CJAM manager Vern Smith says holding the station's 30th anniversary on the same weekend as the university's 50th will be a great way to celebrate the station's contributions to campus culture.
It’s been 30 years since CJAM hit the FM airwaves and to mark the occasion, the campus community radio station will join in the University of Windsor’s 50th anniversary festivities with a first-ever reunion concert by a celebrated local band that got its start here.
Reggae/new wave/ska trio Contradance will headline the CJAM anniversary show on September 21 at the FM Lounge. Station manager Vern Smith said the event will be lively and upbeat, and a great way for CJAM to join in the reunion fun.
“We’re an important part of the university and we wanted to celebrate that,” he said. “It’s the university’s fiftieth and we’ve been around on the FM dial for 30 of those years. This is our way of being there. It’s going to be a great party.”
In August of 1982, Contradance – which consisted of UWindsor alumni Ken Montague on guitar and vocals, Dave McDonald on bass, and Arif Quereshi on drums – went into a Windsor studio and recorded an EP called Look Buffy, four songs just for us! Although Smith contends the track “Trouble in the Darkness” is the best reggae song ever recorded by a Windsor band, it was “Black Preppies,” an upbeat punk-inspired rant against the prevailing fashion trend of the day that became a fan favourite. All four songs got heavy rotation on CJAM, which until 1983, was a low-frequency AM station.
“This was a record that couldn’t have gotten around the city the way it did without the help of CJAM,” said Smith. “For about six months to a year, this was really the band of the moment in this area, and these are songs that have never left the airwaves at this station.”
Montague said Contradance, which played its last official gig more than 25 years ago, is back together rehearsing for the show and that he’s eagerly anticipating playing again for a hometown crowd.
“It’s really a great time to think about those early days,” said Montague, who got married yesterday in Toronto. “We wouldn’t have had the success we did if it weren’t for the University of Windsor experience and the support we got from CJAM.”
Besides the appeal of Contradance’s local popularity, it made sense to bring back the band because Montague, now a well-known Toronto dentist, is still actively involved with the university through the Dr. Kenneth Montague African Diaspora Scholarship.
“He’s relevant to the university both past and present,” said Smith, noting that this will be the first time the band has played together since its hey days. “It was the perfect fit for us. They wanted to do it and we wanted to do it, and it was something that just felt good on both sides.”
The show will be a fundraiser to support the station’s CRTC application for a signal boost, which if successful, will increase its signal to more than 2,000 watts and quadruple its listening area.
