Tom Benham Oral History

Tom Benham Oral History

Summary

Tom Benham discusses his music background and his involvement with the radio station at Fitchburg State University. He talks about his love for alternative and punk rock music, his experiences attending concerts, and the impact of MTV on the music scene. Tom also shares his role in the radio station, the challenges they faced with their limited transmitter range, and the camaraderie among the DJs. The conversation revolves around the experience of being part of a college radio station and the impact it had on the participants' lives. They discuss the sense of community and friendship that developed through their shared love of music. They reminisce about attending concerts together and the excitement of seeing bands like O Positive and Tribe. They also talk about the structure of the radio station and the different shows they had, including alternative, metal, and 50s music. The conversation ends with reflections on how the college radio experience shaped their organizational and leadership skills.

59:58

(NOTE: Transcript is AI generated, to be updated)

Kate Jewell (00:01.183)
All right, it is August 12th, 2024. I'm Kate Jewell, recording from Belmont, Massachusetts, and I am here with Tom Benham. Is that correct? Okay. So, can you... I don't know, where do you wanna start?

Tom Benham (00:13.304)
That's correct.

Tom Benham (00:23.47)
Well, I mean, you know, I'll give you my my high school background that segues to college. So I mean, in high school, I grew up in Western Mass, pretty decent. And so let me back up, I graduated high school in 87. In Western Mass, so you live in Mass, so know, so Amherst, other than the Pixies, obviously, sure. But, but Joey, Joey Santiago, right. But, you know, Western Mass is pretty is pretty alternative for a small

Kate Jewell (00:27.465)
Sounds good.

Tom Benham (00:51.693)
population size. I it's not just the kids who go to UMass and take off and go back home to their parents. I mean, I grew up in East Hampton, which is Northampton, sister of Northampton. My mother grew up in Northampton, so I'm three generations of Western Mass. know, growing up, know, sister's five years older than me, so I went to see Rush Foghat and the James Gang at Springfield Civic Center in 1976, give or take.

You know, Geddy Lee had a big hat on. was there with the opening act. I'm assuming Fogout was probably the headliner, if I would've guessed. Can't find that ticket stuff, but I've been looking for it for years. I was six. My parents were terrified because everyone was smoking dope, and my father was a straight edge. He was sitting way in the boot. It's pretty much, to say it's small, it's like the size of Worcester. It's pretty small, but it's still there. And then...

You know, my sister was kind of, you know, new age, know, Duran Duran, like everybody else was like, my God, Simon, he's so beautiful. So I'm like, I don't like this. But, you know, so I started getting into, you know, Adam and the Ants, right? And a little bit more English pop, and everybody liked The Clash. Clash was a little bit, when I was 10, 11, The Clash was too heavy for me. I don't know why. And then, you know, getting to be 11, 10, 12, 13, you know, my neighbor was...

could play like six instruments. He's extremely alternative. He was into the Dead Kennedys, Sex Pistols. I never really got into the Dead Kennedys, but Sex Pistols immediately like, this is something I really liked. were already, mean, was already dead. mean, they had already broken up. had their two albums and Nevermind the Bullocks. mean, just the yellow album was on my wall.

Kate Jewell (02:34.441)
Hmm.

Tom Benham (02:42.442)
So you started evolving with Pistols Were the Lead, kind of like Nirvana, we'll get to Nirvana in second, right? Or by Juleby. You start with Sex Pistols, then underneath that you have The Damn, know, The Clash were a different ballpark. The Clash, globally I guess probably had more, you would know better than I do, maybe The Clash were more popular than Sex Pistols, but not in 77, right? Not in 77. And then getting into bands that...

Kate Jewell (02:48.275)
you

Tom Benham (03:09.821)
really, really followed the sex pistols as well throughout the late 70s, early 80s. then, you know, going to college, we were at a standpoint that, you know, the new age was kind of going away. You know, MTV was slowly going away too. So, know, tears for fears, know, everybody wants to rule the world.

11 year old knows the songs of Tears for Fierce. I wasn't even that into Tears for Fierce then. I was just like, and then my parents or my kids are like, have you seen them? Cause I've seen everybody. And I'm like, no, but the singer passed away what, three years ago. So I said, no, I can't see them. I couldn't see them, but I, but I've seen everybody. pretty much wanted to. And then so in high school it was, know, punk rock was sadly already run its course, right? So the class broke up, big audio dynamite.

Kate Jewell (04:03.635)
Yep.

Tom Benham (04:07.9)
I saw them three times. actually enjoyed Big Idol Diamond because they had the ska and the reggae and you know, Mick Jones is Australian, talented. Yeah, they were kind of interesting. And then, you know, got into things, I mean, like the cult. Silently, but since I'm recording this, I mean, I'm a huge Billy Idol fan. I was, know, Generation X was my band. That band didn't last long either. And then the running joke still to this day, I like to say Billy Idol.

Kate Jewell (04:14.565)
is more experimental.

Kate Jewell (04:34.409)
you

Tom Benham (04:37.904)
at the MGM last fall when they were in Boston. He probably went to it. It was right down the street from you. So yeah, I was MGM in Boston, went to see him and it's hilarious. mean, you he's still smiling. He still looks the same almost. Yeah, yeah, he has. Yeah, he's put on a few pounds because he was a skinny English bloke from London. But so anyway, so, know, so I was I was chastised by my really hard, you know, sex pistol friends. generation X.

Kate Jewell (04:41.842)
I that.

Kate Jewell (04:49.148)
Well preserved.

Tom Benham (05:05.413)
He's kind of a pretty boy. He's got no talent. I'm like, yeah, but then MTV, mean, Mony Mony, which is a terrible cover, but Mony Mony just blew him out of the water. you know, Dancing With Myself, you know, the video that he holds and he goes like this and gets electrocuted and he falls in the car. What? mean, Wedding was even, White Wedding's even better, but it's kind of kind of very gothic. It's kind of a very gory words just in general. But Dancing With Myself, he's like screaming and he gets electrocuted. It's so cool. So.

You know, growing up in East Hampton, we didn't have MTV until like 1981. My cousins in North Hampton got it in 1980. I know I'm backing up a little bit, but my cousins, so I would go over there on Saturdays because my mother and my aunt were best friends. So every Saturday they'd do pizza and we would watch MTV for five straight hours, you know? And I do remember the one outing that they had told us that Michael Jackson's thriller is gonna be on.

Kate Jewell (05:40.028)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, that's what it did.

Tom Benham (06:01.957)
I don't mean like Michael Jackson at all, but I wanted to see the video because it's 12 minutes and it's fantastic video, right? So, and then MTV was just slowly plugging along and we were kind of moving away from MTV by that time, all the Western mass punks, you know, and all the alternative kids, because there was MTV was now, you know, obviously Madonna. We like, we like, we kind of like Prince, you know, Prince was still pretty cool. and I don't, I don't blame him for not selling out if you, I don't blame him for commercializing, you know,

So then, you know, we kind of moved away from, you know, MTV. I couldn't find it today, even if I knew where it existed. So then, you know, we went into just underground bands that would come out and we could see anything we want. And then going to college, I went to Fitchburg State, you know, so on that... Well, I mean, sight unseen, first of all. My sister went to Salem State.

