The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
A party 3 decades in the making
The Local Bands Show celebrates 30 years with event today
NEW HAVEN — Let’s face it, 30 years is a long time to make anything work — let alone beaming out a Sunday night radio show focusing entirely on local bands and the local music scene on a 50,000-watt classic rockformatted commercial FM radio station.
And yet, despite all odds, The Local Bands Show — and hosts Rick Allison and Frank Critelli — will celebrate 30 years on WPLR, 99.1 FM with a big party at Cafe Nine this afternoon organized by the other station the show runs on, Cygnus Radio.
“In my career in radio, 30 years at one station is pretty remarkable,” said Allison, who estimated they’ve aired about 1,560 shows all told — although some of them were repeats.
He attributed that longevity in part to the fact that “we just do the show in my studio and then send it over.”
In a fast- and ever-changing cultural landscape, The Local Bands Show actually is older than many of the band members whose music it promotes.
It actually got canceled in the midst of a WPLR regime change in 2009 — then got brought back by popular demand in the wake of a community outcry — and has since outlived founding cohost James Velvet, who passed away in April of 2015.
But while Velvet has left the building, the show continues — so let’s celebrate!
Showtime, under the auspices of Cygnus’ “The Sunday Buzz” matinee series, is 2 to 5 p.m. Admission is free. Cafe Nine is at 250 State St. at the corner of State and Crown.
It will be some show, too, featuring The Birdmen — Velvet’s old band featuring
Johnny Java, Johnny Memphis and Dick Neal, among others, which picked up where his other old band, The Mockingbirds, left off — along with Big Fat Combo and special guest appearances by Christine “The Beehive Queen” Ohlman, Jim Chapdelaine and most likely some others.
Big Fat Combo “will do at least a couple of Velvet tunes,” said Allison.
Allison said that just this week he was transcribing the oldest show he still has a copy of — the fifth episode of The Local Bands Show, from May 8, 1988.
“I enjoy it,” he said. “The fact that this 50,000-watt, FM, straight-ahead AOR powerhouse should give us a half an hour a week ... is a miracle.”
The Local Bands Show airs on WPLR every Sunday night at 10 p.m. It also airs on Monday “noonish” on Cygnus Radio.
While Critelli — probably best known as a Connecticut singer-songwriter and performer, but also a respected local bartender — has only been on board for the past couple of years, he plays an important role as the guy who “almost single-handedly saved the show,” Allison said.
“After James’ death, I was having one of those ‘crises of conscience’ and wondering whether the show should go on,” and Critelli stepped in and made it clear that it should, he said.
Soon afterward, it became clear to Allison that Critelli should be the show’s new co-host.
“I feel totally lucky to be involved,” said Critelli. “I feel like the fact that The Local Bands Show has been able to sustain itself for 30 years ... speaks volumes about how thriving the scene has always been around here,” Critelli said.
He said he does the show because “it’s what I do — and because I love it.
“For me it’s a little bit different because I’m also an active member of the scene as a songwriter,” while as a bartender, “I get to see a lot of shows, too,” he said.
The Local Bands Show’s formula is pretty simple.
“We play music that we dig,” Critelli said. “We listen to everything that comes in, and we play what we’re excited about — just putting it out there,” while thinking, “hey, we like this, and maybe you will, too.”
Allison said that “music is magic by itself.” But “music over the radio ... is just a little extra magic.”