-1) Why does this now-gone station still have such hold on so many of us?

Because.

And also because many of us have realities like these...

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HCN RockYear 1970 prod aired Jan 21 1989

Ooo-kay, I've remember now why I've been carting these tapes around for decades and not copying them off for listening. I thought my voice was pretty good back then, I knew that I was a Mickey Mouse when I started on AM but after a few years on The Rock I really thought I'd trained to sound better. Yukola, and yet people hired me.. go figure.

Here's the set of breakers used in the 1970 day of the 220 hour "HCN RockYears" feature to commemorate the station's 20th birthday. If my VO really sucks then at least I can say that all of the content had to be found by many means including tracking down old jocks who sometimes had no happy feelings at first and who had to be worked hard to get them in and on tape, andor - harder - find and go through lots of original air and prod audio from the lost years. Then all of those hours of audio had to be gleaned down to bites and the intros and outros had to be written and then each had to be produced for insertion into the live flow of each week's ten hour feature. That's all got to be worth something, right?

In this set you'll find out a lot of cool insider stuff about the 1970 Progressive Radio done by loving hippies, plus unusual stories from and about the artists of the year. Put up with the wrap delivery already, I truly believe that heard in context of the flow of the live feature instead of one after another my voice wasn't that annoying... sniffsniff :)

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HCN RockYear 1971 prod aired Jan 28 1989

The set of breakers and IDs and promos used in the 1971 day of the 220 hour "HCN RockYears" feature to commemorate the station's 20th birthday. If my VO really sucks, well ... look up at the lamentation above.

In this set you'll hear the laid back sounds of '71 including boot audio of Janis Joplin, PSAs for the hipped out pre-AIDS, pre-Disco mellow generation and more. A peek into a way different time. Enjoy!

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HCN RockYear 1972 prod aired Feb 4 1989

Country Paul Payton on HCN giving Chuck Berry's My Dingaling it's very very first play... and more (Chuck Berry and that song might not thrill you but this story will). The hippy style of presentation and production (did jocks with good voices have to train themselves to sound so ... so... what would you call that style?), Todd Rundren planning ahead to 1984, "The Source" of The NBC Young Adult Radio came directly from WHCN, "The News Blimp" came from WHCN, Dosing Richard Nixon, Bowie starts creating his characters, Choosing the music (Joe Walsh & Steely Dan's beginnings), the amazing Allmans... quite a year!

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HCN RockYear 1973 prod aired Feb 11 1989

Nixon resigns, Pink Floyd does Darkside, Commercials starting to get creative and fun (and offering "free rolling papers with every purchase"), albums for just $3.39... Lots of mega-classic band cuts in this one including Zeppelin, ZZTop, Doobies, Stones, Who and more!

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HCN RockYear 1974 prod aired Feb 18 1989

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HCN RockYear 1975 prod aired Feb 25 1989

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HCN RockYear 1976 prod aired Mar 4 1989

The set of breakers and IDs and promos used in the 1976 day of the 220 hour "HCN RockYears" feature to commemorate the station's 20th birthday. Ah, seems the producer/voice was finally starting to get into a bit of a groove, the wraps are a slight tad more natural

This is a nice set of content too. HCN was getting less laid back and some of more the biggie names of both Radio and Rock are in here (Scared by the original "Last House on the Left" or stirred by "Billy Jack"? Love The Eagles, Seger, Heart? Remember NBC's "The Source"? The Shaboo, anyone? Then this stream is worth a spin).

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HCN RockYear 1977 prod aired Mar 11 1989

The set of breakers and IDs and promos used in the 1977 day of the 220 hour "HCN RockYears" feature to commemorate the station's 20th birthday.

Content includes: Picozzi doing the morning show with Chip Triest, Picozzi producing a Frank Zappa concert spot (btw: I don't feel as bad now about my sounding like a little kid in these 80's bits... Mr. P in the 70's is almost unrecogizable). Plus: Klaatu, the Skynyrd crash, an HCN DHeadzone Robert Hunter interview cut, Iggy Pop making HCN's Jim Shanahan squirm (admittedly Iggy was just doing the correct presentation for his character, but you gotsta feel for the jock). But wait, there's more!!! ;-)

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HCN RockYear 1978 prod aired Mar 18 1989

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HCN RockYear 1979 prod aired Mar 25 1989

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HCN RockYear 1980 prod aired Apr 1 1989

Yes, I had a major cold when I produced this part of the 220 hour WHCN retrospective feature, but the show had to go on so you'll just have to deal with my stuffly nose gosh darnit ;-).

