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Comboland Radio: Great Triangle Bands Of The ’80s Still Rockin’

By Philip van Vleck

Last month in this column we took a look at Internet radio via taintradio, which is an ongoing brainstorm that comes our way courtesy of Dave Tilley and Bob Rogers. That’s www.taintradio.org.
This month we continue in the Internet radio groove with something that hits very close to home.
Comboland Radio is all about North Carolina bands. Surf the net to: www.combolandradio.com/Comboland_Radio _Home_Page.html — or link from www.metronc.com and what you’ll hear is non-stop Carolina rock.
Comboland Radio is Michael Smith’s project. Moose, as he is called, is a commercial radio guy who lives on the Outer Banks. He grew up in the Triangle area back in the day, so to speak, when bands such as Arrogance and The Fabulous Knobs were major items.
The idea to create Comboland is an example of something good coming from something bad.
“The genesis of the idea is the death of David Enloe,” Smith explained during our phone chat. “He was the lead guitarist and one of the founding members of The Fabulous Knobs, along with Terry Anderson, Debra DeMilo and Jack Cornell. David and Terry met, I think, in junior high school. Terry may correct me on this, but I do know they’d been together for a long, long time. I didn’t know them well back in the day. I knew them a little. I did a lot of road case pushing for local bands so I could go see them without paying a cover.

Enloe passed away in November 2007. David Menconi wrote a fine obituary for Enloe, which is available online: www.newsobserver.com/105/story/796627.html. There’s also a great tribute to Enloe on MySpace: http://profile.myspace.com/index .cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid =288585688.
Smith was not aware of Enloe’s illness, however, so when the news of his death reached him, it set him to thinking.
“When I heard about David’s passing, I moped around for a while thinking how horrible it was, and then I went to the storage facility where I keep all my vinyl records and packed up all my Triangle-area bands and brought it home,” he recalled. “I started listening to it, just sort of reminiscing, and it hit me that this stuff was still really good. It was a shame that these bands didn’t make it big-time.
“I decided it was time to start digitizing all this music,” he said. “Once I’d digitized it, then I had to play it around the house a little bit, so I made the play list and stuck it in Winamp and played it through the stereo system. I have a little program that will actually seg the songs, similar to what you have on a radio station.
“Well, the songs sounded great, so I thought I’d stick in some newer stuff by Don Dixon. Then I downloaded some newer stuff and started experimenting. All this music sounded really good together, so I decided to make a radio station out of it.”
For most of us, that would be easier said than done. Smith, however, has the sort of background that facilitated the invention of an Internet radio station. He’s been working in radio for 34 years.
“I’m a regional vice president, but I’m really just the general manager of four radio stations in northeast North Carolina, out on the Outer Banks. At different times I will go and do different projects.
“I’ve done commercial radio a long time, and I know how to do it,” Smith explained. “I know how to go in and make a station a success, both programming-wise and sales-wise. There’s some value to what I do.
“Some consider me the devil,” he laughed. “What we do in commercial radio is go in and slash the playlist down to 300-400 songs and beat them into the ground. Unfortunately that’s the formula that works.”
Comboland Radio is essentially the diametric opposite of what Smith does in his day job.
“With Comboland Radio, the playlist gets larger every day,” he observed. “I’ve been doing my research for a long time. I know there’s a reason why oldies stations play 700 or 600 or 500 songs, but I also know that somewhere out there is a format that can have a large playlist. I think Internet radio is that format because with that audience you generally have to give them more to keep them interested.
Once Smith decided to go with his radio station idea, he put it together in a relatively short time.
“It’s actually pretty simple,” he noted. “You have to have a little bit of money laying around. The real cost up front is for hardware and software. You need a couple decent computers and one of several different software programs. The one I use — which may be overkill — is an automation system that can be used in a commercial radio station, but it’s what I’m used to, and I wanted some good flexibility.
“I have a little mini-radio station in my office at home. I have access to a music scheduler, thanks to my day job, and I built a music database and actually schedule a music playlist every day. It’s not a loop that starts at a different time every day; I schedule a music log every day and watch the rotation of the songs. Right now Comboland Radio is up 24/7.”
Smith explained that he’s also a musician, and he has a home studio. He also happens to have a Pro Tools setup. He purchased some plug-ins and restoration software so when he digitized his vinyl he could get rid of various rumbles, clicks and pops.
“I kept experimenting with different tunes, basically rediscovering the Triangle music scene and beyond, you know, Triad bands and Charlotte bands,” he said. “What I came up with is Comboland Radio.”
Smith allowed that when he moved away from the Triangle in 1994 he lost touch with the local music scene.
“I know I’ve missed some bands, but I’m working on that,” he said. “I’m still discovering bands and they’re still discovering me. I’ll gladly put new stuff on Comboland — I just need to hear from the bands out there that aren’t getting played. It’s a wild experiment, and we’ll see what happens with it.
“Hopefully, some of the younger Comboland listeners will appreciate the older music and vice-versa,” he added. “The idea at the end of the day is to make sure the music is exposed, that new fans are able to find it and that they’ll go somewhere and buy a CD or a download.”
Smith is definitely onto something good here. The music on Comboland Radio is great. The bands catching spins include The Fabulous Knobs, The Pressure Boys, Glass Moon, The Sneakers, The Connells, Let’s Active, Fetchin’ Bones, The Ben Folds Five, DAG, Superchunk, Backsliders, Hot Vegas, Boxbomb, Patty Hurst Shifter and Violet Vector & the Lovely Lovelies. The Comboland Radio Web site includes a list of all the bands currently getting airplay: www.combolandradio.com/Comboland_Radio_Band_List.html.
So, Michael, when will you be adding Shark Quest, Regina Hexaphone, and Trailer Bride?
And, finally, Godfrey Cheshire is the person who coined the term Comboland in 1985. Cheshire, who was with the weekly Spectator then, was frustrated that the great area bands were not receiving national attention. He talked publisher Bernie Reeves into underwriting a compilation of selected groups and took them to UK and Europe where they were welcomed, resulting in recording contracts for some of the bands. You can read Cheshire’s take on the 1970s-’80s Triangle music scene by pursuing this hyperlink: www.combolandradio.com/Comboland_Radio_History.html.

