Working at WJMF Smithfield
Working at WJMF Smithfield, RI
This article was written in a first-person view in response to the
Bryant University Alumni Association's request for stories about WJMF while
working there in honor of the station's 50th anniversary in 2022. Since the
author spent many years (1980-1992) working at the station and the content
includes much of the history there from that time period, it will be included
here.
I first became interested in radio as a ten-year old in 1969. My favorite station was WPRO-AM. Not only did I listen to the music, but I enjoyed the DJ's and news people and knew all of the schedules when each person would be on the air. After listening sporadically to radio the next few years, I first heard WJMF in the fall of 1977 as a Bryant College freshman. I was a commuter student and could barely receive the 10-watt station signal at 91.5 FM 20 miles away at home. The station was still relatively new at that time, having only been on the air for three years. Although DJ's picked the music for their shows, it was primarily a progressive rock format with some popular rock tracks mixed in with album cuts and songs from artists that were not yet well-known. At that time (and continuing through the 91.5 days until May 1981), most DJ's would play a few songs, then run down what they played, read and/or play a PSA from a cart, maybe add a little banter and then introduce the next song into the next set of music. Being painfully shy and having multiple speech impediments along with a Rhode Island accent and nothing resembling a radio voice, I had no interest in joining the station during my early years at then Bryant College. In 1978 and 1979, I became increasingly interested in radio, listening to Providence top-40 stations JB105 and PRO-FM as well as various Boston top-40 and rock stations and started tape recording the breaks in-between songs. I also loved music charts and became a fan of Billboard magazine and Casey Kasem's American Top 40, as well as Brad Pierce's Big 35 countdown on JB105. JB105's Mike Waite and his nighttime show was a big influence to me as well, just as he was for many other people I later talked to over the years. Meanwhile, I took my tape recorder and started talking into it like a DJ (well, an awful one at that!), including talking up records to the start of the vocal. By the summer of 1980, while improving but still having a very long way to go on my voice, at least I thought that maybe I could give it a shot at WJMF going into my senior year at Bryant. As the fall semester started, I had a heavy six-course workload, including a course at CCRI and two part-time accounting jobs, but nothing was going to stop me from joining WJMF. I went to a staff meeting and training along with about half a dozen other potential DJ's with Training Director Dan McDermott, who was very friendly and helpful. The station at the time was located inside the Bryant Unistructure (main classroom building) and was known as "The Sound Alternative".
A few days later, I went into the production studio and made an audition tape, talking over the intros of songs, which was rarely done by anyone at the station with the exception of music director Vic Michaels, who had already worked at some Rhode Island radio stations by that time and would later work at JB105, RI104 and PRO-FM. Dan actually liked my tape and specifically mentioned the talking over song intros. I was now approved to have my own show! After a few days, I was finally given a show (Friday nights from 11pm to 2am). Talk about being buried deep in the schedule! But I was so happy just to have a show and the hours didn't interfere with school, work or anything I was doing. My first show occurred on October 10, 1980. After making it through security to get into the building, I arrived into the studio where a DJ going by the name of The Unknown Rocker was on the air. He gave some encouragement to this nervous rookie making his debut and at 11pm, I flipped the turntable switch to play "Magic Man" by Heart and the Dino show on WJMF had begun. I remember then going to the record library to get albums to play and it was a strange feeling being alone in the studio and on the air! There were a handful of requests called in (mostly for songs I didn't know) and other than some minor mistakes, I made it through the show! I did about 9 or 10 shows that first semester and there are a couple of things I remember very clearly. On Halloween night, the popular New Jersey band Southside Johnny and Asbury Jukes performed a show at Bryant College. Naturally, as I came on the air at 11pm, Bryant students called to hear songs by that band, One caller wanted me to play their biggest song "Having A Party" over and over again. So being the new and naive DJ I was, I started playing it every 15 minutes!. The complaints started to pour in and I nervously went on the air and said we have to stop playing Southside Johnny and went into "Horizontal Bop" by Bob Seger.
On about the last show of the semester, I was trying to get into
the building and all of the doors were locked. All of a sudden a security
guard comes out of nowhere and pulls out a weapon and asks me where I was
going! Although a bit shaken, I did get into the building a little late,
but would get through the show.
