D36 No. 58: The Deck 36 Newsletter Article About Music: From Buzzards to Algorithms

~ Radio Was Our Social Network. Music Was the Gathering ~

By: James O'Flanagan, MS, FRSA

🎙 Author’s Note No. 1

Before playlists were fed to us by code and concerts shrank into shaky vertical video clips, we had something else. We had Edgewater sunsets. We had DJs who talked like older cousins and sounded like mentors. We had loudspeakers bolted into rusting Pontiacs. We had WMMS.

This issue is for the mixtape makers, the CD-burners, the kids in the pit and the friends in the back seat. It’s a love letter to music as we experienced it—together. Before algorithms replaced albums, before scrolling replaced singing, and long before we started listening alone.

—

Article Summary

🎙 Author’s Note — A love letter to the shared rituals of music before the scroll took over.

🎧 Introduction: The Rhythm of a Region — Growing up in Northeast Ohio, music wasn’t background—it was the pulse.

📺 Make Me Lose Control — Edgewater Beach, Eric Carmen, and Kid Leo captured a Cleveland moment on film.

🎸 Buzzard Fest and the End of an Era — Our version of Lollapalooza, built on sweat, guitars, and belonging.

🦅 Hinckley, Buzzards, & How WMMS Got Its Name — A spring ritual turned into a mascot, a myth, and a movement.

💾 Napster & the Wild West Web — When MP3s and modems reshaped ownership, access, and community.

📡 From Albums to Feeds — We used to listen to albums. Now the feed just listens to us.

📻 WMMS: Boom Boom Goldberg & The Moon — One man, one record, one perfect radio moment.

🌎 This Is The End of The World As We Know It, & I Feel Fine — 107.9 The End signed off with 24 hours of poetic farewell.

🎤 My First Concert: Pink Floyd, 1994 — A laser-lit awakening at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

🚐 Lollapalooza ’96 to Rock on the Range — From road trips and dust to reunions and mourning.

🏟 Blossom Music Center: Where Summer Lived — Graduation, concert work, and Akron’s own DEVO under the stars.

📀 Nostalgia Tour: Bush, Rover, & Roverfest — Becca, Bush, and a shared music language that never faded.

🩺 The Healing Setlist: PTSD & R&B — How rhythm and bass became part of my mental health survival kit.

📻 91.3 The Summit: The Last Honest Station In Town — Local radio, thoughtfully curated, still carrying the flame.

🎶 Bernie, Bernie: A Cleveland Reflex — A mall-recorded anthem turned WMMS-backed Browns chant.

⚖️ A 2 Live SCOTUS Crew: Sampling, AI & Fair Use in 2025 — From parody cases to AI disputes, remix culture is in the courtroom again.

🎚️ Narrative Weight™ | Why We Still Feel the Echo — A framework for understanding how music stays with us long after the final note, and how shared listening becomes shared memory.

📚 Conclusion: Memory, Media & Meaning — We can’t rewind time, but we can still choose how we listen.

🔍 Conscious Errata | Issue No. 58 — Corrections, clarifications, and collector’s notes from the mixtape margins.

🎼 Final Thought — The Buzzard was never just a bird—it was all of us, flying in sync.

—

Article Playlist

Author's Note No. 2: Every single artist in this article is related to or is from Northeast Ohio,

~ OR ~

I saw live-in-concert personally, in Northeast Ohio.

• Here ya go!

🎵 Eric Carmen, "Make Me Lose Control." (1988)

🎵 Eric Carmen, "Hungry Eyes." (1987)

🎵 Candlebox, "You," "Cover Me," "Other Various." (1996)

🎵 Tool, "Opiate²." (1991)

🎵 Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, "Tha Crossroads." (1996)

🎵 Pink Floyd, Dark Side of The Moon (Entire Album). (1973)

🎵 Pink Floyd, "Comfortably Numb." (1979)

🎵 R.E.M., "It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)." (1987)

🎵 Bush, "Little Things." (1995)

🎵 KMFDM, "Various [LIVE]." (2024)

🎵 Bobby Womack, "Across 110th Street." (1972)

🎵 The Black Keys & Tin Huey, "Various Tunes." (2005)

🎵 The Bleacher Bums, "The Ballad of Bernie Kosar." (1987)

🎵 Michael Stanley Band, "Here We Go Again." (1998)

🎵 Roy Orbison & 2 Live Crew, "Pretty Woman." (1964 & 1989)

🎵 Nine Inch Nails, "Closure." (1997)

