Opening their microphones

Reprinted from the Glens Falls Post-Star, January 28, 2007 

By Charles Fiegl

SARATOGA SPRINGS - Godfrey Smith goes by the name "Godfada" when he spins records and takes to the mic on WSPN FM 91.1 Skidmore College radio.

Smith, 54, is not a college student. He does not pay student activity fees or receive compensation for his weekly "The Reggae Show."

"I do it for the arteest," he said during a recent show.

Smith grew up in Jamaica during a music revolution. Rock steady, ska and reggae music styles arose after the Caribbean nation gained its independence from Great Britain in 1962. Those genres are alive in the Godfada.

Smith lives in Albany and works as a purchasing agent but he's in his element when he enters WSPN's studio and settles in for the noon to 3 p.m. Sunday show. He will often pick a word like "money," "rain" or "woman" as a theme, he said. Songs will contain that word or be about that word for that day's program.

"My show has to flow and glow," Smith said. "If it doesn't glow, then I'm not happy."

Turning the FM radio dial to 91.1 takes listeners to broadcasts from WSPN studios, on the ground floor of Jonsson Tower, where students and community DJs peacefully co-exist.

Smith is one of about 25 community volunteers with programs on WSPN, along with minister-in-training Art Ware, whose "Gospel Hours" show airs 6 to 9 a.m. Sundays; and Chris McGill, a college administrator, whose show is on from 9 a.m. to noon on Sundays.

The community DJs point out that every song they play is chosen either because they want to hear it or a listener does. The personality of the DJs, reflected in their song choices, separates WSPN from most commercial radio stations, said Kirsten Ferguson, who hosts "Rock Narcotic" from 8 to 10 p.m. on Wednesdays.

"College radio is the ultimate form of radio-or the most independent," Ferguson, 35, said.

Taking to the air

Listeners roll the dice in a game of musical craps by tuning in to WSPN without checking the program guide first.

The station is run by Skidmore students. It airs 85 shows a week when classes are in session, said Alissa de Vogel, general manager. A senior from San Francisco, she defends running community shows on the college station.

"Some people make the argument that they take away time that should be allotted to students," she said. "That's definitely true, but we have kept shows for them there because some of them have been there longer and care more about the radio station than I do. Some put more into their shows than students and their shows tend to have a bigger listening base."

Some community DJs at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's student-run station, WRPI, lost shows last year because the station's management wanted to free up time slots for students.

Other college radio stations don't offer any time to the community.

"It's their radio station," Ferguson said of the Skidmore students. "They don't have to give us their shows-they pay for it. But, the students on the board recognize that this is something positive."

Now for a little polka

Listeners will tune to dead air when the students are on extended breaks during the year, unless they're tuning in when a community member's show is on. Community DJs give the station continuity, de Vogel said.

The station's most popular show is Bob Pawlak's "Polka Magic Show," from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturdays. Pawlak has been doing the show for 22 years. It is mentioned in "Make No Small Plans," a history book on Skidmore College.

"We get a lot of free rein," Pawlak, of Hagaman, said. "When school was out we did a marathon on (Jan.) 13th and invited people to come in and join us ... I think we were on the air for nine hours that day."

That day, Pawlak's show turned into a smorgasbord, with "real Polish food" to go with the polka music, he said. Anyone who stopped by the station could eat and take a turn on the microphone with Polka Bob.

Pawlak also does a Polish music show with John Lesniewski, his former WSPN co-host, on WVLT AM 1570 in Amsterdam.

"I love the music," said Pawlak, who is 65. "I would love to continue doing the show and keep it alive. Ethnic music often dies off or gets lost over generations."

Polka Magic Show often gets dozens of phone calls over a three-hour period, Pawlak said. The show held an impromptu contest one week, asking listeners to call in with how they picked up WSPN's 200-watt signal.

"They put their radios on the fridge, upside down on the toilet. One said they ran antenna wires covered in Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil," he said. "I thought it was kind of neat."

Those who can't pick up the radio signal can listen to the station's Web broadcast on www.skidmore.edu/wspn

Bless you

Community DJ playlists sometimes include rock or alternative songs from the station's regular music rotation, but most specialize in genres like polka, jazz, oldies or folk.

Art Ware's genre is religion. He broadcasts the "Gospel Hours" program-with the tag phrases "God Bless You and Keep You," and "In His Name, from the Upper Room."

On a Sunday earlier this month, Ware left his home in downtown Albany for the WSPN studio at 5:02 a.m. Arthur Ware II, his 11-year-old son, tagged along, but ended up sleeping most of the morning with a blanket over his head on the couch in the studio.

The show was Ware's 39th. He will keep doing it, he said, "until God gives me something else to do. This is an appointment that God has given me."

Ware had his church suit on, complete with maroon pocket square neatly folded. The sun was not yet above the horizon when he took a break to read Psalm 91 from the Bible.

After the show ends at 9 a.m., the Wares go to Reach Out Fellowship church in Albany, arriving in time for the 10:30 a.m. service.

Ware, who works with Smith as a purchasing agent, segments the show into three parts. The first hour is gospel music by artists like Mahalia Jackson. The second is praise music, from the Jackson Southernaires to Elvis Presley. The third is more Christian music.

Ware said he scripts each show so it comes to a crescendo at the end.

Ferguson, 35, has been doing a radio show on and off WSPN since 1994. She escapes distractions, she said, when she enters the DJ booth carrying CDs and records from her collection.

"It's the one time of the week I can focus on just listening to music."

Ferguson dropped a needle to a record. Community DJs, she said, are throwbacks to radio of the 1960s and 1970s.

Just talkin'

Daniel Levine, 17, attends Saratoga Springs High School. He started doing radio when he was 12 and has hosted the 3 to 5 p.m. Thursday slot for the last year and a half.

Levine and co-hosts Zach Padovani, 17, and Ross Snider, 18, usually get dropped off after school by Levine's mom for their "I Don't Know Show."

"When we started we played a lot of power-pop punk, indie rock and hip-hop, but it's mostly a talk show now," he said.

They sound like high school students when they discuss what happened earlier in English or physics class. They sometimes veer into topics suited to drive-time shock jocks.

Thursday's show featured the teens singing the theme to the cartoon "Captain Planet" and talking about ex-girlfriends. In other shows they debated the health benefits of eating their own or each other's boogers and discussed Roosevelt Franklin, a muppet on "Sesame Street."

Their conversations have drawn callers threatening to report them to the Federal Communications Commission, but most calls are from their classmates and other fans, Levine said.

One group of college students showed up at the studio during the show so they could put faces to the teens' voices. Levine has a distinctive deep voice, like Gilbert Gottfried's, but more sedate.

"One guy called up and asked if we could describe food to him over the air," Levine said.

The "I Don't Know Show" will end when its hosts graduate this spring.

Arthur Gonick, 48, has been hosting a jazz and rhythm-and- blues show called "Soiree" for 10 years. It airs from noon to 3 p.m. Saturdays. Gonick said it's an honor to broadcast a show to the community each week.

"You have to love it," he said. "There are people out there who love the station and depend on it."

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©2007 the Post-Star