Kate Jewell (06:49.215)
Yeah, brought you to Fitchburg State?

Mm -hmm.

Tom Benham (06:59.396)
And my dad's like, you're not going there. I'm like, Salem's really cool city, this is 19. My sister graduated in 1983 in Salem. So Salem's a little bit different city than it was now. And, you know, my parents were divorced. Didn't have a lot of money. I got into Northeastern, it was $14 ,000 a year. mother's like, my God, 14 grand. You know, and then.

Bridgewater State, West Coast State was too close to home because my father knew I would turn into a townie, like I said, three generations. West Coast State was too close to home. Bridgewater State, Salem State out, Framingham State. Couldn't figure out where it was. And then, you know, me and my girlfriend a couple of weekends snuck out and drove to Fitchburg and drove through the campus and we're like, this is the coolest school in the world. And kind of sight unseen. Like, that's, I mean, I got in, got my major, the financial aid. mean, this is what I paid freshman year. That's part of the reason.

Kate Jewell (07:30.409)
Mm -hmm.

Kate Jewell (07:53.033)
Yeah.

Tom Benham (07:54.327)
You know, the room and dorm room and board, my parents and I, my paper route, my parents, you know, we hadn't, I had no student loans undergrad zero. cause I worked so hard in the summers landscaping or whatever I did, but you know, Fitzbury state was cost effective then. And then, you know, freshman year, you know, I, didn't join the radio station until my sophomore year. Cause my dad's like, great, great, great. Don't do anything. That's fun. You know, study on the weekends or come home on the weekends, stay out of trouble. so I lived in the coed dorm.

called Russell Towers. But at the cafeteria, they would be playing WXPL all the time. And the radius, 91 .3, which you know, so talking to Nick, right? So 91 .3 was called radio station. it was, you know, and we will get there in a second. And, you know, I remember hearing Big I do a Dynamite in the cafeteria. You know, it made a medicine show or something. Covered wagon medicine show.

No one in the cafeteria knew who the hell they were and I was singing away. And then seeing some of the punk rock kids, the alternative kids, the goth kids walking around campus, finally, know, one thing I did freshman year is I played intramural street hockey. My father wouldn't let me do anything because he was afraid of my grades. My grades were terrible anyways. But in the sophomore year, I went to the first open house. You know, I toured the old radio station, which was in the library, third floor of the library.

And I'm sure the librarians enjoy this half being there. you know, and then I, you know, I said, you know, I really wanted to do some of this. This is what I want to do. And I was, I was brought, I was brought on to some of the public relations, public relations coordinator or something, but I was on the executive team because no one else wanted the position. So on the executive teams were all the really smart music. Either they were educated, Pittsburgh basically had, you know, communications majors and everything else.

Kate Jewell (09:24.799)
you

Kate Jewell (09:40.233)
Mm

Tom Benham (09:50.888)
Nurses too, nursing majors are great too. So all my friends were communications majors. I was a business major because I couldn't play an instrument. I don't have good hearing. can't sing. You've heard me singing. I can't sing to save my life, but I love the music and I love the scene. And they were very alternative. Monday through Friday from eight to four, the student radio station was blaring through through G Lobby, is our campus center.

and also through the cafeteria. And was the rule that you couldn't go change the channel because the radio station paid for the PA system and the school paid for the PA system in G -Lab. So wherever you are on campus, if you were in a non -educational building, you could hear the radio station. So I would hear it breakfast and lunch and the music was fantastic. And then at four o 'clock to six o 'clock, they would do more poppy, not top 40 yet, but they also had

They also had more of a, they had some reggae during that time. They also had some early rap at that time too, from four to six. And at six it was scheduled shows. was goth, hardcore, punk, you name it. We had, you know, we had, we had a, we had a, I remember, we'll talk about this in a second, but when I was station manager, they had, we had a kid who was into like the fifties. His father was into Elvis and Beach Boys and.

He had this massive album, remember albums, he had this massive collection. So we didn't have any of those in the building in the radio station. So he'd bring in milk crates and two hours a night from five to seven or six to eight. I remember he had two years of playing fifties and sixties music and people loved it. People kept, why did you guys do that? like, he's a good kid. He interned, he put it in his dues. This is what he wanted to do. We're like, sure, whatever. So throw him on the program good. So that was, so I joined sophomore year and then.

You don't hang around going to the parties, going to see all the bands. Like I said, everybody in the radio station for the most part were communication majors, you know, and they all were there in different walks of life all throughout Massachusetts. So the good and bad about going to a state school is every kid's from Massachusetts at the time. And even the hockey players, they're not from Sweden or from Finland like they are now. You know, at the time, you know, and again, I graduated in 91 at the time in the late 80s, early 90s, every kid was from

Kate Jewell (12:04.605)
Yeah.

Tom Benham (12:12.241)
was from Massachusetts, you know, and you could tell they're from Boston, they had a Boston accent. You know, but it was kind of cool because you could see everyone pretty in the radio, everyone pretty much had a really, really heavy edge to music, which I really enjoyed. Then my junior year I ran for assistant station manager to Craig Albano, my best friend still to this day. And I learned everything about, I possibly could about the radio station from

Kate Jewell (12:16.7)
Mm -hmm.

Tom Benham (12:40.986)
from sitting with the music director reporting into CMJ, you know, to go into, we went to a couple of conferences. It wasn't CMJ though, it was a local one. But to learning how to do, you know, we had advertising, it wasn't advertising, but you know, how to raise money, you know, for the donut shop down the street to promote a show.

But also to, know, sitting with the music directors, when they call in, they pick up the phone and they would call Epic or they'd call, you know, a music label saying, listen, you know, we are, this is our top 50. This is where, this is where Bob Mool is going to land this week. You know, can we get some posters or can we get some extra CDs? Because CDs weren't there at the time. So, you know, we'd have buckets, you know, they'd send us buckets of posters. And then we would beg for concert tickets, right? So.

You know, for Western Mass, Pearl Street was the only place we could get tickets to, you know? But Pearl Street, because I lived out there, people would say, my mother's house, we'd go see a show and just go home. Or we'd drive back to Fitchburg, which is only an hour from Northampton. And then, you know, obviously the Channel, Avalon, Spit, we'd get tickets for all the shows that weren't high -profile shows, right?

Kate Jewell (13:41.897)
Mm -hmm.

Kate Jewell (13:47.165)
you

Tom Benham (14:01.242)
The music directors though, they can pretty much go to any pretty much show They wanted to on the East Coast if they really begged and pleaded So and I learned I learned the business I learned the economic side You know, remember our phone bills like $250 a month one month because they were just people because the music directors was making calls because that's how they they got Records in the door and then eventually because we had a brand name by my senior year You know tape they would just send us stuff. Well, we have all we would have to do is report into CMJ

you know, every other week, or maybe it every, I think it was every other week. And matter of fact, even in the summer, my junior year in the summer, we stayed open. We continued to play music, you know, but that, by that time CDs were there so we could play a whole CD and just hit repeat, stay in the building and do something else. So, year was great. My junior year was even better. You know, we had some people who been there two or three years.