QUICK FIX
Ani DiFranco: Red Letter Year (Righteous Babe)
Yes, Ms. DiFranco is alive and well and still tracking superb original tunes. This is a lovely, typically enthralling piece of work, and it was mastered by Brent Lambert at The Kitchen in Chapel Hill.

DISCOLOGY
Seckou Keita SKQ: The Silimbo Passage (World ArtVentures)
Senegalese kora artist Seckou Keita presently makes his home in the UK, and his quartet + guest clearly reflects Keita’s bi-continental orientation. His group members include Surahata Susso (calabash, percussion), Davide Mantovani (bass), Binta Susso (vocals), plus guest violinist Samy Bishai. These players hail, respectively, from Gambia, Italy, Senegal and Egypt. The tunes are quite elegant and are performed with tremendous feel. There’s a good deal of cross-pollenization going on here. The song “Mande-Arab,” for instance, is a blending of Mandinka traditional music and flamenco, while Bishai’s violin imparts a vibe that’s al-Andalus. “Miniyamba” is a traditional song of the Casamance region in Senegal, here given a bit of a modern tweak, but nothing that draws the tune away from its West African roots. “Dingba Don” is a very catchy meeting of kora and jazz, powered by Susso’s propulsive hand-drumming and Mantovani’s agile electric bass. The Silimbo Passage is a compelling album project. Certainly the soul of the tunes is West African, but Keita has no problem incorporating European elements in his sound, and he does so with a keen ear for the natural affinities of various styles.