Oral History with Mike Baronas and Mark Fields
Dublin Core
Title
Oral History with Mike Baronas and Mark Fields
Description
Summary
Mike Baronas and Mark Fields discuss their involvement with WXPL at Fitchburg State University. Mike was drawn to Fitchburg State because of its radio station, while Mark was interested in the graphic arts technology program. They both had a passion for metal music and wanted to share it with others. They started the Big O show, which became one of the most popular shows on the station. They were connected with record labels and bands, and their playlist consisted mostly of independent metal releases. The metal scene was thriving at the time, with different cities producing prominent bands. The station had a separate metal playlist and had a dedicated listenership, mostly junior high and high school students. The experience at WXPL was a highlight of their college experience, and they formed lasting friendships with bands and musicians. Mark Fields and Mike Baronas reflect on their time at WXPL, a college radio station in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, during the 1980s and early 1990s. They discuss their experiences interviewing and meeting influential musicians, the impact of the music they played on listeners, and the changes in the music industry over the years. They also talk about their post-radio careers and their continued love for physical music media. The conversation highlights the golden era of heavy music in the 1980s and the importance of community and friendship in the music scene.
Takeaways
Mike and Mark were drawn to Fitchburg State because of its radio station and their passion for metal music.
They started the Big O show, which became one of the most popular shows on WXPL.
They were connected with record labels and bands, and their playlist consisted mostly of independent metal releases.
The metal scene was thriving at the time, with different cities producing prominent bands.
WXPL had a dedicated listenership, mostly junior high and high school students.
Their experience at WXPL was a highlight of their college experience, and they formed lasting friendships with bands and musicians. Meeting and interviewing influential musicians was a rare and exciting experience for Mark Fields and
Mike Baronas during their time at WXPL.
The 1980s was a golden era for heavy music, and WXPL played a crucial role in exposing listeners to new and exciting bands.
Physical media, such as CDs and vinyl records, still hold value for Mark and Mike, who appreciate the tangible and archival aspects of owning music.
The music industry has changed significantly over the years, making it harder for bands to make a living solely from their music.
The sense of community and friendship formed during their time at WXPL remains a cherished aspect of Mark and Mike's lives.
Mike Baronas and Mark Fields discuss their involvement with WXPL at Fitchburg State University. Mike was drawn to Fitchburg State because of its radio station, while Mark was interested in the graphic arts technology program. They both had a passion for metal music and wanted to share it with others. They started the Big O show, which became one of the most popular shows on the station. They were connected with record labels and bands, and their playlist consisted mostly of independent metal releases. The metal scene was thriving at the time, with different cities producing prominent bands. The station had a separate metal playlist and had a dedicated listenership, mostly junior high and high school students. The experience at WXPL was a highlight of their college experience, and they formed lasting friendships with bands and musicians. Mark Fields and Mike Baronas reflect on their time at WXPL, a college radio station in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, during the 1980s and early 1990s. They discuss their experiences interviewing and meeting influential musicians, the impact of the music they played on listeners, and the changes in the music industry over the years. They also talk about their post-radio careers and their continued love for physical music media. The conversation highlights the golden era of heavy music in the 1980s and the importance of community and friendship in the music scene.
Takeaways
Mike and Mark were drawn to Fitchburg State because of its radio station and their passion for metal music.
They started the Big O show, which became one of the most popular shows on WXPL.
They were connected with record labels and bands, and their playlist consisted mostly of independent metal releases.
The metal scene was thriving at the time, with different cities producing prominent bands.
WXPL had a dedicated listenership, mostly junior high and high school students.
Their experience at WXPL was a highlight of their college experience, and they formed lasting friendships with bands and musicians. Meeting and interviewing influential musicians was a rare and exciting experience for Mark Fields and
Mike Baronas during their time at WXPL.
The 1980s was a golden era for heavy music, and WXPL played a crucial role in exposing listeners to new and exciting bands.
Physical media, such as CDs and vinyl records, still hold value for Mark and Mike, who appreciate the tangible and archival aspects of owning music.
The music industry has changed significantly over the years, making it harder for bands to make a living solely from their music.
The sense of community and friendship formed during their time at WXPL remains a cherished aspect of Mark and Mike's lives.
Date
August 9, 2024
Oral History Item Type Metadata
Duration
51:17
Transcription
[NOTE; Transcript generated by AI, to be updated]
Kate (00:01.646)
Here we go. All right. So I am Katherine Jewell. I'm professor at Fitchburg State University. It is August 9th, 2024. And I am recording oral histories as part of a project and podcast focused on the history of WXPL. I'm currently in Harlem in New York City, but usually in Belmont, Massachusetts. And I have Mike Fields and Mark Fields and Mike Ronas. that correct?
Mark Fields (00:30.232)
Yes.
Kate (00:31.168)
Alright. yeah.
Mike Baronas (00:32.552)
Everyone would get that messed up. When we were doing station IDs. Mike, Mark, I get things autographed to Mark. He'd get things autographed to Mike. Yeah,
Mark Fields (00:35.164)
hahahaha
Mark Fields (00:40.567)
Yeah.
Kate (00:41.738)
Good. That was excellent. So could you guys tell me like how you ended up at Fitchburg State and WXPL?
Mark Fields (00:54.007)
You want to go first, Mike?
Mike Baronas (00:54.304)
Sure. Yeah, Fitchburg State was the only local college, affordable college that had a proper radio station when I was growing up in Brockton.
I listened to Emerson, not Emerson. Well, I did listen to Emerson, but there was Easton. There was a college radio station there, metal DJ. I'm like, my God, I want to do that. So, you my mom was a teacher at Northeastern University. You know, I could have gone there, you know, free boat. But you know, much to their chagrin, you know, I chose, you know, my passion, go into radio.
And that's really what sold me on going there, you know, a working radio station.
Mark Fields (01:52.611)
I was interested in Fitchburg State because they had the only four -year public school program to study graphic arts technology. I was really interested in that and interested in pursuing that as a career. Prior to going to Fitchburg, I listened to a local radio station near where I grew up, in Waterville, Maine. WMHB, the Colby College radio station there, had a metal show on Saturday nights.
Drafted in over a summer break to cover for the DJ Marty who was you know who lived in Connecticut or somewhere? And I got a little itch for radio Radio broadcasting when I was covering for him over the summer and so when I went to Fitchburg State It just seemed natural to join the radio club that happened to be there Yeah
Mike Baronas (02:44.872)
I didn't know that. I didn't know you did fill in work before WXPL. great.
Mark Fields (02:51.395)
Yeah, that I didn't sharpen my skills too much, muddled through and did okay, just like we did for four years.
Mike Baronas (02:55.786)
Ha ha ha.
Mike Baronas (03:00.756)
Ha ha ha.
Kate (03:03.096)
So what was the process like getting involved with the station? How did you train? What did you do first? Were you doing metal right away? What would that process look like?
Mike Baronas (03:15.416)
I think it wouldn't have happened had Mark and I not met. do you mind if I tell an orientation story? yeah, it was orientation. I don't know why Fitchburg State wanted us to sleep overnight with, strangers, but they did. And, you know, we were just happened to be walking. I didn't want to be there.
Mark Fields (03:25.121)
Yeah, go ahead man, yeah.
Mike Baronas (03:45.118)
you know, and I happened to be wearing my Celtic Frost shirt. And, you know, my favorite band, nobody in their right mind would even know who this band was, I thought. Lo and behold, walking up the steps ahead of me is Mark, who says, hey, the Frosties! And I'm like, you know, I was taking a back.
And I thought he was making a joke. I'm like, is he making a joke at my shirt? And then grumpy me, blah, blah, blah. So it happened to be about a week or so later in the cafeteria, I went up to him. I'm like, hey, you made mention of my shirt. You know who this band is? And I don't know if you have more of a recollection than that. without us meeting there, none of this would have taken off.
Mark Fields (04:39.369)
I think my recollection is the, I stumbled across the radio station on a tour of the campus and thought, okay, well I'll kind of file that away that maybe I can get involved with them later on. And then shortly after Mike and I had a proper introduction at the start of school, I think the station was offering tryout sessions for people to.
Mike Baronas (05:05.428)
Yeah.
Mark Fields (05:06.519)
to to to see if you know if if we had any sort of coordination at all that might make us candidates for a for possible radio show and having having done having work with turntables and and manual segues back the previous summer it was somewhat familiar to me the interface they only had to show me that you guess the particulars of of that of that studio and
Without much difficulty I auditioned my two songs and then Mike and I got paired off because we both like the same kind of crazy heavy music.
Kate (05:43.15)
So the music kind of brought you into your radio interests. Like they were always kind of went together, in other words.
Mike Baronas (05:55.648)
yeah, it's what I know it's what I wanted to do. I wanted to promote music. I wanted other people to learn this type of music. That was my interest in it. Even more so than proper studies at Fitchburg. I immersed myself in that for four years. I just, yeah, you know.
Mark Fields (06:11.863)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, as it turned out.
Yeah.
Mike Baronas (06:27.673)
classes be damned. mean, you know, it was all about the big O thrash show.
Kate (06:34.2)
So when did the Big O show start in your radio? Like, did you start out with that like immediately? How'd you come up with the name? Like where?
Mark Fields (06:43.011)
Yeah, that was our first semester at school in the fall of 1988.
Mike Baronas (06:48.318)
Yeah, we started, but yeah, we were underlings though. We weren't like... Yeah, we started out with the name, I believe. Right, yep.
Mark Fields (06:53.656)
Right, right.
Mark Fields (06:59.127)
we got from my roommate mike mike bernard back then i i i had stumbled across the the phrase the big the big as being a short for the big orgasm or the ultimate climax in something and and you know i would say you know use that term to describe thing that was the ultimate in my roommate mike bernard having never heard that term before he thought that was pretty funny
Mike Baronas (07:27.434)
Yeah, and you said you should use that.
Mark Fields (07:27.735)
you I was from yeah why don't you just call your show the big O okay well there we yeah Eureka there it was so it was not much more thought put into it than that
Mike Baronas (07:40.02)
But we did have a, there was a metal director at the time, Val Algrove, who kind of showed us the ropes, and showed us how to connect with record company PR folks and things like that, to get servicing for new releases.
and interviews with bands, free tickets, all that type of thing.
Kate (08:18.796)
What was the metal scene like at that point? Like labels, publications, like what, how? I mean, know, you know, there's Central Connecticut State had a metal, had a kind of a metal rotation, Seton Hall. There are a number of known, well -known metal college radio stations. But like, so how were you kind of mapping this landscape and what did it look like? It was mostly independent, so do you have your own?
publications or were you kind of in the CMJ world but on the side, how did all that work?
