From the Arts and Living Section
By RICK KOSTER
Day Arts Writer
New London

Sunday, January 31, 1999

Is that a mouse roaring on your radio? Or the sound of little David pumping out Eddie Cochran, the Pilgrim Travelers, Robert Johnson, and phranc — even as corporate Goliaths spin the same old Garth Brooks and Puff Daddy and Led Zeppelin?

If your FM radio dial is at 91.1, and if you’re within a 500-watt range of Connecticut College, you’re listening to the tiny but aesthetically powerful WCNI, one of the freest and most musically adventurous radio stations imaginable.
Housed in relatively tiny quarters in a corner of the student union building, WCNI is proud of its no-format format. Any of the station’s 56 disc jockeys have almost total freedom to play whatever they want within, of course, the boundaries of Federal Communications Commission regulations.

The aforementioned, relatively obscure artists are all likely to receive airplay in any given week on WCNI. Blues, folk, techno and rave, Latin, reggae, jazz, hardcore, R&B, African, ambient, Christian rock, show tunes, honky-tonk, all forms of rock from Buddy Holly to indie, world music and even polka share airtime on WCNI. Theoretically, if one listens long enough, it’s even possible to hear something popular in the shopping malls. But don’t count on it.
At 6 a.m. on a frosty Wednesday morning, Chucky Daddy, the station’s 40-something president, sponsorship manager and veteran disc jockey, is bouncing around the WCNI studio to the strident and archival rock sounds of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.

A short, fit man with a klieg light smile, a ponytail, and Ray Manzarek sideburns who refuses to use his real-life name in station environs, Daddy’s radio activities are clearly a labor of love. If radio stations had cheerleaders, Daddy would clearly be waving pom-poms while he cued up Chris Isaac or Barence Whitfield and the Savages.
"A lot of studios have these big, comfortable chairs for the DJs to sit in," Daddy says. He gestures through the door into the station library. "I just throw it in the back when I get here. It’s attitude: I’m dancing around playing rock ‘n’ roll. Which is, of course, just a tiny element of what we’re about."

WCNI is home to 56 three-hour programs a week, each with a different disc jockey. The station is on the air 24 hours a day except during school vacations, when it normally shuts down from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. Over the years, there have been a few news-talk and community awareness shows, but Daddy says that, for now, the best fit is as a music station.

The on-air line-up — by design a roughly 50-50 split between student and "community" hosts with no college affiliation — changes quarterly, dictated by turnovers in the student population and semester breaks and vacations. Some of the community disc jockeys and shows date back more than a decade and are firmly entrenched in the ears of more than one generation.

"Growing up, I always listened to CNI. I really idolized some of the DJs on the air," says Dawn Estabrooks, a former rock band keyboardist on staff at the Lyman-Allyn art museum.

In her fourth year as a community DJ, she hosts a show of ambient and electronic music and says the influence of WCNI DJs before her shaped her own on-air personality. She started out playing alternative music, then developed a concept after walking down a dorm hallway at Boston College.

"Going past the open doorways," she says, "I heard all this different music fading in and out, and it was like flipping a radio dial. So when I mix now, it’s kind of like a soundscape, like flipping a radio dial. And CNI gives me the freedom to do that."

The studio itself is, in a word, vintage. Or, to use Daddy’s description, "primitive." Concert posters and album jackets adorn the walls, and a leaning tower of soon-to-be-played albums, singles and CDs is stacked near the mixing board. While most radio stations have their entire music catalog, station IDs, and commercials on "carts" — tape cartridges that can be cued with easy precision — WCNI still has that pawn-shoppy, whatever-it-takes look: two turntables, two cassette players, and a CD unit.

Through a doorway in one wall, jocks have full access to the extensive album, tape and disc library. At most formatted commercial stations, where playlists are tightly regimented, jocks pull the carts they’ll need segment-by-segment. At WCNI, an on-air personality freely roams the stacks while a song’s on the air, pulling anything he or she feels like playing, and dragging it into the control room.

The whole scene has a comfortable, slightly amateurish feel to it, and if the old-timer community jocks sound slightly more polished than their student compatriots, all agree it’s more about the vast wealth of music than slick, on-air patter by the disc jockeys.

"Last year was a rough year because every student DJ except one was a senior," Daddy says. "That meant several new DJs had to be recruited from the student body, trained, and integrated into the system. Student jocks are a priority, though, and hopefully these will be around for three or four years, since we’re actively recruiting freshmen now. I just tell them to have fun and not worry about whether they have a deep, baritone voice or not."

Though the students don’t receive academic credits for their work, Daddy says, they do get an FCC license. Would-be DJs serve a five-week apprenticeship with a veteran jock, learning the ropes and FCC regulations, and eventually do a training show under the watchful eye of the licensed jock. If they pass a written test, they get their FCC license — and all the creative possibilities of the WCNI format.

Over the years, problems have crept up with music disappearing from the studio, or with disc jockeys getting into trouble for on-air obscenity or playing tunes with the F-word. For that reason, a lot death metal and gangsta rap isn’t played at the station. But generally, Daddy says, community and student disc jockeys alike accept the responsibilities that come with the job. If there is occasional friction between the two groups, it’s generally nothing significant.

