#2 in my Top Ten College Radio Archive Moments
The Dead Milkmen at WUSB Stony Brook's Turmoil Radio
Steve Kreitzer of Turmoil Radio at WUSB Stony Brook is the most organized punk in history.
Not only did he host one of the longest-running punk shows in the nation, he kept meticulous records. Starting in 1983, he began to pick up on the circulation of demo tapes and rising independent labels featuring hardcore bands popping up around the country. He took his love of punk and hardcore a step further than being a mere collector who had a radio show.
He reached out to bands he played on his show to let them know that he played their demos, tapes, EPs, or albums. Eventually, he developed a questionnaire for bands to collect vital details, and he distributed his own newsletter detailing top plays, playlists, and news.
Kreitzer, in other words, became a central clearinghouse of hardcore information.
Not only did he actively cultivate this network of information and dissemination, he kept track. The fruits of that labor now reside at SUNY Stony Brook on Long Island. Kreitzer kept all his playlists, newsletters, AND CORRESPONDENCE.
I cannot describe what a rich collection this is and the many, many opportunities for further research that reside here.
First, there is the wide, and ever-widening, geographic reach of this network. Kreitzer didn’t just connect to bands in New York and New Jersey. Upstart record labels from Colorado, California, England, Germany, Australia, and beyond are in his archive. The letters are arranged chronologically, giving a sense of the growth of this underground over time.
Then, there is the contextual information that his correspondence provides to the playlists.
Doing college radio history is sometimes like grasping in the void. I’d find a great playlist, but have little sense of how a DJ made those selections, found out about bands, or where the bands were in their process of reaching more listeners.
Kreitzer’s collection changes that. It is possible to see a band debut on his playlist and match it to correspondence, dissemination of that information, and connect it even to the label supporting the band.
Independent labels in the 1980s had scant, if any, promotional funds. DIY informational networks such as zines provided a lifeline to reach eager fans who wanted to channel their angst, rage, and find likeminded participants in this vibrant underground. College radio existed on a level above this informal informational network. It could provide serendipitous discovery, and they were visible nodes in the processes that spread news about new artists, albums, and labels. They were easy places to contact.
Kreitzer’s efforts represent the two-way nature of this relationship. Stations weren’t just passive recipients of new product: individual DJs often did a lot of the work of discovering new sounds and getting them to listeners. Then they would square that process by providing feedback back to bands or labels — something more rare, and especially to the degree that Kreitzer did it, but nonetheless it was a much more accessible form of promotional and market information.
Other DJs also shared playlists, making sure that the like-minded and those inclined to labor on behalf of this network had the latest news.
In aggregate, college stations, zines, and independent labels and bands started to form an alternative market in the 1980s, making it possible for fans to drop out of the mainstream and consume differently. It still depended on mainstream institutions, like universities, to support these networks, but it functioned.
So that brings me to my number 2 pick on my list of college radio artifacts. Much of the collection feature bands that remained in the hardcore and punk underground. Some wrote on postcards, others had official letterhead for their hardcore bands with, ahem, sometimes offensive names.
![Pasted Graphic 1.png Pasted Graphic 1.png](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F92cd2c49-42b0-442d-8bce-8522ec10edf8_980x1570.png)
But at moments, familiar names would pop out.
![excerpts from archives](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ac731ff-2c5b-4b8d-9b83-f342caab312c_880x522.jpeg)
![excerpts from archives](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0d7becca-6a78-418d-b141-6fe0cca08490_834x1114.jpeg)
But the moment that made me stand up was this letter from August 1984, from none other than Jack Talcum (Joe Genaro) of the Dead Milkmen, sharing information for how to get their tape as well as news of another “Radically Insane Off the wall Tunes” at WKDU at Drexel University in Philadelphia.
A DJ’s life certainly is great, Jack. It certainly is.