Mark Fields (08:57.251)
Well, there was a lot of music that was, music metal in particular was really popping off. There was a really rich time, in that, in that, in that scene when we were hitting college stuff started really kind of taking off, in a big way around 86 and we just kind of, we just kind of continued on with all sorts of new exciting developments through our time in, in, in 1992 when I, when I left, there was, you know, thrash was really coming into, it's, it's,
full full blossom death metal was emerging as a prominent style of music, grindcore after that. So there is a wealth of material that was coming out that was all really exciting when you have something cool that you have discovered. You want to share it with the world. You want to share it with your friends or anyone who listen to you, kind of like what Mike was alluding to, you know.
Mike Baronas (09:48.672)
yeah, even way back in high school we did that. I mean, just as fans, you know, we were just we were fans with a great opportunity to be, you know, that's kind of what it boils down. Yeah, exactly. And the music was the music was, I mean, you know, that's all I still listen to. mean, after 1993, I mean, you know, that was the divide. don't I don't listen to anything after that, to be honest.
Mark Fields (09:52.791)
Right.
Mark Fields (09:58.209)
Yeah, we're in the right place at the right time.
Mark Fields (10:14.967)
But the labels, there were a few major labels that had some metal releases that they were promoting, but primarily who we dealt with were independent labels of various levels of influence and impact. But we were tied in with most of the movers and shaker labels like Metal Blade, Road Runner, Combat Records were all big names at the time.
Mike Baronas (10:40.863)
Yeah.
Mike Baronas (10:44.756)
Yeah, but we were also tied into, you know, the bands that broke it. mean, you know, the black album, Metallica's black album. mean, I met them on that tour due to Electra Records. Actually, Mark met them the tour before. You know, so I mean, it was certain level. mean, the big four, you know, Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth, you know, they were all fair game, but...
everyone knew those bands. And for us, I mean, I know my mindset was always, they don't need our help. These bands don't need our help anymore. It's the smaller bands, the up and comers, you know, the new bands that came out when we were there like Death, Sepultura, Obituary, that we pumped and pumped and pumped, you know, and, and now they're like household names. So well, to some households, some households.
Kate (11:37.088)
The Subl Tour is a favorite.
Mark Fields (11:39.446)
Right,
Kate (11:41.966)
I have a Sepultura t -shirt.
Mark Fields (11:42.306)
haha
Mike Baronas (11:45.15)
Yay! they're on their last tour now. It's a shame. Yeah, they're on their last farewell tour, even though who's in the band anymore?
Mark Fields (11:45.595)
Alright, right on, good, good, good on ya.
Kate (11:48.424)
on, I feel... Be nice to me. Well, that's true. It's been an interesting rotation there. Yeah. So geographically, geographically, what did the metal scene look like? Were there certain clubs? was it focused in certain areas? You know, like there's Seattle is booming, Chapel Hill is booming in terms of indie rock.
Mike Baronas (11:57.864)
Now two guys, but it's not the main guys. Anyway, I'll shut up about stuff like that. My opinionated self.
Mark Fields (12:02.369)
ssss
Kate (12:17.939)
on hip hop scenes, like what, where was the metal scene really focused?
Mike Baronas (12:26.644)
Well, Death Metal, was just starting, which just blew up when we were there, it was Florida.
Mike Baronas (12:39.06)
you know, primarily. Before that it was the Bay Area, know, Metallica, Exodus, Death Angel. All right, and you know, after that it just expanded. It was everywhere, right Mark?
Mark Fields (12:56.483)
Yeah, it was, there were up -posing, I didn't think that England back at the time was a big player, there were, know, but I think middle of around 1991, I think Stockholm started blowing up with all the bands that were coming out there. Mike touched on the major, like the death metal and the thrash metal epicenters, but there were also, I guess, certain amount of bands coming out of New York.
Boston, every any city had its own thing going on. But there were certain cities that seemed to yield more bands that got traction.
Mike Baronas (13:35.934)
Yeah, there always seemed to be one great band and then everybody else wanted to be that band. mean, in Boston, was was Wargasm who unfortunately never got a fair shake in their career. But still one of my favorite bands, still great guys, you know, still in touch with some of them to this day, you know.
Kate (14:02.698)
So how did Fitchburg fit into this larger geography? did you, like, can you kind of walk me through the process of, you know, contacting a label, discovering a band, getting it on the station, and then how did that kind of...
build back into the Fitchburg station and kind of the scene itself or the radio station's kind of identity. Like, how did you guys fit in at the station? Were you doing what you were doing like what other people were doing or was it different? How did it kind of all mesh together with the overall practices, business practices of the station?
Mark Fields (14:44.363)
i think there's there's several questions in their book but in terms of what worked about our program is that after short time doing a two -hour show together we were each granted a two -hour segment back -to -back and we just hung out for the entirety of each other's shows so there'd be on on any you know we've got a lot of any particular week would be a four -hour block of metal
that we programmed, gave us, every Thursday from like eight to, was it eight to, was six to ten or eight to midnight? Yeah.
Mike Baronas (15:14.698)
Yeah, every Thursday.
Mike Baronas (15:20.032)
8 to midnight and then actually even years after that there was an extended Big O which went from midnight to 2. we arguably had probably one of the most popular shows.
Mark Fields (15:39.203)
Yeah, I think that there were also some local kids that were listening that were discovering this music alongside of us. They had their own bands as well, and there happened to be a local club in Fitchburg downtown called Club 490, which was around for a few years and which served as a kind of a clubhouse for the local metal and hardcore kids.
They brought in a number of prominent bands that came through and also they had local bands play there and there was lot of friendships and kind of creativity that blossomed out of that. It was a clubhouse of sorts.
Mike Baronas (16:21.28)
And I think some of those major acts came through because of our work with the record companies and they saw the amount of work that we were doing weekly playlists. Was it weekly? Did we do those weekly? my God. That we'd mail out to every single record company we could possibly find and bands. I mean, so they got wind of fit. yeah, yeah.
Mark Fields (16:37.379)
Yeah
Mark Fields (16:46.051)
You got one of those don't you Mike? Put one up.
Mike Baronas (16:50.068)
Yeah, I mean, so, well I got a million of them, but here's one.
Kate (16:56.487)
my god.
Mark Fields (16:58.754)
There it is.
Kate (17:00.194)
That's amazing. So you have all these like...
Mark Fields (17:01.996)
Yeah.
Mike Baronas (17:04.564)
I don't know, I came across my old metal folder, which I brought and I kept, you know, I take to the radio station every, God, every day. And I mean, we did so many different things, you know, there's a spinal tap party we did. You know, we went so far as to start.
You know, we had bands come and play at the pub, well, not the pub, right outside the pub. You know, we really worked at it. You know, I didn't know if I wanted to see this as a job going forward after that. You know, moving to New York wasn't really an option, but God, we put our heart and soul in that station.
Mark Fields (17:56.161)
Yeah, I think that as far as getting along or how we fit into the culture of the station generally, think they just... We had good rapport with everybody. It wasn't like we were embarrassing cousins that they shoved into the corner and just gave us our four hours a week and let us... Yeah, we had good rapport with everybody. Yeah, but we worked really, really hard.
Mike Baronas (18:15.646)
No, we worked it. We worked it. We had our own desk. We had our own corner. We had our own posters. Actually, I spray painted the band Wargasm up on the wall, and facilities had a fit with that. And actually, the station manager at the time did as well. Anyhow, yeah, no, we were into it. We were into it. It was.
Kate (18:29.339)
Thanks.
Mike Baronas (18:42.972)
one of the most popular forms of music at the time and we just rolled with it.
Mark Fields (18:47.219)
in terms of getting that getting in touch with labels and connecting that with the places that didn't already service us simply enough you can turn over the the back of the of the of the of the record cover of a of a bit of a bad you have a your own collection sometimes there is a phone number on their you call my piece a day on you know i'm i'm mark i work at a college station we don't currently get service well from you we do we do i do i'm one of the guys does metal programming here and usually
the person on the other end of the line was pretty agreeable and then we started getting service.
Mike Baronas (19:22.376)
We, we, we, it took hours for us to get through the mail, on a weekly basis. Hours to cut through and then listen to and then say, yeah, this sucks. no, we should play this. No, this poison album isn't getting played because poison doesn't need WXPL's help. But yet there were DJs that continue to play that type of thing. But you know, we were nobody's boss. So whatever.
Mark Fields (19:49.749)
Right, right, right, right. The brutal overlords. Yeah, we ended up being... We kind of fell into the role of being directors of the metal program. There were other metal shows during the week in addition to ours, but I guess we were kind of the... Yeah, for lack of a better word, yeah.
Kate (19:52.845)
You
Mike Baronas (19:56.372)
We tried. We tried, you know, but, yeah.
Mike Baronas (20:09.62)
Yeah, guess so. Didn't we oversee them, I suppose? Didn't they make us...
Whatever.
Kate (20:18.357)
hehe
Mark Fields (20:18.583)
We didn't crack the whip or make threats or anything, but
Mike Baronas (20:21.598)
Well, we tried to. I think it's hard to remember now. I don't know, some of those people are still our friends, so we couldn't have been that big bastards.
Mark Fields (20:30.923)
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Kate (20:33.858)
But so was there like a rotation or anything? Did you have like your own stacks of like new releases like that were specifically metal or were they mixed into the regular rotations or heavy, light, medium? Yeah. Yeah, were they, was it kind of integrated into the overall or was it a separate playlist?
Mike Baronas (20:47.496)
of the station itself or just our particular shows.
Mark Fields (20:51.01)
Yes.
Mike Baronas (20:55.099)
we were definitely, we were definitely separate.
Mark Fields (20:55.201)
I think metal... yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, was no metal programming that existed apart from the specifically metal programs, specific shows. Yeah, yeah, but...
Mike Baronas (21:05.396)
No, was Jane's addiction, know, typical alternative, you know, which was fine. You know, we did our own thing.
Kate (21:14.27)
Mm -hmm. That makes sense. So this is an interesting time in terms of metal's national profile, let's say, in terms of kind of the culture war battles over music and occult and obscenity and teen suicides and all of that.
How did you, were you kind of aware of the politics of metal and popular music? Were you tapped into that at all? Were there any local permutations of that, of either the station kind of, how did the station fit in with the general student body? Or were there any kind of political conflagrations, let's say, around the music or the station?
Mark Fields (22:04.671)
i recall having felt any anything to directed at also the station do you like
Mike Baronas (22:10.558)
Now, the only thing I recall is the student body in and of itself, I don't think, listened to WXPL. It was the surrounding towns. Those are the folks who, when we were at shows, they would come up, hey, you do that? Yeah, the student body at Fitchburg. Apart from those...
Mark Fields (22:26.38)
Yeah.
Mike Baronas (22:39.306)
deep into the music scene. Really ignored it.
Mark Fields (22:44.215)
Yeah, the only people I guess on campus who paid any attention to this type of stuff we played were the other people at the station that played the type of stuff that we played.
Mike Baronas (22:52.138)
Yeah, at their keg parties.