WJMF 12-10-80 Unknown Rocker & Dino
As the spring semester of 1981 began in late January, changes were happening at WJMF. The station moved into a new studio in the second floor of the Multiactivities Purpose Center (MAC) and was planning a frequency change to 88.7 and a power increase from 10 to 225 watts (both would happen in May). When the program schedule was released for the spring schedule in late January, my name was nowhere to be found even though I had put in for a show. As the semester, my college days and my very brief radio career were coming to a close, I stopped by the station in late March and ran into the program director, who barely knew who I was. Luckily she had an opening on Monday afternoons from noon to 2 and gave it to me, so I was back on the air, if for just a few weeks again in a pretty obscure timeslot while most of the students were in class. After 6 or 7 nondescript shows (using the production studio) with maybe a couple of request calls total, the semester ended and my time at WJMF seemed to be over. Little did I know the long ride I was about to go on! In mid-May the station made its move up to 225 watts and also moved from 91.5 to 88.7 (on-air moniker was 89FM, WJMF) while now utilizing the main studio under GM Duane Lefevre, who worked tirelessly to make the change happen. In addition to the frequency change, the request line was changed from 231-9150 to 231-8989 and the slogan was changed from "The Sound Alternative" to "Rock and Roll and A Little Bit More". After a couple of days of testing on air, the station officially signed on at the new frequency on May 14, 1981 as 225 balloons were released to the sky by GM Duane Lefevre with "Roll With The Changes" by REO Speedwagon playing on the air. The interesting part is that this happened right at the end of the semester just as the students were going home for the summer. Just before that, I had received a call at home from Dan McDermott, who was now PD and he told me that the station would be operating over the summer and they were looking for DJ's. I picked Friday nights from 8-12 and Saturday afternoons from 12-4. The day of my first show on May 15 happened to be the day before graduation and there were celebrations going on all over campus that day. I had a few beers for maybe the only time in my life and although I managed to drive home and then drive back for 8pm, I was still a bit out of it and said "this is 91.5 WJMF" on my first break on 88.7! I did recover quickly and the number of phone calls we received at that time was phenomenal as there were no rock stations in the area (WHJY was still 3 1/2 months away from launching) and we were playing all of the popular rock bands, such as AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, The Kinks, The Who, etc. Although I didn't get much sleep, I got to Bryant the next morning for the graduation ceremony, which ended around 12. In true radio fanatic (or lunatic) fashion, I said goodbye to a few classmates and while still in my cap and gown, walked over to security to get the key to the radio station and turned on the transmitter. I then took off my cap and gown and went on the air and the phones started to ring off the hook immediately with mostly teenage callers. With most of the student DJ's home for the summer, a new cast of DJ's, many of whom were not Bryant students, took over the microphone for the station, which now could be heard through most of northern and central Rhode Island and parts of nearby Massachusetts (see summer 1981 schedule below). And what a cast of characters! There was The Sheik, who was quite a personality on the air and handled three morning shifts as well as the popular Sheik and Flying Frenchman Saturday night show. The Sheik also did some crazy things, such as orchestrating a mail-in contest to win a date with himself and his radio partner on Saturday nights, He also threw a firecracker inside the studio and set off the alarm system and sent security into a frenzy! Other names included the pop-leaning (Jim) Matusek with the Music, music director Vic Michaels, the progressive-leaning Cancerous Earl (one of the station's earliest members from 1974), Joe Hartley (Joe's Garage), later heard on WBRU who celebrated 10:47 every evening, brought us the infamous "60 Sexes" promo and was a Frank Zappa fanatic, the southern-rock leaning Kidd Brothers, Dennis J. on Saturday nights, Tony T., the only DJ who occasionally played disco on the station, station vet Roger Goulet, who was a calm amidst the chaos, and many more. There were also some radio professionals, such as Mark Ambrose and Paul O'Reilly from radio station WLKW (now WWBB-B101) who did some air shifts and added some class to the station, along with station engineer Dana Puopolo, who put the new station together and was the engineer for WLKW. A professional sounding "Breaking The Sound Barrier" ID was added to be played at the top of each hour.
