One of the strange parts of Tape Radio is the constant change of Staff DJs. While I might try tell this story as part of a small world thang, however, since it involves people from the same town, “it’s a small town after all” (of maybe 100,000 folks) story. Now I haven’t lived in West Hartford since 1993, but it will always be home to WTIT.

In 1967, our first year, we tried a variety of areas of comedy. We did the prank calls, and fortunately just for a year. To this date, I hate DJs who do prank calls. (Sorry, Gary Craig. Love the show, but I hate the calls.) It was in 1968 that I discovered how stupid they were. On this particular day in 1968, Bouncing Billy decided to call various girls that he did not know. Girls that I and some other DJs knew. One was named Bonnie, whom I had a crush on at 13 years old. In 1967, she was considered Killer Joe’s girlfriend. There are tapes that he just went on & on about how great Bonnie was, and he was right, she was strikingly beautiful. (I ran into her about a year ago, and she’s still got it.) What Billy liked doing was calling a girl, explain that he sat behind her a couple of years ago in some class, and then ask her out. On this particular day, he phoned Bonnie. And, of course, Bonnie said she remembered him from whatever class he said that he was in with her. After a serious discussion of this shared class (Billy was not at public school. He went to a military academy.) Billy asked Bonnie out for New Year’s Eve. She turned him down, having a boyfriend who happened to be Killer Joe’s cousin. (Joe & this guy were not close.)

Years later in 1986, B.B. Bacardi joined WTIT. B.B.’s wife was Bonnie. So after B.B. was with us a while, I remembered that old tape. One night I found it and played it for him. Hearing his wife thinking she knew Bill, and then stating her devotion to a previous boyfriend, was to say the least very weird for the Beebster. On the bright side, much like most of us from back then, they are now divorced. I wonder if that tape had anything to do with it…

One of the strange parts of Tape Radio is the constant change of Staff DJs. While I might try tell this story as part of a small world thang, however, since it involves people from the same town, “it’s a small town after all” (of maybe 100,000 folks) story. Now I haven’t lived in West Hartford since 1993, but it will always be home to WTIT.

In 1967, our first year, we tried a variety of areas of comedy. We did the prank calls, and fortunately just for a year. To this date, I hate DJs who do prank calls. (Sorry, Gary Craig. Love the show, but I hate the calls.) It was in 1968 that I discovered how stupid they were. On this particular day in 1968, Bouncing Billy decided to call various girls that he did not know. Girls that I and some other DJs knew. One was named Bonnie, whom I had a crush on at 13 years old. In 1967, she was considered Killer Joe’s girlfriend. There are tapes that he just went on & on about how great Bonnie was, and he was right, she was strikingly beautiful. (I ran into her about a year ago, and she’s still got it.) What Billy liked doing was calling a girl, explain that he sat behind her a couple of years ago in some class, and then ask her out. On this particular day, he phoned Bonnie. And, of course, Bonnie said she remembered him from whatever class he said that he was in with her. After a serious discussion of this shared class (Billy was not at public school. He went to a military academy.) Billy asked Bonnie out for New Year’s Eve. She turned him down, having a boyfriend who happened to be Killer Joe’s cousin. (Joe & this guy were not close.)

Years later in 1986, B.B. Bacardi joined WTIT. B.B.’s wife was Bonnie. So after B.B. was with us a while, I remembered that old tape. One night I found it and played it for him. Hearing his wife thinking she knew Bill, and then stating her devotion to a previous boyfriend, was to say the least very weird for the Beebster. On the bright side, much like most of us from back then, they are now divorced. I wonder if that tape had anything to do with it…

One of the strange parts of Tape Radio is the constant change of Staff DJs. While I might try tell this story as part of a small world thang, however, since it involves people from the same town, “it’s a small town after all” (of maybe 100,000 folks) story. Now I haven’t lived in West Hartford since 1993, but it will always be home to WTIT.

In 1967, our first year, we tried a variety of areas of comedy. We did the prank calls, and fortunately just for a year. To this date, I hate DJs who do prank calls. (Sorry, Gary Craig. Love the show, but I hate the calls.) It was in 1968 that I discovered how stupid they were. On this particular day in 1968, Bouncing Billy decided to call various girls that he did not know. Girls that I and some other DJs knew. One was named Bonnie, whom I had a crush on at 13 years old. In 1967, she was considered Killer Joe’s girlfriend. There are tapes that he just went on & on about how great Bonnie was, and he was right, she was strikingly beautiful. (I ran into her about a year ago, and she’s still got it.) What Billy liked doing was calling a girl, explain that he sat behind her a couple of years ago in some class, and then ask her out. On this particular day, he phoned Bonnie. And, of course, Bonnie said she remembered him from whatever class he said that he was in with her. After a serious discussion of this shared class (Billy was not at public school. He went to a military academy.) Billy asked Bonnie out for New Year’s Eve. She turned him down, having a boyfriend who happened to be Killer Joe’s cousin. (Joe & this guy were not close.)