🎵 The Pretenders, "Brass in Pocket [LIVE]." (1979)

🎵 The O'Jays & Daryl Hall, "Used To Be My Girl." (1978)

🎵 The Black Keys, "Tighten Up." (2010)

🎵 Marilyn Manson, "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)." (1995)

🎵 DEVO, "Working in The Coal Mine." (1981)

—

🎧 Introduction: The Rhythm of a Region

📍 Narrative Weight: Opening Credibility | Emotional Signal Calibration | Tone Authority

Growing up in Northeast Ohio, music wasn’t just background noise—it was the air. People moved here from around the country to be part of The Scene. We measured time by album releases, planned weekends around concerts, and built friendships on burned CDs and shared headphones.

There was even a magazine that catered directly to "The Scene":

Link Reference: https://www.clevescene.com/

There were also summer concerts at Blossom Music Center, which is in our back yard. It's where we graduated from high school; it's where we played our middle school band concerts.

And while every city had a scene, Cleveland had a station. WMMS didn’t just play what was hot—it made it hot. It was an identity factory, a cultural hub, and a community before we used words like “platform” or “network.”

Link Reference: https://www.wmms.com

Music has changed. Listening has changed. But the way those early experiences shaped us? That’s permanent.

This issue traces that arc—from Edgewater Beach to Blossom, from Napster to R&B healing tracks—and considers what we’ve lost, what we’ve kept, and what we might still reclaim.

Music by: Marilyn Manson, "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)." (1995).

Connection to NEO: Mr. Manson went to GlenOak High School in Canton, OH.

Link Reference: https://vimeo.com/232003115

📺 Make Me Lose Control: Edgewater Beach, Kid Leo, Eric Carmen, & The Buzzard

📍 Narrative Weight: Place Memory | DJ Trust Signal | Cultural Grounding

The Make Me Lose Control video by Eric Carmen captured a moment in time—and place. That beach in the video? That’s Edgewater Beach!

And that voice you hear & see introducing it, that’s Kid Leo. It wasn’t just a promo. This music video is a Cleveland artifact.

Music by: Eric Carmen, "Make Me Lose Control." (1988).

Connection to NEO: Mr. Carmen was born-and-raised in Beachwood, OH, a Cleveland suburb.

Video Reference: https://vimeo.com/1080306047

The artist is also a Northeast Ohio artifact. Eric Carmen is from Beachwood, Ohio just a short Rapid Transit ride east or Downtown Cleveland. You might remember Mr. Carmen's other big hit, "Hungry Eyes" from the Patrick Swayze movie "Dirty Dancing."

• Which you can view here:

Music by: Eric Carmen, "Hungry Eyes." (1987).

Video Notes: The song became so iconic it was later used in a Stanley Steemer carpet cleaning commercial—proof that even a Dirty Dancing ballad can end up vacuuming its way into living rooms.

Connection to NEO: Mr. Carmen is from Beachwood, OH.

Video Reference: https://vimeo.com/229646290

• Did you know that Edgewater Beach is a surf spot?

Like, no s**t. Check it out:

Video Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_n98RQw0rM

WMMS—The Buzzard—wasn't just a station. It was Cleveland’s pulse. It curated our tastes and defined our scene. If you were between 10 and 50 in Northeast Ohio, WMMS was as important as school, church, or work. And for more than 30 years, it was everything.

• For background on WMMS and Kid Leo, please check out Kid's Wikipedia page:

Link Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kid_Leo

🎸 Buzzard Fest and the End of an Era

📍 Narrative Weight: Communal Peak | Belonging Archive | Pre-Disruption Pulse

Lollapalooza was the first touring festival I remember really noticing. But it wasn’t ours.

Buzzard Fest was. WMMS gave us that gem. Thousands of us gathered over a two-day weekend of absolutely #Awesome music.

No hashtags.

No digital RSVP.

Just word-of-mouth and a shared sense of belonging.

Music by: Candlebox, "You," "Cover Me," "Other Various." (1996)

Connection to NEO: Recorded live at Blossom Music Center at Buzzardfest '96.

Link Reference: https://youtu.be/PCn0DxkfKg0?si=A8_kPICvL5vm3XqH

Then there was 107.9 The End, which held End Fest (which we will discuss later), a festival whose name proved oddly prophetic.

Because the end really did come.

In 1999, Napster exploded. Peer-to-peer file sharing meant you could download a song from someone’s dorm room in Kansas at 2 a.m. while sitting in your parents’ basement in Ohio. The magic wasn’t gone—but the gathering was.