WJMF
Breaking The Sound Barrier ID
The most popular DJ on WJMF that summer was "Midnight"
Mike McNaul, who like myself spent a lot of time there that summer and pulled
many all-night shifts on the air. Despite never having been on the air
previously, he had a knack for attracting and speaking to listeners and
developed quite a following. As someone who was terrible on the phones. I
learned a lot from Mike and became much more confident speaking to the callers
as well as on the air and was able to attract a following of my own. Another early influence was Vic Michaels, who brought a professional sounding voice and personality to the station.
The summer ended and the momentum that we brought to the station during the summer continued going into the fall semester of 1981 as there was a new vibe and excitement at the station on the new and more powerful frequency. There was a mixture of returning DJ's including Looney Bob, Mike Neiss, PD Dan McDermott, Liisa Laine, Eric "Lunateric" Andress, Mike Salvatore and Steve K.) and new DJ's including TJ Walker, Jack Poole, Mike Rogers and Ray LaCroix. I remained with the station and was on the air for three weekly air shifts, including a "prime-time" Monday 7-10pm shift. Although we were a college station, we were also looking at providing programming for the community with our increased power and the Monday night show that semester included a segment for "High School Spotlight", in which a different high school was spotlighted every week and a couple of students from that school would "guest DJ" with me and take calls from fellow students. The first school spotlighted was Smithfield High School and the school heavily promoted the show with flyers and announcements. It was one of my most memorable nights at the station as it seemed like the whole school was listening and many of the students called in to make requests. The most requested songs in the fall of 1981 included "Centerfold" by the J. Geils Band (most requested by far) and "Destroyer" by The Kinks. As the semester ended, an awards ceremony was held and somehow, out of about 30 DJ's, I was voted WJMF's Best Disc Jockey! I wasn't the best sounding but took all I had learned and as mentioned earlier, had quite a following.
A few of us kept the station going during the
winter break of 1981-1982 as we were on the air every day until the spring semester started. During this time, the station was so popular around the Smithfield area that
Smithfield High School asked that WJMF DJ's host and spin the records at their
dance in early 1982. I can remember the students loving "Rock
Lobster" by the B-52's, which was a WJMF staple for years. During the
spring semester, the station started broadcasting an ABC news segment at about
38 minutes after each hour and we had to time our records or talking in order
to bring up the news from the satellite each hour. The broadcasts were a mixture
of serious and light-hearted news. It was the spring of "I Love Rock and Roll" as the Joan Jett smash rivaled Centerfold with its enormous number of requests. A popular show on the station that semester
was Loveline 89. It was a radio dating show that gave listeners a chance to
connect with other listeners Thursday nights from 10pm to 1pm with Dana
Puopulo. There was also the "Sunday Morning Rock Block", featuring a full hour of music from a featured artist hosted by Mark Ambrose. Another new show was the "Big D" show on Sunday
nights. The Big D (Matt DiMaio) was a great guy and used to call
for so many requests while working at his dad's Texaco station and also from
his favorite restaurant (Sambo's) that we would play a cart announcing
"The Big D Request Of The Day" for his requests. He then became
friends with some of the DJ's and got his own show where insanity was the
theme! There was also a young, brash high school kid from
Ponaganset High named "Awesome Ed" who made his way onto the WJMF airwaves.
Ed would reappear from time to time over the years and then came back strong in
1989 and 1990 with a new on-air name (Randy Clemens). Randy would go on to work
at radio stations in Jacksonville, FL. Cape Cod, MA (Cool 102 and Pixy 103) and
Myrtle Beach, SC where he was PD of WQSD and more. During the spring of 1982, I
became assistant music director and using my knowledge from following the JB105
countdowns through the years, compiled the weekly station playlists for the
next two or three years that were sent to record companies to show them that
were playing their records. This was important because we needed to establish
and maintain good connections with them in order for them to send us the
records from the artists that they were promoting. This included the Top 40
chart of 1982 featuring "Valley Girl" by Moon Zappa at number one.
This list was distributed to many local record stores and is currently on display at the station on its timeline wall along with many articles and artifacts about the station over the years. The music
director in April 1982 was Mike Neiss. Mike was on the opposite side musically
than me, being very progressive while I was more into pop and rock, but we were
both able to bend a little and became good friends at the station. The former
music director, Sue Barber became general manager for the 1982-83 school
year.
