06/21/2025
For Make Music Day 2025 I made a most special gift for my very favorite radio station; WESU-FM in Middletown, CT. It is a fundraising pledge premium. Fifty 90-minute handmade collector cassettes available for a pledge (that is matched!). They will be available at some point soon on their website’s pledge page.
“The Living Edge Show ‘Got It Covered’ 86-89” is a very special project for me. The cassette features the eight Wesleyan bands that appeared on the live radio show in the late eighties that I co-produced, engineered and mixed called The Living Edge Show. There were 58 groups total that appeared on the show over three school years. I was there to bring on every show. The tape features amazingly cool cover songs by these mostly original music acts.
The cassette’s theme of cover songs pays homage to a yearly Christmas gift I made for my friends over eleven years, starting in 1986; a 90-minute cassette tape called “Got It Covered”. It became a real hit with my friends in the era of mix tapes. I would put together for each year’s tape a collection of the very coolest cover songs I happened to record, from the many groups and solo artists I was recording at the time, including most especially the groups that performed on the Living Edge Show.
Although I could have chosen any number of songs from the 140 cover songs contained in the 58 recorded band performances I have remastered in the last several years (I will be providing WESU with a complete prepared archive containing every show), I thought it would be appropriate to feature the Wesleyan bands for this Wes-related item. The groups featured are; Mood Swing, Los Euclids, Puce Escalator, Tight Stool, Lame, Never On Sunday, The Swingin’ 45’s, and Worrying Thing.
There are some amazing performances on this tape, as well as the on-the-air voices of many of the fine people involved with and around the show. Some great PSA’s from the live broadcasts also. When it goes online, I hope you will pledge a contribution to the station to help with its mission and expenses. Then dust off your boombox, crank it up and enjoy! - Michael Arafeh