Clear Channel bought WMMS and the soul of the station—of so many stations—began to fade.

🦅 Hinckley, Buzzards, & How WMMS Got Its Name

📍 Narrative Weight: Origin Signal | Ritual Return | Brand Mythmaking

Every spring on March 15, the turkey vultures come back to Hinckley, Ohio.

Like clockwork.

Like folklore.

Like us.

It started back in 1818, when settlers did a mass brush burn across Hinckley Township. The cleanup left behind carrion, and soon after, buzzards showed up.

Link Reference: https://www.clevelandmetroparks.com/parks/visit/parks/hinckley-reservation/buzzard-roost

And then?

• They kept showing up.

• Every year.

• Same place.

• Same time.

WKYC Channel 3 is one of the 4 main local news broadcasts from Cleveland. They did a 50-year anniversary retrospetive on The Buzzard logo featuring the artist who drew him.

• Check it out:

Caption: This WKYC segment looks back at 50 years of the WMMS Buzzard, featuring the original artist behind the most iconic bird in Cleveland radio history.

Video Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BidowkUWKM

Local legend says it was Ranger Walter Nawalaniec who confirmed it in 1957 and called the press. That’s when the tradition—and the annual “Buzzard Day” pancake breakfast—took flight.

To this day, the buzzards return every March, right on schedule. Scouts spot them. Locals track them. It’s part migration, part ritual, part reminder: this place still matters.

Music by: Tool, "Opiate²." (1991)

Connection to NEO: Tool leader singer Maynard James Keenan is from Ravenna, OH. I spent some time in Ravenna myself while employed at Johnson Matthey.

Video Reference: https://vimeo.com/690771269

WMMS didn’t invent the buzzard—but it made it iconic.

When David Helton drew the first station mascot in the 1970s, he didn’t choose some flashy coastal bird. He drew what was here.

• Grounded.

• Ugly-beautiful.

• Hard to ignore.

• Local

The Buzzard became the face of Cleveland radio. For the next 30 years.

• A little scrappy.

• A little weird.

And always ready to return, even when the odds said otherwise.

💾 Napster & The Wild West Web

📍 Narrative Weight: Disruption Node | Technoculture Pivot | Legacy Fracture

I still remember typing my first URL into Prodigy in 1993. It was a Packard Bell computer and the URL was wmms.com. That’s the first website I ever visited. That same year, the World Wide Web went public. The digital frontier had opened.

Back then the internet was so new the TV anchors and radio DJ's would said "period" instead of "dot" when saying a web URL out loud.

They even used to say "Information Superhighway" instead of "internet" back in those days. Everyone seemed to be looking for "direct onramps" to the aforementioned Superhighway. I'm glad that analogy didn't stick.

Link Reference: http://wmms.com/

Yeah, it was wild west days.

Thanks for the free & public internet, Al Gore!

Napster came along in ’99 and changed the rules overnight. They launched Peer-2-Peer file sharing into the mainstream and suddenly Big Music wasn't in charge any more. The MP3 file format was invented around the same time, and suddenly dial-up was just good enough to download music.

Link Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_Fanning

In the fall of '99, when I returned for my sophomore year at John Carroll University, everyone in the dorms had at least 3 programs installed on their Windows 98 machines:

• Winamp

• Napster

• Nero Burning ROM (for the good 'ole CD "Burner")

Every other streaming product that has follow has been just an improvement on those three programs. In my humble opinion, of course!

• Here's a look at the Napster launch page from 1999 that I pulled from The Wayback Machine:

Link Reference: https://web.archive.org/web/19991008215720/http://napster.com/

Suddenly:

• Music ownership was out.

• Access was everything.

• MP3s flew over dial-up like bootleg cassette tapes from another dimension.

• Napster didn’t just shake up the music business. It reshaped what music meant.

• Everyone struggled to catch up.

Link Reference: https://www.napster.com/us/

Napster connected us. And disconnected us, too.

Because with that shift, we moved from discovering music together to discovering it alone. We pay a big price for the technological convenience we now enjoy, IMHO. One casualty of that convenience is my love of the band Metallica, who led the charge against streaming back in '99, along with Dr. Dre.

• For more info on that please check out:

Link Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallica_v._Napster,_Inc.

📡 From Albums to Feeds

📍 Narrative Weight: Narrative Fragmentation | Format Shift | Identity Drift

We used to listen to albums front to back. You didn’t skip. You studied liner notes. You debated side A versus side B. You shared the listening experience with your crew—whoever that was.

