With the Café's 10th Anniversary quickly approaching....and with so many new
members, I thought I'd post this brief history of the Café and how we came to
be.

This was written by Dave to commemorate our 6th Anniversary on July 25, 2005.
Much has changed since then...but it sure brings back a lot of memories.
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SWINGGATE PRESENTS SIX YEARS OF INTERNET DOO WOP
by David "Swinggate" Stockhoff


Steve's Kewl Doo Wop Shop was founded by Barbara Ann and Kewl Steve on Sunday,
July 25th 1999 and would become one of Yahoo's premier internet doo wop groups!

In August 2000, along with "radio meister" FurJack, testing began on a new
internet radio station to be called KSDW Internet Radio, then a part-time effort
on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings. Fridays featured Clarke Davis and Kewl
Steve, Saturday nights were Andy D., and Sunday was Woody's!

Dave the Swinger joined the staff in November 2000 and BD Bopper followed close
behind me in early January 2001.

Frustrated with Yahell (hey who isn't, at times), Paul from Florida provided us
with the "Doowop.Net" web site, in March 2001, as an alternative to Yahoo. From
that point on, the Yahoo site was used for the chat room only, as most of the
club's business was conducted on the new site. Also, about this time Terry G.
joined the KSDW staff.

About the time Dr. Phil becomes the newest KSDW "Good Guy", Steve quits the club
and removes Steve's Kewl Doo Wop Shop from Yahoo and KSDW went off the "air."
This was early August 2001.

With Kewl gone, it meant Barbara had to run the club by herself and that was a
task that she almost did not take! But, due to the enormous moral support and
assistance of long time members Gino, Woody, and Renée, the disc jockeys, and
the demand of other regular club members, it was decided to rebuild again. A
vote was taken to decide by what new name we would be known! Can't call yourself
Steve's Kewl Doo Wop Shop with no Steve - would be "un-Kewl" huh?

In August, Woody founded "Our Doo Wop Club" as a "place holder" club while we
voted on a new name. While the voting was taking place, someone created a "Doo
Wop Café" club on Yahoo. But, that club had disappeared by the time voting
ended. While we were voting for a new name, FurJack worked out a deal with Chief
and the gang at Gold Radio. We would conduct our shows on Gold Radio for about
two or three weeks during August and September 2001.

On Saturday, September 8th 2001, Gino "restarted" the Doo Wop Café, a soon as it
was discovered the "old Café" had disappeared, making the name available to us.
By the end of the month, FurJack had the current Doo Wop Café Internet Radio set
up, which, in the past 3 years, has grown to an almost "full time" station!
Plus, about this time, all club functions moved back to Yahoo, due to problems
with Paul's "Doowop.Net" site. After the Yahoo Doo Wop Cafe group was created
and growing, FurJack also set up the www.doowopcafe.net (also known as
www.doowopcaferadio.com) web site in order to have a place for jukeboxes, music
articles, info about our DJs and club members, the radio station schedule, etc.

Our original radio station, under KSDW and then the Doo Wop Café, used an "old"
Real Audio server, with one "dialup modem" speed audio stream. In June 2004, we
switched over to a brand new server setup using Winamp/Shoutcast, and added the
second, high speed stream.

As of this writing, our DJ staff has grown over the years to its present size of
about 30 people who dedicate their time to bringing us the music.

A few "Special mentions" are in order here:
Because none of us could afford to finance the radio station and juke box sites
out-of-pocket, we needed someone to accept donations from members and keep track
of the "books" - Doug and Chris Vacchelli have been our "finance ministers"
since we started the Café club.

Radio station deejays have come and gone over the years, but at least seven have
been with the Café station from the beginning (or thereabouts) - FurJack, Woody,
BD Bopper, Dave The Swinger, Terry G, Dr. Phil (all original KSDW "Good Guys"),
and Big Steve Cole (who was to be a KSDW "Good Guy" but Kewl fired him!) please
take a bow.

Somebody has to do all the "behind the scenes" stuff that Circe can't tackle
herself, so I am proud to give a special Salute to the one and only "Miss Doo
Wop" - Renée!!!

Happy Anniversary!! And thanks again to all of our ACTIVE members for their
support. We couldn't do it without you.

The above is an updated revision of the club's history, originally composed by
Gino. Corrections were made based on interviews with Barbara Ann Yatsko
(commander-in-chief), Brian Donegan (BD Bopper), David Woodring (Woody
Woodster), Steve Coletti (Big Steve Cole) and Jack Mizzer (FurJack), with help
from http://www.archive.org/web/web.php - bookmark this site, it is great!