Kate Jewell (14:37.659)
Tom Benham (14:57.85)
And the radio station was very, very overcrowded. We probably had one year 85 people. The next year we had like 105 signed up. So we were overcrowded. And the summer of my junior year, in Craig Albanos, fourth year, his summer, we were up there. We went to the administration and said, hey, we are overgrowing this space. It's ungodly, small. here's our membership. It went from 60 to 80, it's 105. And they actually gave us an opportunity to move out of the library to...

an old part of the administrative building when the nursing building is called Thompson Hall. And it was this big space. mean, we literally had the old studio, the first one they ever built was a size of my bedroom and another bedroom. then so was small bedroom with a twin size bed, a production studio with a twin size bed, and then a small office would be like a kitchenette. There was three rooms. And in between that, all the albums would be stacked. And these are albums too. So they'd be stacked to the ceilings. And we're talking 10 ,000 albums.

Kate Jewell (15:32.392)
Mm

Tom Benham (15:57.68)
It was old, was dusty, was dingy, it was great. Other than the library being too loud. So they let us go to Thompson Hall. And we really had the whole reign of the building. I had my own separate key to get into the building, which they didn't know about. They moved out of Thompson Hall a couple years ago. And it had this massive old, it was an old mail room. And we actually, we moved into it and we did, we,

Kate Jewell (15:57.948)
you.

Kate Jewell (16:13.079)
you

Tom Benham (16:26.583)
We partnered up with the facilities manager. And one reason or another, we hit it off and they actually put some money into renovating it for us. They put in shells for CDs because before there was just mailboxes. So they pulled them out and they had a carpenter come in and build up these CD racks. could put 5 ,000 CDs in it. we already had a lot of the equipment anyways. We got a grant for a new mixing board, my senior year, five grand, I think the mixing board was the time.

Kate Jewell (16:39.293)
This is it.

Tom Benham (16:55.638)
You know, but by the way, we had to start buying new equipment. So we went to the school. The school paid us through student activity fees. So that's how we got funded. So to pay our bills, how do we pay our bills? So the student activity fee, which is like 10 bucks a student per semester, whatever it was, it wasn't a lot. We ended up getting usually seven or $8 ,000 a year. And then my senior year, when I went in front of the SGA, Student Government Association, I said, I need 15 because we're moving. We don't have the equipment. And they

Kate Jewell (17:02.109)
Mm -hmm.

Kate Jewell (17:21.193)
you

Tom Benham (17:22.773)
they generously found an additional like 6 ,000. So we ended up having like a $14 ,000 budget. knowing how the marketplace was shifting and it's just coming from the music directors and the assistant music directors, like we're not getting albums anymore. We're getting CDs. That's all we're going to get. And the production studio has turntable, turntable, turntable, turntable, the reel. And we still had reel the reels. We still recorded reel the reel. And they sounded great by the way. So, you know, we had to come up with, you know,

Kate Jewell (17:38.089)
Mm

Kate Jewell (17:42.377)
you

Yeah.

Tom Benham (17:51.125)
$2 ,000 by four CD players that were commercial grade heavy use, you know, which we didn't have Got the new mixing board. We had a volunteer engineer who we paid very very little from University of Lowell college radio guy Who would come in off hours? you know, we'd be we'd be there 10 o 'clock at night to midnight till 2 o 'clock in the morning That's summer getting ready for the kickoff in the fall. We moved very quickly and I lived up there in the summer. So did Craig so we literally Whoever was around the campus that summer of 80

in summer of 90, we would literally go every single day and move stuff out of the library into the basement. It was fantastic. It was big enough we could have bands play, know, small bands play in the recording studio, even larger bands in the on -air studio. And then had a big office space too. then you could start hanging out there, you know. Before that it was so small you could probably have six people in the office and that would be it.

the on -air studios on the left and the offices in the middle and the recording studios on the right. There was so much space in between. You could have 30 people just hanging out talking, know, just talking about money, talking about music, talking about shows. And it was really cool way to meet people. So we met more people that way too. And then we also got the opportunity to stay on the air till 2 a in the morning, which we actually did three days a week. But you can guess what it is. was, you know, it was a heavy alternative and it was the metal. And our metal mic

Kate Jewell (18:55.887)
Mm -hmm.

Tom Benham (19:16.251)
Mike Baronis and Mark Fields and Mike Baronis. you meet with, did you talk to either one of them? you did? Okay. I could, yeah, yeah, exactly. The goatee in the eyes. So they had the big old thrash show, you know, and their personalities were exactly as you can imagine. I was worried that you were going to be able to talk to them because we were trying to figure out how to get a hold of them. So the metal guy, they were like cult heroes.

Kate Jewell (19:22.176)
I talked with them the other day and it got all of their promos.

Tom Benham (19:46.194)
I got down the street in Main Street, Pittsburgh, and with those guys to go check out the record store. And people were like, my God, that's Mike and Mark from XBF, from the big old thrash. So, you know, so, and they were on there. I don't know how they did it, but they were on the air 10 to two. You know, at least two nights a week, maybe three. We had a hardcore show, the thrash show, the metal show. There wasn't really punk at the time anymore. Punk was long gone.

But they had a cult following, know, so it was kind of funny. And I really respected those guys too. And on a side note, they actually brought me to ministry at Fitzbrick State. I think after I graduated, I went to ministry there. Yeah, like 94, 93. I'm like, hey, I'll go. Jesus built my hot rods. It's only song I knew. And they were so cool. Like they had already moved away from...

Kate Jewell (20:19.465)
Yeah.

Kate Jewell (20:35.055)
Yeah, no video.

Tom Benham (20:43.665)
Metallica, was Megadeth, it was Skinny Puppy, it was really hard stuff. Metallica was starting to turn into Bon Jovi. Nirvana Bleach was in rotation, but I was already out of school when Nirvana, 92, 93, when they really took off. So we had Bleach in rotation, it wasn't played a lot too.

Kate Jewell (20:49.311)
Mm -hmm.

Tom Benham (21:09.904)
Husker do was really, I mentioned Hot Bob and Bull, Husker do was huge. And then we had the weekend shows, which were a bit lighter, but we were on the earth Monday through Sunday. Every day we had every slot filled between 8 a and 2 a in those three days a week. And we had a lot of training. So wasn't like Susie who lives in Chelmsford.

Kate Jewell (21:14.814)
Mm -hmm.

Tom Benham (21:37.936)
who wants to play Kiss 108 songs. You're not gonna do that. We're an alternative music station. You're more than welcome to learn a new genre, and a lot of them did. And you're more than welcome to hang out with us. But as far as getting your own show and bringing your own music, we have rotations that we have to play. We have a heavy, medium, and a light. If you play six that are in the heavy rotation in first 45 minutes and then...

Kate Jewell (21:40.095)
you

Tom Benham (22:06.351)
And we had a checklist of things you had to play and you had to write what you played, right? So Peter Gabriel in your eyes, you can't play it in your eyes. Someone wrote in the back of the aisle, makes me cry every time and they circle, they put a little Aralton in your eyes. I'm like, this is so lame. Can't play that. You can't even play it at 2 a I don't know why Sony ever sent it to us. We had like 10 ,000 hours.

