The Blast From The Past

From somewhere around 1986 up through about 1990 I hosted (along with, initially, Walt Montgomery, and then Scott Carpenter) an oldies show* on WUTK. Initially called the Midnight Mouldies (due to its airtime of midnight to 2 AM on Fridays) the show eventually expanded to four hours under the name The Blast From The Past. The four-hour version of the show first aired from 10PM-2AM on Fridays (after which I would drive to my 6 AM job at WATE - I would sleep for about three hours in the haunted Greystone), and then midway through the run we switched to 6PM-10PM on Saturdays (presumably so that I could make 10PM showtimes with the increasingly-busy Sea 7 States). The show petered out in 1989 as a one-hour taped presentation under the regime of John Carr, the final show being a presentation in its entirety of Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music" (thanks to Jay Nations of Raven Records, who gave me an unopened copy when I indicated that I would play it on the air). I believe Carr's last words to me were along the lines of "don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out."

While it appears that I have random tapes of dozens of other peoples radio shows, I don't have a single recording of the nonsense that was TBFTP. So, in memorium, I present these silly promos.

*We defined "oldie" as anything recorded at least ten years prior to the date of the show, so in 1985 we could play pre-1975, etc. We tried to play the obscure and neglected (Fugs, Blues Magoos, rockabilly, odd album tracks) though often we had to break down and play a request for The Doors or freaking Steely Dan.


TBFTP Promo 01
TBFTP Promo 02
TBFTP Promo 03
TBFTP Promo 04
TBFTP Promo 05

In these days of Pro Tools production these ain't no technological achievement, but for a turntable, a cart machine, and a reel-to-reel they amuse me.

Raven Records Part Uno

Raven Records (Jay Nations and his band of merry miscreants) was instrumental in supporting the Knoxville music scene/musicians, firstly by providing regular employment for a rotating cadre of probably otherwise only semi-employable local musicians, secondly by advertising in local music/entertainment rags, and thirdly by providing sponsorships for programming on WUTK.

Here are two donor spots from around 1986-87.
The first features Jay's gimmick of handing out the lyrics to Louie Louie to patrons:

Louie Louie Lyrics

The second features a guest appearance by The Clash's drummer Topper Headon (Jay, how did you arrange that one?):

Topper Headon