Kate (22:53.912)
Yeah
Mark Fields (22:54.348)
Hahaha
Kate (22:57.176)
So did you have a good sense of who your listenership was? Who was calling in? Who was your typical listener?
Mike Baronas (23:07.2)
Remember, remember where the first time Kevin came up with his dad? Why don't you tell that story?
Mark Fields (23:12.065)
yeah well the occurred basis of the dropkick murphy's was just a kid growing up in lemonster the time that we've first got on the air i guess he was at the twin city plaza with his with a waiting in a car for his mom to run an air and during the time that our show was on he was just flipping through the the f dial found us and it was for him a revelation and so he
became quickly interested in what we were doing and not so long after that he called the request line and asked if he could come up and hang out with us at some point. So we said, well sure. Yeah, yeah.
Mike Baronas (23:51.838)
So cute, it was so cute. He came up with his denim jacket, know, everyone with the battle vest, you know, with the big ACDC patch on the back and, God, you know, we showed him around. It would just, you know, it just warmed your heart, you know, to actually do something that someone cared about.
Mark Fields (24:14.019)
Yes, I think the typical audience member might have been just a junior high or high schooler that lived in the area who received through word of mouth at school or at one of those Club 490 shows.
Mike Baronas (24:29.672)
And happened or just happened like we did, you know, when we were kids, just flip around the dial. Whoa, what's that? You know, let's listen to this.
Mark Fields (24:33.559)
Yeah. Right.
Kate (24:39.522)
So how did this experience, I know you said classes be damned, but you did graduate. like, how did you see this though fitting into, in retrospect, into your college experience and the kinds of things that you learned in college? Like how did it kind of work with your trajectory through college?
Mike Baronas (24:46.944)
Yeah, skin in my teeth.
Mark Fields (24:49.485)
Yeah.
Kate (25:08.647)
like in the in what you gained from the college experience. What did you get out of this?
Mark Fields (25:14.667)
more than I got out of my degree.
Mike Baronas (25:17.696)
Ditto. Yeah, no, when I think of Fitchburg State, I think of WXPL. That's what I went there to do, and that's what I did. Classes were just, they were ancillary to me.
Mark Fields (25:18.625)
I got, yeah.
Mark Fields (25:29.963)
Right, and I'm not putting that as a knock on the faculty or the program that I undertook, yeah. But ultimately, the things that have stayed with me through the majority of my adult life have been relationships and memories that I took from stuff that was related to my time at the radio station.
Mike Baronas (25:32.702)
No, no, nor I. No, I had some great teachers as well. Yep.
Kate (25:54.358)
So what moments stand out? me your best stories. This is where I open it up and I want you to tell me all the things, all the tea.
Mike Baronas (26:06.89)
best stories.
Kate (26:09.964)
On air, off air.
Mike Baronas (26:12.434)
I think just some things that come to mind immediately introducing what introducing entombed on their first US tour introducing Dark Angel both at the channel the best club that there ever was though those stand out those are just cool things that you know you know we did because of the radio station
Mark Fields (26:28.823)
Yeah, rest in peace, channel.
Mark Fields (26:35.999)
I was always happy for the chance, usually we could arrange when bands came to town that we could get an interview. So we'd actually have an audience with members of bands that we dug and just sit across from them and discuss ideas and pick their brains about things that mattered to us. So I think just that in general, mean, the friendship that we...
still hold to this day with drummer Gene Hoagland who has played with everybody and is kind of a metal legend.
Mike Baronas (27:11.109)
We just met with him, we just saw him a few weeks ago.
Mark Fields (27:13.987)
Right, yeah, yeah, well he was touring in an RV and playing the Paradise on a co -headlining tour with Death back in 89. And we just sat across from him through an interview that was arranged with Combat Records and got to talking with him and we hit it off and we still remain friends to this day.
Mike Baronas (27:20.768)
March 89.
Mike Baronas (27:35.518)
we'd see him, you know, every time he'd come through town, stop and say hey.
Mark Fields (27:38.615)
He gets in touch, hey I'm gonna be playing the House of Blues, you guys wanna get on the list? We can hang out after... Yeah man, sure, love to.
Mike Baronas (27:47.572)
Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
Mark Fields (27:48.887)
So I think just meeting musicians that we found important and having a chance to discuss with them was kind of a rare thing that not every fan of the music would get to have.
Mike Baronas (28:05.118)
Yeah, they say, you know, some say don't meet your heroes and that only happened a handful of times. But yeah, no, I think, you know, for me anyway, I believe apart from one band, I met every band during that era that I ever wanted to meet. So.
Mark Fields (28:25.771)
And yeah, most of them were really nice people.
Kate (28:30.104)
Did you have, did they play in studio or is it mostly interviews?
Mike Baronas (28:35.742)
We never had in -studio. We didn't have the facilities for in -studio, but they would come in for in -studio interviews.
Mark Fields (28:42.049)
Did Desolat do an acoustic set? I don't know. Man...
Mike Baronas (28:45.268)
Did they? Was that at the station when it was up in the library or when it moved back down? Was it? Yeah, I have no recollection of that one. Yeah.
Mark Fields (28:53.313)
down in the tunnel.
Yeah, don't know, memory's kind of fuzzy. But yeah, occasionally we'd have on -air interviews, but we didn't have really the facility for a proper electrified performance from anybody.
Mike Baronas (29:11.476)
Yeah, it was pretty thrilling for us too, you know, to have like the, you know, the major local, you know, bands of the Sand Black Church, Wargasm, Liar Rage, et cetera, et cetera, you know, to come to our little station here out, here out in the middle of nowhere in Fitchburg. And yeah, I know some national acts came in too. Remember Scatterbrain came to the station. They they're like, Fitchburg, what's Fitchburg? Chinchbug?
Mark Fields (29:21.271)
Wargasm again, yeah, yeah.
Mark Fields (29:26.837)
Right, yeah, who are we that you would grace us with your presence? Yeah.
Mark Fields (29:35.169)
Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kate (29:39.064)
You
Mike Baronas (29:40.096)
We're Chinchbug, we're in Chinchbug, you know. Anyway.
Mark Fields (29:41.475)
shoot.
Kate (29:44.6)
You know what the impressions were going in and out of Fitchburg? So tell me about how, about what happened next. Like where did you go, where did you take this experience in your careers and your lives going forward?
Mike Baronas (30:07.006)
Mark, you want to go?
Mark Fields (30:07.373)
For me it was - for me it quickly faded into the to the rear view mirror. I didn't stay involved with No? You disagreeing with me, Mike?
Mike Baronas (30:17.94)
gasp, etc.
Mark Fields (30:29.961)
Apart from that, I didn't do any broadcasting work or promotion stuff. I've been in and out of bands myself, but that's a different thing altogether. But Mike started an imprint publication. Go ahead, Mike. I wrote for Mike.
Mike Baronas (30:43.956)
Yeah, you know, no, wasn't really I wasn't really sure where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. So one day I was sitting in my mom's office at college and I came up with the idea of, you know, I grew up with horror movies and heavy metal. let's do a half half heavy metal, half horror magazine, you know, called it Gasp, etc. grew some art, shocking persons, etc. We already had all the connections with the
record companies. So we continue with that. Got some advertising there. And through, you know, local convention appearances and things, met up with some of the stars from different horror films. My first one off the bat, who became a really good friend was Gunnar Hansen, who played Leatherface in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. you know, so it kind of expanded from there. I did that for, you know,
six issues until that eventually, you know, the advertising didn't sustain it. Yeah, I was spinning my wheels. But you know, we brought it back when we got all jazzed for again, my favorite band Celtic Frost reuniting in 2006. And we did an online version of it. And we got to meet them in person again.
Mark Fields (32:06.827)
Yeah, that's one of the greatest things that ever happened.
Mike Baronas (32:09.78)
That's literally one of the best, easily one of the best times of my life.
Mark Fields (32:12.78)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, same. Yeah, one of the best days ever for me too.
Mike Baronas (32:18.304)
Yeah, one of the best that was February 2006. Yeah, you know, so gracious sat down here. Here. Check out. Check out my new guitar. Hand us his, you know, Iceman is I've been as Iceman, you know, HR Giger. I'm sitting there holding him like looking at Mark like, is this really happening? You know.
Mark Fields (32:39.921)
Hahaha, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mike Baronas (32:41.162)
You know, just so gracious, gave us a long interview, signed all our garbage. And still love him to this day. I mean, we're still in touch with Tom to this day.
Mark Fields (32:48.159)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kate (32:55.684)
So you had this magazine. Where did your careers take you?
Mike Baronas (33:02.88)
Me, I spent about 25 years as a sales and marketing coordinator. And that's pretty much what I done for my nine to five job. So I I graduated technical writing. The writing was there with the magazine. So that kind of tied in a little bit.
Mark Fields (33:27.138)
Yeah.
Mike Baronas (33:28.34)
You know, at least I like to say it did. There's a little bit of journalism in there.
Mark Fields (33:38.367)
I worked in the printing industry for about seven years out of Fitchburg State. Decided that field was not for me. And then I shifted gears and have been doing unskilled stuff since then. Haven't figured out what I want to be when I grow up, but...
Mike Baronas (33:58.824)
Yeah, yeah, my, my, yeah, I took a left turn. Yeah, I took a left turn and took a job for strictly for money as well. So, you know, things happen in life. So
Mark Fields (34:02.315)
In the meantime, bills must be paid.
Mike Baronas (34:13.066)
A, you know, as long as you have good friends that have your back, you know, that's all that matters.
Mark Fields (34:16.323)
Absolutely, 100 percent.
Kate (34:18.427)
So what about music and radio? How do you consume music now? This is the question.
Mike Baronas (34:25.734)
If you see behind us, know, physical media is still really part of our life.
Kate (34:30.178)
Ha ha ha ha!
Mike Baronas (34:34.624)
Mark is much more, you know, up to date on things. You know, like I said earlier, know, once 1993, 1994 hit, when my magazine stopped and I stopped getting servicing, you know, and got married and then had kids, etc, etc, you know, kind of lost track of things. So
Mark Fields (34:59.075)
I still get recommendations from friends, get recommendations from algorithms, I see stuff on metal websites that may peak my interest and I'll sample a Bandcamp stream here and there. So I get my input, my new suggestions and new stuff comes into my life through various avenues.
if it's available physically I buy it just because I figure it's good to have a physical backup of everything even though all my music behind me has been digitized for portable play and convenience I always have redundancy multiple copies of mp3 basically it's not so much for show as it is practically just to have an archival physical
backup copy of everything. Plus I do happen to enjoy the physical process of immersing myself in the graphics even if it is only like a four and three quarter inch square format of a CD booklet.
Mike Baronas (36:15.444)
And it still feels to this day that you're supporting the band when you actually buy their physical product. I mean, in my mind anyway, I don't know if that's the case all the time, but just...
