Over at the Chicago Reader‘s blog, there’s a great piece about the Fems and the strange-but-true story of how WPRB DJ alum Ken Katkin may have been responsible for getting this slice of 80s-era Buffalo punk reissued on Drag City:

When I was still in high school, a long, long time ago, the only radio station I listened to regularly was WPRB, operated by students at Princeton University. I first heard a lot of great bands through the station, including some that eventually became standard-bearers–R.E.M., the Violent Femmes, the Minutemen, the Feelies, Mission of Burma–but to be honest I know I’ve forgotten the great majority. I learned about groups like the Neats and the Dream Syndicate, who didn’t quite get canonized but still mean just as much to me now as they did nearly two and a half decades ago. And I remember a handful of songs that earned a special place in the station’s rotation but were by bands that nobody really knew much about, even at the time.

Read on and if that post doesn’t have you convinced by the end that Ken Katkin is one of the greatest people to have graced the planet, well then, I don’t know what to tell ya.

Pitchfork has an interview with The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, who have a great self-titled record on the resurrected (and stronger than ever before!) Slumberland Records. You may have heard this record on WPRB recently; last week it was #3 on our Top 30 charts.

Anyway, in today’s Pitchfork interview there’s a little WPRB namedrop that made us go “Aw shucks,” so we thought to share it with you. Yes, it’s true: we really did play a lot of Shellac back then! (But we don’t think that’s a bad thing, since they are awesome!)

KB: I don’t have a car or a radio I can listen to anymore, but growing up, my friend and I were on the very cusp of Princeton’s college radio station, we’d listen to it and try to write down everything they played. But the reception was bad, so it’d be like “And that was just a track by [static noise],” and it was such a bummer. They were so into playing Shellac all the time. And they were into assuming that you just knew who Shellac was, and even bands that weren’t Shellac they’d compare to Shellac; they’d be like, “That band was probably the best Shellac wannabe band!” [laughs] College radio at that time was super great for learning about new music.

Thanks, Kip!

Do you have a story about listening to WPRB? Ever struggle to hear us through the static? Let’s hear it in the comments!

Help may be on the way, though; a newer and more efficient system circulates chilled water to cool the air instead. But there are drawbacks in these buildings, as well: “My office is freezing 24/7,” says Jon Solomon, who works at Princeton radio station WPRB. “I have the room set to 90 and it is still chilly. This system works too well, in my opinion.”