WMHD Sundays on HD2

This episode is another rare tape from the WMHD production archive: a "studio master" tape for an episode of a show that we called Terre Haute After Dark. Back then, many big cities had started late-night "after-dark" programs with a somewhat mellower and more sophisticated mix with a wide range of artists. And Terre Haute didn't have any program like that, so we said why not make our own! And we did. This was a weekly program that usually aired Monday nights at midnight, and this is episode 16. Fair warning: This is mostly not "Radio M music." 1h3m

This broadcast starts at about 9 PM. By this point, the music mix was beginning its shift from general so-called "progressive" to the new-music focus of what would become Radio M. And the "big" music news this week was the U.S. release of Welcome to the Pleasuredome, tonight's featured album on The Magnetic Record Shop. 2h1m

This broadcast is a three-hour double episode, joined in progress just after 6 PM. During the summer of 1984, WMHD stayed on the air nightly, and this is the first half of one of Chris' six-hour shifts. Also, this was before any of us had discovered Album 88, so the on-air style that night was chaotic, to put it mildly. But if you look past the overcaffeinated 23-year-old announcer, you can see the embryonic Radio M music mix starting to define itself. 3h2m

This broadcast is a "studio master recording" of the WMHD British Music Review, complete with the "begins in five seconds" bit! This was a short-lived weekly program that recapped the UK music charts and played new UK releases. It was definitely a different era, an exciting time, and you can hear the early seeds of what we'd bring to Radio M a few months later. 32min

This broadcast begins at about 9 PM. This was before we started dreaming of Radio M, but you can hear a hint of Radio M's music in this show that aired under a general "progressive" nighttime branding for the station. Also, listen for a strange new unfamiliar album imported from the UK being played definitely for the first time in Terre Haute, and probably for the first time in Indiana. Just a shame that Chris didn't handle it smoothly! 1h35m

This broadcast begins at about 6:15 AM. It's an early episode of one of Chris' morning shows, and this one is just all over the place, not always in a good way. A few things to watch for in this one: Chris gives a completely wrong title for one song, and Chris apparently still hasn't learned the difference between the words "fixation" and "fixture." And just before 7 AM there's one of those pre-recorded public-affairs programs we had to run to keep the FCC happy. But if you listen real close, you can just barely hear some hints of the future Radio M. And you'll learn the answer to this burning question: What was the very first CD that WMHD ever got? 1h38m

This broadcast begins at about 9 PM. Chris is in for a three-hour evening shift as "Terre Haute's most used substitute DJ," while he's also still doing The Electric Breakfast every weekday at 6 AM. And he got unusually ambitious with a multi-channel station promo and alternating left/right audio, all achieved through glorious physical analog tape editing. The music? Pure prototype Radio M goodness. 1h37m

This broadcast begins at about 7 PM. It captures the moment where the Radio M music was pretty much in place, but still without most of the formatics that would be needed for commercial radio. For some reason, Chris also does a "news brief" that isn't all that brief, and he misreads a name in the copy, not once but twice. But it's still an interesting time capsule! 1h37m

This broadcast begins at about 9 PM. This was before we had heard Album 88, and you can tell that our on-air style was a little looser and not quite as well structured as it became a couple months later after we drove to Atlanta to meet with them. But even here, the Radio M music philosophy was already pretty much in place. By the way, if you know the original source of the fake ad near the end of this broadcast, let us know! We haven't been able to track it down. 2h3m

This broadcast from January 1985 is a special three-hour double episode: it's one of many what we called "emergency DJ tapes." We recorded these three-hour shows on giant tape reels and had them ready to go if a DJ didn't show up for their shift, or if we wanted to keep the station on overnight when nobody was available. What's interesting about this tape is that it's almost an exact copy of the artist and album list that we used a few weeks later on our WSDM demo tape ... and it's also the foundation for a lot of what we played here at Radio M when we launched the station that April. Note: There's a bit more background and mechanical noise than usual. That's because we didn't make this tape in the broadcast booth; we made it in the station's office on the portable equipment that we used for live remotes. 3h12m

This broadcast is from December 30, 1984 and begins at about 9:15 PM. Chris says: "I find it interesting because it's got a lot of what we call formatics -- all those little bits of 'furniture' other than just me talking. Even if most of them aren't all that great, I think it was our way of trying to hide the fact that the Rose campus was closed for the holidays and just the tiniest of skeleton staffs was keeping the station on the air at night." 1h35m

This broadcast is from March 22, 1985 and begins a little after 6 PM. This broadcast also includes a full five-minute episode of The Space Story, a public affairs program that was distributed by NASA. Enjoy this broadcast in its entirety, exactly as it first aired. 1h36m

This broadcast is from March 13, 1985 and begins at about 6 PM. By this time, we had made the proposal to WSDM and were anxiously waiting for The Call. On the air, we were already essentially playing the Radio M playlist (but mostly without the imaging and formatics of commercial radio), and we knew that the owners were listening to see what we really did on the air. 1h36m

We have broadcasts from two consecutive days in January 1985. The first broadcast is from January 21, 1985 and begins at about 6:55 AM. The second is from January 22, 1985 and begins at about 7 AM. Enjoy these broadcasts in their entirety, exactly as they first aired, although one song is lost during a tape flip. And somewhere in this show, Chris incorrectly reverses the artist and album of one song. Can you spot it? 1h45m

This broadcast is from March 7, 1985 and begins at about 6 PM. This was only a few weeks before we launched Radio M, and you can feel the music pretty much in place, even if we didn't have any of the imaging or formatics yet. 1h37m

This broadcast begins at about 8:15 AM and is one of the best examples of the embryonic Radio M format during morning hours. 1h36m