imperfection hours

I found this posted on the net March 20, 2007
http://mog.com/monkeyfacedratfink/blog_post/53445
“Imperfection Hours (1983-89): hosted by RJ Hollub and crew, then John Batog and Dan Ruszack, this show, while extremely popular among fans of punk and hardcore, was the program director’s worst nightmare (though there were many close contenders, like the death metal show “Shredding Intensities”, and the infamous “Painfully Real”; which, during a tamer episode, featured a 40 minute recording of a cancer patient on her deathbed). It was incredible that the CRTC never heard about them in Ottawa. Still, so long as I wasn’t program director or station manager, I generally liked their program.”
-Mark Fedak
For years now I have been trying to remember the name of that show. Bored one night some time ago, i began to compile a mental list of my major musical influences—not as in bands, but as in the people and places that gave me the large and diverse musical background i have today. This was one of them, a punk/hardcore show that ran Sunday nights on CJAM , the University of Windsor’s radio station. I listened to it (between 1984 and 1987, approx.) on this crappy thing, kind of an oversized transistor radio. And since we lived all the way across town from the university, i had to keep moving it around my bedroom and jiggling the antenna to get any reception at all. I used to tape it, static and all, and listen to it over and over until the tapes were nearly transparent from being played so much.
Even today, when i hear songs that i first heard on CJAM , songs that i listened to over and over again on those tapes, i can still hear what should come next—like when i listen to ‘Homicide’ by 999 (which i still do, quite a bit), i expect to hear Gang Green’s ‘Alcohol’ come roaring in. ‘My War’ by Black Flag still doesn’t sound right without the overlay of static i was so used to. Even the unlikely marriage of Motorhead (‘Marching Off To War’) and The Toy Dolls (‘Theme Tune’ from Dig That Groove, Baby) are still stuck in my head to this very day.
‘Someone’s Gonna Die’ by Blitz, ‘In My Eyes’ by Minor Threat, ‘London Dungeon’ by The Misfits, ‘Sick Boy’ by GBH , ‘I (Still) Believe In Anarchy’ by The Exploited, and hundreds of other songs that i never actually knew who the bands were—these will forever be linked to those Sunday nights i spent in my room hudled down next to a shitty, static-infested, grey, plastic radio.
God i miss that thing.
-monkeyfacedratfink