Then we stopped buying CDs. Then we stopped listening to whole albums. Then came “shuffle,” then came “feeds,” and then came silence.

Music by: Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, "Tha Crossroads." (1996)

Connection to NEO: All members from Ohio; band formed in Cleveland.

Video Reference: https://youtube.com/shorts/-AIjVHBN1zQ?si=j48Jz3nKtPG2beLT

The feed doesn’t care about your story. It only cares about your behavior. But music was never about behavior.

• It was about memory.

• Identity.

• Community.

Albums invited us into a shared narrative. Feeds pull us into isolated consumption.

Where albums once asked,

“Who are you?”

— feeds ask,

“What will you click next?”

We didn’t just listen—we belonged. Now we scroll. And that’s not the same thing.

📻 WMMS: Boom Boom Goldberg & The Moon

📍 Narrative Weight: Poetic Rebellion | Sacred Broadcast | Quiet Resistance

One morning on WMMS, sometime in the mid-1999, Len “Boom Boom” Goldberg went on-air on his Boomin-Till-Noon Sunday Morning show and played the entire Dark Side of the Moon album.

No breaks.

No commercials.

Just that iconic heartbeat kicking things off, and then Pink Floyd took us all the way home.

How do I know this? My friends and I were listening live while camping at West Branch State Park in Ravenna, OH.

Link Reference: https://www.clevescene.com/music/remembering-boom-goldberg-1558580

When it ended, there was a long pause. Then Goldberg’s voice came on and he simply said,

“Just felt like doing that.”

Goldberg also lent his voice to the station ID's that played at the top of the hour, and I can still hear those call-signs in my head.

• If you'd like to give the entire Dark Side of the Moon a spin, like Boom did, please check out:

Music by: Pink Floyd, Dark Side of The Moon, Entire Album. (1973).

Connection to NEO: I saw Pink Floyd in Cleveland at the old Municipal Stadium in 1994. Heard Len "Boom Boom" Goldberg play the entire album on WMMS live radio in 1999.

Video Reference: https://vimeo.com/331575959

Goldberg actions that day weren't programming. That was poetry. That was what made WMMS different. That was the kind of quiet rebellion that made music feel ours.

That was the summer of 1999. I never heard anything like that on the radio ever again.

My friends and I were camping and at the beach at West Branch State Park in Ravenna, OH. I still think of that Pink Floyd morning every time I've been there since.

• To rent a campsite at West Branch State Park Campground please see:

Link Reference: https://ohiodnr.gov/go-and-do/plan-a-visit/find-a-property/west-branch-state-park-campground

🌎This Is The End of The World As We Know It, & I Feel Fine

📍 Narrative Weight: Loop Closure | Youth Ending | Sonic Eulogy

107.9 The End came on the air like it had something to prove—and for a while, it did. It out-alternatived WMMS. It felt new, risky, raw. Until it folded in 1999, just like everything else that made noise in the ’90s.

WMMS is technically still on the air, but let’s be honest—1999 was the last time it felt like The Buzzard.

That same year, WENZ went out in the most rock-and-roll way possible: by playing that R.E.M. track on loop for 24 hours straight. Word is, they used the same song to sign on years earlier. A perfect loop. A strange kind of poetry.

🎧 End Fest Footage 🎬 WENZ Sign-Off Moment

I listened to that broadcast the whole night.

I didn’t want it to end.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was the day my youth ended. And yeah—it still makes me a little sad.

Music by: Homer Simpson & R.E.M. "This Is The End of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)." (1987)

Connection to NEO: This tune was played at the very beginning and end of 107.9 The End's run on the Cleveland radio dial.

Video Reference: https://youtu.be/UwCA8B0qFI0?si=Hr8oKQsQXaAXI9oA

• Here’s the eerie 1999 WENZ sign-off, looping R.E.M.’s It’s the End of the World As We Know It:

Music by: End Fest.

Connection to NEO: 107.9 The End was a great Cleveland radio station and they held their Endfest conercert series at varoius places around town, most notably Blossom Music Center.

Video Reference: https://youtu.be/MoQsLtYvgx4?si=9GDl6Kt6b7UkAr8X

🎤 My First Concert: Pink Floyd, 1994, Cleveland Municipal Stadium

📍 Narrative Weight: Personal Genesis | Memory Stamp | Concert Initiation

I was fifteen. The Division Bell tour.

Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The old one. The one that got torn down because the Browns & Guardians abandoned it.

