The Sound That Shook a City
On April 1st 1978, to the driving beat of Deep Purple’s “Highway Star”, radio in Winnipeg changed forever as a young upstart rock FM station called CITI FM tried to blow the collective minds of a cities youth.
CITI FM was the first hard-rock station on the FM band in the “Peg” and they were determined to make their mark. But no one could have predicted the impact it would have on a cold, isolated, prairie town full of teens itching for something new, fresh and relevant to their generation.
Winnipeg had a reputation as a hard rockin’ town and new bands like Streetheart, Mood Ja Ja, Harlequin, and the Pumps had begun to pack clubs in River City building on a previous generation of trail blazers like the Squires, Guess Who, Sugar and Spice, Mongrels, the Fifth and Brother that had come before. Hotel bars like The Norlander, the St. Vital, and the Zoo shook with the Winnipeg sound. Line-ups around the block in 40 below weather where common and at times out drew the touring acts foolish enough to schedule a gig on the same night as these local heroes. I remember being at a legendary show at the Norlander where Streetheart had to jump from pool table to pool table looking for a way through the cheering mob to a darkened stage.
In hindsight it seems obvious, build a hard-edged radio station and they will come. But back in the day it took balls, vision and the most powerful signal in North America to make a splash that, 30 years later, you can still feel the ripples emanating from. CITI FM had a staff who were little more than kids themselves, a band of gypsies lead by Brother Jake Edwards, Andy Frost, Terry DiMonte “The Rock and Roll Doctor”, and “the Voice” Howard Mandshein. Irreverent, funny and knowledgeable they poured out killer tunes by soon-to-be-superstars like Van Halen, Aerosmith and Black Sabbath mixed with long forgotten bands like Climax Blues Band, Budgie, Pretty Things, Montrose and Goddo that blasted out of your car’s dashboard as you slurped slurpies at the local 7-11.
CITI FM broke acts in North America like U2 and the Tragically Hip while championing Winnipeg bands ensuring that they where treated to the star treatment and their albums landed in heavy rotation. Winnipeggers responded, flooding their phone lines eager to talk with the jocks that quickly became rock and roll gods. Howard Mandshien remembers that Brother Jake knew how to get kids to tune in. He met hundreds of them a week and often told them he’d mention meeting them on the radio the next morning. The lucky kid would call all his friends and they’d tune in to listen for Jake to name-check their friend. Jake was fearless and funny and Winnipeg had never seem such a luminescent radio personality.
Howard Manshien recalls program director Gary Christian as being the visionary force at CITI FM who put together the dream team. “He listened to his jocks and the listeners plucking out the best ideas and then would be in his office early the next morning implementing them.” To this day Howard wonders how he caught Gary’s ear insisting that he cannot tell a joke if his life depended on it. But Gary seemed to know that his station needed a revered musicologist to balance the brilliant radio talents that were Brother Jake and Terry DiMonte.
Gary Christian was an unparralled motivator. In a time before cellphones Howard remembers that getting a call from a payphone on Portage Avenue where Gay had pulled his car over, “Killer bit Howard, Killer bit” Gary’s voice would bellow above traffic, “Have a good show…click”.
The impact of CITI FM reached far outside Winnipeg. Howard recalls the story meeting a program director for a major classic rock station in New York City and when the two began to talk and found out he was talking to someone from CITI FM he revealed that he had grown up in Grand Forks, North Dakota listening to CITI and to this day swears that any success he’s had in radio is because he’s been trying to emulate the sound of CITI FM he remembered from 1979/80.
One young fan was Winnipegger Joe Aiello who called into Brother Jake’s morning show looking for tickets to a Streeheart concert at the Winnipeg Arena. He had Jake Edwards in stitches with his impression of Howard Mandshein’s unique voice. Little did Jake know that that was the first on air appearance of what would be a lifetime spent on radio for Joe Aiello who would become part of a rock and roll team at CITI that today still rules the classic rock airwaves in Winnipeg. Joe told me this story recently and suddenly realized that he had never told his pal Howard. Knowing that I planned to talk to Howard later that day Joe graciously offered to let me tell Howard. On hearing it Howard’s face lit up and an ear-to-ear smile let me briefly glimpse what it must have been like to be on the inside of this Rock and Roll fraternity.
Tom McGouran joined CITI when it was at a low ebb in 1994 as the Morning Guy. It didn’t take him long to pluck Joe Aiello off the afternoon show and this power duo has been waking up the cities classic rock fans ever since.
Through the years 92 CITI FM has been a part of the community making us laugh, think and sometimes both at the same time. Cancer had hit Joe’s family hard with both his mother and his wife battling the disease. Joe was looking for a way to help and offered his hairy Italian back or as Tom calls it the “human sweater” up for waxing. Joe called it “Pulling for the Cause”. Callers flooded the phone lines offering cash for every pull. Through gritted teeth and enduring constant ribbing from his partner Tom, Joe screamed through over a hundred pulls and raised over $15,000 for cancer research.
Recently Tom and Joe organized a petition to push the province into giving Manitobans a holiday in February. The “Just Doer” campaign was a huge success drawing in over 30,000 signatures and gaining national attention. In the end they had played a part in securing a Holiday Monday in the Province called Louis Riel Day.
Today CITI competes with a full FM dial of stations playing rock, pop, or some other variation to say nothing of the hundreds of internet and satellite radio stations available to Winnipeggers yet still hangs onto its core audience. They say if you want to be successful today in radio you need to focus on being local. CITI FM got that concept a long time ago and it has been River City’s rock and roll heart for three decades.
