"It was all so honest, before the end of our collective innocence. Top
Forty jocks screamed and yelled and sounded mightier than God on
millions of transistor radios. But on FM radio it was all spun out for
only you. On a golden web by a master weaver driven by fifty thousand
magical watts of crystal clear power . . . before the days of trashy,
hedonistic dumbspeak and disposable three-minute ditties . . . in the
days where rock lived at many addresses in many cities."
-from FM
As a young man, Richard Neer dreamed of landing a job at WNEW in New
York-one of the revolutionary FM stations across the country that were
changing the face of radio by rejecting strict formatting and letting
disc jockeys play whatever they wanted. He felt that when he got there,
he'd have made the big time. Little did he know he'd have shaped rock
history as well.
FM: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio chronicles the birth, growth, and
death of free-form rock-and-roll radio through the stories of the
movement's flagship stations. In the late sixties and early seventies-at
stations like KSAN in San Francisco, WBCN in Boston, WMMR in
Philadelphia, KMET in Los Angeles, WNEW, and others-disc jockeys became
the gatekeepers, critics, and gurus of new music. Jocks like Scott Muni,
Vin Scelsa, Jonathan Schwartz, and Neer developed loyal followings and
had incredible influence on their listeners and on the early careers of
artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Genesis, the Cars, and many others.
Full of fascinating firsthand stories, FM documents the commodification
of an iconoclastic phenomenon, revealing how counterculture was coopted
and consumed by the mainstream. Richard Neer was an eyewitness to, and
participant in, this history. FM is the tale of his exhilarating ride.