Lasers in the sky. “Comfortably Numb” rising into the trees like a prayer.

A very large inflatable pigs next to the stage, likely around 100 feet tall. It was my first concert, and I didn’t know it at the time, but it set the tone for every show that followed. Music became a place to go, not just something to hear.

Music by: Pink Floyd, "Comfortably Numb." (1979)

Connection to NEO: Saw Pink Floyd in '94 at Cleveland Stadium for my very first concert.

Video Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs0JtpUYMOg

🚐 Lollapalooza ’96 to Rock on the Range

📍 Narrative Weight: Temporal Bridge | Grief Overlay | Friendship Anchor

Once I saw the Ramones in one of their final shows. Saw Metallica for the second time—on my way to 14 total (and counting). My first road trip. My first car. A black 1990 Ford Escort Sunsport.

Link Reference: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/metallica-lollapalooza-1996-1325314/

That summer, 1996, we hit Lollapalooza at Buckeye Lake. Some memories:

• Screaming Trees opening.

• Soundgarden & Metallica closing.

• Dust.

• Bad food & Heatstroke-level distortion.

• The Shaolin Monks dancing.

• Joey Ramone screaming, "1-2-3-4" over-and-over-and-over again. Or so it seemed.

It was chaos and communion—and it felt like everything.

Fast forward 20 years.

Same crew.

Different life.

We reunited for Rock on the Range 2017 in Columbus, at Mapfre Stadium—home of the Blue Jackets. It poured for hours. Metallica waited 8 hours to play. So did we.

Link Reference: https://www.columbuscrew.com/news/rock-range-announces-2016-lineup

But this time, we weren’t just there for the music. We were mourning.

We thought we were re-enacting our glorious weekend from1996. Instead, Chris Cornell had died by suicide the night before the Columbus, OH show. Tragic.

That weekend wasn’t just a show—it was a memorial. A way for friends to hold on to each other. Because sometimes, music isn’t just sound. It’s survival.

Link Reference: https://allthatsinteresting.com/chris-cornell-death

🏟 Blossom Music Center: Where Summer Lived

📍 Narrative Weight: Ritual Calendar | Civic Belonging | Sonic Timekeeping

I graduated from high school at Blossom. A surreal, full-circle kind of moment.

In 2001, I began worked there as a crowd management specialist, and I did that for the next 8 years. That summer had 28 concert nights every month.

You could feel the season through the music.

Blossom was a ritual.

A calendar.

DEVO made a triumphant return to The Blossom Music Center stage they graduated high school on. This was Woodridge High School, the same place I went.

• Check out one of their 1981 songs:

Music by: DEVO, "Working in The Coal Mine." (1981).

Connection to NEO: DEVO hail from the Akron, OH area; one of them, Mark Mothersbaugh, even graduated from the same high school I did; Woodridge High School in Peninsula, OH.

Video Reference: https://vimeo.com/471836848

Now? Maybe a dozen two shows a summer. It’s not just a programming change—it’s a cultural shift. A quiet fading of the communal soundtrack. Back in the day live music was everything to us. It is still important, but it doesn't serve quite the same "social media" function it did when the Buzzard was having what turned out to be it's last run in sun.

Link Reference: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/deck-36-issue-7-james-o-flanagan-vahlc/

📀 Nostalgia Tour: Bush, Rover, & Roverfest

📍 Narrative Weight: Relational Tether | Love Ledger | Local Broadcast Drift

Before Rover’s Morning Glory hit WMMS, it launched on 92.3 FM—back when that station was WXTM, Cleveland’s K-Rock.

In the early 2000s, 92.3 was the heavy metal station.

Link Reference: https://www.roverradio.com/

They spun:

• Slipknot,

• Korn,

• Limp Bizkit

• Rage Against The Machine

• Other great stuff.

Link Reference: https://www.clevescene.com/best-of/2005/arts-and-entertainment

It was pure distortion and angst. If you didn’t fit in, that’s where you tuned in.

Rover debuted there in 2003 and brought something raw, unfiltered, and totally Cleveland. By 2008, he moved to WMMS and took his listeners with him. But those K-Rock years? That was the realest version.

And Mr. Rover started his very own Buzzardfest-like yearly festival.

Appropriately called Roverfest.

At RoverFest 2016, Becca and I saw Bush live at Rockin’ On The River in Lorain, OH. I filmed it myself, which you can see in the video below. The sound, the setting, the river—it felt different. Maybe it was because of Jeffrey's Jack Shack? That was a little weird!