Kate Jewell (22:15.444)
you

Tom Benham (22:35.782)
And then we had some really good at the early good really really good Between four and eight and I didn't appreciate enough of the time while the rap rap lot of the rap shows were really good some of the kids were really really interest We're really really good at it And they had deeds with that

Kate Jewell (22:45.535)
Mm

Kate Jewell (22:49.151)
Do remember who those DJs were? Do you remember who those DJs were? Like were they specifically focused on rap or was it like kind of mixed into their show or there's only rap?

Tom Benham (22:56.918)
No, no, was only rap. yeah. I should probably find a program guide. Funny, funny, so every year we do a program guide in the spring and the running, I don't know if Mike and Mike told you this, but the funny joke is like during we were printing out the program and I was typing the people's titles of the shows, mine was Bangalift. I don't know why. Just because I worked in the library and every time people came into the library, the Dewey Card catalog is always over there Bangalift. So people heard me say it. So that was my show name. And my nickname was Sid because

Kate Jewell (23:21.801)
you

Tom Benham (23:27.085)
Back at the time I had Spike Tear, bleach blonde Spike Tear, get sex pistols. So just kind of, so least everybody still calls me Sid. Anyways, the program guy, we were typing up the titles and Mike and Mark was called the big old thrash. And I didn't have the R and I had the H and I called it the big old trash show. And Mike's a big guy and he was so pissed off at me. It the big old trash show. So yes, it's 30 years ago now. But...

Kate Jewell (23:45.801)
You

Tom Benham (23:55.821)
That's the kind of camaraderie we all had. Of the 105 kids that were part of the station, 85 % of them every week did their show, went to parties, went to go see concerts, came down a couple of times a week just to see what was going on, sitting on back to their dorm to study. They'd come down and read a book and hang out with us. moving out of the library helped quite a bit.

Kate Jewell (24:22.417)
Mm -hmm.

Tom Benham (24:22.89)
you know, because we had the space and we had, we'd have to worry about, you know, the librarian coming in saying, you turned on that noise. I mean, we had, we had, we had education. was an educational building above us, but it was old. They didn't use it much. So, we, we had, we, I'll use the word free range really did, but it was so close to the campus center. Like you go through a tunnel for the academic buildings, a lot of tunnels with fish because it snowed a lot. So they built them.

So you go through a tunnel to get to the campus center. So if you want to get something eat, just go back through the tunnel and come back to this radio station. So we did that. The one sad thing we didn't have is we didn't have the radius. We only had a 50 -mile radius, 100 -watt transmitter. And I was on the roof of the library. And when we moved the station, we didn't move the transmitter, because I'm not an engineer. So we literally had to have like 400 feet of wire from the old studio into the new studio and through some old pipes. It worked fine.

Kate Jewell (25:03.135)
Mm.

Tom Benham (25:18.41)
But you would lose, once you get to route two, you would lose the connection or you would lose the sound on the radio. So that's one that we never could do. We couldn't figure out how do you go to 1 ,000 watts, how do you go to 10 ,000 watts? Like JUL, MUA, mean, MUA's UMass Amherst is fantastic. Because I grew up listening to MUA. JUL, you will fantastic stations. And they had bigger wattage, they had a bigger budget.

Kate Jewell (25:41.311)
Mm

Tom Benham (25:48.778)
They, you know, but so we were always envious of that. But, but no, was, mean, and I'm not the music guy like everybody else is, but, know, I remember, you know, going, like just saw a food fighters for the first time three weeks ago, bucket list, right? But, you know, I saw Nirvana, Walt Simonson, November 13th, 1993, you know, and none of us were in college anymore.

Kate Jewell (26:05.523)
Mm

Tom Benham (26:16.873)
and why they play at Fitzbrick State, I have no idea. you know, because in your role was already, you know, long gone, was Heart Shaped Box. So it was like a reunion. My friends were still at school and they shouldn't have been, they should have been graduated by then. But some of the people had the six year plan, the five year plan. You know, we all went to the show and then we all hung out at whoever's apartment we could that still lived there, stayed there overnight. And the show got over like 10 .30, know, Nirvana. And there were 55, 60 minute shows.

Kate Jewell (26:26.302)
Yeah.

Kate Jewell (26:31.493)
you

Tom Benham (26:46.632)
But it was really, cool. And that was kind of the end of me going up there. So, you know, I was up there from, you know, 91, no, 88, 88 to 87 and to 93. And then we all moved back home and got jobs. And but all that I guess where I'm going with all that music influence from from 90, 91, 93 was when you move into the city of Boston, you have FNX, you know, and that that was us. We beat FNX to Foo Fight. We beat FNX to, you know, Sugar. You know, we, you know, all.

You know, obviously, you know, they were always three months behind us because they were still advertising, you know, so. But I remember, like even listening to sports radio 98 .5 the other day, heard Hardy talk about sugar, copper, blue. We would play that over and over and over again. Fantastic. You know, even even.

Kate Jewell (27:21.213)
Mm -hmm.

Tom Benham (27:40.487)
first birthday show. lot of my friends got free tickets to go. I think it was probably at Gillette. 1990 maybe was the first birthday show and no one knew it was going to be a big deal, but it was a festival and people were like, it's going to be 15 bands. Why not go? When we got out, we were seeing the festivals kind of like they have now, but it was, what was the one in 93, 94, 95? Like Cole played, remember Ice T played.

Kate Jewell (27:48.072)
Mm -hmm.

Tom Benham (28:11.15)
Soundgarden played, there's a lot of festivals like Great Woods, which is now what the Xfinity Center, whatever it is. But it still all the same kids and all the same friends going to see the shows together. You we were in our early 20s. We had moved out of Fitchburg, we all moved home. A lot of us were in Boston. I was in Boston. We went to a lot of shows. In Lansdowne Street, whatever was on Lansdowne Street, we'd go before the Ural House crowd come in. So you see, like, remember, I mean, I remember seeing Big Eye of Dynamite at Avalon. You know, it was like,

Kate Jewell (28:16.095)
Mm

Kate Jewell (28:33.193)
Yeah.

Tom Benham (28:38.502)
8 o 'clock show, they got off at 1030. And when we got out at 11, all these fancy cars from other BU kids, we're going to go to go to Europe. We call it Europe trash or Europe house, whatever it was. And I used to valet cars on Lansdowne Street. So I would go from a show to valet in these college kids cars. And one kid had a Ferrari. His nickname was Princey. I'm like, I'm sure it is. Be nice to him. I'm yeah, I'm going to be nice to him. So I learned how to drive all these fancy cars. But, you know, for those 10 years, pretty much that's,

before we all got really adults and got married and moved away, we were still hanging around together, still seeing shows together. That's what the music did, right? So it was all really about getting along. The common goal is to share different types of music. I grew up in a community that was heavy Polish. I never got a Polish show.