During the summer of 1982, with the students home for the summer,
WJMF began to move into a more progressive direction under summer PD Ray
LaCroix. The reasoning was that we were a college station and should be playing
music you don't hear too much on commercial stations. Also, WHJY had the rock
market now covered after debuting in September 1981. This was agreed upon
when school started up again in September and the station phrase was changed
from "Rock and Roll and A Little Bit More" to "Commercial Free,
Progressively". A secondary slogan used was "Rhode Island's Best Kept Secret", Around this time, some bands that had been more
popular on college radio, such as R.E.M., U2 and The Motels began to achieve
success into mainstream radio and WJMF still played them, along with up-and
coming artists such as Ministry, Ultravox, Yaz, Romeo Void and Aztec Camera.
The station also changed the airshift schedules a bit by having DJ's work
four-hour shifts (1-5, 5-9. 9-1) instead of the three-hour shifts (10-1, 1-4, 4-7,
7-10) from previous years. With a vacancy in the Program Director position, Mike Neiss moved from Music Director to Program Director and Judi Hiemer became Music Director during the fall of 1982.
By 1983, as expected the station seemed to attract more of a progressive
audience, although it seemed much of it from was off-campus and interest in the
station from Bryant students seemed to have waned a bit. For the spring
semester of 1983, I took on a new air shift (Friday evenings from 9pm to 1am).
One night early in the semester when it seemed like every song was by request,
I decided just to call the show all-request and just like that,
"All-Request Friday Night" on WJMF was born. The show would go on to
include some taped request calls from listeners. The station also aired some
Bryant Indians basketball games at this time with Thom Maletesta and Jeff
Niemann. During the spring semester, Keith Schnieder became music director and
through his many contacts, helped to increase the station's visibility with
college radio and the record companies, as well as give the station a presence
at local night spots such as The Living Room in Providence and also interviewed
several of the performers both taped and live on the air. Many of the artists
played on WJMF could be heard on liners (ex: "When I'm in Smithfield, I
listen to 89FM, WJMF" going into their songs, such as Cyndi Lauper, Dale
Bossio of Missing Persons and various members of R.E.M.. The station also helped to sponsor several concerts on campus including, Greg Kihn, David Johansen and
Icicle Works. In April 1983, Steve Kohut (Steve K.) became the station general
manager. Steve was not only a great guy and manager but was also possibly the
all-time number-one fan of Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes and I
believe still is to this day. In addition, Warwick native Debbi Corbett was elected Program Director for the 1983-84 school year.
The station again broadcasted during the summer months of 1983
with a few students and graduates that lived nearby and as well as some outside
volunteers and maintained its audience among off-campus listeners in the
Northern Rhode Island area. One of the WJMF DJ's worked with a Rhode Island
College student and radio staff member at IGA Supermarket in Warwick and brought him to the
station for the summers of 1983 and 1984 on Thursday evenings from 5 to 9 going
by the name of Jonathan for at least part of that time. A fan of hardcore
bands, such as Black Flag along with many other types of music, this future
Rhode Island talk radio legend named John DePetro would go on to a career in
radio sales at the legendary WABC in New York in the 90's. In the late 90's, he
returned to Rhode Island, soon becoming midday host of talk radio WHJJ. After a
stint at the legendary WRKO in Boston, he returned to Providence on WPRO-AM in 2007 hosting both morning drive and the late morning show during an almost ten-year run at the station. He is currently at WNRI in
Woonsocket and is also the host and creator of the popular Rhode Patrol Live.
Also from Rhode Island College who worked at WJMF in the summer of
1983 was John Boyle. John would move on to top 40 RI104 (WERI,
Westerly/Providence) as Johnny B. in 1984. He would later relocate to the Los
Angeles area and in the 00's, was one half of the John & Jeff Show, which
was syndicated on many stations across America in the overnight hours.
Several newcomers that would help shape the future of the station for the next few years joined in the fall of 1983. They included sophomores Wayne Schulz, Steve Buell
and Ernie Pisani along with freshmen Dino Pasqua (on air as Dino number 2
because of yours truly) and Eddie Bouley. Also joining was Steve Rivers. The station went back
to three-hour shifts (10-1, 1-4, 4-7, 7-10) The All-Request Friday Night show
was now on from 7pm to 10pm where it would stay for the rest of its run. In
October, I was hired for a full-time accounting job, but still kept two shows
per week at the station and for most of the rest of my time at WJMF, I would leave work and head right to the station still dressed in a suit! At my job, we would travel to local business clients
and work at their offices for the day and on my very first assignment (in
Cranston), incredibly enough, the person working there asked if I was the Dino
from WJMF!