Mark Fields (36:24.833)
Yeah, a lot of the that I happen to like that are coming out these days are not on Spotify or the streaming platforms. So the best way to support them directly is through a physical purchase at a gig when they come through or buy something directly from them on their Bandcamp page where a much higher percentage of the proceeds go directly to the artist. It's tough to make a buck making music.
Mike Baronas (36:50.656)
Yeah, it's completely opposite from when we started. It's kind of scary for bands. I don't know how they all do it. Well, t -shirts, t -shirts, know, Exodus had a great quote, wasn't it? We're traveling t -shirt salesmen. That's what we are. You know that? That's true. I mean, they've been around forever. It's complete opposite of what they were doing when, geez, when did I first see them? 1987? Anyway.
Mark Fields (36:57.921)
Yeah, if you're not touring and selling tons of shirts, you're not making money.
Mark Fields (37:07.008)
man.
Mark Fields (37:14.691)
We're gonna get royalties off of physical sales or whatever.
Kate (37:20.248)
Yeah, yeah, I mean that middle, it's just, it's not possible to just be a working band and make a good living. You know, don't have to be Beyonce living in Bel Air, but like to just, you know, have an apartment and.
you know, sustain yourself on music.
Mike Baronas (37:36.65)
tough. Gotta be tough. No, they're dead. People who want to do it are definitely working. You know, they're definitely working it. So still living out of the RVs like we saw back in the 80s, you know.
Mark Fields (37:36.801)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Fields (37:49.314)
Yeah.
Kate (37:50.178)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, as a historian, I hate to, you know, construct a kind of golden era narrative. But I think, you know, the era when you were doing this, it's really hard to not fall into that kind of narrative about that era in music. I don't know. Do you agree?
Mike Baronas (38:13.246)
Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. mean, you know, had we had we been at college, you know, a few years earlier than that, we would have been right there when it started. But everything was taking off, you know, they, you know, everyone was had heard of Metallica, Slayer, et cetera, began caught not copying, but, know, doing, you know, doing their own forms of own styles of that type of heavy music and
Mark Fields (38:13.315)
I -I agree 100%. Go ahead, Mike.
Mike Baronas (38:42.452)
Yeah, no, I agree. Golden Era is probably right where it is. the death metal and then the Swedish metal, that's really... Then it went into black metal. That's kind of when we left town.
Mark Fields (38:59.947)
Right justice that was kind of starting to get traction, but I can't help but Yeah, I can't help but agree that there was so much Going on in those years that we happened to be there Like Mike said that your stuff was if we'd gone to school a few years earlier It would have been right as things were taking off I mean, you know Metallica and Slayer was starting to put stuff on and starting to change the face of heavy music But by the time we got there
those days are already gotten traction there's a whole crop of stuff that was coming up alongside in the in the wake of that that we had a job of just picking and choosing from from so many good things that were they were coming out we really could present what we thought was the best of the of the crop of stuff that was coming out there when you would just be two or three the top of the songs and that's the whole showing that we have a whole scene of bands that were available for us to
to kind of gatekeep for lack of a better cure rate maybe to bring the best of what we thought was the best to our listeners.
Mike Baronas (40:04.02)
Yeah, they needed our help, you know.
Kate (40:06.062)
How did you look at bands like coming out of like say the Seattle scene where it had that kind of heavier pre -grunge like Greek with a green mile and Mudhoney and Soundgarden? Were they kind of in your rotation or was it really separate? Was there like kind of bleed over between kind of those early grunge sounds and or was it?
Mike Baronas (40:24.234)
They tried to. They tried to. No, they tried to market it to metal radio. I don't know, it didn't work for me.
Mark Fields (40:34.357)
I wasn't feeling it. I never felt any of that stuff. I always view that as kind of like a parallel thing and not part of my personal wheelhouse.
Mike Baronas (40:44.436)
Right, and then Nirvana broke and none of those bands needed our help anymore.
Mark Fields (40:49.193)
Right, right, yeah, the new girl in town and then all eyes and money were off of the emerging thrash bands that were starting to get some commercial success and it was on to the next thing before... Yep.
Mike Baronas (41:00.244)
Yeah, the next flavor of the year or whatever.
Kate (41:03.694)
What about like the hardcore like the hardcore punk like the fugazis and
Mike Baronas (41:09.6)
That's Mark's World.
Mark Fields (41:12.609)
Yeah, I overlap a little bit more with that than Mike, or maybe I'll overlap a lot more than Mike. But there were, apart from a couple of crossover bands, like DRI, that kind of had some metal fan base, there were other shows on WXPL, such as Projectile Vomit.
was a popular show that was on for for for i think the four years earlier that was run by our friend rich and then you know shortly after we graduated there was another show called rotting arm and before we got to you fitzburg there is and and while we were there i think the first year or so sonica bottoming kind of played play that's in there there were shows that kind of catered more specifically to that vein of of aggressive music
but it wasn't so much part of what we were doing.
Kate (42:10.383)
And I had heard various reports, I've not dug into this, that Fitchburg was on the old like like 30s, 40s, 50s blues circuit. Did you ever hear any stories about that or like older? Like I'm, this is just something I've started like investigating a little bit. Just because metal has these sort of like bluesy connections. Like it just occurred.
Mark Fields (42:35.561)
right, yeah. No, that's news to me. I'd be curious to hear more.
Mike Baronas (42:37.408)
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, Al probably would have had an idea, Al from, or no, what was the name of the owner of Club 490? It was Al, okay, I'm sorry, yes. He probably would have had an idea. God rest his soul, what a sweet guy he was, No, no, no, just, you know, God bless him, he was a nice man.
Kate (42:39.265)
I'm
Mark Fields (42:50.487)
Yeah, Al Esper.
Yeah.
Kate (42:56.632)
I'll keep digging. I'll see what I find.
Mark Fields (42:59.989)
Did I hear correctly the Fitchburg - I'm sorry.
Mark Fields (43:06.467)
yeah, he was a great man. He did the community a tremendous service. Did I hear correctly that Fitchburg has taken ownership of the decaying theater downtown and is resurrecting that?
Kate (43:19.234)
Yes, so we'll see what happens when we have a new president that's going to be taking over the project. They did get some funding from the NEH to build a black box theater. I think the plans to rehab the theater itself are shelved because it's such a physical morass to do that. But they are going to, one of the trustees gifted the whole block.
Mark Fields (43:41.143)
Mm
Kate (43:45.856)
So that whole block down there is now Fitchburg State to be determined what it's going to be. So we'll see what happens.
Mark Fields (43:53.549)
Okay.
Mark Fields (43:58.019)
My favorite band Diva once played the that theater. didn't even know until many, many, many years later that they'd come through on their 1980 tour and played played the theater while it was still in operation.
Mike Baronas (44:02.666)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Kate (44:11.214)
I was gonna say it must have closed down not long after.
Mark Fields (44:15.543)
Yeah, I think it first shut it around the mid 1980s and it was closed by the time that we got there and then just fell into disrepair.
Kate (44:23.68)
Yeah, I one of my I would a friend of mine has been in it since you know, like before they started even you know, shoring up things and speaking of horror.
Mark Fields (44:35.147)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen some images from inside there that are pretty haunting.
Mike Baronas (44:35.38)
Hahaha.
Kate (44:40.3)
Yeah, definitely haunted for sure. So what am I missing in the history of WXPL? What do you want to be known about your time at the station for students, future listeners, DJs?
Mike Baronas (45:03.924)
Huh.
Mike Baronas (45:08.968)
Well, it's different now. I was asking Mark before we jumped on if XPL is still in operation. Is it, in fact?
Kate (45:23.84)
It is. There's just about six students involved. COVID was really hard. So it's still building back from COVID, but the students that are involved are very dedicated.
Mike Baronas (45:24.649)
it is.
Mike Baronas (45:28.286)
Right. Right.
Mark Fields (45:29.611)
Oof. Yeah.
Mike Baronas (45:32.36)
Yeah. Yeah, no, and you know, music fans are in general, you know, it was it was kind of disheartening to see last time I know I took a walkthrough to go there and just see a laptop and not see, you know, the CD players and the cart machines and the, you know, turntables and things like that. You know, the art of being a DJ.
Mark Fields (45:32.77)
Yeah.
Mark Fields (45:57.365)
live without a net, right? Just kind of like...
Mike Baronas (45:58.654)
Yeah, it's kind of it kind of went away. I mean, but that's just that's that's technology. It happens everywhere. You know, but you know, those six students that are doing it, you know, keep it up. mean,
I did what I wanted to do. I made my dreams come true. It sounds tacky, corny. But yeah, I I met every band I ever wanted to meet apart from one, ACDC. So yeah, if you work hard enough, can, you know, you can make it in this business. There's no money in it for you. There's no money in it for you. No, you'll collect a lot of, you know.
Kate (46:21.39)
you
Kate (46:35.64)
Do it.
Mark Fields (46:37.731)
I think good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think for me good.
Mike Baronas (46:45.512)
records and stuff.
Kate (46:47.585)
I'm
Mark Fields (46:49.793)
Looking back, I'm really happy and humbled to have... I'm honored to have had any sort of part in exposing people to exciting music that may have made their lives better. I hope that anything that I did didn't take anyone down a destructive path. Because you don't know, you're putting content out there and it affects people differently.
So I've given a little bit of thought to that and I just, you know, kind of surrender it and hope that a net good came from my efforts there. I had the time of my life those four years discovering all this exciting music as a broke college student not paying for anything because the physical copies of records and CDs just was sent to us without question for free. And we got to, you know, we got on the guest list for countless.
shows that we wouldn't have been able to otherwise attend on our meager means. So looking back, was a tremendously rich time in my life. And I'm also thankful for the friendships that were formed and some that I still have today with people who share a love for this type of music.
Kate (48:14.326)
love it. Mike, can I get a scan of your folder?
Mike Baronas (48:17.972)
Yes.
Mike Baronas (48:23.104)
of course. Yeah, I can take a high res photos. I mean, do you want you want some of this stuff? I have you know what I have? I have a picture of the guitar player from orgasm hanging from a pipe with the spray painted orgasm that I put on the wall. Do you want stuff like that? I can give you all that kind of stuff. I have garbage like that. I've saved it. I don't know how or why I've saved stuff like that, but I'll.
Mark Fields (48:24.055)
Ha ha ha ha!
Kate (48:44.163)
Yes.
Mark Fields (48:46.429)
Ha ha ha, yeah! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! For this moment, Ha ha ha ha ha!
Mike Baronas (48:52.468)
I'll go through. if you can do something with it, I'm more than happy. It would be my pleasure. It would be my pleasure.
Kate (49:00.098)
Yes. I'm building an archive. Yeah. I'm building an archive. It's online. Mostly it's digital. Because I'm using, so I work with the Library of Congress and recording radio history, is, you know, most of it lives like in folders on your desk. It's not in traditional archives.
