One fateful morning last March, Aaron Lewis strode in to the WRNX studio armed with his trusty acoustic to perform his latest solo hit.
The tune was called “Country Boy,” and as the Staind frontman crescendoed into the lyrics “and as a country boy, you know I can survive…,” no one, including host Steve Cantara, could have understood the impending irony.
The gravel-voiced morning man of three years at that time wouldn’t survive his gig into the next month, as it turned out. And on Monday, Oct. 31, the station that broadcast that historic performance and so many other great moments in alt-rock history, WRNX 100.9 FM, would go country after 21 years.
“It (WRNX) used to have this great sense of community and diverse music…and, to be honest, a lot of that had gone away before I even got there,” Cantara reminisces. “I tried to resurrect that vibe, but it was already a foregone conclusion, and, consequently, hard to put your heart and soul into something when you know it’s on life support. But I enjoyed my time there and had a great group of listeners.”
“Would I have liked WRNX to stay? Sure,” adds Mike “Haze” Dejesus, production manager for the Clear Channel cluster that also contains WHYN AM and FM KIX Country, which took over the 100.9 FM frequency. “But that wasn’t for me to decide, and as a part of a team, you have to respect the coach’s decisions.”
Haze notes that he was particularly honored to have pulled the Sunday, Oct. 30 on-air shift: “It’s a nice little memory and footnote to be the last voice of the ‘ole girl.'”
Among the alumni to have graced the WRNX microphone over the past two decades is Rachel Maddow, current host of MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show and former Air America Radio personality.
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To be honest, there isn’t much of a correlation between prog-rock prince Roger Waters returning to the area with his audio/visual juggernaut production “The Wall” and Clear Channel nixing WRNX. Not even Kevin Bacon can help the Crawler with this one… but, hey, maybe Jim Ladd can. For the uninitiated, Ladd was a legendary DJ on the classic rock channel KLOS in Los Angeles who gave his farewell broadcast Nov. 5. Among the call-in guests on the historic evening were John Fogerty, Jackson Browne, Slash, Billy Bob Thornton and, you guessed it, Roger Waters.
Which brings us full circle. As chronicled in this very column awhile back, the Pink Floyd co-founder utilized the 30th birthday of the iconic album of the same name to resurrect “The Wall” in tour form back in 2010, replete with a Hartford stop on Oct. 10.
Earlier this month, he declared that the show will continue into 2012—including a return to Hartford June 29 and a Boston play July 1.
“Thirty years ago when I wrote ‘The Wall,’ I was a frightened young man,” Waters recalled at a press conference for the tour. “In the intervening years, it occurred to me that maybe the story of my fear and loss, with its concomitant inevitable residue of ridicule, shame and punishment, provides an allegory for broader concerns: nationalism, racism, sexism, religion, whatever. All these issues and isms are driven by the same fears that drove my young life.”
Huh—so that’s what “you can’t have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat” meant all those years?
Anyway, tix for both “Wall” shows in the region are already on sale at livenation.com.
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Last but not least, your friendly neighborhood Crawler isn’t entirely clear on the distinction between Art Alexakis’ solo career and his work with his band Everclear, as he is the composer, singer and lead guitarist of the latter. But he’ll be at the Iron Horse by himself this Friday, Nov. 18, headlining the 10 p.m. show with Noho duo Coyote Choir in support. For tix and more info, kindly point your browser to iheg.com.
Send correspondence to Nightcrawler, PO Box 427, Somers, CT 06071; fax to (860) 394-4262 or email Garycarra@aol.com.