On The Stones 1974 single Mick claimed “Its only Rock and Roll, but I like it”. No truer statement can be said about 92 CITI FM.
CITI FM was the first hard-rock station on the FM band in the “Peg” and they were determined to make their mark. But no one could have predicted the impact it would have on a cold, isolated, prairie town full of teens itching for something new, fresh and relevant to their generation.
Winnipeg had a reputation as a hard rockin’ town and new bands like Streetheart, Mood Ja Ja, Harlequin, and the Pumps had begun to pack clubs in River City building on a previous generation of trail blazers like the Squires, Guess Who, Sugar and Spice, Mongrels, the Fifth and Brother that had come before. Hotel bars like The Norlander, the St. Vital, and the Zoo shook with the Winnipeg sound. Line-ups around the block in 40 below weather where common and at times out drew the touring acts foolish enough to schedule a gig on the same night as these local heroes. I remember being at a legendary show at the Norlander where Streetheart had to jump from pool table to pool table looking for a way through the cheering mob to a darkened stage.
In hindsight it seems obvious, build a hard-edged radio station and they will come. But back in the day it took balls, vision and the most powerful signal in North America to make a splash that, 30 years later, you can still feel the ripples emanating from. CITI FM had a staff who were little more than kids themselves, a band of gypsies lead by Brother Jake Edwards, Andy Frost, Terry DiMonte “The Rock and Roll Doctor”, and “the Voice” Howard Mandshein. Irreverent, funny and knowledgeable they poured out killer tunes by soon-to-be-superstars like Van Halen, Aerosmith and Black Sabbath mixed with long forgotten bands like Climax Blues Band, Budgie, Pretty Things, Montrose and Goddo that blasted out of your car’s dashboard as you slurped slurpies at the local 7-11.
CITI FM broke acts in North America like U2 and the Tragically Hip while championing Winnipeg bands ensuring that they where treated to the star treatment and their albums landed in heavy rotation. Winnipeggers responded, flooding their phone lines eager to talk with the jocks that quickly became rock and roll gods. Howard Mandshien remembers that Brother Jake knew how to get kids to tune in. He met hundreds of them a week and often told them he’d mention meeting them on the radio the next morning. The lucky kid would call all his friends and they’d tune in to listen for Jake to name-check their friend. Jake was fearless and funny and Winnipeg had never seem such a luminescent radio personality.
Howard Manshien recalls program director Gary Christian as being the visionary force at CITI FM who put together the dream team. “He listened to his jocks and the listeners plucking out the best ideas and then would be in his office early the next morning implementing them.” To this day Howard wonders how he caught Gary’s ear insisting that he cannot tell a joke if his life depended on it. But Gary seemed to know that his station needed a revered musicologist to balance the brilliant radio talents that were Brother Jake and Terry DiMonte.
Gary Christian was an unparralled motivator. In a time before cellphones Howard remembers that getting a call from a payphone on Portage Avenue where Gay had pulled his car over, “Killer bit Howard, Killer bit” Gary’s voice would bellow above traffic, “Have a good show…click”.
The impact of CITI FM reached far outside Winnipeg. Howard recalls the story meeting a program director for a major classic rock station in New York City and when the two began to talk and found out he was talking to someone from CITI FM he revealed that he had grown up in Grand Forks, North Dakota listening to CITI and to this day swears that any success he’s had in radio is because he’s been trying to emulate the sound of CITI FM he remembered from 1979/80.
One young fan was Winnipegger Joe Aiello who called into Brother Jake’s morning show looking for tickets to a Streeheart concert at the Winnipeg Arena. He had Jake Edwards in stitches with his impression of Howard Mandshein’s unique voice. Little did Jake know that that was the first on air appearance of what would be a lifetime spent on radio for Joe Aiello who would become part of a rock and roll team at CITI that today still rules the classic rock airwaves in Winnipeg. Joe told me this story recently and suddenly realized that he had never told his pal Howard. Knowing that I planned to talk to Howard later that day Joe graciously offered to let me tell Howard. On hearing it Howard’s face lit up and an ear-to-ear smile let me briefly glimpse what it must have been like to be on the inside of this Rock and Roll fraternity.
Tom McGouran joined CITI when it was at a low ebb in 1994 as the Morning Guy. It didn’t take him long to pluck Joe Aiello off the afternoon show and this power duo has been waking up the cities classic rock fans ever since.
Through the years 92 CITI FM has been a part of the community making us laugh, think and sometimes both at the same time. Cancer had hit Joe’s family hard with both his mother and his wife battling the disease. Joe was looking for a way to help and offered his hairy Italian back or as Tom calls it the “human sweater” up for waxing. Joe called it “Pulling for the Cause”. Callers flooded the phone lines offering cash for every pull. Through gritted teeth and enduring constant ribbing from his partner Tom, Joe screamed through over a hundred pulls and raised over $15,000 for cancer research.
Recently Tom and Joe organized a petition to push the province into giving Manitobans a holiday in February. The “Just Doer” campaign was a huge success drawing in over 30,000 signatures and gaining national attention. In the end they had played a part in securing a Holiday Monday in the Province called Louis Riel Day.
Today CITI competes with a full FM dial of stations playing rock, pop, or some other variation to say nothing of the hundreds of internet and satellite radio stations available to Winnipeggers yet still hangs onto its core audience. They say if you want to be successful today in radio you need to focus on being local. CITI FM got that concept a long time ago and it has been River City’s rock and roll heart for three decades.
On The Stones 1974 single Mick claimed “Its only Rock and Roll, but I like it”. No truer statement can be said about 92 CITI FM.
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