And so the project is focused on preserving this history. And so the model is that people get to keep their stuff. They get to keep their tapes. They get to keep their artifacts. But we do digital copies and put them in the digital archive. And the Library of Congress will actually, I'm working on a project that they will actually archive sound. And they'll come and digitize it.
Mike Baronas (49:47.39)
Mark, you have to get her our station IDs.
Mark Fields (49:54.115)
Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, yeah. Haha, that's cool, Jerry! Hahaha!
Mike Baronas (49:55.498)
Can you get our list of station IDs? that's gold. That's gold, Jerry. That's gold.
Kate (50:00.835)
You
Mike Baronas (50:07.582)
Yeah, no, that's...
Kate (50:07.69)
Yeah, and the way we deal with it, the Library of Congress, is because a lot of it are radio shows with copyright material. They house it locally, so researchers can come and listen to it at the National Division of Recorded Sound. And so any sound files would be kind of walled off, but any like the playlists, the photos, you as long as you like have the rights, we can put it on our digital archive.
Mark Fields (50:36.375)
Yeah, I think these, they were station IDs that we captured during interviews. So they were recorded specifically for our program, not just the station.
Kate (50:47.63)
That'd be amazing. Yeah, so those could probably just go right up.
Mike Baronas (50:51.956)
Yeah, I don't think many of them have any. Some of them, a couple of them probably have some background music. Some of the ones that were done at record companies and whatnot, but most of them were done in person. Yeah. And yeah, to have those available. That would be a trip.
Kate (51:10.476)
be awesome. Let's see. All right. Well, I'm going to stop recording.
Kate (00:01.646)
Here we go. All right. So I am Katherine Jewell. I'm professor at Fitchburg State University. It is August 9th, 2024. And I am recording oral histories as part of a project and podcast focused on the history of WXPL. I'm currently in Harlem in New York City, but usually in Belmont, Massachusetts. And I have Mike Fields and Mark Fields and Mike Ronas. that correct?
Mark Fields (00:30.232)
Yes.
Kate (00:31.168)
Alright. yeah.
Mike Baronas (00:32.552)
Everyone would get that messed up. When we were doing station IDs. Mike, Mark, I get things autographed to Mark. He'd get things autographed to Mike. Yeah,
Mark Fields (00:35.164)
hahahaha
Mark Fields (00:40.567)
Yeah.
Kate (00:41.738)
Good. That was excellent. So could you guys tell me like how you ended up at Fitchburg State and WXPL?
Mark Fields (00:54.007)
You want to go first, Mike?
Mike Baronas (00:54.304)
Sure. Yeah, Fitchburg State was the only local college, affordable college that had a proper radio station when I was growing up in Brockton.
I listened to Emerson, not Emerson. Well, I did listen to Emerson, but there was Easton. There was a college radio station there, metal DJ. I'm like, my God, I want to do that. So, you my mom was a teacher at Northeastern University. You know, I could have gone there, you know, free boat. But you know, much to their chagrin, you know, I chose, you know, my passion, go into radio.
And that's really what sold me on going there, you know, a working radio station.
Mark Fields (01:52.611)
I was interested in Fitchburg State because they had the only four -year public school program to study graphic arts technology. I was really interested in that and interested in pursuing that as a career. Prior to going to Fitchburg, I listened to a local radio station near where I grew up, in Waterville, Maine. WMHB, the Colby College radio station there, had a metal show on Saturday nights.
Drafted in over a summer break to cover for the DJ Marty who was you know who lived in Connecticut or somewhere? And I got a little itch for radio Radio broadcasting when I was covering for him over the summer and so when I went to Fitchburg State It just seemed natural to join the radio club that happened to be there Yeah
Mike Baronas (02:44.872)
I didn't know that. I didn't know you did fill in work before WXPL. great.
Mark Fields (02:51.395)
Yeah, that I didn't sharpen my skills too much, muddled through and did okay, just like we did for four years.
Mike Baronas (02:55.786)
Ha ha ha.
Mike Baronas (03:00.756)
Ha ha ha.
Kate (03:03.096)
So what was the process like getting involved with the station? How did you train? What did you do first? Were you doing metal right away? What would that process look like?
Mike Baronas (03:15.416)
I think it wouldn't have happened had Mark and I not met. do you mind if I tell an orientation story? yeah, it was orientation. I don't know why Fitchburg State wanted us to sleep overnight with, strangers, but they did. And, you know, we were just happened to be walking. I didn't want to be there.
Mark Fields (03:25.121)
Yeah, go ahead man, yeah.
Mike Baronas (03:45.118)
you know, and I happened to be wearing my Celtic Frost shirt. And, you know, my favorite band, nobody in their right mind would even know who this band was, I thought. Lo and behold, walking up the steps ahead of me is Mark, who says, hey, the Frosties! And I'm like, you know, I was taking a back.
And I thought he was making a joke. I'm like, is he making a joke at my shirt? And then grumpy me, blah, blah, blah. So it happened to be about a week or so later in the cafeteria, I went up to him. I'm like, hey, you made mention of my shirt. You know who this band is? And I don't know if you have more of a recollection than that. without us meeting there, none of this would have taken off.
Mark Fields (04:39.369)
I think my recollection is the, I stumbled across the radio station on a tour of the campus and thought, okay, well I'll kind of file that away that maybe I can get involved with them later on. And then shortly after Mike and I had a proper introduction at the start of school, I think the station was offering tryout sessions for people to.
Mike Baronas (05:05.428)
Yeah.
Mark Fields (05:06.519)
to to to see if you know if if we had any sort of coordination at all that might make us candidates for a for possible radio show and having having done having work with turntables and and manual segues back the previous summer it was somewhat familiar to me the interface they only had to show me that you guess the particulars of of that of that studio and
Without much difficulty I auditioned my two songs and then Mike and I got paired off because we both like the same kind of crazy heavy music.
Kate (05:43.15)
So the music kind of brought you into your radio interests. Like they were always kind of went together, in other words.
Mike Baronas (05:55.648)
yeah, it's what I know it's what I wanted to do. I wanted to promote music. I wanted other people to learn this type of music. That was my interest in it. Even more so than proper studies at Fitchburg. I immersed myself in that for four years. I just, yeah, you know.
Mark Fields (06:11.863)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, as it turned out.
Yeah.
Mike Baronas (06:27.673)
classes be damned. mean, you know, it was all about the big O thrash show.
Kate (06:34.2)
So when did the Big O show start in your radio? Like, did you start out with that like immediately? How'd you come up with the name? Like where?
Mark Fields (06:43.011)
Yeah, that was our first semester at school in the fall of 1988.
Mike Baronas (06:48.318)
Yeah, we started, but yeah, we were underlings though. We weren't like... Yeah, we started out with the name, I believe. Right, yep.
Mark Fields (06:53.656)
Right, right.
Mark Fields (06:59.127)
we got from my roommate mike mike bernard back then i i i had stumbled across the the phrase the big the big as being a short for the big orgasm or the ultimate climax in something and and you know i would say you know use that term to describe thing that was the ultimate in my roommate mike bernard having never heard that term before he thought that was pretty funny
Mike Baronas (07:27.434)
Yeah, and you said you should use that.
Mark Fields (07:27.735)
you I was from yeah why don't you just call your show the big O okay well there we yeah Eureka there it was so it was not much more thought put into it than that
Mike Baronas (07:40.02)
But we did have a, there was a metal director at the time, Val Algrove, who kind of showed us the ropes, and showed us how to connect with record company PR folks and things like that, to get servicing for new releases.
and interviews with bands, free tickets, all that type of thing.
Kate (08:18.796)
What was the metal scene like at that point? Like labels, publications, like what, how? I mean, know, you know, there's Central Connecticut State had a metal, had a kind of a metal rotation, Seton Hall. There are a number of known, well -known metal college radio stations. But like, so how were you kind of mapping this landscape and what did it look like? It was mostly independent, so do you have your own?
publications or were you kind of in the CMJ world but on the side, how did all that work?
Mark Fields (08:57.251)
Well, there was a lot of music that was, music metal in particular was really popping off. There was a really rich time, in that, in that, in that scene when we were hitting college stuff started really kind of taking off, in a big way around 86 and we just kind of, we just kind of continued on with all sorts of new exciting developments through our time in, in, in 1992 when I, when I left, there was, you know, thrash was really coming into, it's, it's,
full full blossom death metal was emerging as a prominent style of music, grindcore after that. So there is a wealth of material that was coming out that was all really exciting when you have something cool that you have discovered. You want to share it with the world. You want to share it with your friends or anyone who listen to you, kind of like what Mike was alluding to, you know.
Mike Baronas (09:48.672)
yeah, even way back in high school we did that. I mean, just as fans, you know, we were just we were fans with a great opportunity to be, you know, that's kind of what it boils down. Yeah, exactly. And the music was the music was, I mean, you know, that's all I still listen to. mean, after 1993, I mean, you know, that was the divide. don't I don't listen to anything after that, to be honest.
Mark Fields (09:52.791)
Right.
Mark Fields (09:58.209)
Yeah, we're in the right place at the right time.
Mark Fields (10:14.967)
But the labels, there were a few major labels that had some metal releases that they were promoting, but primarily who we dealt with were independent labels of various levels of influence and impact. But we were tied in with most of the movers and shaker labels like Metal Blade, Road Runner, Combat Records were all big names at the time.
Mike Baronas (10:40.863)
Yeah.
Mike Baronas (10:44.756)
Yeah, but we were also tied into, you know, the bands that broke it. mean, you know, the black album, Metallica's black album. mean, I met them on that tour due to Electra Records. Actually, Mark met them the tour before. You know, so I mean, it was certain level. mean, the big four, you know, Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth, you know, they were all fair game, but...
everyone knew those bands. And for us, I mean, I know my mindset was always, they don't need our help. These bands don't need our help anymore. It's the smaller bands, the up and comers, you know, the new bands that came out when we were there like Death, Sepultura, Obituary, that we pumped and pumped and pumped, you know, and, and now they're like household names. So well, to some households, some households.
Kate (11:37.088)
The Subl Tour is a favorite.
Mark Fields (11:39.446)
Right,
Kate (11:41.966)
I have a Sepultura t -shirt.
Mark Fields (11:42.306)
haha
Mike Baronas (11:45.15)
Yay! they're on their last tour now. It's a shame. Yeah, they're on their last farewell tour, even though who's in the band anymore?
Mark Fields (11:45.595)
Alright, right on, good, good, good on ya.
Kate (11:48.424)
on, I feel... Be nice to me. Well, that's true. It's been an interesting rotation there. Yeah. So geographically, geographically, what did the metal scene look like? Were there certain clubs? was it focused in certain areas? You know, like there's Seattle is booming, Chapel Hill is booming in terms of indie rock.
Mike Baronas (11:57.864)
Now two guys, but it's not the main guys. Anyway, I'll shut up about stuff like that. My opinionated self.
