Before WPRB’s Chester Dubov re-purposed the “Totally Wired” show name for his punk broadcasts of the early 2010s, it was a late 80s/early 90s show focused on the British indie scene. The show was hosted by a series of student DJs including Hugh Hynes and Christian Perring, and for a time, made WPRB’s name synonymous with the sounds of bands like Ride, My Bloody Valentine, Adorable, Suede, and the Stone Roses. In 1991, Christian Perring was lucky enough to interview Miki Berenyi of Lush live on the air. Click here to download the recording of that interview, or stream it using the player below.
Image: “There’s a Dyke in the Pit” 7″ compilation, Outpunk Records, 1992.
[Text: Gayle Wald and Joanne Gottlieb]
WPRB’s “Ladies First” aired Monday nights at 9 PM beginning in the summer of 1992. The original idea was for a show that featured female artists and that interrogated what “women’s” music could sound like. It was one a few radio shows in the New York-to-Philadelphia area that routinely featured music from the burgeoning Riot Grrrl movement of women in indie rock. The title of the show was taken from a track by Queen Latifah and Monie Love on Queen Latifah’s groundbreaking debut LP, “All Hail the Queen”. The original promo invited lady listeners to tune in and “liberate your radios!”
DOWNLOAD: 11 Page PDF of Ladies First playlists from 1992
LISTEN: “Ladies First” promo #1
Below is the transcript of a conversation between co-hosts Gayle Wald (Grad ’95) and Joanne Gottlieb (Grad ’02) about the show and its origins.
Gayle Wald: Joanne, how do you remember getting involved with “Ladies First” and WPRB?
Joanne Gottlieb: I got involved with WPRB in the spring of 1990 – my friend and fellow grad student Christian Perring suggested we do the training for the station/FCC license together, and we started doing our respective shows that summer. As an undergrad, I had had a boyfriend who was a college radio DJ, and doing college radio seemed like one of the coolest things you could do, short of being in a band yourself. Doing the WPRB training was also a way to spend more time with Christian, on whom I had a big crush. (We got together that spring.) I guess my involvement with music has always had a big connection to the men in my life. (more…)