Years later in 1986, B.B. Bacardi joined WTIT. B.B.’s wife was Bonnie. So after B.B. was with us a while, I remembered that old tape. One night I found it and played it for him. Hearing his wife thinking she knew Bill, and then stating her devotion to a previous boyfriend, was to say the least very weird for the Beebster. On the bright side, much like most of us from back then, they are now divorced. I wonder if that tape had anything to do with it…

There was a lot of difficulty doing a radio show on tape. (This probably does not surprise you, since I am sure you have never considered doing a Tape Radio Show.) At first, the problems were just due to using a cheap record player (this Magnavox wonder couldn’t even be called a “turntable”) and mono reel-to-reel tape deck. There was no one around to show me how to hook everything up, so I guessed. Obviously, I guessed correctly, but we really did not have great equipment to work with until the 80’s. By then, we had a mixing board and bells & whistles.

The hardest part was not the tape deck and such. It was telling people that we made Tape Radio shows. In the early days, guys would join us and then be embarrassed that we were talking to no one. Some guys even quit, because of this. Even at 15, I knew we were talking to someone, we just didn’t know who or when. It was the future that we were talking to, for the most part. Over the years, even as far back as 1968, we’d tape at parties and such. The last time that I remember a live audience was in 1993. I was living with Harvey Wallbanger after my first divorce. While Harvey normally joined us, he had a date on this particular night. They sat in our living room. While the studio was actually in this incredibly large kitchen/eating area (notice I didn’t say “dining area”. Harvey & I never dined in those days. We were too broke.) there were speakers in the living room as well. Harvey normally shut them off in a situation like this. For some reason, they decided to listen to us. It wasn’t until I realized the laughter wasn’t at the TV, it was at us, that I went into the living room to make sure Harvey had not lost his mind. “This is much more fun than taping”, Harvey stated, “It’s just as funny but less work”.

Even as adults, recruiting new guys could prove dicey. One new DJ in the 90’s, on describing how his wife was reacting to his joining our wacky group, stated, “I said, ‘Honey I’m going over to Bud’s to tape’.” His wife was justifiably confused. “She asked, ‘What is broken and how many of you does it take to use the tape & fix it?’” It still, is not easy to explain…

There was a lot of difficulty doing a radio show on tape. (This probably does not surprise you, since I am sure you have never considered doing a Tape Radio Show.) At first, the problems were just due to using a cheap record player (this Magnavox wonder couldn’t even be called a “turntable”) and mono reel-to-reel tape deck. There was no one around to show me how to hook everything up, so I guessed. Obviously, I guessed correctly, but we really did not have great equipment to work with until the 80’s. By then, we had a mixing board and bells & whistles.

The hardest part was not the tape deck and such. It was telling people that we made Tape Radio shows. In the early days, guys would join us and then be embarrassed that we were talking to no one. Some guys even quit, because of this. Even at 15, I knew we were talking to someone, we just didn’t know who or when. It was the future that we were talking to, for the most part. Over the years, even as far back as 1968, we’d tape at parties and such. The last time that I remember a live audience was in 1993. I was living with Harvey Wallbanger after my first divorce. While Harvey normally joined us, he had a date on this particular night. They sat in our living room. While the studio was actually in this incredibly large kitchen/eating area (notice I didn’t say “dining area”. Harvey & I never dined in those days. We were too broke.) there were speakers in the living room as well. Harvey normally shut them off in a situation like this. For some reason, they decided to listen to us. It wasn’t until I realized the laughter wasn’t at the TV, it was at us, that I went into the living room to make sure Harvey had not lost his mind. “This is much more fun than taping”, Harvey stated, “It’s just as funny but less work”.

Even as adults, recruiting new guys could prove dicey. One new DJ in the 90’s, on describing how his wife was reacting to his joining our wacky group, stated, “I said, ‘Honey I’m going over to Bud’s to tape’.” His wife was justifiably confused. “She asked, ‘What is broken and how many of you does it take to use the tape & fix it?’” It still, is not easy to explain…

There was a lot of difficulty doing a radio show on tape. (This probably does not surprise you, since I am sure you have never considered doing a Tape Radio Show.) At first, the problems were just due to using a cheap record player (this Magnavox wonder couldn’t even be called a “turntable”) and mono reel-to-reel tape deck. There was no one around to show me how to hook everything up, so I guessed. Obviously, I guessed correctly, but we really did not have great equipment to work with until the 80’s. By then, we had a mixing board and bells & whistles.

