As we lead up to “Floydian Slip” Show #1,000 the week of June 8, we’re digging into the archives to share relics from the show’s past.
WEXP 105.1 FM, an Adult Album Alternative (Triple-A) station in Burlington, Vt., was the first commercial radio station to carry “Floydian Slip.”
I started the show there Friday, Dec. 2, 1994. It aired at 11 p.m. once a month, during the new moon, while I served full-time as the station’s evening jock.
The “Experience 105.1” studios were located on College Street in Burlington, on the second floor across from what was The Burlington Free Press space. At the time, I was living about a two-minute walk from the station, across from City Hall Park.
Aside from the occasional rumble of traffic that sometimes permeated the studio walls, it was a great space — warm, friendly, high-tech and very downtown chic. At least by Vermont standards.
Unfortunately, the station was a brand new, stand-alone start-up, and within just a year ownership had exhausted its capital and sold to another local broadcasting company. Hall Communications took over WEXP in spring ’95, moved it to its existing facility on Joy Drive in South Burlington, and WEXP became WKOL.
“Kool 105” remains on the air today, playing classic hits, though none of the full-time WEXP staffers continued after the sale.
Hall Communications is also the owner of WIZN 106.7 FM in Burlington. “The Wizard” is a rock institution in Burlington, and the station I aspired to be a part of when I was studying broadcasting in the ’80s. WIZN has been a “Floydian Slip” affiliate since autumn 2009.
… we came in? Isn’t this where …
WEXP air studio: XTC, the Allman Bros. and Robert Plant all on-deck in the lower-left of this photo. Jocks had complete creative control. Play whatever you wish, talk whenever you want to, and say whatever you feel like saying. Rare for the mid-’90s. Even more rare today.WEXP air studio. The station’s music library was composed mostly of CDs donated by the station’s seven owners. That might be Pink Floyd’s Shine On boxset on the bottom shelf.
Visitors to the front office were greeted by a large mural of the WEXP logo.
The WEXP front office, viewed from the entrance
WEXP production studio — all-digital and state-of-the-art for its time WEXP production studio
Here is a funny little story, in the second to last photo, you see a Star Trek poster, it says “All I Need to Know About Life I Learned from Star Trek”. An 8th grade science teacher at my jr. high had one. I thought it was very groovy.
This place looks like it would have been a way fun place to work.