EDDIE HASKELL!!!! CHIP AND EDDIE!!!! S'cuze me, but I was a just-a-listener then and I loved that morning team and idolized Eddie. Lots of good stuff here: HCN's Tom Watts production (Watts was my production hero, a great voice that you just trusted), the HCN Cadet Buttons, Donna Doobie, Van Halen, Queen disco, Pete Townsend regretting loss of memory... plus remember that 1980 was the year Lennon was shot so you get the thunderstrike of those HCN news reports (Laurie Gypson was on the air for Eddie that morning... something she told me she always regretted)

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HCN RockYear 1981 prod aired Apr 8 1989

Yes, I had a fading cold when I produced this part of the 220 hour WHCN retrospective feature, but the show had to go on so you'll just have to deal with my stuffly nose gosh darnit ;-).

This was the year that Gary Lee Horn arrived at the rock, taking over Chip's place on the Eddie Haskell morning show. Interesting break in this set shows that at first Horn's "horning in" wasn't exactly always welcome (Eddie always had a sly way of getting his true feelings across. Great Tom Watts production for the legendary "HCN Rock Wars", "The Rock Olympics", "Fantasy Album Weekends", Irv Goldfarb afternoons, Phil 'The Rock Pole' Kyrzyk, Laurie Gypson, plus lots of stuff from the news (like the release of the Iranian hostages, Reagan getting shot), and bands of the day (the first year for U2 and Ireland was still a divided country at the time, Ozzy telling us the truth about the Bat) - and more.

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HCN RockYear 1982 prod aired Apr 15 1989

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HCN RockYear 1983 prod aired Apr 22 1989

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HCN RockYear 1984 prod aired Apr 29 1989

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HCN RockYear 1985 prod aired May 6 1989

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HCN RockYear 1986 prod aired May 13 1989

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HCN RockYear 1987 prod aired May 20 1989

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P&H in their prime

Of the hundreds of Picozzi & The Horn airchecks it was part of one of my station olden gigs to edit and archive, this is one that I'm really glad I saved with a special note. It was marked "P&H Pretty hot" and was recorded April 24th 1990.

Mentions of Kat Sinclair's Next Big Thing, The Lich, Marching Weathermen, 60 Seconds, Nedsky, Paul McCartney's New Haven pullout controversy, Van Halen's brand new Cabo bar grand opening call-in... Oh, and it being the day that the Hubble Space Telescope was launched there are several mentions of that plus at around 40:00 you'll hear the ABC news Discovery/Hubble launch report.

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Lowell George: The last interview

I know I have a cleaner copy of this somewhere but till I find it, this is still one of the greatest things a classic rock fan could hope to hear. It's Lowell George's last radio interview, wonderfully done by Ed O'Connell on WHCN on June 22nd, 1979 before George did his show at the Hard Rock Cafe in West Hartford.

Just seven days later Lowell George was found dead of a heart attack in his hotel after a gig down in in D.C..

Now, these days some folks might not recall right quickly why Lowell George was so important in that, like many other bands, Little Feat didn't always test very well so outside of pockets of smarter stations airplay wasn't great... but give this a listen and perhaps not just the Feat's popular tunage will strike a memory chord, but also you may get a kick out of the stories of the friendship between George and Jackson Browne (who cried at 'HCN when we gave his a dub of this years later). Then there's the off the wall details of his time with Zappa, and his weird way of mentioning his relation to the Standells (yeah, the "Dirty Water" Standells). Plus, some things that a lover of the Grateful Dead may find totally new, including his observations of the Dead's famous "security team" (of course he also has insights on the oddnesses of producing the Dead's 'disco album' Shakedown Street -and the Dead themselves - that I'd never ever heard articulated so well before this interview.).

You *do* want to hear this one even with my first-found copy's slight phasiness. But don't tell any of the surviving members of Little Feat that it's here, they HATE what Lowell says about their parts of the Little Feat breakup... truth hurts, and this is a big Ouch for them.

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Hello 'HCN from The Joe Show.

Smokin' Joe?... Joe Simpson?... Joe Pasternak...? His tight late night show started after my slappy night show and honestly I just couldn't remember what his air name was (I've never been too bright), so I'd just say "up next, The Joe Show!" and it stuck. Happily Joe apparently liked the name because he's still using it at Q96 WLVQ in Columbus (unlike Kenny Light who I tried real hard to rename "Richard Brain", dunno why he just wouldn't accept that ).

Anyway, shortly after taking over Q96 afternoons 'The Show" sent me this hiya tape of promos, airchecks and stuff for the HCN gang. I think you can figure out what is from the air and what's for his friends.

Oh, it's funny to hear the Q mentions of Buzz Night, Joe was taking over his afternoon show as Buzz went off-air to be Program Director. It's just weird because Buzz was Kitty Kat Sinclair's PD pre-HCN and my wife's post-HCN PD at WZLX Boston - that's what we used to call "radio incest" showing that even before Radio Computer Services perfected automated voice tracking there already were only a handful of folks talking to listeners all over the planet, the moving around a lot and using different names just made it seem like more people.