The hardest part was not the tape deck and such. It was telling people that we made Tape Radio shows. In the early days, guys would join us and then be embarrassed that we were talking to no one. Some guys even quit, because of this. Even at 15, I knew we were talking to someone, we just didn’t know who or when. It was the future that we were talking to, for the most part. Over the years, even as far back as 1968, we’d tape at parties and such. The last time that I remember a live audience was in 1993. I was living with Harvey Wallbanger after my first divorce. While Harvey normally joined us, he had a date on this particular night. They sat in our living room. While the studio was actually in this incredibly large kitchen/eating area (notice I didn’t say “dining area”. Harvey & I never dined in those days. We were too broke.) there were speakers in the living room as well. Harvey normally shut them off in a situation like this. For some reason, they decided to listen to us. It wasn’t until I realized the laughter wasn’t at the TV, it was at us, that I went into the living room to make sure Harvey had not lost his mind. “This is much more fun than taping”, Harvey stated, “It’s just as funny but less work”.

Even as adults, recruiting new guys could prove dicey. One new DJ in the 90’s, on describing how his wife was reacting to his joining our wacky group, stated, “I said, ‘Honey I’m going over to Bud’s to tape’.” His wife was justifiably confused. “She asked, ‘What is broken and how many of you does it take to use the tape & fix it?’” It still, is not easy to explain…

We all knew it was a special moment. The very first tape show. We knew we’d doing this for forty years, at least. It was an important day and we all knew it. If this sounds like total bullshit, it, of course, is crap. When I was about 10, I knew I’d be a radio DJ. Some kids it is baseball, which I loved, but only an average player. Others want to be doctors or astronauts. I just wanted to listen to rock music and introduce the songs. Comedy, I needed that as well. In the sixties, DJs were huge. We’d listen for the hits, but we’d be grabbed by the personalities. Being from Hartford, that meant listening to WDRC, “The Big D”. (Check out Ed Brouder’s infamous WDRC OBG site: http://www.wdrcobg.com/home.html By 11, I saved up and bought a reel-to-reel mono tape deck. I started “playing” radio at once. I was “Bud Weiser” since DJs had names like “Sandy Beach” in those days. Any friend I had, had to tape with me. We called it WWWW, “Because We Can’t Think of a Second Letter”. We listened back, and taped over the preceding shows.

Tape 10 was just one of 16 tapes that I had. They were numbered because I did save a lot of stuff & used a basic numeral system. Bouncing Billy was with me on the 5th of May in the spring of 1967. We didn’t use call letters, called it “The Tape Ten Show, the Big TT”. We did one comedy bit, “News, Sports & Weather”. I saved this tape. Billy was the only guy I knew who got it. He was funny and enthusiastic. It would not be until the next tape, Tape 15, that we came up with “WTIT, the Big T”. Neither Billy nor I remember who came up with the letters. I just thought we’d use them for that one tape, and come up with new ones on the next tape. Obviously, it did not work out that way. Heck, we didn’t have the tape numbers go in order until Tape 17. On Tape 15, Galloping Gary debuted. Just as Billy was a natural, so was Gary. He has one of the greatest voices I have ever heard. He never did voice-overs or anything related, because unlike me, by the time he got to college, he had a lot of other interests. While I graduated from Emerson College. I was a DJ for many years. That’s the Tape Ten story. While I won’t blog about every tape (you can open the “Complete List of Tapes” on WTIT.net for that.) I will highlight important events and comedy bits in future blogs. Oh, please sign our guest book. Particularly, you guys who do/did this crazy thing with me.

The funniest line (about the whole WTIT Tape Radio thing) I ever heard was from Sam Buca, who contributed to WTIT in the early 90’s. While the music was played, Johnnie Walker and I explain the history and point of what we were doing. This is what we did for every new DJ. We would also play them old comedy bits, usually “On Air” so we often heard the new guy’s take, right on the tape. Sam was amazed. He said to me, “You guys started this in High School?” I said yeh, sophomore year. Sam mused that over, then stated, “God, this is so important. My friends and I just pissed away our free time in High School”. I said (after laughing a lot), I’m not sure any of us thought it was important. It was just what we did. And still do. I don’t know, I know it is fun (and hopefully “funny”), but is it important? That is for you to decide.