As we sat in the bar shooting the breeze, getting caught up after not seeing each other for far too long, my old high school and college friend dropped this question:
“You still doing the blog?”
Yes, sir. Still doing the blog.
My friend doesn’t do social media, but he reads this blog as sort of a letter from home, a way to keep tabs on me and mutual friends mentioned from time to time.
We didn’t talk about it that day at the bar, but I think the last time we’d seen each other was 18 years earlier, when I drove to our central Wisconsin hometown and attended the visitation after his father died.
“You still doing the blog?”
Yes, sir. AM, Then FM is 18 years old tonight. The first two posts introducing myself to the blogosphere were on Feb. 25, 2007. That was a Sunday. I’ve published just shy of 900 posts since.
Fun fact: The first post in which there was music was published the next day. One of the commenters — Whiteray from St. Cloud, Minnesota — has been a friend ever since.
“You still doing the blog?”
This blog was named AM, Then FM because that explains how I came to know the music I know and love.
First I listened to the old Top 40 AM radio, starting with WLS, the Big 89 out of Chicago, in the car with my older cousins in the late ’60s. Then it was WOKY, the Mighty 92 out of Milwaukee, on the radio in my bedroom in the early ’70s.
Then we moved and in 1972 I discovered late-night free-form FM radio on WIFC out of Wausau, Wisconsin. It was a Top 40 station by day, but after 10 p.m., the freak flag was raised. Then, in the late ’70s, on to WBIZ out of Eau Claire, which poured out of the radio set at the base of the basketball hoop. Then, in the ’80s, on to WORT, eclectic and independent Back Porch Radio out of Madison.
“You still doing the blog?”
I got to thinking about that path — AM, then FM — as I sat in an almost empty theater this afternoon, watching this film.
“Becoming Led Zeppelin” is an excellent new documentary about how Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Robert Plant and John Bonham became musicians, then came together in 1968, then launched themselves to stardom while touring America behind their self-titled debut album, then made “Led Zeppelin II,” all that in 1969.
So when, I wondered there in the dark, did I hear Led Zeppelin for the first time?
They weren’t a singles band — something proudly noted in the film — but the old Top 40 AM stations played Led Zeppelin. Hm. Don’t remember that.
“Whole Lotta Love” was No. 2 on the WOKY Top 30 chart in the week before Christmas in 1969. Did I hear it then on the radio I got that Christmas? A year later, “Immigrant Song” was climbing the WOKY Top 30 chart as 1970 turned to 1971.
I’ve always associated hearing Led Zeppelin with the album cuts heard on the old free-form FM radio. They turn up twice in The Top 95 Heavys of 1972, the most popular songs of that year on WIFC. “Black Dog” is at No. 11. “Stairway to Heaven” is at No. 59. (Curiously, though, Led Zeppelin is nowhere to be found on WOKY’s end-of-year chart for 1972.)
That path again. AM, then FM.
“You still doing the blog?”
Yes, I am. Thanks as always for following along. More to come.