Kate Jewell (29:32.197)
You

Tom Benham (29:34.104)
But we had every other show you can imagine. It was really, really It was fun, know, lifelong friends. I said, the stage manager, Craig, is my best friend. I still talk to Nick. That's why I'm glad you talked to Mike and Mark, because they're just legends at the school. And I'm sure their stories are much heavier than mine. Mike went to CMJ on his own. I remember when he was a junior in college.

Kate Jewell (29:51.721)
Yeah.

Tom Benham (30:02.764)
exciting. So Mark didn't go with him and he was just hanging out with a bunch of other metalheads from the United States from College Music Journal. It was cool. It was really cool. he, those guys are great. know, everybody, everybody in the organization. And I was just a normal kid who couldn't play an instrument. Like all my friends were in bands. They all could play like my good friend, my good friend Mark, Mark Small was very, very talented. And then he was in a band with Nick, who was in a band with my other roommate, Rock.

Kate Jewell (30:19.305)
Mm

Tom Benham (30:30.98)
his name is Mike, we call them Rock. Hey, you Rock. And know, some of my friends have stayed in the industry, some have not. I Casey St. Ange was married to the drummer of Lump, Mark's band, and they're still married, and she lives in California, and she works for Busy Phillips, and she stayed in the industry. She was a stage at Davey Lenerman, put in her time, went to work for Rosie, and then worked for Cohen, and then...

Kate Jewell (30:33.119)
you

Tom Benham (31:00.139)
She's with Busy Phillips. she's staying in the industry. Some people have got out of it. I've got out of it. I work in a nonprofit. But it was a lot of fun, too. So when you hear music like Tears of Fear is on the radio, we didn't play that. But when I was in middle school and high school, it wasn't college radio. But I remember still hearing that. And my younger kids would say, do you guys even have Bon Jovi rotation? No, I didn't have Bon Jovi rotation.

Kate Jewell (31:01.884)
Mm -hmm.

Tom Benham (31:29.546)
I tell you what, one of the rap shows, I don't know if anybody told you, one of the rap shows, so one of the Knight Brothers, not Jordan, not the other one, he wasn't in the band, but he was in the radio station. So I don't remember his name, but he was playing New Kids on the Block, because he had a rap show, so I tried to pass it. But he had been there a long, he's probably three or four years old than I was, but when I was a sophomore, he was a senior, he was playing New Kids on our radio station, and this is probably...

889 and it wasn't, please don't go girl. It wasn't that song. It wasn't Joey Lawrence, know, 105 pounds of him, you know, was five feet tall. wasn't, it wasn't that song, but he was, he was playing new kids. He's like, my brothers are going to make a big way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. They are. Yeah. You watch, you watch. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, I mean, we were wrong. Played a Fenway the other day, but, and again, and again, I remember, I remember, you know, those days people just walking in with milk crates, you know,

Kate Jewell (32:20.414)
Yeah.

Tom Benham (32:27.579)
They had to play what was in rotation. So whenever the metal guy said for metal rotation you had to play this or the alternative guys or the music director, you know, got to play these six things the first hour and then the five things. Then there's editor's choice, if you will, or artist's choice. If people are walking in with two milkers, but you're never going to fit them in a two hour show.

Kate Jewell (32:48.108)
Was there a certain qualifications that you have to get a specialty show where you could kind of go by your own format? how did that work?

Tom Benham (32:55.2)
Yeah, I mean the eight to four was alternative and that's all it was. So, one of my, my sophomore year, I got eight o 'clock in the morning, Monday morning. and I interned, with someone who was always late every single day. So I literally went to the production studio, turned on the switch, turned on the board and I, and then we, we played our carts. Our carts were our intros. Good. You're now listening to WXPO. We are located 160 Hammond Street, 160 Peristry on the third floor of the Hammond building.

Kate Jewell (33:04.894)
You

Tom Benham (33:25.536)
So we had to our scrammer too. You know, we also went through re -licensing. We had to do our license over. That was a big deal when I was my junior year. That was kind of heavy. That was kind of scary. We were afraid we going to lose our license because I've never done it before. And then we had some idiots when I was on the executive team that would swear and do something stupid. We had to put them on suspension. we had, I'll call it employee handbook, we had a guideline. So you had to do four hours of training and then would intern.

Kate Jewell (33:39.807)
Mm -hmm.

Tom Benham (33:52.991)
Unless you're at another college and came over here, my friend Kevin was at U Lowell, so he just came over here and got his own show. But no, 8 to 4 was alternative. There was no if, and, buts, about it Monday through Friday. Sundays were different. But 8 to 4, and then you're right, you had to hang around the music director or the metal director or the assistant music director to really show that you deserve a metal show or a hardcore show or a punk rock show or a reggae show.

Kate Jewell (33:55.423)
Mm

Tom Benham (34:23.078)
Even the 50s show, like he didn't get it right out of the gate because he had a box of 1950s albums. No, was, so you had to put in your dues. And usually it was for a full year. I don't think I got my own show until my junior year. So my second full year. And it was, was, was, was, it was from four to six. So was, was, I had that cause we also did the radio station college sports. So my other roommate was the,

Kate Jewell (34:30.175)
you

Kate Jewell (34:48.507)
Tom Benham (34:50.942)
wrote for the college newspaper, The Strobe, but he was really into sports. He was our sports director. So I blocked that show selfishly because we could do college hockey and college basketball and college football on Sundays too, on Saturdays when they had it. So my show was usually given up and I would swap out with one of the other directors for the hockey season for the hockey team. And we probably did 10 games a year. We did all throughout the playoffs, a couple of basketball games. We did all the football games.

Kate Jewell (35:14.375)
Mm -hmm.

Tom Benham (35:21.357)
Which is kind of cool too. And you know, my roommate did a fantastic job. He passed away a couple years ago, unfortunately, but he was a great sports director and he stayed with it. He worked for like, he worked for a small community newspaper in Bill Rica as like a sports writer. You per diem, you don't think he made any money doing it, but he's like doing it. So yeah, so, but no, the show's like, no, this is what you have to play. If you sneak in, you know, if you sneak in, like.

One of the kids was really into Rush. Where are we going to put Rush in rotation? And every once in a while he would do a B -side from one of Rush's albums that was ungodly old. we would catch it. Someone would say something to his boss and he's supposed to play Rush at 3 .30. I know, but it's a B -side. No one knows the song. So I remember the kid, I forgot his name, really nice kid. And was real cool kid. He stayed with the station. He got with the program. He really wanted to be on the air.

And I didn't care about being on the air per se. I really knew how to do it. I knew how to run the equipment. I knew what it cost. But I just want to sit back and listen to music. I enjoyed going to the shows too. It was a lot of fun. I never picked up an instrument and I still don't regret it. like, eh, it wasn't just me. But I enjoyed being a small part of a big, big team. And you needed people who had different skills. I didn't have the music skills.

Kate Jewell (36:41.534)
Mm -hmm.