In the spring of 1984, Steve Solomon became GM of WJMF. Steve had been with the station since the fall of 1981, including a stint as PD in 1982 and was the DJ for many campus parties and events. Steve was and still is the biggest radio fanatic I have ever met (rivaled by only Rich Marino, who I would meet in 1997 at WCTQ). Steve was hired at WKPE (Cape 104) in Hyannis and his first airshift there was on the night of his graduation from Bryant in May 1985. He has remained in Cape Cod radio as Steve McVie for the majority of the 37 years since and is currently station manager and midday host at WFRC. I also became a station director (Public Service director) in the spring of 1984 and the best part about that was having a station key for the rest of my time there so I didn't have to go through security in case I had to sign-on the station if it was the first show of the day or there was nobody to do the show before me. This happened a lot during the school breaks (spring, summer, winter) when we would remain on the air. Also, in the spring of 1984, in a big change from the regular format, the station debuted a dance show on Thursday nights. Under Steve Solomon and All-Request Saturday night man and PD Wayne Schulz, in a move to attract more on-campus listeners as well as retain its current audience, the station made a program change during the 1984-85 school year to a block format (see photo below for an example with the Fall 1985 schedule). The station would retain its progressive format from Monday thru Thursday, except for dance shows from 10am to 1pm. On Friday and Saturday, the station would move into a pop and rock format, including all-request Friday and Saturday nights with Sunday having specialty shows including 50's doo-wop with Lou "With The Tunes" Marcus and then Ernie Pisani, the 60's with Roger Goulet and the 70's with Steve Corriveau and then 1986-87 Program Director Dino II. The station would retain a similar format over the next several years. I can only attest to my all-request shows on Friday and occasionally filling in on Saturday, but I would have to say that the change worked. The time period from the fall of 1984 into most of 1985 was certainly the peak of all-request Friday night as the phone would ring non-stop throughout the whole show with a mixture of request calls from Bryant students and off-campus listeners from all over the top half of the state from Burriville to Warwick and into MA towns such as Attleboro, Seekonk and Norton. It amazes me to this day the amount of calls from listeners in so many different cities and towns that we would get to this small 225-watt station at the left end of the dial. The "Commercial-Free Progressively" slogan was dropped and new slogans such as "Rhode Island's Best Commercial Free FM" and "The Music That Matters" seemed to stick around for a few years, while others including "Tomorrow's Music Today" in 1984 and "On The Move" in 1985 came and went. In 1985, WJMF staff members received jackets with their name on the front and "89 FM WJMF On The Move" emblazed on the back. WJMF bumper stickers were made available to listeners at about the same time and were delivered to many local record stores.
"Go Down On Your Dial to 89FM,
WJMF" was another slogan that appeared from time to time throughout the decade. The
request line number changed in early 1985 from 231-8989 to 232-6150, which I
believe is still used today! The momentum continued well into the spring of
1985 with Steve Buell becoming GM and Ernie Pisani, a big fan of WWF wrestling
as PD.
