEL AMITRI – KISS THIS THING GOODBYE

SINEAD O’CONNOR – NOTHING COMPARES TO YOU

11AM

VAUGHAN BROTHERS – TELEPHONE SONG

DEPECHE MODE – POLICY OF TRUTH

BILLY IDOL – CRADLE OF LOVE

SOUP DRAGONS – I’M FREE

IGGY POP – CANDY

ZZ TOP – DOUBLE BACK

JELLYFISH – I WANNA STAY HOME

SUZANNE VEGA/DNA – TOM’S DINER

INXS – DISAPPEAR

ROBERT PLANT – YOUR MA SAID YOU CRIED IN YOUR SLEEP

ERIC JOHNSON - RIGHTEOUS



I was gonna add this to the Friday Afternoon music, but it's always on Saturday morning so I made a new thread.
 

DaveInDenver

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Cool!

The playlist reminds me of the shows KVCU used to have a few years ago like a.side//b.side or Fight This Generation.

You know if the DJ is old or young? Just seems AAA pop-centric for someone who might have lived it as a late teen or 20-something.

If he/she wanted to deep dive 1990 was the year for a ton (IMO) of important records were loosed on the world.

No Depression (a station in Chicago missing that seems almost inexcusable)
Social Distortion
Repeater
Ragged Glory
And the Horse They Rode In On
Goo
Bossanova
Heaven or Las Vegas
All Shook Down
Paul's Boutique
Fakebook


Looking forward to the weekly update. I've posted a few things Saturday morning in the other thread since Friday afternoon slips into evening and I think "I should post but, nah, I'm gettin' another beer and flipping the wax instead."
 
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fjc man

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Commerce City, Colorado
Every Saturday morning, WXRT in Chicago focuses on the music from a single year. I stream it on my phone on a regular basis.

This morning, they did 1990, and I was struck by what a good year for music it was. Here was their playlist from 1990:



SATURDAY MORNING FLASHBACK OCTOBER 16, 2021: 1990

9AM


REMBRANDTS – JUST THE WAY IT IS, BABY

PETER MURPHY – CUTS YOU UP

PETER GABRIEL – SHAKING THE TREE

ROBERT CRAY – CONSEQUENCES

BLUES TRAVELER – BUT ANYWAY

LOWEN AND NAVARRO – WALKING ON A WIRE

THE BLACK CROWES – HARD TO HANDLE

LITTLE FEAT – RAD GUMBO

CHRIS ISAAK – WICKED GAME

CHURCH – METROPOLIS

MIDNIGHT OIL – BLUE SKY MINE

10AM

JEFF HEALEY BAND – WHILE MY GUITAR GENTLY WEEPS

WORLD PARTY – PUT THE MESSAGE IN THE BOX

JANE’S ADDICTION – BEEN CAUGHT STEALING

MORRISSEY – EVERYDAY IS LIKE SUNDAY

CONCRETE BLONDE – JOEY

THE CURE – HELLO, I LOVE YOU

MICHAEL PENN – NO MYTH

PAUL MCCARTNEY – GET BACK (LIVE)

VULGAR BOATMEN – DRIVE SOMEWHERE <-- this is a great song by a great band that very few people have heard of. Check it out.

DEL AMITRI – KISS THIS THING GOODBYE

SINEAD O’CONNOR – NOTHING COMPARES TO YOU

11AM

VAUGHAN BROTHERS – TELEPHONE SONG

DEPECHE MODE – POLICY OF TRUTH

BILLY IDOL – CRADLE OF LOVE

SOUP DRAGONS – I’M FREE

IGGY POP – CANDY

ZZ TOP – DOUBLE BACK

JELLYFISH – I WANNA STAY HOME

SUZANNE VEGA/DNA – TOM’S DINER

INXS – DISAPPEAR

ROBERT PLANT – YOUR MA SAID YOU CRIED IN YOUR SLEEP

ERIC JOHNSON - RIGHTEOUS



I was gonna add this to the Friday Afternoon music, but it's always on Saturday morning so I made a new thread.
Matt, I don’t know if you have Chicago roots? Do you remember breakfast with the Beatles?
3DE9330D-D324-4859-B830-389A80297BA8.jpeg
 

Hulk

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You know if the DJ is old or young? Just seems AAA pop-centric for someone who might have lived it as a late teen or 20-something.

Frank E. Lee: He's older than me. He supposedly retired from WXRT in 2015 but I guess it didn't stick.

XRT is a commercial station, not a true underground college station. It's a leftover of the original hippie FM stations of the late 60s that somehow managed to survive with its soul intact. That means you get Springsteen and Zeppelin along with your Pixies and Replacements. Don't think I ever heard any Fugazi or Beastie Boys on XRT during the time I lived there, and definitely no Prince (who I loved, but this wasn't a popular opinion in the alt crowd circa 1990).

