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.

January 9, 2013: annual-ish show dedicated to my high school friend 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 (pictured, lower right, in Billboard in August 1980) who was one of my best friends in high school. I've talked to a lot of people over the years who credit a cool uncle, older sister, or other family member for steering them in the right musical direction. That's what Jimmy was for me. We met in high school and became friends through a shared love of music while working together on the school newspaper, but somehow in the pre-Internet mid-'70s Jimmy was able to sniff out cool music that wasn't yet -- or, sometimes, ever -- part of the mainstream.

Jimmy started working at WBCN, the leading rock radio station in Boston, while we were still in high school. He began as a volunteer but soon had paying jobs as Assistant Music Director and Music Coordinator. His excitement, enthusiasm 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. Several of the bands he introduced me to are still my favorites to this day: Cheap Trick. The Dictators. The Ramones. The Stranglers. Ultravox. Foreigner. Television. (I said SEVERAL, not ALL.) Imagine being in your teens and having a friend turn you on to just ONE of these bands. Now increase that impact tenfold or more, and you start to get an idea of the importance of Jimmy's friendship.

In the summer of 1985, Jimmy learned he had AIDS. A year later he passed away, at the age of 25. Generous until the end, he spent his last year and half or so volunteering on the Boston AIDS Action Committee's hotline and working with the AIDS Action Council and the National Association of People with AIDS, where he was elected to the board shortly before he was hospitalized in 1986. Regrettably I had lost contact with Jimmy by this time, and didn't hear of his passing until later that year.

When I got on the regular schedule at WFMU I wanted to acknowledge Jimmy's impact on my life, and especially on my musical tastes. In recent years I've dedicated the first show of the WFMU fall schedule to Jimmy, since his influence is never too far from what you hear me play on my show. There was no schedule change this past fall because of issues related to Sandy, so I'm using this first new-music-based show of the year as an opportunity to once again remember Jimmy and to thank him for his role in shaping my musical taste.


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