Tom Benham (36:47.547)
But I had the organization skills and I had the business skills to be able to run, you know, run a 105 person small college radio station. And again, we were on the air every single day. know, Sundays were noon, I think. don't think we got on because Saturday nights were rough. Especially in Fisburg. But yeah, mean, so Sunday I think were noon. But it was great. It was great. was, you know, I wouldn't trade it for the world. you know, looking back on it, you know, I

Kate Jewell (37:01.989)
you

Tom Benham (37:17.27)
I graduated on time. I was there four years and I was out. But I still went up there even my fifth year and sixth year because I still had friends there. Still on the radio station. I would still go down to hang out. I had money in my pocket and no one had a job. So I actually had money. they held it. Can you buy this round? I'm like, beers are two bucks for God's sakes. In the pub at school? No lie. On a side note, and that's not happening. Well, the pub had a lot of bands. Actually, our pub in the building had a lot of bands.

And they had a limited alcohol license, it or not. They had a wine cooler and they had a beer. That's all they had. And the beers were 60 cent drafts. And they were glass. And one day there was a small flight. So they had to go to plastic and they went to silver cups. I digress. But we had bands right outside the pub in the common area, the Hammond building. We had them in the gym too. Didn't work very well in the gym. And O Positive played. You might have heard that. So O Positive played.

you know, in our common area in the Hammond building in the campus center, you know, junior year, and it was just probably only 400 kids. couldn't fit anybody in there. It was small. And the drummer came out and hung out with us afterwards. We had a party afterwards, and he hung out with us. Got to know my roommate, Mike, very, very well. And, you know, we would see them at shows. would wave to us, know. Tribe was huge. We had Tribe coming in.

Another other local band come in and we interviewed them and they had played for us too. So and now tribe Eric is now part of a Japan Local band my friend Chuck is the drummer for a Japan So they all hung around together and they started knowing other friends and that was cool. It was great. It was a great time

Kate Jewell (39:02.793)
So how did the radio station fit in on campus? What was either with the administration or other students? What was that like?

Tom Benham (39:08.832)
Yeah, yeah, well, I will tell you this. I knew the president by first name. Strategically, though, for a couple of reasons, selfishly, because I needed a reference when I graduated and actually wrote me a reference. And then secondly, no, was was, you know, they were loud, a little bit different. When we were in the library, it was, you know, I worked in the library. So the library director was my boss and he would come to me and really nice guy.

Really, but he would say, listen, I know, I know, I know. And then when we moved out of there, it was like being paroled for them and us. And no, think I think everybody respected us because we worked so well with the administration just to understanding, you know, how we can be, you know, looked at not looked upon as these outcasts. These kids are wearing black and, you know, there wasn't a lot of tattoos and piercing them because it just wasn't popular then, too. But.

Kate Jewell (39:43.636)
you

Tom Benham (40:04.618)
There was goth, so there was a lot of makeup, and there was a lot of people dressing alternative. Not like Kurt Cobain, more of someone you see in Dockin. But no, I think the the important people in the administration, campus security, the president's office, the facilities team was very, important to us. And then I think...

Kate Jewell (40:07.305)
Mm -hmm.

Kate Jewell (40:15.612)
Yeah.

Tom Benham (40:34.186)
You know, my two years when I was in the two leadership positions, when I was the assistant manager and then the general manager, my senior, so that's the highest position. Yeah, the president called me one day, President Maher, I don't know how he got my apartment phone. I have no idea, but he got it. He hey, Tom, I want to talk to you about something. Give me a call. I ran him down there during his, he had open office hours, believe it or not, a president of a college had open office hours. It was like Tuesday between one and two and no one ever went. And I used to go once a month.

just for a variety of reasons. then I saw one of them, went in, he's like, hey, you I've heard complaints about noise. I've heard complaints that you guys are there after hours. You know, gotta knock it off. I'm like, yeah, no worries. know, I'll, yeah, I get it, And I was so involved, you know, talking to him. He wrote me a recommendation to go to, to get a job. And I'm like, crap, the library director wrote me one, which is nice.

Kate Jewell (41:15.583)
care of it.

Tom Benham (41:29.907)
And my grades weren't very good, so he actually wrote another thing. So this is so funny. He wrote on my recommendation, Tom has a satisfactory 2 .91 GPA in his four years at Fitchburg State. How do know what my GPA is? I don't even know what my GPA is. I don't even care. Yeah, so it was good. And like every other school, too, you'd have some years that you'd have some really good friends that would disappear and not come back for variety of reasons.

Kate Jewell (41:56.582)
Bye.

Tom Benham (41:58.991)
My good friend Pete, who grew up really close to me, we used to drive home together on weekends when we'd go home. Freshman sophomore year, he was my right hand. Junior year, where's Pete? He's not here. I don't know what happened to him. See how kids drop out, they transfer. A couple people transferred. I remember one of the students who was a freshman, was in Rogo Ghetto, she transferred to Northeastern. Good for her, and we had a going away party for her. But yeah, that was the sad part.

Kate Jewell (42:10.505)
You

Tom Benham (42:27.635)
Then I think I told you, it hit me pretty as brick when I graduated in 91, like in May 91, I moved out of my Fishburg apartment, I moved into the city, and my friends are still going back to school because I graduated on time. And my parents are like, you're not staying a fifth year because we're not paying anymore. So I had to get out of time. So I kept going up there. Eventually, when you get older, you move away. then it was all FNX, a little bit of BCN. The River Rains were pretty cool. We used to go to those too.

La La Palooza, yeah, La La Palooza, the summers were, the summer La La Palooza's were really good, you know, nothing was at the garden this summer. Everything was at, you know, everything was at Great Woods, you know. And I actually live in Franklin, which is three towns from Great Woods. I haven't been to a show there in forever. That's not I want to see. But yeah, I mean, was, was, I mean, the students, actually the students, yeah, I would assume.

Kate Jewell (43:15.412)
Yeah.

Tom Benham (43:28.305)
I'm sure the students probably, I don't know if they were really jocks per se. know, the state college kids, athletics was different when we were in college in 89, 90, 91. All the kids were from Massachusetts, because I knew all the hockey players, because I play high school hockey, so I really got into hockey. You baseball players, basketball players, my roommate was a basketball player, freshman, sophomore, so they're all from Massachusetts. they didn't really look down upon us, I don't think.

I think they knew we were a little bit different. They didn't want to join our crowd, but that's fine. I went to a lot of the basketball games because my roommate didn't play much. My roommate was on the team and I liked sports. I was different in the radio station because there's not a lot of kids. And we actually started to find a side note. We actually did a fundraiser every summer. We did a softball game against one of the fraternities and it was horrible against even more horrible.

Kate Jewell (44:03.069)
Mm -hmm.

Tom Benham (44:25.978)
baseball and high school too, so I knew how to play. So we organized just as a fundraiser and it was hilarious. And they did for three or four years. yeah, and the fraternities, yeah, mean, probably, no, they did their own thing too. We had some kids in the radio station that weren't fraternities, the Sorority, sure. Pretty big, they had a pretty decent fraternity scene in Sorority scene at Fishburg. You know, it's not a real pledge society probably, but they had a pretty

Kate Jewell (44:49.278)
Mm

Tom Benham (44:54.959)
Like, I don't know, they're not recognized by the school. So they didn't get any funding from the school. We were recognized by the school. But they had a pretty decent, we got a few of their parties, you know, but they wouldn't have bands in the basement. know, my roommate, Craig, had a humongous basement. He would have bands in his basement. And one year, friend Brad's band dressed up as Kiss, and they went and put Kiss songs. Halloween. You got to be 300 kids in this house that's falling apart.

