It seemed to me that during my undergraduate years, the radio station staff followed this unwritten, unspoken rule that certain music could only be played on the station. Yes, we had to follow the broad format borders (we weren't playing Rush during the classical format nor did we have Aaron Copeland appearing in between Metallica and Jane's Addiction) but even after that some songs were frowned upon unless they fit the "sound of the station."
Somewhere along the way there came the idea that we needed to sound more mature, more professional and more like an actual commercial station than the low-watt under-powered college-operated station that we were. For whatever reasons of his own, I think this may have been the mindset of the Program Director, Syd "the Kid," who made sure his own shifts were the slickest of all on the station and could be a bit standoffish when confronted with other station issues. Because of this twisted methodology, music that wasn't the popular currency at the time was jettisoned into places unknown.
Here within was the problem: long after Syd was gone and forgotten, his programming ideas were still in intact, carried onward by devout students who did little to invoke a change. And while a drastic change wasn’t required, I feel we could have been a bit more liberal in what we played.
For example, I know about as much today as I did ten years ago about Corrosion Of Conformity – and it isn't much. Originally showcasing a hardcore punk sound in the early 1980s, the band, whose lineup changed with nearly every release, soon began their decent into metal. Longtime members Woody Weatherman (guitarist) and Mike Dean (bass, vocals) have been along for most, if not all, the band's incarnations, including their 1994 album Deliverance, which featured new vocalist Pepper Keenan. All I recall is that the album cover had what I thought was some sort of a sonic sunflower; I was close in my assumption: it appears to have been a speaker.
I know we had the album sitting in the stacks of the music library during my senior year. How it got there, I'll never know but it was soon spotted by one of the rock DJs who asked if he could play Clean My Wounds on his show. I asked the DJ, a bald chap who called himself Mr. Klean, about lyrics: any profanities that we needed to worry about – because if there weren't, I didn't see any problem with adding a number of songs from the album. If it was too loud or too fast, maybe we could play it only after 9pm or something. But it wasn't to be. Though I outranked him, the music director felt the song was a bit out of our league and – you guessed it – didn't fit the sound of the station.
And so it went.
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Clean My Wounds
(Pepper Keenan)
Corrosion Of Conformity
From the album Deliverance
1994
I see the world through bloodshot eyes
Streets filled with blood from distant lies.
The dogs of war never compromise,
No real time for rearranging.
"Help me Jesus, Help me clean my wounds"
He said he cannot heal that kind.
Bleeding soul becomes a bitter mind.
He said it happens every time...
Knock it down,
That's how the story goes
Knock it down,
In the Land of 1000 No's.
Knock it down.
I'm all over you
In time my mind is changing.
Black on black gives me a heart attack
And the silence makes it deadly.
Some choose to kill with simple will.
I've seen them fall fast and steady.
"Help me Jesus, Help me clean my wounds"
He said he cannot heal that kind.
Bleeding soul becomes a bitter mind.
He said it happens every time...
Knock it down,
That's how the story goes
Knock it down,
In the Land of 1000 No's.
Knock it down.
I'm all over you
In time my mind is changing.
Twist of fate won't give me a break
And myself, I'm slow and tired.
I've got to rise with these bloodshot eyes
But I keep falling when I'm higher.
"Help me Jesus, Help me clean my wounds"
He said he cannot heal that kind.
Bleeding soul becomes a bitter mind.
He said it happens every time...
Knock it down,
That's how the story goes
Knock it down,
In the Land of 1000 No's.
Knock it down,
We are bleeding sins but our sins
Are always fading...
Knock it Down,
Knock it Down.
