ABOUT FRIGGIN’ HERE

Friggin’ Here was a comedy and novelty music radio show which broadcast on The Rochester Institute of Technology’s WITR 89.7FM radio station in Rochester, NY during the 1990s.

This collection comprises almost every show from December 6, 1996 through February 28, 1998. These recordings were sourced directly from tapes recorded in the station’s studio and the signal went to the tape deck before it went out over the air, so the sound is as good as it can be. The tapes were recorded by the show’s co-host, Tom Rockwell (aka Devo Spice) and were digitized by Donald Coleman (aka Dr. Don). A spectral waveform analysis of the resulting files reveals that Dr. Don took every measure to ensure the finest audio quality for his digitization, ripping the shows using the Hydrogenaudio “Insane” preset of -b 320 - a constant bitrate of 320kbps, the highest possible quality audio compression standard for MP3. There is audible aging to the cassettes, themselves but every effort has been made to preserve them as best as possible.

Friggin’ Here filled the comedy void of not having The Dr Demento Show in Rochester, NY and featured many local and regional comedy artists who went on to national acclaim on Dr Demento’s show. And during the time these episodes were airing, co-host Devo Spice made it to #1 on The Dr Demento Show with his hit, “South Park Junkie,” recorded with his band, Sudden Death, and landed Dr. Demento's Funny #1 of the Year three times in the years that followed.

THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME:

In 1997 Tom's friend from college Tim Winkler (known affectionately as TWINK) managed to get a slot on RIT's radio station WITR and devoted his entire show to comedy music. He had a two-hour slot, originally on late Thursday/early Friday from 1-3am, that he kept getting erased from. Finally one day he wrote "TWINK! FRIGGIN' HERE!" on the white board, and that's how the show got its name. At some point he invited Devo to co-host the show with him, mostly because he wanted access to Devo's music collection. While Tom was never officially a member of the radio station (he had tried freshman year and had gotten the runaround) he co-hosted this show with TWINK until he left Rochester in late 1999.

SPECIAL THANKS go out to TWINK, Devo Spice, Dr Don, and the admins of the Doctor Demento group, and all of the featured artists for helping me make this happen!