The station remained on the air during the summer of 1985 from the
hours of 1pm to 9pm. The summer program director was West Warwick's own Eddie
Bouley. Eddie loved progressive music but would put that aside to do the late
Friday 10pm to 1am all-request show during the spring and fall semesters in
1985. He also loved to talk up records up to the vocal, especially the obscure
songs that had flopped on the charts. For the summer, he did Friday afternoons
before my show. Eddie and I were friends at the station and whenever I would
follow him or he would follow me, we would play the most out-of-format song we
could find as a lead-in, such as "My Way" by Frank Sinatra. Only in
college radio could that happen! On July 3, 1985, the Blackstone Valley edition
of The Providence Journal contained an article on WJMF featuring Eddie and DJ
Steve Hughes. Here is how the paper described Eddie: "Here is what Eddie
Bouley wears: An outrageously loud print shirt, buttoned to the neck; bulky,
gray pants with zippers running down the legs and black boots. His blond hair
is kept short on the sides, long in the back, and he fumbles with it as he
talks about promos, playlists and music. A "Billboard" magazine,
rolled up in a tube, is clutched in his left hand as he talks. In short, he looks
and sounds like the manager of a little-known, slightly off-beat college radio
station. Which, of course, he is." Other excerpts from the article
included: "WJMF, a 225-watt radio station with enough power to reach
listeners from East Greenwich to Southern Massachusetts, depending on the
weather." and "We're a progressive (music) radio station, but we try
to keep an open-minded view," he said. "A lot of college stations
have the idea that progressive radio is the only music, but that's not true. So
instead, the station sets aside time for top 40 tunes, the songs more common to
commercial radio. And, with a collection of about 6,000 albums, station disc
jockeys have much to choose from. The albums, from Elvis Costello to Elvis
Presley and everything in between, lie in jumbled stacks on shelves near the
control booth. The rest of the station is spread through four rooms, their
walls lined with posters of musicians." During the summer of 1985, despite
being on a limited schedule, WJMF kept a good part of its off-campus audience.
We had many dedicated listeners, including some who called the station for
several years! Some regular callers I remember included Sheila from Johnston,
Kristen from Cumberland, Jennifer from Riverside, Carla from Providence, Krista
from West Greenwich, Jeannie and Claudia from North Providence, Lisa and Donna
from Cumberland and Derek from Burriville. The most popular song on WJMF during
the summer of 1985 beginning in early June was Take on Me by A-ha. The rest of
the radio world would pick up on it by late August and it became a number one
hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall.
With the students back in the fall of 1985 and off-campus
listenership still strong, the station pretty much picked up where it had left
off in May.
WJMF Steve Buell Promo Montage
One of the most requested songs on the station in the fall was the mysterious "Running Up That Hill" by Kate Bush, which would miraculously resurface as a top 5 pop hit 37 years later in 2022 after being featured in the Netflix series, The Stranger Things. I guess we were right about playing Tomorrow's Music Today! Other songs generating a lot of requests at this time included "Kayleigh" by Marillion and "Perfect Way" by Scritti Politti. A big hit among campus listeners later in the fall and into 1986 was "Object Of My Desire" by Starpoint. The station had many giveaways at this time, including albums and cassettes from Greenville Records and movie tickets to the Lincoln Mall Cinemas as they were sponsors of some of the shows. And then in November 1985, the unthinkable happened as our transmitter went down, leaving us with power of about 20 watts and it would stay this way for over two years. This cost us much of our off-campus audience and in my opinion, at least for the time I was there, we never quite recovered from this as far as the off-campus listenership was concerned and we pretty much became a campus radio station just as we were before May 1981. For the rest of the fall and into the spring of 1986, we still kept the on-campus audience and a few off-campus holdovers from nearby towns. We again stayed on for the summer of 1986 with a limited schedule and it felt like spinning records by yourself in your basement as requests were practically nil. Things did pick up in the fall with the students back as they were pretty much our whole audience and gave us a good amount of requests.
WJMF All Request Promo fall 1986
This
continued in the spring of 1987 with new PD "Nutty" Dave Kierstead,
who also handled the 10pm-1pm All Request Friday Night Shift. The most requested new songs this semester were "Lean on Me" by Club Nouveaux and "Serious" by Donna Allen. As the
spring came to a close, the station directors decided to shut down WJMF over
the summer for first time in over seven years!
In the fall of 1987, another group of students would join the
station and would be a major part of WJMF for the next four years. This
included future GM Don Defosse, future PD Stingray (Jim Lemieux), The Shadow,
"Dangerous" Dave Shelto, another huge WWF fan and the very popular
future PD Lisa Vescera (Lisa V.) from right here in Smithfield.
WJMF Defosse jazz promo late 1987 - partial
WJMF
10-6-89 Stingray & John D.
The station power went back up to 225 watts during the spring of 1988. From what I had heard the signal was not as powerful as it could have been and a group of students helped to fix the signal by the early-to-mid 90's. The initial increase did not help All Request Friday Night too much at the time as 1988 was the low point of the show with some of the shows, especially in the fall getting just a handful or even less requests! The station was now officially only operating during the school year (not including holiday and spring breaks), so off-campus listeners may have not even known the station was on the air!
