Monday 22 March 2010

Real Man Radio - The Best of Real Man Radio



Last summer, we had put out a call for tapes of any old CJSW shows, and so when Greg Kushner put this in the great box of tapes he sent us, we were suitably thrilled.

Real Men Radio was a Saturday night staple in the early 90's. We remember a few shows, so this is gold: a compilation of some of the best moments from the show. It takes the wackiness that's hinted at throughout the Unsightly and Zoo Story tapes to a whole other level. Here's what he has to say for himself:

I did the Ramblin’ Greg Show on CJSW all through my University Years, but decided to give it up after getting my degree – in fact my final show was a live Unsightly performance in the studio. After a few years, I couldn’t get over it, so I begged to come back! Eventually, Ramblin’ Greg was back on Saturday Nights just between Oh Africa and Kevin Woron’s Megawatt Mayhem (a scary show to do a fill-in for, lemme tell ya! I did it once; my plan being to be Greg for my show then become Tom Bosley for the Metal show. I though it would be funny – the Dad from Happy Days playing Slayer. The metal fans that phoned in weren’t laughing.)

One night, Gary Brown joined me on the air, and for the second hour we spontaneously created this program hosted by two bodybuilders. It was so much fun we started to do it on alternating weeks, the whole time hoping the program director wouldn’t get wise to Gary being an on-air regular despite not having gone through any CJSW orientation, training, etc. Imagine our surprise when she called up one night to tell us how much she loved our show and to keep up the good work!

Gary and I had recorded a theme song and we would do some pre-production bits (like our Charlie Brown bits, ‘The Devil and Gary Brown” etc) but most of the on-air bits were improvised; we’d scribble down ideas throughout the week and then go through them before the show. The music was a mix of requests and ‘Manly’ bands (Danzig was a big fave). Soon we developed a whole roster of characters and bits. Friends and family would often make guest appearances – some of them becoming recurring characters too (like the infamous Banana Monster)!

This tape was an incentive given out to pledgers during one of the station's funding drives. We're not sure exactly which - an educated guess suggests 1993. Maybe.

We enjoy this far more than we probably should. Especially the request segments. We suggest that you add this to your favourite playlist, to spice things up, as it were.

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