It’s 10:30 on a Monday night, and Westfield State University’s main campus is quiet, but DJ Paul Basile is in the WSKB radio studio creating some noise of his own.
Every Monday night, he broadcasts the show Bastards of Young from the station on the recently renovated third floor of Ely Campus Center. It’s a cheerfully cramped environment; the walls, which were originally painted a not-so-rock-n’-roll beige, are plastered with band posters, concert promos, and cryptic, crayon-drawn inside jokes created by the staff. The floor is crowded with furniture and technology, including two squashy yellow couches, multiple CPU towers, a file cabinet spray-painted with red flames, and the massive, looming network server, which emits a low hum from the corner of the room.
It’s this jam-packed but laid-back environment that allows WSKB’s DJs to do what they do best and produce one-of-a-kind shows that defy the conventions of traditional radio programming.
As the host of a punk show, Basile looks the part, slouching around the studio in a Rancid t-shirt and ripped jeans, dark hair curling around the edges of his newsboy cap. Ordinarily, he’d be sharing the show with his co-host Matt Futterleib, but tonight is a rare occasion and Basile is on his own.
His brown eyes shift nervously in conversation, but behind the microphone, he’s in his element, telling stories and discussing the local punk scene. At the moment, he’s perched on the edge of an office chair, simultaneously announcing the next song—a drum-heavy number by Against Me! and chatting on Facebook, where he’s hoping to get a few requests from listeners.
After he adjusts the soundboard and cues up the song, Basile ducks out from beneath the steel pivots of the microphones and makes his way to the storage closet in the back of the room. Though the closet receives little attention from most of the DJs, it’s actually the biggest link to the station’s past—behind the door lies crate after crate of abandoned records, from an era when music was more than a digital signal.
Much like that old vinyl, campus radio’s role has been threatened by newer technology—and lovers of quirky college programming might worry that it’s on the verge of becoming obsolete.
Long before the advent of iTunes, online streaming, and music piracy, college radio ruled the underground music scene. Stations like WSKB weren’t permitted to play mainstream radio hits, but this ban from the Top 40 charts came as a blessing to thousands of independent up-and-coming bands that were craving exposure.
As a result, college stations began to build this second scene as an option for those who wanted to listen to artists who didn’t fit the mold of the mainstream industry.
While WSKB’s DJs are still held to those same guidelines, college radio no longer holds a monopoly on the indie scene. Music’s availability online, paired with the popularization of “hipster” culture—glorifying the “underground”—has robbed stations such as WSKB of the influence that they once had on campus. As times have changed, the station’s board and DJs have been pressed to find ways to keep content fresh and relevant.
“Truthfully, I have never listened to the school radio, nor do I know anything about it,” explains sophomore psychology major Lauren Joyce.
That sentiment is shared by many Westfield students, who, like Joyce, choose to listen music in other forms, whether they’re killing time with an iPod between classes or streaming custom stations on websites such as Pandora or Grooveshark. Websites like these allow listeners to discover new songs and bands that are tailored to their personal tastes, whereas college radio exposes listeners to a much wider scope of genres, which can be both a strength and a shortcoming.
Jarryd Conz, the station’s music director, defends radio’s role on campus. “Just because we’re small and no one has really heard of us doesn’t matter. I love selecting music for rotation and doing my show with my friends. I think there is an art to putting on a good show. Just the idea that you’re putting something out there, that potentially anyone can listen to, is a magical feeling.”
Thanks to online streaming, while that vision may have less influence on campus than it did in decades past, it also has the potential to reach new crowds and cover distances that it never could before. While the station’s radio signal only reaches the borders of Westfield, Basile explains that with WSKB’s online streaming, he’s been able to gain listeners in places like California, Toronto, and even Scotland.
“If friends and family back home want to tune in, the internet is a great way for them to do that” he said.
Regardless, according to Austin Hall, host of Culture Shock, an alternative, metal, and talk show that ran for three semesters, WSKB’s main focus isn’t to gain the attention of or cater to the masses. Hall’s scruffy beard, black Ray-Ban frames, and purple canvas sneakers hint toward an inclination to indie music—however, he explains that working for the station has taught him some unexpected things about the indie scene and what makes for a good radio show.
“I think it’s made me realize that a lot of indie music is kind of bull. When I came to school I really wanted to listen to indie music… and that was part of my ‘in’ for doing it [WSKB],” he said. But then I hear some of the stuff that they make us play to fulfill a requirement, and I’d be like, ‘Oh, this might be cool,’ or ‘Oh, this sucks, this is terrible!’”
“There’s a lot of indie music I’ve heard that’s like, they’re just trying to be different and not trying to make good music. That’s why I think there’s good music in all genres, and indie music doesn’t have a monopoly on that.”
Through Culture Shock, along with his two previous radio shows, Red and Read and Phil on the Radio, Hall was able to explore the freedom of the college radio format: Aside from the requirement to play a minimum of six songs from a playlist selected by the station’s music directors, DJs are free to divide up the rest of the two-hour show however they want. While that frequently means choosing favorite songs for airplay, Hall took advantage of the opportunity to experiment with less-traditional formatting when he formed Phil on the Radio, a philosophy talk show, with some friends.
Along with the occasional language slip-ups, now and then, things just don’t go as planned in the studio: technology fails, silence falls, and once in a while, co-hosts don’t even show. While these obstacles can prove frustrating to the DJs, they’re all a part of the crash course in broadcasting that WSKB sometimes serves as—and while a blooper-free show might be preferable, errors just serve to remind DJs that the station is as much about education as it is about entertainment.
According to much of the station’s staff, it’s this kind of learning experience that will keep college radio a valuable institution on campus, regardless of its online competition.
As Hall explains, it’s a sort of “self-fulfilling niche.” DJs want the opportunity to create unique shows and have their ideas and music heard. Future radio professionals need a place to learn the ropes. Listeners crave exposure to unique and experimental songs. These groups are motivated by personal satisfaction, not a need for attention.
As Basile puts it, “It’s what I look forward to every week… This is definitely my favorite thing about life here at Westfield.”