• Check it out:

Music by: Bush, "Little Things." (1995).

Connection to NEO: My wife Becca and I saw and recorded this concert at Rockin' On The River in Lorain, OH in Summer 2016. My own footage.

Video Reference: https://youtu.be/lIx6ip-JtGg?si=EjjzI00mZEnDKGLQ

Music has always been Becca & I's deepest connections, going back to when we first started dating in the mid-1990s. She was the only one who ever liked my weird music. I still remember her blasting KMFDM in my ‘90 Ford Escort. That’s how I knew she got it—and got me.

• So, to my wife:

Thanks, my sweet lady. I love you & I really appreciate it.

Music by: KMFDM, "Various [LIVE]." (2024).

Connection to NEO: Concert live from the Cleveland's Agora Theatre & Ballroom.

Video Reference: https://youtu.be/HV5Q4g7W9sk?si=inID703Evus9WZu8

🩺 The Healing Setlist: PTSD & R&B

📍 Narrative Weight: Emotional Tonic | Recovery Pathway | Sonic Therapy

I’ve battled complex PTSD for years, which I've spoken about at length in this column. Some seasons, it’s like dragging yourself through wet concrete.

Music—especially live music—helps pull me through the bad days.

Plus the good ones, too!

Music by: Bobby Womack, "Across 110th Street." (1972).

Connection to NEO: Mr. Womack is from Cleveland.

Video Reference: https://youtube.com/shorts/yILKjRzBTAk?si=JDpn_MmWPfK23RrL

There’s something about hearing bass rattle your chest and watching strangers become a chorus that reminds you you’re not alone.

It reconnects you.

To others.

To your body.

To now.

Those are gifts that are more dear to me than most things these days.

Lately my chill-out music has been R&B.

Keb Mo'. The Isley Brothers. Hall & Oates.

The depth. The emotion. The rhythm. It soothes and centers me when nothing else can.

Music didn’t just help me cope. It helped me survive.

📻 91.3 The Summit: The Last Honest Station In Town

📍 Narrative Weight: Integrity Beacon | Authentic Broadcast | Educational Echo

When everything else feels like noise, there’s one station I trust:

91.3 The Summit.

Broadcasting out of Akron and run by Akron Public Schools (yes, that’s the APS in WAPS), The Summit transmits from Ellet High School—just a few blocks from my old house.

And yet, it still feels real.

91.3 The Summit is:

• Thoughtful.

• Curated.

• Local.

• Human.

It feels like what WMMS or WENZ used to be—before syndication, before corporate playlists, before everything started to sound the same.

Link Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAPS_(FM)

The Summit reminds me that radio still matters—when it’s done right.

• To listen to The Summit Live please check out:

Link Reference: https://thesummit.fm/

Local radio would be nothing without local venues to hear the bands live. One of the big ones in Akron, OH was The Lime Spider, formerly known as Mr. Bilbo's.

We're talking a live music mecca in Downtown Akron back in the day. You could catch Akron's very own THE BLACK KEYS INC playing there on a random Tuesday night. Many of the acts that played there were promoted by WMMS back in the day. Now it is 91.3 The Summit doing the job! The Lime Spider & Mr. Bilbo's? Long gone. But their memories sure remain!

• Here are The Black Keys & Tin Huey playing The Lime Spider back in '05:

Music by: The Black Keys & Tin Huey, "Various Tunes." (2005).

Connection to NEO: Both bands from Akron; footage here recorded at The Lime Spider, the hottest music club in town back then.

Video Reference: https://youtu.be/NkrOnRQomoE?si=qWqJS5GguYMp0GbV

🎶 Bernie, Bernie: A Cleveland Reflex

📍 Narrative Weight: Cultural Reflex Loop | Humor Archive | Local Iconography

“Bernie, Bernie…” “We gotta go… Super Bowl… ya ya ya.”

You just sang it, didn’t you? If you're from Northeast Ohio, there's a good chance you did.

The Bleacher Bums recorded this song in a mall booth at Great Lakes Mall, near Cleveland. It was ridiculous. It was beautiful.

And WMMS helped make it a thing.

How & Why you ask?

The biggest DJ in the country (Kid Leo) decided to make it a thing. And that's how things worked back then.

Consequence? A Billboard-charting Cleveland meme before memes existed.

If you were alive and awake in Northeast Ohio in the ’80s or ’90s, you know the words. And if you don’t, someone near you does.

That’s how culture spreads—when it matters.