They definitely played the hell out of All Shook Down. I don't recall them playing anything from No Depression that early. I started going to see Uncle Tupelo because a friend recommended seeing them. UT was a StL band, not a Chicago band anyway. Same thing was true for Soul Asylum — I saw them at the Metro for the And the Horse They Rode In On tour and thought they were amazing, but I didn't hear them on the radio until the next record. A bunch of the bands I listened to and saw live back then didn't get played on the radio, like Trip Shakespeare and Souled American.

Matt, I don’t know if you have Chicago roots? Do you remember breakfast with the Beatles?

I grew up in St. Louis. Moved to Chicago after school and lived there from 1987-97. I don't remember Breakfast with the Beatles but I totally would have listened to that. Looks like that show is now on WXRT, actually. Terri Hemmert, the DJ who hosts it now, is a huge Beatles fan.
 

DaveInDenver

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Frank E. Lee: He's older than me. He supposedly retired from WXRT in 2015 but I guess it didn't stick.

XRT is a commercial station, not a true underground college station. It's a leftover of the original hippie FM stations of the late 60s that somehow managed to survive with its soul intact. That means you get Springsteen and Zeppelin along with your Pixies and Replacements. Don't think I ever heard any Fugazi or Beastie Boys on XRT during the time I lived there, and definitely no Prince (who I loved, but this wasn't a popular opinion in the alt crowd circa 1990).

They definitely played the hell out of All Shook Down. I don't recall them playing anything from No Depression that early. I started going to see Uncle Tupelo because a friend recommended seeing them. UT was a StL band, not a Chicago band anyway. Same thing was true for Soul Asylum — I saw them at the Metro for the And the Horse They Rode In On tour and thought they were amazing, but I didn't hear them on the radio until the next record. A bunch of the bands I listened to and saw live back then didn't get played on the radio, like Trip Shakespeare and Souled American.

I grew up in St. Louis. Moved to Chicago after school and lived there from 1987-97. I don't remember Breakfast with the Beatles but I totally would have listened to that. Looks like that show is now on WXRT, actually. Terri Hemmert, the DJ who hosts it now, is a huge Beatles fan.
Yeah, I'm not that familiar with WXRT other than the statement on Live at Ax Lounge record that says "Recorded live at Lounge Ax, March 24, 1994, Chicago. "Originally Broadcast Live on 93XRT" on the sticker.

Was kinda right about the genre LOL "Frank E. Lee, the supremely cool afternoon personality at WXRT FM 93.1, is retiring after 35 years at the CBS Radio album adult alternative station." It would be very unlikely most of those bands would have popped on their radar, other than Neil Young really fer sure. But if they're playing Morrisey and Jane's Addiction then Social D and Cocteau Twins aren't a super stretch.

Certainly UT is known as a STL band so I may be overthinking the retroactive influence. I only remember (perhaps the timeline vagaries are lost to failing memory) they mentioned Chicago when opening for fIREHOSE in November of 1989, which I'm almost positive was the first time I saw UT. That was at the old Furst Rock club on the Landing finally being old enough (believably anyway) to get in. Mississippi Nights had an all ages kiddie section but UT didn't really play there until later in 1989 when I'd already left for SEMO.

So I wasn't really that early into them. They'd already been marked by the time I was at the student newspaper at SEMO as an unsigned band to watch. The second time I saw them was a year later after the record came out in summer of 1990 at Off Broadway then again a bunch early 1991 in STL and Columbia but also Little Rock (that show is where I became aware of the Hilltops, later Blue Mountain) and again in Memphis. But by summer and fall of 1991 they were everywhere.

But I only really put 2-and-2 together after reading Jeff's book. UT may have been the last show Sue booked at the Cubby Bear before leaving to start Ax Lounge, so was that about August or September of 1989? So by 1990 they'd have played Ax Lounge at least fairly occasionally.
 
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Hulk

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But I only really put 2-and-2 together after reading Jeff's book. UT may have been the last show Sue booked at the Cubby Bear before leaving to start Ax Lounge, so was that about August or September of 1989? So by 1990 they'd have played Ax Lounge at least fairly occasionally.

I don't remember ever seeing UT at the Cubby Bear. I used to go to the Cubby Bear a lot when Sue was booking bands there. I didn't know her but I knew her name. She probably served me a beer more than once. I remember when all the cool bands started going to Lounge Ax rather than the Cubby Bear after she changed venues. It was actually more convenient for me to go to the Cubby Bear than Lounge Ax because I lived down the block from Wrigley Field in 1988-89, then moved further north to Uptown in '89. Lounge Ax was further south. It was shittier than Cubby Bear, too.

Yeah, I'm not that familiar with WXRT other than the statement on Live at Lounge Ax record that says "Recorded live at Lounge Ax, March 24, 1994, Chicago. "Originally Broadcast Live on 93XRT" on the sticker.

OK, so here's my tiny claim to fame. Not only was I at that last Lounge Ax Uncle Tupelo show, but I took Karie. We'd been dating for a week at that point. And you can see us in the album gatefold photo! Kind of, anyway. We are not the tallest people in the room.

Live-At-Lounge-Ax.jpg
 

Jacket

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That's pretty f'in cool Matt.
 
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