Kate Jewell (45:03.507)
Mm

Tom Benham (45:23.979)
massive firehouse here, but we all fit in there. Yeah, it was cool. I mean, then people would go up and Craig is, hey, when can I play in your, when you guys having a party again, when can I play in your basement? Craig's like, my landlord just found out about this. I'm at, I said, maybe two weeks, not this weekend. You know, and I dressed up as Fred Schneider from B -52s that Halloween. So, and then my friend was a redhead, so she dressed up as Kate Pearson.

Kate Jewell (45:40.819)
Let it go.

Tom Benham (45:49.089)
So yeah, it was cool. mean, it was a good time. Yeah, I had some friends in the business school that were part of fraternities. we didn't pick out the fraternities, didn't pick on us. There wasn't any hazing. mean, maybe there was looks and stuff, but there's no cyber bullying. There's no social media. There's no internet. I there's no cell phones. I mean, everything was done. We would sell tickets. One of my friends used to sell tickets to his parties.

Kate Jewell (46:09.618)
You

Tom Benham (46:18.893)
He's right on a piece of paper, $5 cover. And he said, here, go sell these for me. And he cut them up during class. I, sell your own tickets. So I know it was cool. Yeah, I think, I mean, the station was clean. We kept it clean. We had tons of trash because we always had stuff in the mail and posters and stuff. We were respectful for the janitors. I knew right out of the gate facilities is going to be really critical to us.

Kate Jewell (46:47.038)
Mm

Tom Benham (46:47.303)
They will shut us down just for any reason whatsoever. Same with administration too. We got organization in the year, two years I was there. We got it my junior year and then the year after I graduated, so I wasn't officially there anymore. We got for those two years too. We would DJ as requested for their parties too. Then we charged them a Condor Box or something. think we used the radio stations DJ, portable DJ equipment. We would DJ events too.

For anyone who would ask and then the some of the other kids were really really good DJs I mean a lot of the other a lot of the rap kids and the urban kids Had their own had their own network and they would go home on the weekends and they borrow 50 albums I'm like just sign them out take them bring them back. Go ahead. I don't care make some money on the side They're really smart, too. So but yes, I think that's probably that's probably right

Kate Jewell (47:35.06)
Yeah.

Kate Jewell (47:44.797)
So how did the station or that experience kind of stay with you into your professional life? you see connections between the two? Or are they tangible or more amorphous?

Tom Benham (47:55.263)
Yeah, my professional life, kicked off my organizational skills, my leadership skills, because I was this skinny white kid from Western Mass. I was middle -class like everybody else was in school. I had a girlfriend in high school that we broke up when we went to college, so was kind of lonely. think a lot of the other kids are probably the same. They moved away from home, obviously, for the first time.

Like I said, my freshman year, didn't do anything just to study. Even my grades weren't good. And I went home a lot on the weekends because I was homesick. And then my father and I were talking about my sophomore year. I didn't have a car then. I think my car broke down. So kind of made me stay there and maybe just join some clubs. I think there's a lot of kids who are the same way. Freshman year, I think it's hard for people to find what club they want to. It's fun, though, like orientation weekend.

in the quad outside and if it was raining, we'd be inside and we'd be blasting music and then the frats would have tables and SGA would have tables. Even the athletic department would have a table and we'd be there with posters and banners and you know, we have all the promotional stuff. Come on over, you want a t -shirt? T -shirts obviously. We have painter's hats, we had frisbees, you know, and so we were an easy draw for the kids who were not sure what they wanted to do. They didn't want to do a frat for variety of reasons. They didn't want to do student government.

And obviously in the radio station, had no qualms or any type of person who wants to join, you know, even if you like country music and you know a lot about country music. I don't think anyone here knows anything about country join. Like I said, the fifties, we had two years of 50 shows and it was fantastic shows. couldn't believe it. And because I was my father growing up, he would Blair that music. He loved Elvis too, would Blair it over and over again in my head. So a lot of the songs, I know this, I know this, I know this.

So yeah, I think it was good because we all, everyone became from, whatever kind of person you were, we were welcome there. And I wish I made it more welcome. I wish we did more things than we're just the alternative golf medal kids. I wish we had more opportunities to do things too. Not including top 40, that was out. we're gonna do that.

Kate Jewell (50:16.137)
Yeah.

Tom Benham (50:20.424)
You know, one of my friends, Eni Gobiel, is now the director of the airport for Atlanta airport. He's director of one of the directors there. Big job. You know, he was a tall, good looking blonde kid and he had good interview skills. He talked like, hi, my name's Eni Gobiel from WXPL. And he ended up being in Providence on a morning talk show. He was on radio for years and he ended up moving to Atlanta and he got out of radio just probably 10 years ago.

And I remember Andy interviewed President John Silver from BU who was running for governor. And he came to the event and Andy's sitting next to me and Andy had the Morantz recorder, which is like the size of a laptop and he had a microphone. he asked Governor -elect John Silver, hey, what are you going to do about the cost of education? And he's like, I'm not taking any questions from people in the press. He's like, no, I'm a student here. And he's like, he made him answer that question. And then Andy.

Andy followed out with President Maher, followed out with John Silver out of the auditorium and they were blasting questions back at him like a real radio, like a CNN reporter would walk out, know, like Manu Nobly when he walks out of his, you know, with Marjorie Tarraglini, he would, let her, he let her go off and Andy was just, that's great Mr. Silver, that's great Mr. Silver, thank you very much. I was like, my, Andy gets it, Andy's gonna go for it. I mean, he did, he did really very far. But it's far, my career, you know, I think it was, it started my organizational skills, you know.

And also being more open -minded too. mean, growing up in Western Mass, we didn't have a big, much of a culture swing at all. So it was interesting meeting people throughout Massachusetts. And now it's different. State schools are different. I think there's probably a lot of small state schools have a lot of just state students. But like I said, the athletics, if there's 500 kids that play sports, 400 are not going to be from Massachusetts anymore. You know, because even division three at college athletics is pretty, it's a pretty big deal.

Kate Jewell (52:19.401)
Mm hmm. So where are you now in terms of music and radio?

Tom Benham (52:27.717)
Yeah, I heard somebody at 98 .5 Sports Hub say yesterday that they're not in radio or not at music anymore. I don't, I mean, I listen to Sports Hub. mean music. mean, Yeah, I mean, so I'm, you my last bucket list show was to go see Foo Fighters and I just saw them. And I know it took so long to see them, but you know, I wasn't going to go to a festival. I was going to go to Boston Colum to see them.

It's too expensive and I couldn't figure out how to get there, you know? Fenway, you know, been there a million times. That's my only second concert there because it's a terrible venue. But I saw Bruce Springsteen's, that's the first concert there. I saw that 1999, 2000, 2001, probably 2001 at Fenway. Now they have shows all the time there. No, I mean, I don't, yeah, it's kind of sad. mean, like Green Day was here last week, right? Or two days ago.

and Smash and Pumpkin is open for them. I go to Smash and Pumpkin here every year, so I go to see them every year. They always come back to Boston. We're gonna go see, you know, Jane's Addictions in Boston a month and a half, not even, pretty soon. So I'll see the old 90s alternative bands, if they're still alive, if they're still with us, they're still together. I, no, I just don't, and I heard the guy on the radio say this the other day.