Things seemed to pick up a bit in 1989 for the station that "dared to be different" as WJMF increased its presence within the Bryant community with many promotions and shows such as The Other Side, in which a faculty member would be interviewed on the station to talk about their life experiences, interests and their favorite music. In addition to newer music, Bryant students during the mid-to-late 80's and early 90's frequently requested older songs, such as "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" by Meat Loaf, "American Pie" by Don McLean, "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison (also recorded by Jimmy Buffett), "What I Like About You" by The Romantics and "Melt With You" by Modern English.
WJMF Dare To Be Different Promo 1989
WJMF also
gave listeners a chance to win a six-pack of albums. In addition to playing
songs off of albums, the station added a compact disc player in the studio and
many CD's were now available in the studio to be played (unfortunately, they sometimes disappeared out of the station!). The station featured
many duos on the air including Jake & John, Jeff & Kwas, Bonnie &
Robyn with the Friday 4pm to 7pm happy hour, A.J. & Stickman, Stingray
& Shadow and more. There was also the Wonder Years with "Winnie (Lisa V.) &
Kevin (The Shadow)" on Wednesdays from 8pm to 9pm, which was a takeoff on the popular
TV show at the time and featured music from the 60's and early 70's. Going at
it alone was "Super Dave" (Dave Merrill) with his popular 80's show
on Friday afternoons. Super Dave would become a big part of All Request Friday
Night, taking over the 10pm-1am show in 1990, splitting the 7pm to 10pm show in
the fall of 1991 and then taking over the show in February of 1992. We started
airing phone requests again in the fall of 1990 on All-Request Friday night
with the increased number of requests from on-campus and even some off-campus
listeners again and this continued throughout 1991. Also in 1990, I
sounded a little awkward on the air for a while as I finally decided to go to
speech therapy to improve my speech issues and it took about a year to speak
comfortably while speaking in a whole new way! To work on my voice, I also took
on a progressive music show on Monday afternoons as I was in-between day jobs and got to play songs I hadn't
played in years! Taking over the 10pm to 1am All Request Friday Night in
the spring of 1991 was Kerry A., who would eventually become PD of the station
by 1992. Also prominent at the station was "The Magic Man" Dave
Kaplan, who stopped by my show a few times as a freshman in the fall of
1989 and would later become GM of the station in the fall of 1991, in addition
to performing magic shows on campus. Also notable during the spring semester of
1991 around late March or early April, the station changed from calling itself
89FM WJMF to 88.7 WJMF. This continues today as the station broadcasts from the
88.7 HD-2 frequency and through streaming. The most requested song during the spring of 1991 was "I Touch Myself" by The Divinyls.
In July of 1991, I was flipping around the radio dial in the car
and was surprised to hear WJMF on the air since we had not aired over the
summer since 1986. It was WJMF general manager Michael Cain, who did just about
everything while at Bryant after entering as a freshman in 1988, playing the
latest R.E.M. album on the air. Just a few short weeks later in August, I
picked up the Providence Journal at my front door and saw Mike's picture on the
front page. Tragically, he had passed away in an accidental fall at the Cliff
Walk in Newport, RI shocking the entire Bryant Community. A Neon WJMF sign was
dedicated to Michael in 1992 that he had worked on purchasing and I believe it
still hangs in front of the WJMF studios today.
The fall of 1991 continued the resurgence of All-Request Friday
night as the phones were busy most nights.
Going into 1992, the station was beginning to move into its "Brave New World Of Rock" phase as bands such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam had blasted onto the scene and requests for these bands were hot and heavy. In early 1992, I moved to Wareham, MA and after two long drives to
the station for the first two shows of the 1992 spring semester, I decided
while there on February 7, 1992 with little fanfare that it would be my last
show on the station. It happened so quickly that it didn't really sink in for a while. I don't know the exact number of shows, but my best guess
would be that I did around 700 shows on WJMF and maybe even more as I did so
many fill-ins in the early days to help keep the station on the air and also because
it was a lot of fun. I made a quick mention of it being my final show over
Paradise By The Dashboard Light by Meat Loaf, one of the most requested songs
ever on WJMF and then said good-bye before the final song (picked out by Super
Dave), Feels Like The First Time by Foreigner in which it was actually the last
time on the air. In true Dino fashion, I talked up the last song and hit the
post (stopping just before the vocal starts).
