WMNF was one week away from celebrating its 40th anniversary with Alabama-based Southern soul band St. Paul & the Broken Bones, and a green strobe flashed incessantly inside of the community radio station’s Vicki Santa Memorial Studio. The light signifies a studio phone line ringing, but the programmer fielding calls wasn’t being bombarded with questions about the September 14 anniversary blowout at the Coliseum in St. Petersburg.
Callers wanted to know about Scott Imrich as he approached his final days as host of the station’s long-running Saturday Asylum program.
“I’m not giving up on WMNF, I just need a break,” Imrich, 48, told one caller as a new Flesh Eaters’ cover of the Sonics’ “Cinderella” played over the studio monitors and beamed over to anyone tuned to WMNF’s 7000-watt signal or its internet broadcast.
“When I started this show, I was a single guy. Now I’m married with a family, and it’s harder to find time.”
The Sonics cover faded into some lost songs from a new Smog Veil Records box set that rightfully cements the late Peter Laughner (co-founder of Cleveland avant-garde punk band Pere Ubu and a member of Rocket From the Tombs) as a godfather of much of the new, riotous new rock Imrich has played on the Asylum for 16 years.
“I started volunteering here when we were celebrating our 10th anniversary,” Imirch told the caller as other phone lines lit up. “I’m still here for the station. I just need a little me time.”
Last month, Imrich, who inherited the Saturday Asylum from its last host Diane Dill, announced that his last date on the air will be September 28.
“This September marks my 30th anniversary (!!!) as a WMNF volunteer, and I felt 30 was a good, round, even number to leave on,” Imrich, who started volunteering at WMNF when he was 18 years old, wrote. As CL pointed out in a previous story, the end of the show will be lamented by listeners who spent many afternoons listening to Imrich share new music and interview bands (including the Meat Puppets and Jason Isbell) coming to town.
As Purple Mountains’ “Margaritas At The Mall” played, just weeks after the band’s founder David Berman was found dead, Imrich picked up the phone again.
“Just get it to Michael Bagley, he’ll get it into the library,” Imrich told the caller who presumably wanted to send the station a CD. A computer keyboard clicked, the music faded, and Imrich’s voice returned to the airwaves to tell Asylum listeners that the show playlist was up to date. “Skin Game,” from a forthcoming album by Brooklyn shoegaze band DIIV stomped in, and another caller phoned in to see how Imrich’s voice was doing since it was pretty much shot out on the previous week’s show. “You Got It Down” from Nashville’s Thelma and the Sleaze took a turn on the airwaves. Many of the tunes Imrich plays on the Asylum become his listeners’ favorite songs in the months and years after they air. Listening to him is like having the employee from the record store blasting through your stereo, and fans will get a chance to celebrate that legacy at a late night final episode party happening at Seminole Heights’ American Legion on September 28.
In his note announcing the end of the show, Imrich said that his reasons for leaving the show, which airs in the 4 p.m.-6 p.m. time slot, are twofold. He’d like to spend time with his daughter, who just started first grade. He’s found himself complaining about the goings-on at the station more than usual in recent times.
“Without getting into the nitty-gritty, I’ve felt, let’s just say, a certain level of dissatisfaction with some of the decision making that’s been happening at the station over the past few years,” Imrich wrote, adding that he’s not interested in disparaging anyone at WMNF or the station itself. He also hopes to keep volunteering at the station. After Imrich posted about his retirement from the show, WMNF program director Randy Wind posted the opening not knowing who might be interested in taking over the show’s time slot.
At the time Imrich also didn’t know who, or what, would replace the Asylum, but he did write that he hopes that it’s “something good… maybe something better.”
“I hope they make it their own and that they make it awesome. I do hope they focus on new release stuff because I think that’s very underplayed on WMNF as a whole,” Imrich told CL when we called him last month. “I hope they interview bands and that they make it fun. And if they need any help from me, I’ll do whatever I can.”
[Full disclosure: In the weeks after Imrich’s announcement, this writer and his wife applied to fill the Asylum slot. The application was officially accepted, and they will take over as volunteer programmers on October 5.]
For now, Imrich will focus on finishing his time and taking a less hands-on approach to his volunteering at WMNF in the hopes of regaining the feeling of joy and excitement he used to have every time I went on the air.
“I will always support our beloved community radio station,” Imrich said in the note. “And, yes, I may be critical sometimes, too. But, please remember, that’s always done out of love, baby.”
As last week’s Asylum rounded its first hour, another call came in. The person on the line, like so many who dialed in that day, wanted to talk about Laughner, but the conversation was a little different. When he hung up, Imrich explained that the caller’s brother was in The Waitresses, a band that came up in the same Midwestern new wave scene that spawned Devo and the aforementioned Pere Ubu. Imrich was delighted with the exchange.
“You can’t make that kind of stuff up,” he said with a smile on his face. It’s easy to feel smitten by music when the Saturday Asylum is on the air, and the airwaves will be much different when Imrich, along with his years of knowledge and enthusiasm, signs off.
Saturday Asylum Final Episode Party. Sat. Sept. 28, 9 p.m. No cover. American Legion Seminole Post 111, 6918 N. Florida Ave., Tampa. INFO.
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This article appears in Sep 12-19, 2019.