Mark Fields (12:02.369)
ssss
Kate (12:17.939)
on hip hop scenes, like what, where was the metal scene really focused?
Mike Baronas (12:26.644)
Well, Death Metal, was just starting, which just blew up when we were there, it was Florida.
Mike Baronas (12:39.06)
you know, primarily. Before that it was the Bay Area, know, Metallica, Exodus, Death Angel. All right, and you know, after that it just expanded. It was everywhere, right Mark?
Mark Fields (12:56.483)
Yeah, it was, there were up -posing, I didn't think that England back at the time was a big player, there were, know, but I think middle of around 1991, I think Stockholm started blowing up with all the bands that were coming out there. Mike touched on the major, like the death metal and the thrash metal epicenters, but there were also, I guess, certain amount of bands coming out of New York.
Boston, every any city had its own thing going on. But there were certain cities that seemed to yield more bands that got traction.
Mike Baronas (13:35.934)
Yeah, there always seemed to be one great band and then everybody else wanted to be that band. mean, in Boston, was was Wargasm who unfortunately never got a fair shake in their career. But still one of my favorite bands, still great guys, you know, still in touch with some of them to this day, you know.
Kate (14:02.698)
So how did Fitchburg fit into this larger geography? did you, like, can you kind of walk me through the process of, you know, contacting a label, discovering a band, getting it on the station, and then how did that kind of...
build back into the Fitchburg station and kind of the scene itself or the radio station's kind of identity. Like, how did you guys fit in at the station? Were you doing what you were doing like what other people were doing or was it different? How did it kind of all mesh together with the overall practices, business practices of the station?
Mark Fields (14:44.363)
i think there's there's several questions in their book but in terms of what worked about our program is that after short time doing a two -hour show together we were each granted a two -hour segment back -to -back and we just hung out for the entirety of each other's shows so there'd be on on any you know we've got a lot of any particular week would be a four -hour block of metal
that we programmed, gave us, every Thursday from like eight to, was it eight to, was six to ten or eight to midnight? Yeah.
Mike Baronas (15:14.698)
Yeah, every Thursday.
Mike Baronas (15:20.032)
8 to midnight and then actually even years after that there was an extended Big O which went from midnight to 2. we arguably had probably one of the most popular shows.
Mark Fields (15:39.203)
Yeah, I think that there were also some local kids that were listening that were discovering this music alongside of us. They had their own bands as well, and there happened to be a local club in Fitchburg downtown called Club 490, which was around for a few years and which served as a kind of a clubhouse for the local metal and hardcore kids.
They brought in a number of prominent bands that came through and also they had local bands play there and there was lot of friendships and kind of creativity that blossomed out of that. It was a clubhouse of sorts.
Mike Baronas (16:21.28)
And I think some of those major acts came through because of our work with the record companies and they saw the amount of work that we were doing weekly playlists. Was it weekly? Did we do those weekly? my God. That we'd mail out to every single record company we could possibly find and bands. I mean, so they got wind of fit. yeah, yeah.
Mark Fields (16:37.379)
Yeah
Mark Fields (16:46.051)
You got one of those don't you Mike? Put one up.
Mike Baronas (16:50.068)
Yeah, I mean, so, well I got a million of them, but here's one.
Kate (16:56.487)
my god.
Mark Fields (16:58.754)
There it is.
Kate (17:00.194)
That's amazing. So you have all these like...
Mark Fields (17:01.996)
Yeah.
Mike Baronas (17:04.564)
I don't know, I came across my old metal folder, which I brought and I kept, you know, I take to the radio station every, God, every day. And I mean, we did so many different things, you know, there's a spinal tap party we did. You know, we went so far as to start.
You know, we had bands come and play at the pub, well, not the pub, right outside the pub. You know, we really worked at it. You know, I didn't know if I wanted to see this as a job going forward after that. You know, moving to New York wasn't really an option, but God, we put our heart and soul in that station.
Mark Fields (17:56.161)
Yeah, I think that as far as getting along or how we fit into the culture of the station generally, think they just... We had good rapport with everybody. It wasn't like we were embarrassing cousins that they shoved into the corner and just gave us our four hours a week and let us... Yeah, we had good rapport with everybody. Yeah, but we worked really, really hard.
Mike Baronas (18:15.646)
No, we worked it. We worked it. We had our own desk. We had our own corner. We had our own posters. Actually, I spray painted the band Wargasm up on the wall, and facilities had a fit with that. And actually, the station manager at the time did as well. Anyhow, yeah, no, we were into it. We were into it. It was.
Kate (18:29.339)
Thanks.
Mike Baronas (18:42.972)
one of the most popular forms of music at the time and we just rolled with it.
Mark Fields (18:47.219)
in terms of getting that getting in touch with labels and connecting that with the places that didn't already service us simply enough you can turn over the the back of the of the of the of the record cover of a of a bit of a bad you have a your own collection sometimes there is a phone number on their you call my piece a day on you know i'm i'm mark i work at a college station we don't currently get service well from you we do we do i do i'm one of the guys does metal programming here and usually
the person on the other end of the line was pretty agreeable and then we started getting service.
Mike Baronas (19:22.376)
We, we, we, it took hours for us to get through the mail, on a weekly basis. Hours to cut through and then listen to and then say, yeah, this sucks. no, we should play this. No, this poison album isn't getting played because poison doesn't need WXPL's help. But yet there were DJs that continue to play that type of thing. But you know, we were nobody's boss. So whatever.
Mark Fields (19:49.749)
Right, right, right, right. The brutal overlords. Yeah, we ended up being... We kind of fell into the role of being directors of the metal program. There were other metal shows during the week in addition to ours, but I guess we were kind of the... Yeah, for lack of a better word, yeah.
Kate (19:52.845)
You
Mike Baronas (19:56.372)
We tried. We tried, you know, but, yeah.
Mike Baronas (20:09.62)
Yeah, guess so. Didn't we oversee them, I suppose? Didn't they make us...
Whatever.
Kate (20:18.357)
hehe
Mark Fields (20:18.583)
We didn't crack the whip or make threats or anything, but
Mike Baronas (20:21.598)
Well, we tried to. I think it's hard to remember now. I don't know, some of those people are still our friends, so we couldn't have been that big bastards.
Mark Fields (20:30.923)
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Kate (20:33.858)
But so was there like a rotation or anything? Did you have like your own stacks of like new releases like that were specifically metal or were they mixed into the regular rotations or heavy, light, medium? Yeah. Yeah, were they, was it kind of integrated into the overall or was it a separate playlist?
Mike Baronas (20:47.496)
of the station itself or just our particular shows.
Mark Fields (20:51.01)
Yes.
Mike Baronas (20:55.099)
we were definitely, we were definitely separate.
Mark Fields (20:55.201)
I think metal... yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, was no metal programming that existed apart from the specifically metal programs, specific shows. Yeah, yeah, but...
Mike Baronas (21:05.396)
No, was Jane's addiction, know, typical alternative, you know, which was fine. You know, we did our own thing.
Kate (21:14.27)
Mm -hmm. That makes sense. So this is an interesting time in terms of metal's national profile, let's say, in terms of kind of the culture war battles over music and occult and obscenity and teen suicides and all of that.
How did you, were you kind of aware of the politics of metal and popular music? Were you tapped into that at all? Were there any local permutations of that, of either the station kind of, how did the station fit in with the general student body? Or were there any kind of political conflagrations, let's say, around the music or the station?
Mark Fields (22:04.671)
i recall having felt any anything to directed at also the station do you like
Mike Baronas (22:10.558)
Now, the only thing I recall is the student body in and of itself, I don't think, listened to WXPL. It was the surrounding towns. Those are the folks who, when we were at shows, they would come up, hey, you do that? Yeah, the student body at Fitchburg. Apart from those...
Mark Fields (22:26.38)
Yeah.
Mike Baronas (22:39.306)
deep into the music scene. Really ignored it.
Mark Fields (22:44.215)
Yeah, the only people I guess on campus who paid any attention to this type of stuff we played were the other people at the station that played the type of stuff that we played.
Mike Baronas (22:52.138)
Yeah, at their keg parties.
Kate (22:53.912)
Yeah
Mark Fields (22:54.348)
Hahaha
Kate (22:57.176)
So did you have a good sense of who your listenership was? Who was calling in? Who was your typical listener?
Mike Baronas (23:07.2)
Remember, remember where the first time Kevin came up with his dad? Why don't you tell that story?
Mark Fields (23:12.065)
yeah well the occurred basis of the dropkick murphy's was just a kid growing up in lemonster the time that we've first got on the air i guess he was at the twin city plaza with his with a waiting in a car for his mom to run an air and during the time that our show was on he was just flipping through the the f dial found us and it was for him a revelation and so he
became quickly interested in what we were doing and not so long after that he called the request line and asked if he could come up and hang out with us at some point. So we said, well sure. Yeah, yeah.
Mike Baronas (23:51.838)
So cute, it was so cute. He came up with his denim jacket, know, everyone with the battle vest, you know, with the big ACDC patch on the back and, God, you know, we showed him around. It would just, you know, it just warmed your heart, you know, to actually do something that someone cared about.
Mark Fields (24:14.019)
Yes, I think the typical audience member might have been just a junior high or high schooler that lived in the area who received through word of mouth at school or at one of those Club 490 shows.
Mike Baronas (24:29.672)
And happened or just happened like we did, you know, when we were kids, just flip around the dial. Whoa, what's that? You know, let's listen to this.
Mark Fields (24:33.559)
Yeah. Right.
Kate (24:39.522)
So how did this experience, I know you said classes be damned, but you did graduate. like, how did you see this though fitting into, in retrospect, into your college experience and the kinds of things that you learned in college? Like how did it kind of work with your trajectory through college?
Mike Baronas (24:46.944)
Yeah, skin in my teeth.
Mark Fields (24:49.485)
Yeah.
Kate (25:08.647)
like in the in what you gained from the college experience. What did you get out of this?
Mark Fields (25:14.667)
more than I got out of my degree.
Mike Baronas (25:17.696)
Ditto. Yeah, no, when I think of Fitchburg State, I think of WXPL. That's what I went there to do, and that's what I did. Classes were just, they were ancillary to me.
Mark Fields (25:18.625)
I got, yeah.
Mark Fields (25:29.963)
Right, and I'm not putting that as a knock on the faculty or the program that I undertook, yeah. But ultimately, the things that have stayed with me through the majority of my adult life have been relationships and memories that I took from stuff that was related to my time at the radio station.
Mike Baronas (25:32.702)
No, no, nor I. No, I had some great teachers as well. Yep.
Kate (25:54.358)
So what moments stand out? me your best stories. This is where I open it up and I want you to tell me all the things, all the tea.
Mike Baronas (26:06.89)
best stories.
Kate (26:09.964)
On air, off air.