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Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickenson playin HCN Morning Jock

It started being a common thing in the early 90's, rock artists would go into radio stations and "take over as jocks". But one of the first big times it happened in America, and, importantly, where the artist actually did a real show live, was on HCN in 1988.

Here's a partial (maybe I'll find the whole thing eventually) of Bruce Dickenson the morning after Iron Maiden played the Hartford Civic Center in July 1988.

BTW: I was, as usual, still at the station that morning when Dickenson showed up; Honestly we didn't think it was going to happen because it was just a casual suggestion to him either at the show the night before or a few days before. Anyway, I remember being up in the lounge having a too-long-night-bleary cigarette and trying to come up with an angle for a spot and into the room he walks all bright eyed and bushy tailed with a tall, all-leg a-freaking-mazing blonde on his arm. I made him a coffee, tried desperately to keep my eyes off of his girl and was completely floored when he went downstairs, turned his own mic on and just did a great radio show.

Like I said, this is just a partial tape, he actually did hours and didn't want to stop.

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The H-Team final composite

Paul Harris, Gary Lee Horn, Mr. T, Ghandi, Carl Sagan, Victor Herena, Cabbage Patch Kid in a blender, Asylum Hill Streeet Blues, Mr. T, Tom Carvel, Bang the Drum All Day, Return of the Rabbi, Brain (hearing that character got me laughing again), Mr. T, Martha... and on and on.

If you remember the 80's this will be a lot like watching Family Guy... and if you don't remember the 80's then it will also be like watching Family Guy, but maybe a bit less funny ;-).

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Picozzi & Triest Mornings 1978

Quite a bit different from #1 above, this goes back to the days Michael was up against Stern at 'CCC (and when Mr. P had overnighter Bob Bittens recording Stern to get him out of town... which worked by the way).

The names of bands, what passed for "rock" back then and the hint of stuff to come in AOR like the destruction of a Village People album are interesting. Plus, at the tail is the first break from then music director "DFH" a.k.a. "Daniel Francis Houseplant" a.k.a. Dan Hayden now president of Pathfinder (and in my mind still one of the best Program Directors AOR ever had)

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Picozzi's WYSP 1980s Prod

Picozzi left WHCN in 79/80-ish to PD at Philly's WYSP. There he really made his name.

Loads of stuff travelled back and forth between the stations, MetalShop, Breakfast with the Beatles, The Ticket Upgrade ... not to mention Gary Lee Horn being taken down to 'YSP (pissing off Paul Harris big time) and later Kim Alexander and The Horn both moving back up to rejoin Mr. P

This is a great set of excellent, solid AOR promotional production from Picozzi's Philly days. And darned if that voice doesn't sound a LOT like Chip Triest. Dunno who the producer voice really was though.

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DFH aircheck October 1979

Middays was Daniel Francis Hayden a.k.a. DFH.

I remember once when Dan was the off-air PD, Eddie Haskell called me up at home and said "QUICK! Turn on the station, Dan's on the air!" I was really excited because Dan was my God-PD... but hearing his show I was kinda confused because even though I knew that he'd been off the air for a while I still figured I'd be knocked out. Talking to Eddie later about it he told me something very important: 'The best PDs aren't always the best Jocks. Don't let his emergency fill-in show take anything away from the fact that everything you can learn from Dan is going to make you better.'

Listening to this I have to say that when he was on the air it may not have been over the top but his shows had subtleties, and he was definitely better at connecting to the listener than MANY others who called themselves jocks but just read cards (and sounded like it).

Good stuff, bringing back the day plus near the end DFH does a PSA that should not have been in the cardbox for a Rock station... for those who don't know Hartford, Bob Steele was the WTIC-AM Morning anchor for eons. EVERYBODY - including Marconi - grew up with him on the air ;-).

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Donna Doobie doing Midday Labor Day 1979

Late Middays with Donna Doobie (she had a great voice).

Fun stuff includes mentions of HCN Homespun with Jack Corea, The Walrus, Ross 'The Rock' MacDonald's HCN morning show and part of a Blue Oyster Cult New Haven concert spot done by Bob Bittens.

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DHF "Fucked up" October 1979

"This guy's gonna be a superstar someday.... here's Tom Petty", "HCN StreetSheet" , "HCN Cadets", great live read of the Porn movies at the Berlin Drive-In.

I don't know why my tape is marked "DFH fucked up", aside from a confused crosstimecheck and a couple less than perfect talkups, he seems straight, maybe a little more excited/fast/up but...

Dan left his tape in the deck so there's some of the Donna Doobie show too. Hmmm, she mentions an overnighter named Laurie Simpson... did she mean Laurie Gypson? (When I started at The Rock I had a major crush on Laurie Gypson and being a dumb kid I never realized that for years Laurie and engineer Rick Walsh were a couple... had to finally admit both of those things)

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