And I have to thank Super Dave for the kind words he said on the air as I was
driving off for the final time.
As it was in 1981, I assumed my radio days were over, but in early
1994, I gave Steve McVie, former WJMF GM a call. Steve had become PD of WRZE
(96.3 The Rose) in Hyannis, MA which was about 35-40 minutes from where I
lived. Steve mentioned that they had a board operator shift open to play music
on the air with no talk on weekend overnights. I took the job and while doing
that, submitted some audition tapes to possibly get on the air. On July 22, 1995,
my longtime dream of being on the air at a commercial radio station was
realized as I filled in on an overnight shift. Shortly after, I was given an
early Sunday morning shift on the air and then running Casey Kasem's Top 40
program.
Just as that happened, my wife and I had made the decision to move
to Florida, so a few months later I had to leave WRZE, which broke my heart
as I loved working there. Just a few days before leaving for Florida on
Halloween night in 1995, I stopped by WJMF for one last visit, which was the
first since I had left in February 1992. The station was still located in the
MAC (but not for long) and had not changed too much in appearance since I had
left. I enjoyed talking to the station general manager about my experiences
there and how the station had progressed while he was there. Although I had
left the station before he started, he had worked with some of the people I had
known, such as Kerry and The Magic Man.
Fast forward two years to 1997 and a station in Venice, FL with an AM sports (WAMR) and FM country station (WCTQ) was looking for board
operators to put in commercials during sporting events and syndicated country shows.
I was hired and about a year or two later, the WCTQ PD gave some of the board
ops a chance on the air during the overnights and my radio dream was able to
continue!
After a couple of years, first working weekend overnights and
later being "promoted" to Sunday evenings and then Saturday AM drive
at WCTQ, a new PD was hired in August 2000 and the station switched to voice
tracking for most of the weekend shifts. I continued working part-time with the station, mostly producing weekend shows for the next few years until retiring from radio after about 25 years!
I am still a big fan of radio today and listen to current music as
well as the music and airchecks from my WJMF days. Not too long ago, I found
the First Wave channel on Sirius XM while searching through their channels. Almost all of the songs played there were
played on WJMF during my time there and 30 years later, I have fallen in love
with that music again! To summarize, I can't imagine what my life would have
been without WJMF. In addition to receiving an accounting degree at Bryant, which has led to a long career in the tax software development field, I
feel like the experience and the confidence built from working at WJMF was just
as important. Being basically a recluse before joining, I was able to meet so
many great people there over the years, talk to many listeners over the phone and even meet them in some cases, as well as the experience giving me the opportunity to operate a DJ service of my own (with Dennis J.) working at many
area high schools, weddings and parties often speaking in front hundreds of
people, and to attain my dream of working in commercial radio, not only at one
station, but two! The experience has also been beneficial on a personal and
professional level as well. Working at WJMF was (and I'm sure still is) a whole
lot of fun and a tremendous experience!
Congratulations to WJMF on its 50th anniversary! The station, known today as "The Beat of Bryant" managed to survive my 12 years there described above and has gone on to bigger and better things ever since, including a new upgraded studio and equipment, live streaming, a partnership with WGBH radio and so much more. 50 years is an incredible accomplishment not only for a college radio station, but any radio station! A big thank you to those who worked so hard to make WJMF become a reality 50 years ago for all of this to happen. I would also like to give special thanks to Duane Lefevre, Dan McDermott and others for their work in bringing the station to a new level and frequency in 1981 and for somehow giving me the chance to be on the air and keeping me on the schedule year-after-year. And thanks also to everyone I worked with at the station, including those mentioned and those not mentioned, who I will get to as I will be frequently updating the page.
WJMF schedule for the spring of 1979 and logo.
Photo: Not exactly sure what was on my head, but here I am getting ready to queue up a record inside the brand new WJMF studios in June 1981 (credit: Bryant Review).
WJMF schedule for Fall 1985. Note the block programming as described above.
Photo of the WJMF control board, cassette player, 2 CD players, cassette deck and cart machine from about April 1990.
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