Mike Baronas (26:12.434)
I think just some things that come to mind immediately introducing what introducing entombed on their first US tour introducing Dark Angel both at the channel the best club that there ever was though those stand out those are just cool things that you know you know we did because of the radio station
Mark Fields (26:28.823)
Yeah, rest in peace, channel.
Mark Fields (26:35.999)
I was always happy for the chance, usually we could arrange when bands came to town that we could get an interview. So we'd actually have an audience with members of bands that we dug and just sit across from them and discuss ideas and pick their brains about things that mattered to us. So I think just that in general, mean, the friendship that we...
still hold to this day with drummer Gene Hoagland who has played with everybody and is kind of a metal legend.
Mike Baronas (27:11.109)
We just met with him, we just saw him a few weeks ago.
Mark Fields (27:13.987)
Right, yeah, yeah, well he was touring in an RV and playing the Paradise on a co -headlining tour with Death back in 89. And we just sat across from him through an interview that was arranged with Combat Records and got to talking with him and we hit it off and we still remain friends to this day.
Mike Baronas (27:20.768)
March 89.
Mike Baronas (27:35.518)
we'd see him, you know, every time he'd come through town, stop and say hey.
Mark Fields (27:38.615)
He gets in touch, hey I'm gonna be playing the House of Blues, you guys wanna get on the list? We can hang out after... Yeah man, sure, love to.
Mike Baronas (27:47.572)
Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
Mark Fields (27:48.887)
So I think just meeting musicians that we found important and having a chance to discuss with them was kind of a rare thing that not every fan of the music would get to have.
Mike Baronas (28:05.118)
Yeah, they say, you know, some say don't meet your heroes and that only happened a handful of times. But yeah, no, I think, you know, for me anyway, I believe apart from one band, I met every band during that era that I ever wanted to meet. So.
Mark Fields (28:25.771)
And yeah, most of them were really nice people.
Kate (28:30.104)
Did you have, did they play in studio or is it mostly interviews?
Mike Baronas (28:35.742)
We never had in -studio. We didn't have the facilities for in -studio, but they would come in for in -studio interviews.
Mark Fields (28:42.049)
Did Desolat do an acoustic set? I don't know. Man...
Mike Baronas (28:45.268)
Did they? Was that at the station when it was up in the library or when it moved back down? Was it? Yeah, I have no recollection of that one. Yeah.
Mark Fields (28:53.313)
down in the tunnel.
Yeah, don't know, memory's kind of fuzzy. But yeah, occasionally we'd have on -air interviews, but we didn't have really the facility for a proper electrified performance from anybody.
Mike Baronas (29:11.476)
Yeah, it was pretty thrilling for us too, you know, to have like the, you know, the major local, you know, bands of the Sand Black Church, Wargasm, Liar Rage, et cetera, et cetera, you know, to come to our little station here out, here out in the middle of nowhere in Fitchburg. And yeah, I know some national acts came in too. Remember Scatterbrain came to the station. They they're like, Fitchburg, what's Fitchburg? Chinchbug?
Mark Fields (29:21.271)
Wargasm again, yeah, yeah.
Mark Fields (29:26.837)
Right, yeah, who are we that you would grace us with your presence? Yeah.
Mark Fields (29:35.169)
Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kate (29:39.064)
You
Mike Baronas (29:40.096)
We're Chinchbug, we're in Chinchbug, you know. Anyway.
Mark Fields (29:41.475)
shoot.
Kate (29:44.6)
You know what the impressions were going in and out of Fitchburg? So tell me about how, about what happened next. Like where did you go, where did you take this experience in your careers and your lives going forward?
Mike Baronas (30:07.006)
Mark, you want to go?
Mark Fields (30:07.373)
For me it was - for me it quickly faded into the to the rear view mirror. I didn't stay involved with No? You disagreeing with me, Mike?
Mike Baronas (30:17.94)
gasp, etc.
Mark Fields (30:29.961)
Apart from that, I didn't do any broadcasting work or promotion stuff. I've been in and out of bands myself, but that's a different thing altogether. But Mike started an imprint publication. Go ahead, Mike. I wrote for Mike.
Mike Baronas (30:43.956)
Yeah, you know, no, wasn't really I wasn't really sure where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. So one day I was sitting in my mom's office at college and I came up with the idea of, you know, I grew up with horror movies and heavy metal. let's do a half half heavy metal, half horror magazine, you know, called it Gasp, etc. grew some art, shocking persons, etc. We already had all the connections with the
record companies. So we continue with that. Got some advertising there. And through, you know, local convention appearances and things, met up with some of the stars from different horror films. My first one off the bat, who became a really good friend was Gunnar Hansen, who played Leatherface in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. you know, so it kind of expanded from there. I did that for, you know,
six issues until that eventually, you know, the advertising didn't sustain it. Yeah, I was spinning my wheels. But you know, we brought it back when we got all jazzed for again, my favorite band Celtic Frost reuniting in 2006. And we did an online version of it. And we got to meet them in person again.
Mark Fields (32:06.827)
Yeah, that's one of the greatest things that ever happened.
Mike Baronas (32:09.78)
That's literally one of the best, easily one of the best times of my life.
Mark Fields (32:12.78)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, same. Yeah, one of the best days ever for me too.
Mike Baronas (32:18.304)
Yeah, one of the best that was February 2006. Yeah, you know, so gracious sat down here. Here. Check out. Check out my new guitar. Hand us his, you know, Iceman is I've been as Iceman, you know, HR Giger. I'm sitting there holding him like looking at Mark like, is this really happening? You know.
Mark Fields (32:39.921)
Hahaha, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mike Baronas (32:41.162)
You know, just so gracious, gave us a long interview, signed all our garbage. And still love him to this day. I mean, we're still in touch with Tom to this day.
Mark Fields (32:48.159)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kate (32:55.684)
So you had this magazine. Where did your careers take you?
Mike Baronas (33:02.88)
Me, I spent about 25 years as a sales and marketing coordinator. And that's pretty much what I done for my nine to five job. So I I graduated technical writing. The writing was there with the magazine. So that kind of tied in a little bit.
Mark Fields (33:27.138)
Yeah.
Mike Baronas (33:28.34)
You know, at least I like to say it did. There's a little bit of journalism in there.
Mark Fields (33:38.367)
I worked in the printing industry for about seven years out of Fitchburg State. Decided that field was not for me. And then I shifted gears and have been doing unskilled stuff since then. Haven't figured out what I want to be when I grow up, but...
Mike Baronas (33:58.824)
Yeah, yeah, my, my, yeah, I took a left turn. Yeah, I took a left turn and took a job for strictly for money as well. So, you know, things happen in life. So
Mark Fields (34:02.315)
In the meantime, bills must be paid.
Mike Baronas (34:13.066)
A, you know, as long as you have good friends that have your back, you know, that's all that matters.
Mark Fields (34:16.323)
Absolutely, 100 percent.
Kate (34:18.427)
So what about music and radio? How do you consume music now? This is the question.
Mike Baronas (34:25.734)
If you see behind us, know, physical media is still really part of our life.
Kate (34:30.178)
Ha ha ha ha!
Mike Baronas (34:34.624)
Mark is much more, you know, up to date on things. You know, like I said earlier, know, once 1993, 1994 hit, when my magazine stopped and I stopped getting servicing, you know, and got married and then had kids, etc, etc, you know, kind of lost track of things. So
Mark Fields (34:59.075)
I still get recommendations from friends, get recommendations from algorithms, I see stuff on metal websites that may peak my interest and I'll sample a Bandcamp stream here and there. So I get my input, my new suggestions and new stuff comes into my life through various avenues.
if it's available physically I buy it just because I figure it's good to have a physical backup of everything even though all my music behind me has been digitized for portable play and convenience I always have redundancy multiple copies of mp3 basically it's not so much for show as it is practically just to have an archival physical
backup copy of everything. Plus I do happen to enjoy the physical process of immersing myself in the graphics even if it is only like a four and three quarter inch square format of a CD booklet.
Mike Baronas (36:15.444)
And it still feels to this day that you're supporting the band when you actually buy their physical product. I mean, in my mind anyway, I don't know if that's the case all the time, but just...
Mark Fields (36:24.833)
Yeah, a lot of the that I happen to like that are coming out these days are not on Spotify or the streaming platforms. So the best way to support them directly is through a physical purchase at a gig when they come through or buy something directly from them on their Bandcamp page where a much higher percentage of the proceeds go directly to the artist. It's tough to make a buck making music.
Mike Baronas (36:50.656)
Yeah, it's completely opposite from when we started. It's kind of scary for bands. I don't know how they all do it. Well, t -shirts, t -shirts, know, Exodus had a great quote, wasn't it? We're traveling t -shirt salesmen. That's what we are. You know that? That's true. I mean, they've been around forever. It's complete opposite of what they were doing when, geez, when did I first see them? 1987? Anyway.
Mark Fields (36:57.921)
Yeah, if you're not touring and selling tons of shirts, you're not making money.
Mark Fields (37:07.008)
man.
Mark Fields (37:14.691)
We're gonna get royalties off of physical sales or whatever.
Kate (37:20.248)
Yeah, yeah, I mean that middle, it's just, it's not possible to just be a working band and make a good living. You know, don't have to be Beyonce living in Bel Air, but like to just, you know, have an apartment and.
you know, sustain yourself on music.
Mike Baronas (37:36.65)
tough. Gotta be tough. No, they're dead. People who want to do it are definitely working. You know, they're definitely working it. So still living out of the RVs like we saw back in the 80s, you know.
Mark Fields (37:36.801)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Fields (37:49.314)
Yeah.
Kate (37:50.178)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, as a historian, I hate to, you know, construct a kind of golden era narrative. But I think, you know, the era when you were doing this, it's really hard to not fall into that kind of narrative about that era in music. I don't know. Do you agree?
Mike Baronas (38:13.246)
Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. mean, you know, had we had we been at college, you know, a few years earlier than that, we would have been right there when it started. But everything was taking off, you know, they, you know, everyone was had heard of Metallica, Slayer, et cetera, began caught not copying, but, know, doing, you know, doing their own forms of own styles of that type of heavy music and
Mark Fields (38:13.315)
I -I agree 100%. Go ahead, Mike.
Mike Baronas (38:42.452)
Yeah, no, I agree. Golden Era is probably right where it is. the death metal and then the Swedish metal, that's really... Then it went into black metal. That's kind of when we left town.
Mark Fields (38:59.947)
Right justice that was kind of starting to get traction, but I can't help but Yeah, I can't help but agree that there was so much Going on in those years that we happened to be there Like Mike said that your stuff was if we'd gone to school a few years earlier It would have been right as things were taking off I mean, you know Metallica and Slayer was starting to put stuff on and starting to change the face of heavy music But by the time we got there
those days are already gotten traction there's a whole crop of stuff that was coming up alongside in the in the wake of that that we had a job of just picking and choosing from from so many good things that were they were coming out we really could present what we thought was the best of the of the crop of stuff that was coming out there when you would just be two or three the top of the songs and that's the whole showing that we have a whole scene of bands that were available for us to
to kind of gatekeep for lack of a better cure rate maybe to bring the best of what we thought was the best to our listeners.