Music by: The Bleacher Bums, "The Ballad of Bernie Kosar." (1987).

Connection by NEO: Recorded by The Bleacher Bums at Great Lakes Mall near Cleveland by three Average-Joe types who got an unexpected dose of celebrity courtesy of Kid Leo & WMMS. The song is about Bernie Kosar, graduate of nearby Youngstown Boardman High School. Mr. Kosar became a local legend after he engineered the NFL Supplemental Draft to guarantee he would be selected by his hometown team in The Cleveland Browns. Hard to write stories better than that. Ever wonder why Bernie is so popular in Northeast Ohio? This is where the legend started. IMHO.

Video Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZVn_nWNqMg

Not to be outdone with the Cleveland Browns cheer, another local legend from Northeast Ohio named Michael Stanley got his buddies together in 1999 to celebrate the return of the Browns after they were unceremoniously moved to Baltimore in the middle of the night in 1995. Three years later, we got ourselves a "reactivated" team.

Still waiting on that team to be activated 30 years later. And that's not a joke!

• Bonus Video Michael Stanley's "Here we go again."

I was at Cleveland Browns Stadium for the first game ever, a pre-season game against the Minnesota Vikings. My brothers and I held season tickets for 4 seasons. Even though they came back in 1999, many in Cleveland are still waiting on them to be re-activated. If anyone has a bead on where to actually find this re-activated Cleveland Browns football team, please let me know. Hehe.

Music by: The Michael Stanley Band, "Here We Go Again." (1998)

Video Notes: Here we go again? Please define irony!

Connection to NEO: Mr. Stanley was so into Cleveland he anchored the afternoon drive slot on 98.5 WNCX Cleveland for years.

Video Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ew6JyxS4I

• To stream 98.5 WNCX Live, please check out:

When Howard Stern was syndicated nationally in the 1990s, his Cleveland home was 98.5 WNCX. Just wanted to get that one out there.

Radio Reference: https://www.audacy.com/stations/wncx

⚖️ A 2 Live SCOTUS Crew: Sampling, AI & Fair Use in 2025

📍 Narrative Weight: Legal Remix Node | Generative Ethics | Precedent Echo

Back in 1994, Campbell v. Acuff-Rose established that 2 Live Crew’s parody of “Oh, Pretty Woman” was protected by fair use. The Supreme Court ruled that transformation—turning a work into something new and distinct—was critical to protection.

Flash forward to today.

Generative AI is sampling everything. Voices. Styles. Whole catalogs. The legal system is racing to keep up.

Music by: Roy Orbison & 2 Live Crew, "Pretty Woman." (1964 & 1989)

Connection to NEO: Roy Orbison's final concert was at the Front Row Theater in Highland Heights, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb.

Video Reference: https://youtu.be/HivlkJOBPmo?si=CmSdXVQCfbXtbVsE

In my lecture, A 2 Live SCOTUS Crew: The McCuff Case & Sampling, I explore this exact bridge: how the parody sampling fights of the ‘90s are mirrored today in the AI space. When AI creates a song that “sounds like” an artist, is it transformative—or derivative?

• To view the full research, please follow this link:

Link Reference: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380573756_A_2_Live_SCOTUS_Crew

This conversation is heating up. The COPIED Act proposes transparency and disclosure rules for AI-generated content. It’s an attempt to draw a line between homage, innovation, and theft.

We’ve been here before. And we’re here again. What 2 Live Crew fought for in court—freedom to transform—might become the test case for the future of AI in music.

Link Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_v._Acuff-Rose_Music,_Inc.

🎚️ Narrative Weight™ | Why We Still Feel the Echo

📍 Narrative Weight: Meta-Signal | Trust Threading | Echo Explanation

We didn’t just live through a music era—we carried it. Burned CDs, radio call signs, concert stubs tucked in drawers.

That’s what Narrative Weight™ is.

It’s the emotional gravity baked into the stories, songs, and signals that shaped us. Why Edgewater still pulls at you. Why Tha Crossroads still hits like a loss.

This issue traced Cleveland’s musical arc—from Buzzard Fest to Blossom, from mixtapes to metrics, from R&B healing tracks to digital disconnection. But what ties it together isn’t just memory. It’s resonance.

📻 Shared sound becomes shared identity.

💿 Media moments become emotional bookmarks.

🎧 Every track is a timestamp—and a tether.

When WENZ looped It’s the End of the World As We Know It, that wasn’t just programming. It was a eulogy. When Boom Boom played Dark Side of the Moon straight through, it wasn’t rebellion—it was ritual.

