Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN

Nelson, Howard, and "The Love Shack"

After years of gazing out over a lunar-like no-man’s-land walled by concrete and barbed wire, the East Berliners who crowded against the barrier erected by the Soviets in 1961 could never have imagined the magnitude of lights, sound, production, or the simple freedom that Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters enjoyed, to stage his band’s grand 1979 work, The Wall, in Potzdamer Platz on 21 July 1990. Only the previous week, West German troops had finished sweeping the area where two hundred thousand fans now stood for unexploded bombs and mines. Their Eastern counterparts danced atop a long line of armored personnel carriers, hooting and hollering in their fatigues as Waters unwrapped the iconic double album onstage, and East hugged West in a new summer of love. I journeyed to this massive European party as a wbCn correspondent, phoning reports back to America from a bank of phones set up in a trailer jammed against the Berlin Wall. After nearly forty years of Soviet injustice and Hitler’s nightmarish reign before that, this whole area reeked tragically NELSON, HOWARD, AND “THE LOVE SHACK” nelson, howard, and “the love shaCk” 241 of history, like some decaying roadkill left by a continent-wide collision. But the immense sound of nearly a quarter-million voices booming into the Berlin night: “Tear down the wall! Tear down the wall!” shouted down the past. Could it be? Could a glimmer of hope be shed for these Berliners, that the end of their long nightmare was truly at hand? Afterward, a few of us roamed about in a mostly deserted backstage area. Dave Loncao, a high-level Mercury Records rep, flashed a laminated pass and performed his Big Apple razzle-dazzle to secure a few bottles of red wine, all that was left from the considerable bar that had catered earlier to hundreds of VIPs. We drank enthusiastically, talking about the concert and the politics of a new Europe until the last bottle had been drained. Loncao grumbled, “What do you want to do now? We’ll never get out of here with all the traffic!” “I guess we just have to hang out or start walking back to the hotel,” someone offered, not a happy prospect since the place was several miles away. “Maybe we should just walk over and take a piss on the Berlin Wall!” someone else piped in. I’d like to say it was my idea, but the wine had begun interfering with any accurate record keeping by that point. Let it stand that “someone” in our group had the brilliant thought. “Like the cover of Who’s Next?” Loncao observed, chuckling with a hand already on his fly. “Exactly!” And with that, our little band of American broadcasters lurched over, offering up our own special tribute to the absurdity of building that ugly ribbon of concrete and metal in the first place. Carter alan A new decade had arrived, a noisy and kicking brat named 1990. Loud and brash, the imp quickly drowned out its older, more reserved, brothers and sisters born during the eighties. Just the end of the Cold War, the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the reuniting of East and West Germany was astounding enough to warrant special attention. But to that remarkable turn of events, add Lech Welesa’s presidential victory to break the back of Poland’s communist government and Margaret Thatcher’s resignation. Twenty-five cents bought a first-class stamp and a gallon of regular gas averaged around $1.15. Sporting fans watched Edmonton deny Boston the Stanley Cup (again); the Reds swept Oakland in the World Series; and Joe Montana led the 49ers in a rout of Denver at Super Bowl XXIV. The Simpsons debuted on Fox-TV, Seinfeld on NBC, while Home Alone, Dances with 242 radio free boston Wolves, and Ghost became box office monsters. As M. C. Hammer’s Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ’Em sat at number 1 for twenty-one weeks and sold ten million copies, an unknown band in Seattle named Pearl Jam played its first gig and Nirvana visited Boston for the second time. The eighties had been very good to WBCN, the station arriving at 1990 on the crest of local popularity, as well as national respectability. Friday Morning Quarterback looked back on the previous years by polling the professional communities of both broadcasting and the record...