Every show starts with the ’70s! We’ll rediscover forgotten rockers, revisit unfairly maligned disco beats and replay power-pop favorites. Next: plenty of new releases, occasional live bands and more. Don’t let the nickname confuse you.

September 14, 2022: MARTYN WARE interview; plus, the annual show dedicated to my high school friend (and music taste influencer for a lifetime) Jim McIntyre, aka Jimmy Mack

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Back in October 2006 I dedicated my first show on the regular WFMU weekly schedule to Jim McIntyre, a/k/a Jimmy Mack, who was one of my best friends in high school. Pictured above is his Xeroxed 1977 Year In Review, which I was delighted to come across in a box of mementos several years ago. Jimmy was the person who turned me on to a TON of new music that was coming out during the mid- and late-'70s -- Cheap Trick, The Dictators, The Ramones, The Stranglers, Ultravox, and Television are just a few of the bands that I first heard of because of my friendship with Jimmy. Imagine being in your teens and having a friend turn you on to just ONE of those bands. Now increase that impact tenfold, or more, and you start to get an idea of the importance of Jimmy's friendship. OK, not every band he turned me on to was super-cool -- he gave me the first couple of Foreigner albums, for instance -- but still, Jimmy had a great ear for cool music that wasn't yet -- or, sometimes, ever -- part of the mainstream. Fortunately for me -- and for you -- that excitement and passion for discovering and sharing new music was matched by his generosity. Nearly every time I saw him he'd present me with a bag of extra (or rejected) promo records from his job at WBCN, Boston's leading rock radio station at the time. (He dropped out of high school, started volunteering on the WBCN "Listener Line," and wound up being the music director when he was barely 18 years old.) Many of the records he gave me back then are records that remain favorites of mine to this day. In the summer of 1985, Jimmy learned he had AIDS. A year later he passed away, at the age of 25. As you can see from the obituary that ran in the Boston Globe he was as generous with his time as he was with records. Regrettably I had lost contact with Jimmy by this time, and didn't hear of his passing until a few years later. When I dedicated my first weekly show on the regular WFMU schedule to Jimmy nearly 16 years ago (!). I wanted to acknowledge his impact on my life, and especially on my own musical tastes. Since then I've dedicated one of the first shows of the WFMU fall schedule to him, since even now his influence is never too far from what you hear me play on my show. Thanks for taking a moment to read about him, and thanks for listening to WFMU.