This issue isn’t just a playlist. It’s a ledger of what we kept. That’s Narrative Weight™:

Not just memory. Meaning.

We tuned in. We held on. And we still feel the echo.

📚 Conclusion: Memory, Media & Meaning

📍 Narrative Weight: Signal Compression | Closing Loop | Ritual Reflection

Music used to gather us. Now it’s served to us.

The problem isn’t technology—it’s isolation. The algorithm is cold. But we were warm. Buzzard Fest wasn’t about branding. It was about belonging.

Music by: Nine Inch Nails, "Closure." (1997)

Video Reference: https://vimeo.com/61998095

Connection to NEO: Trent Reznor and NINE INCH NAILS recorded their first album Pretty Hate Machine in Cleveland. My friends and I saw NIN tour with David Bowie at Blossom Music Center in 1995.

We may never return to that exact era. But we can remember what it meant. And maybe—through playlists we share, shows we attend, and stories we tell—we can keep the spirit alive.

Radio taught us that community can live on a wavelength. So in conclusion I suggest this:

Let’s keep tuning in.

• To see the setlist from that awesome NIN/Bowie concert, please see:

Link Reference: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/david-bowie/1995/blossom-music-center-cuyahoga-falls-oh-5bd62bc8.html

Conscious Errata | Issue No. 58

📍 Narrative Weight: Trust Maintenance | Signal Integrity | Reflective Correction

Even mixtapes had their skips—and every Deck 36 issue deserves a rewind moment or two. Here are a few clarifications, omissions, and things we learned while compiling this love letter to Northeast Ohio’s soundwaves:

• 🔁 Hinckley the Buzzard: A fuller history of WMMS’s name origin and its spring buzzard motif is still being confirmed. We’ll revisit the annual return and station tie-in in a future update. For now, please check out:

Video Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osZ7UqxI7nc

• 🐖 Division Bell Pig: The actual inflatable pig at the 1994 Pink Floyd show was part of the “Mr. Screen” stage rig. Sometimes the pig became more than the show, like this time:

Link Reference: https://liveforlivemusic.com/news/pink-floyd-inflatable-pig-london-1976/

• 🎙️ Radio Hall of Memories: The Cleveland.com retrospective of 26 iconic DJs and personalities helped fill in missing voices from this piece. We’ve spotlighted a few legends already—Kid Leo, Boom Boom, Rover—but the full roll call is worth a read. Consider this article an opener, not a final playlist.

Link Reference: https://www.cleveland.com/life-and-culture/erry-2018/09/ceba3eb7c23028/26-memorable-djs-and-radio-per.html

• 🗂️ WMMS.com & Prodigy: The author’s first internet search in 1993 led to wmms.com, but domain ownership and archive access varied widely before 1996. We’ve linked the closest available web snapshots.

Link Reference: https://www.ebay.com/itm/305486894521

• Akron's own The Pretenders playing live a few years back:

Music by: Chrissy Hynde & The Pretenders, "Brass in Pocket [LIVE]." (1979).

Connection to NEO: Ms. Hynde hails from Akron, OH.

Video Reference: https://vimeo.com/622374165

🎼 Final Thought

📍 Narrative Weight: Emotional Coda | Gentle Close | Signal Release

You can stream a song in three seconds. But you can’t stream belonging.

We didn’t just listen to music—we shared it. We didn’t just attend shows—we created memories. We didn’t just hear the Buzzard—we were the Buzzard.

Maybe we can’t bring back the exact feeling. But we can remember what it meant—and carry it forward in how we listen, how we gather, and how we honor the soundtrack of our lives.

Music by: The O'Jays & Daryl Hall, "Used To Be My Girl." (1978).

Connection to NEO: The O'Jays graduated from Canton McKinley High School in Canton, OH.

Video Notes: Live from Daryl's House is what MTV used to be, IMHO, and it is #Awesome!

Video Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhPBWFOZexc

Oapsie Footer

James O'Flanagan, MS, FRSA, is the founder of OAPSIE•Inc. and author of the Deck 36 newsletter. For more on technology, community, conservation, and music, visit deck36.com, oapsie.com, or follow @deck36. All rights reserved, 2025.

Music by: The Black Keys, "Tighten Up." (2010)

Connection to NEO: Mr. Carney & Mr. Auerbach both graduated from Firestone High School in Akron, near where I grew up.

Video Reference: https://youtu.be/3ojcl9dRRDs?si=1s0iXhMPGo8kJaC6