It was the afternoon of October 11, 2002.
It was the birthday of Greg L., host of “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.”
A gaggle of WPRB DJs chipped in to surprise the station’s biggest Fall fan with a singing telegram.
The staff gathered in the lounge, waiting for Greg to play what he thought was going to be a routine WPRB promo…
…setting off the following series of events (.mp3)
Have a “Great Moment In Mic Break History” you would like posted? Let us know!
WPRB’s “Nocturnal Transmissions” program is among one of the oldest on our airwaves. For 18 years now, Dr. Cosmo has been playing us weird, awesome, and weirdly awesome sounds. On Friday’s program, Dr. Cosmo welcomes the Princeton chapter of the Paul Green School of Rock!
The PGSR is a performance-based music education program that utilizes the rock format as a way to teach children 7-18 how to play instruments. If you’ve never caught a PGSR showcase, don’t miss out!
Green Chair Dance Group (Photo credit: Philly Fringe Festival)
Tonight’s the last night of the preview shows for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and we’re proud to be a sponsor of it. If you have trouble deciding on what to see, well then, these previews are the perfect thing to help make up your mind.
The previews are being held at the Plays and Players Theatre (1714 Delancey Place) in Philadelphia. Doors open at 8PM. If you missed our ticket giveaways, fret not. The previews are easy on the wallet, at a mere $5.00 a ticket. If you like what you see, you can purchase tickets for the actual events right there!
Streetalkin.com has some great footage from one of the previous preview shows, if you need a preview to the preview!
The good men of Oxford Collapse stopped by WPRB earlier this week to record a special ten song acoustic set full of creative reworkings of favorites old, borrowed and new.
It will debut in October as part of WPRB’s 2008 Membership Drive.
Make sure to check out the new OC album “Bits,” released scant days ago on Sub Pop, and watch the WPRB blog for confirmation of other live guests and special events happening during this year’s drive.
While I’m at it, if you’ve got a design in mind for Membership Drive swag, the WPRB Design Contest is still ongoing.
…came from listener Jay McPhillips, and immediately went on the front door of our studios, right above the glittery radio sticker.
He also included an equally awesome t-shirt emblazoned with the above image for me, instantly making me the envy of the rest of the WPRB staff.
Thanks, Jay!
CaUSE Co-MOTION! at the WPRB-sponsored show on August 16th.
This past Saturday’s sponsored show was such a blast that we thought now’s a good time to give you a sneak peek at upcoming WPRB events. We’ll be writing more about these bands and adding some extra shows as time goes on, so stay tuned to this spot.
We hope you’ll consider attending one (or more!) of these! Meet WPRB DJs and staff, get some free WPRB swag, and of course, watch some amazing bands. Last but not least, we’ll be giving away tickets to all of these shows on WPRB!
WPRB FALL 2008 EVENTS
Schedule subject to change.
MON 08-25
Philadelphia Fringe Festival Preview
At Plays & Players Theater (1714 Delancey Place, Philadelphia, PA)
SAT 09-06
Hotrod Hoedown
At the United German Hungarian Club (4666 Bristol Road, Oakford, PA)
TUE 09-09
Silver Jews, Monotonix
At the First Unitarian Church (2125 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA)
FRI 10-10
Wire
At Johnny Brenda’s (1201 N. Frankford Avenue, Philadelphia, PA)
SUN 10-12
Jonathan Richman (of the Modern Lovers)
At the Sanctuary at First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, PA
WPRB’s FM signal seems to be experiencing technical problems at the moment. If you tune to 103.3, you’ll hear static. Our streaming options are operating at 100%; you can still listen online!
We are currently working to correct the problem. We’ll update this post, as well as our Twitter feed with more news.
04:55 PM We think this might be a fiber optic issue due to campus construction; our engineer is “out in the field”.
05:02 PM Princeton’s IT folks have come to the station; we’re trying to see where the break is on the line.
05:28 PM We’re still checking our fiber optics.
07:04 PM …Aaaand we’re back on the FM signal! Our fiber optic issue has been resolved. Thanks for your patience in this matter!
Yesterday, WPRB’s staff took a trip to visit our radio tower. Why? Um, because we’ve never been! You’ve probably passed our tower dozens of times and never realized it. We tell you about it every night when signing off. But really, what do any of us know about it?
What we do know: WPRB moved to this tower back in 1991, which boosted our broadcast range up to 14,000 watts. (That’s a lot!) Our tower shares space with several other stations, cell phone transmitters and whatnot. It rests peacefully in a state park, amidst spectacular green foliage. It’s so tall that some kind of bird (A condor?! A hawk?! An eagle!?) can be seen flying around the top. Last but not least: without the tireless work of WPRB’s Chief Engineer (Scott Fowler) and the tower, we’d be nothin’. The tower completes us.
After the jump are a collection of photos from our trip, so take a look!
The giant New Jersey Network satellite dish, compared to the size of the WPRB staff.
Spare satellite dish parts, just hanging around. Need one? (Kidding!)
Base of the tower.
Caution. Seriously! This place might be cool and all, but there’s tons of metal and high voltage electricity everywhere.
The door to our the WPRB “shack”. We use the phrase “shack” lightly because it’s the most high-tech shack we’ve ever encountered.
Conveniently set to “WPRB Rock.” Fun fact: the Optimod Audio Processor, a standard in broadcast technology, was designed by WPRB alumnus Bob Orban, who “wasn’t happy with the sound of albums being heard on the ‘new’ stereo FM stations.” Thanks Bob, for making such a great piece of equipment, and for keeping WPRB sounding great!
Scott gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the guts of WPRB’s transmitter.
The high tech way of making sure WPRB is still on the air.
In a space this small, there’s a place for everything.
An upside down sign.
Being held by a thread… sort of: the guide wires that keep WPRB’s tower up.
The WPRB staff, trying to reach the top of the tower, the only way we know how.
WPRB’s series Bach on Thursday, hosted by Teri Noel Towe, continues Thursday 8/14 at 6 AM with its eleventh installment entitled “Bach Behind the Iron Curtain”. This is the second part of Teri’s “Iron Curtain” selections.
This program will feature recordings made in the Soviet Union and in the “Soviet Bloc” countries, including Roumania, Bulgaria, Poland, the Baltic States, the DDR, Czechoslovakia, and the present day Ukraine. In addition, the first commercial Bach recording, made in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1902, and a few Latin American Bach recordings for which there was not time last week, will be aired.
Though we have official staff recaps coming at you shortly, have a listen to interviews we taped with some of the audience at last night’s Free Yr Radio event.
» Listen
Not only did we tape interviews, we reported live from the event on WPRB! Julia from x Clean Yr Room x chatted quickly with DJ KPC at 6PM ET.