I'm like, that's me, but that's okay. Yeah, I just, just, I just, it's okay. mean, Billy Idol comes around. I'm going to go see Billy Idol no matter what. other than that, yeah, I mean, no, I just, it's not, I don't, I don't know what it turned to. I don't, you know, I don't, I don't know where to find music. BCN's no longer with us. AAF I don't listen to because I can't stand Greg Hill. cause I'm in the car. So there's only 98 .5 sports up kiss 108, which I'm not going to listen to. then.

And then, you know, then then Greg Hill's show and I'm not going to listen to Greg Hill. He's a great man, by the way, and just great work for the community. I just don't like I don't like his music. I don't like his politics either, for that matter. But but but yeah, no, it's just yeah, it's it's interesting. just know it's not. I mean, I have a thousand albums in my basement, easily a thousand, probably 700 CDs, some of them in the radio stations, some of them are mine. We used to get four of everything like.

Kate Jewell (54:43.294)
Mm

Tom Benham (54:49.921)
I don't even know who this band is, but I'll take it. We had records like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. We had Christmas records. And we also had Bobby Orr, the best one, because I was a hockey guy. We had a Bobby Orr album, like 1972. I don't know how it got in there, but it was in there. What I don't know, and here's the sad thing, is when they moved out of the basement into the back into the campus center, which is very small, it's room, room, and a room.

Kate Jewell (54:54.879)
but in life.

Kate Jewell (55:17.469)
Mm

Tom Benham (55:19.073)
It's where it belongs though. It needs to be in the campus center. it's like 90210 when you walk by the studio booth, there's a glass booth and someone's talking, you know, instead of being in the basement away from everybody, it's where it belongs. It belongs in the campus center. So kids can walk by and see Joey or Johnny or Susie talk about, this is the rotation. This is the latest track from, know, from Mudhoney. What do you guys feel? Do you like it? Give me a thumbs up when you walk by, you know, things like that. But,

Kate Jewell (55:26.717)
Mm -hmm.

Kate Jewell (55:44.905)
you

Tom Benham (55:49.721)
When they moved to, we have easily 10 ,000 albums. I don't know where they are. Where are they? I suppose they stored them at the school, stored them and put them somewhere. I could probably dig around and ask questions, but I don't really know anybody there anymore. I have a thousand. We usually have more than 10 ,000 because I have like a thousand. Yeah. Yeah. I probably, maybe not in this house, but my mother's house that I grew up in probably has four or 500 and I probably have 400 here.

Kate Jewell (55:54.185)
Yeah.

Kate Jewell (56:05.791)
I'm sure I can find out.

Tom Benham (56:19.069)
And the CDs are just in buckets. You know, look at them. Like, that's cool. That's cool. That's cool. You know, who's got a CD player anymore? I have one in my car that's old in my car, but no one's got CD players anymore. You know, so yeah, am I disappointed? No, just, you know, it's just not my time. It's not my turn, you know? And my son, my son, he's on his own musical track. He went with me to see Food Fighters and he likes Food Fighters. He knows enough about it, you know?

Kate Jewell (56:31.572)
Yeah, same.

Kate Jewell (56:38.289)
you

Tom Benham (56:47.582)
Like I said, my 11 -year -old new Tear for Fear is like, how do know the words to that? That's so cool. And they play it a lot. They still play it a lot. Nah, it's OK. It's fine.

Kate Jewell (56:57.501)
That's how things go. Well, you hit all of my topics and any final thoughts for the record?

Tom Benham (57:07.998)
No, no, mean, I, it's great. you know, I left my friends there. I saw one of the metal kids, Dan McDermott at the edit Japan show and I'm not on social media anymore. So I don't really know who's doing what or anyone. And I lost my cell phone. So all my contacts are gone. So people get to hold me through LinkedIn, believe it or not. But I saw Dan and another metal kid, Mike and his name is Mike. And I haven't seen him in 30 years at edit Japan show. And I knew Dan cause I could see him.

And he goes to all the shows, him and his wife go to a lot of shows. He lives in Southern New Hampshire. And I walked up to him and he didn't really recognize me. Dan, that's it. He's like, my God, it's it. And I hadn't, you know, and we talked like a half hour laughing hilariously, you know, when's the last show we went together? I'm like, duh, Ministry. You went to that? Yeah, I went to that. Yeah, the sad thing is like the only thing in college is like

The Wallace Civic Center where the hockey team plays, the school now owns that. The city used to own it, but the school bought it from the city. And the city didn't do a lot of concerts at that arena. Like I said, Ministry was there, Nirvana was there, I don't know how they ended up there, but they it, which is great. But there wasn't any big shows that were, know, we'd go to Worcester, Worcester Center wasn't far. And obviously we'd go to Worcester too. But there wasn't anything, you know, that we could walk to on campus, because you could walk to the rink from.

Kate Jewell (58:14.974)
Mm

Kate Jewell (58:32.103)
Mm

Tom Benham (58:37.38)
from the dorms. all these shows were smaller underground bands or just local bands too. there was, and I'll leave you with this too, actually, there wasn't a lot of college kids and bands. You know, they weren't all communication majors. They all didn't belong to the radio station. It definitely helped them, obviously, because you can meet different musicians and add a musician and terminate musician and, you know, and change of genre if you want to. there wasn't, there wasn't the

There wasn't enough big shows in the air. So everywhere we went, we'd have to have a car. A lot of us didn't have cars. If we want to go out and have a good time, someone's got to be a designated driver. It's kind of pain in ass.

Kate Jewell (59:18.472)
Walkable is accessible.

Tom Benham (59:20.571)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's a challenge going to Fitchburg. It's a mental nowhere. one other thing too. Another thing too about Fitchburg, you know, it was so close to New Hampshire when they lifted the Blue Laws, we could actually get beer on Sundays. And I turned 21 when that law went into effect. like, this is the greatest thing in the world. we could, know, they were selling beers on Sundays in Fitchburg and like four towns over they weren't. So I'm like, this is cool. So if you ran out on Saturday, you didn't have to worry because it'd be open on Sunday.

Kate Jewell (59:24.979)
Yeah.

Kate Jewell (59:51.06)
Big deal.

Tom Benham (59:51.076)
Yeah, was good time.

Kate Jewell (59:56.216)
All right, I'm gonna stop.

Katherine Jewell

Tom Benham

Online via riverside.fm

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background
02:13 Love for Alternative and Punk Rock Music
04:03 Attending Concerts and Experiencing the Music Scene
08:51 Involvement with the Radio Station at Fitchburg State University
13:06 Camaraderie and Passion among the DJs
17:51 Challenges and Impact of the Radio Station
29:07 The Power of Music and Community
30:30 Concerts and Shared Experiences
32:48 The Diversity of Shows in a College Radio Station
36:47 Developing Organizational and Leadership Skills through College Radio