Spirit of Radio BBS

Anyone know what happened to Lisa Player?? She doesn't seem to be on the Dean Blundell show in the morning anymore??

Her picture and bio are gone from the website as well. Geez, her stay at the Edge sure didn't last long. Now if only they'd get rid of Blundell...

She may have gone back to Calgary, its hard to say. I know that is where she is from originally. However I could be way off, perhaps call the station and find out? A

It's unlikely she returned to Calgary, since she moved here with her husband who works for a record company. Probably just the usual radio-type issues ... she was hired quite hastily, as Sandra Plagakis left for Ottawa on two weeks' notice.

The reason she left is because of Dean Blundell and the company isn't good to it's women staff. I don't blame her......The place is just a boy's club!!!!!

Interesting last past. "Anonymous": is that based on fact or speculation? It wouldn't surprise me if it was true. I'm just interested to know.

All of radio is a "boy's club". She'd have encountered the same issues anywhere else ... CFNY in the '80s may have had the unique distinction of being a gay guy's club, but testosterone-fueled all the same.

Whew, a gossipy line of posts... I remember some DJ's from CFNY back in the day were gay, but I didn't know it was a "gay guy's club". How many are we talking here? How clueless was I? (Just to make you all laugh, I was surprised to read in a magazine in like 1990 that the Pet Shop Boys were gay).

Yeah a total surprise about the pet shop boys being gay lol! A

David Marsden, Don Berns, Earl Jive, to name three ... a few others. It was that kweer-ness (this program doesn't let you spell out the Q-word?) that made the station more interesting, nobody is going to deny that, even if such things weren't discussed on the air. If it's relevant, it's relevant in the best sense of the word.

Sure it's relevant- I'm not concerned about who was out or whatever, although it's interesting gossip. More accurately, though, all those bands you'd hear, like Bronski Beat, Erasure, etc., you wouldn't hear on other radio, and the political side would be kept quiet. Not that CFNY necessarily played those bands for a "cause" or anything, it was likely the same open attitude towards good music. I'm sure most of us can remember getting a hard time from people because of the "gay" bands we listened to from homophobic and discriminatory individuals.

What made the station interesting was that the DJs had latitude to program and they actually took requests. With that diverse pool of talent, you didn't suffer from listening to only one person's playlist. Marsden would even play local bands when they had the chutzpah to deliver a demo to the station. And you know what? Some of it was crap. But a lot was great. If some of them (bands and dj's) were gay, well great.

Being gay didn't stop Freddy Mercury (naming his band Queen - who knew?) nor did it stop George Michael (funny how no one cared about Andrew Ridgely's orientation). And Bowie even pretended to be gay just for the marketing aspect. Q Magazine even claimed that only 1 member of the Village People was gay. Which makes for great beer hall arguments over who it was. Leatherboy? The Cop? Oh no it must be the Indian...

And don't forget Michael Stipe. Can't remember anybody telling me I was listening to gay music there.

The point is that Marsden created an environment that attracted music lovers, and he allowed them to play music because it was good, or interesting, or the fans wanted to hear it. There was no gay conspiracy or conspiracy of any other kind (if you don't count the station's secret deal with Microsoft).

The gay issue was only brought up relative to the male domination of radio environments. A "boy's club" exists regardless of the orientation of said boys. The occasional woman broadcaster can work her way through that, but they remain few and far between. And gay guys would obviously be responsible for more artistic radio than those who're straight.

Back to the original subject of this thread... I heard Lisa Player on the MIX filing reports from the Toronto Rocks concert.

Not sure if she's got any other gigs with the MIX. It's the only time I've heard her on air since she went MIA at the Edge.

She's been hired at Mix 96 in Montreal, brought in by recently appointed operations director Bob Harris