Mike Baronas (40:04.02)
Yeah, they needed our help, you know.
Kate (40:06.062)
How did you look at bands like coming out of like say the Seattle scene where it had that kind of heavier pre -grunge like Greek with a green mile and Mudhoney and Soundgarden? Were they kind of in your rotation or was it really separate? Was there like kind of bleed over between kind of those early grunge sounds and or was it?
Mike Baronas (40:24.234)
They tried to. They tried to. No, they tried to market it to metal radio. I don't know, it didn't work for me.
Mark Fields (40:34.357)
I wasn't feeling it. I never felt any of that stuff. I always view that as kind of like a parallel thing and not part of my personal wheelhouse.
Mike Baronas (40:44.436)
Right, and then Nirvana broke and none of those bands needed our help anymore.
Mark Fields (40:49.193)
Right, right, yeah, the new girl in town and then all eyes and money were off of the emerging thrash bands that were starting to get some commercial success and it was on to the next thing before... Yep.
Mike Baronas (41:00.244)
Yeah, the next flavor of the year or whatever.
Kate (41:03.694)
What about like the hardcore like the hardcore punk like the fugazis and
Mike Baronas (41:09.6)
That's Mark's World.
Mark Fields (41:12.609)
Yeah, I overlap a little bit more with that than Mike, or maybe I'll overlap a lot more than Mike. But there were, apart from a couple of crossover bands, like DRI, that kind of had some metal fan base, there were other shows on WXPL, such as Projectile Vomit.
was a popular show that was on for for for i think the four years earlier that was run by our friend rich and then you know shortly after we graduated there was another show called rotting arm and before we got to you fitzburg there is and and while we were there i think the first year or so sonica bottoming kind of played play that's in there there were shows that kind of catered more specifically to that vein of of aggressive music
but it wasn't so much part of what we were doing.
Kate (42:10.383)
And I had heard various reports, I've not dug into this, that Fitchburg was on the old like like 30s, 40s, 50s blues circuit. Did you ever hear any stories about that or like older? Like I'm, this is just something I've started like investigating a little bit. Just because metal has these sort of like bluesy connections. Like it just occurred.
Mark Fields (42:35.561)
right, yeah. No, that's news to me. I'd be curious to hear more.
Mike Baronas (42:37.408)
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, Al probably would have had an idea, Al from, or no, what was the name of the owner of Club 490? It was Al, okay, I'm sorry, yes. He probably would have had an idea. God rest his soul, what a sweet guy he was, No, no, no, just, you know, God bless him, he was a nice man.
Kate (42:39.265)
I'm
Mark Fields (42:50.487)
Yeah, Al Esper.
Yeah.
Kate (42:56.632)
I'll keep digging. I'll see what I find.
Mark Fields (42:59.989)
Did I hear correctly the Fitchburg - I'm sorry.
Mark Fields (43:06.467)
yeah, he was a great man. He did the community a tremendous service. Did I hear correctly that Fitchburg has taken ownership of the decaying theater downtown and is resurrecting that?
Kate (43:19.234)
Yes, so we'll see what happens when we have a new president that's going to be taking over the project. They did get some funding from the NEH to build a black box theater. I think the plans to rehab the theater itself are shelved because it's such a physical morass to do that. But they are going to, one of the trustees gifted the whole block.
Mark Fields (43:41.143)
Mm
Kate (43:45.856)
So that whole block down there is now Fitchburg State to be determined what it's going to be. So we'll see what happens.
Mark Fields (43:53.549)
Okay.
Mark Fields (43:58.019)
My favorite band Diva once played the that theater. didn't even know until many, many, many years later that they'd come through on their 1980 tour and played played the theater while it was still in operation.
Mike Baronas (44:02.666)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Kate (44:11.214)
I was gonna say it must have closed down not long after.
Mark Fields (44:15.543)
Yeah, I think it first shut it around the mid 1980s and it was closed by the time that we got there and then just fell into disrepair.
Kate (44:23.68)
Yeah, I one of my I would a friend of mine has been in it since you know, like before they started even you know, shoring up things and speaking of horror.
Mark Fields (44:35.147)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen some images from inside there that are pretty haunting.
Mike Baronas (44:35.38)
Hahaha.
Kate (44:40.3)
Yeah, definitely haunted for sure. So what am I missing in the history of WXPL? What do you want to be known about your time at the station for students, future listeners, DJs?
Mike Baronas (45:03.924)
Huh.
Mike Baronas (45:08.968)
Well, it's different now. I was asking Mark before we jumped on if XPL is still in operation. Is it, in fact?
Kate (45:23.84)
It is. There's just about six students involved. COVID was really hard. So it's still building back from COVID, but the students that are involved are very dedicated.
Mike Baronas (45:24.649)
it is.
Mike Baronas (45:28.286)
Right. Right.
Mark Fields (45:29.611)
Oof. Yeah.
Mike Baronas (45:32.36)
Yeah. Yeah, no, and you know, music fans are in general, you know, it was it was kind of disheartening to see last time I know I took a walkthrough to go there and just see a laptop and not see, you know, the CD players and the cart machines and the, you know, turntables and things like that. You know, the art of being a DJ.
Mark Fields (45:32.77)
Yeah.
Mark Fields (45:57.365)
live without a net, right? Just kind of like...
Mike Baronas (45:58.654)
Yeah, it's kind of it kind of went away. I mean, but that's just that's that's technology. It happens everywhere. You know, but you know, those six students that are doing it, you know, keep it up. mean,
I did what I wanted to do. I made my dreams come true. It sounds tacky, corny. But yeah, I I met every band I ever wanted to meet apart from one, ACDC. So yeah, if you work hard enough, can, you know, you can make it in this business. There's no money in it for you. There's no money in it for you. No, you'll collect a lot of, you know.
Kate (46:21.39)
you
Kate (46:35.64)
Do it.
Mark Fields (46:37.731)
I think good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think for me good.
Mike Baronas (46:45.512)
records and stuff.
Kate (46:47.585)
I'm
Mark Fields (46:49.793)
Looking back, I'm really happy and humbled to have... I'm honored to have had any sort of part in exposing people to exciting music that may have made their lives better. I hope that anything that I did didn't take anyone down a destructive path. Because you don't know, you're putting content out there and it affects people differently.
So I've given a little bit of thought to that and I just, you know, kind of surrender it and hope that a net good came from my efforts there. I had the time of my life those four years discovering all this exciting music as a broke college student not paying for anything because the physical copies of records and CDs just was sent to us without question for free. And we got to, you know, we got on the guest list for countless.
shows that we wouldn't have been able to otherwise attend on our meager means. So looking back, was a tremendously rich time in my life. And I'm also thankful for the friendships that were formed and some that I still have today with people who share a love for this type of music.
Kate (48:14.326)
love it. Mike, can I get a scan of your folder?
Mike Baronas (48:17.972)
Yes.
Mike Baronas (48:23.104)
of course. Yeah, I can take a high res photos. I mean, do you want you want some of this stuff? I have you know what I have? I have a picture of the guitar player from orgasm hanging from a pipe with the spray painted orgasm that I put on the wall. Do you want stuff like that? I can give you all that kind of stuff. I have garbage like that. I've saved it. I don't know how or why I've saved stuff like that, but I'll.
Mark Fields (48:24.055)
Ha ha ha ha!
Kate (48:44.163)
Yes.
Mark Fields (48:46.429)
Ha ha ha, yeah! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! For this moment, Ha ha ha ha ha!
Mike Baronas (48:52.468)
I'll go through. if you can do something with it, I'm more than happy. It would be my pleasure. It would be my pleasure.
Kate (49:00.098)
Yes. I'm building an archive. Yeah. I'm building an archive. It's online. Mostly it's digital. Because I'm using, so I work with the Library of Congress and recording radio history, is, you know, most of it lives like in folders on your desk. It's not in traditional archives.
And so the project is focused on preserving this history. And so the model is that people get to keep their stuff. They get to keep their tapes. They get to keep their artifacts. But we do digital copies and put them in the digital archive. And the Library of Congress will actually, I'm working on a project that they will actually archive sound. And they'll come and digitize it.
Mike Baronas (49:47.39)
Mark, you have to get her our station IDs.
Mark Fields (49:54.115)
Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, yeah. Haha, that's cool, Jerry! Hahaha!
Mike Baronas (49:55.498)
Can you get our list of station IDs? that's gold. That's gold, Jerry. That's gold.
Kate (50:00.835)
You
Mike Baronas (50:07.582)
Yeah, no, that's...
Kate (50:07.69)
Yeah, and the way we deal with it, the Library of Congress, is because a lot of it are radio shows with copyright material. They house it locally, so researchers can come and listen to it at the National Division of Recorded Sound. And so any sound files would be kind of walled off, but any like the playlists, the photos, you as long as you like have the rights, we can put it on our digital archive.
Mark Fields (50:36.375)
Yeah, I think these, they were station IDs that we captured during interviews. So they were recorded specifically for our program, not just the station.
Kate (50:47.63)
That'd be amazing. Yeah, so those could probably just go right up.
Mike Baronas (50:51.956)
Yeah, I don't think many of them have any. Some of them, a couple of them probably have some background music. Some of the ones that were done at record companies and whatnot, but most of them were done in person. Yeah. And yeah, to have those available. That would be a trip.
Kate (51:10.476)
be awesome. Let's see. All right. Well, I'm going to stop recording.
Interviewer
Katherine Jewell
Interviewee
Mike Baronas, Mark Fields
Location
Online via riverside.fm
Time Summary
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Background
03:03 Getting Involved with WXPL
06:34 Starting the Big O Show
08:18 Connecting with Record Labels and Bands
11:37 Thriving Metal Scene
14:02 WXPL's Role in the Metal Scene
18:29 Working at WXPL
20:48 Separate Metal Playlist
23:07 Listenership and Typical Audience
26:07 Memorable Moments and Friendships
28:05 The Golden Era of Heavy Music
30:07 The Changing Music Industry
32:07 Community and Friendship in the Music Scene
00:00 Introduction and Background
03:03 Getting Involved with WXPL
06:34 Starting the Big O Show
08:18 Connecting with Record Labels and Bands
11:37 Thriving Metal Scene
14:02 WXPL's Role in the Metal Scene
18:29 Working at WXPL
20:48 Separate Metal Playlist
23:07 Listenership and Typical Audience
26:07 Memorable Moments and Friendships
28:05 The Golden Era of Heavy Music
30:07 The Changing Music Industry
32:07 Community and Friendship in the Music Scene
Files
Citation
“Oral History with Mike Baronas and Mark Fields,” Crowd Noise, accessed October 21, 2026, https://www.wrvuhistory.org/items/show/145.
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