"If anything I notice a community-versus-student situation," Estabrooks says. "But it goes vice-versa, too. Students will come in and say we need some new programming, so when an old-line community person doesn’t get a show, there are some hard feelings. What’s important, though, is that the board does well at bringing the two together when there are issues."

Brian Aeaoh, a sophomore at Conn College who co-hosts a contemporary reggae show at the station, points out that all student DJs have to train with community jocks, a situation which lays a foundation of cooperation.

"When I started," he says, "there was a combination of [student and community disc jockeys], but I didn’t know precisely how it was set up. I think people get along pretty much. There are a couple of shows where student and community DJs actually work together. In particular, I work with [reggae host] Brother John a lot, and I was trained by community DJ Skeleton Woman."

WCNI began sending out it signal in 1979. At first, the station’s official capacity in the context of the college fluctuated and was poorly defined. It is now owned and operated by the Connecticut College Broadcasting Association — which is not part of Conn College. The station receives no funding from the college and, the only college connection, other than its on-campus digs, is that at any given time about half its on-air roster is students.

The station is operated by an 18-member board of directors, all students except for Daddy and the station’s community director. There is a board of trustees and an annual budget of about $22,000, but no salaried or paid positions. Daddy, whose presence at the station falls into the "omni" category, pays his bills as the owner of the Conn College on-campus convenient store conveniently located next door to the station.

As a community station, there is no on-air advertising. Funding comes from two sources: spring and winter pledge drives and program sponsorships.

"We rely on the community to get us just enough to keep us afloat," says Daddy. "We have sponsorships rather than ads, which bring in money apart from the pledge drives and helps us keep things going. But [the sponsors] don’t run ads where they say their products or services are the best or whatever."

If all goes according to Daddy’s plan, it’ll get a lot easier to hear WCNI. The station recently purchased a new transmitter and is hoping to push out a 5,000-watt signal by 2001. That requires some bureaucratic maneuvering; at that power figure, the station would need to move to a new frequency. Ideally, that would be 89.9, but Daddy says the station has been in a seven-and-a-half year stalemate with the Boston University radio station WBUR over the frequency.

Listeners near campus who turn to 89.9 also can pick up WSUF, the Greenport, Long Island, repeater for the Sacred Heart University station out of Fairfield, another NPR outlet.

"There are so many stations out there, and only so many frequencies," Daddy says. "When you apply for a frequency, the FCC does a survey to see who’s bleeding over into who. For those reasons, we want to move to 89.9 — BU’s frequency — and they put a block on us. We have an annual budget of $22,000, and they’ve got an annual budget of $9,000,000, and they’re worried about us."

Daddy laughs in "whaddya gonna do?" amazement. "WBUR is a National Public Radio affiliate — New England is saturated with NPR stations — and I just feel like we have something unique to offer."

The conflict remains at an impasse and, though the FCC originally told the two stations to work it out between themselves, it’s probable that the FCC will eventually have to make a ruling. "BU makes us financial offers," Daddy says, "but we’re not interested in money, and they don’t understand that. We’re happy just surviving. We have lawyers working on it, and ultimately [the FCC] will evaluate the situation and make a judgement. We feel pretty confident."

If WCNI does bump up in power, the listening area will expand to an area described by Providence, Hartford, Worcester — substantially greater than the current range. The station is also online these days, though, enabling listeners across the globe to hear WCNI on Real Audio at www.conncoll.edu.

For all of the station’s appeal, it’s probably true that there are not a lot of "I like every show" WCNI fans; the programming is just too diverse. Rather, there are a lot of listeners devoted to particular shows. "Polka Motion," devoted to international polka music, is an astonishingly popular program. There are strong followings for such fare as the pure "Jazz & Cocktails," two blues sets — "Sunday Mornin’ Blues" and "Nothin’ but the Blues" — the hardcore country "Not Exactly Nashville," and Brother John’s reggae show.

(Since the spring schedule that starts Monday had yet to be finalized, time-slots for many of these shows may change. Listeners can find out the new programming schedule by calling 439-2853 Ext. 4, or by checking the Web site, where it will posted Monday morning. WCNI schedule brochures are also available at several area businesses.)

"In a strict sense, I’m not sure how much CNI means to the community," says John Lamar, whose on-air persona is Rodeo Joe, host for the past 12 years of the "Rock ‘n’ Roll Roundup." "But, all told, we’ve got about 100,000 listeners, and that’s not bad. It means the world to us here, though, and we have our devoted followers. Try not doing the polka show one week, and it’ll be outrage time."

Estabrooks agrees: "I don’t know that there’s a huge awareness in the area. It’s community programming, after all, and as the student [disc jockeys] recycle every four years it’s hard to form our own identity. We don’t do any marketing campaigns, and the wattage is low, but there are a lot of really cool DJs and good shows."

Trying to sort the demographics of just who is listening to what is a tenuous science at best. The big clues come in the form of program sponsorships or contributions during pledge drives. The station’s not a big campus favorite.

"I did a survey in my store," Daddy says," and we figure about 10 percent of the students [at Conn College] listen to the station. They’d rather hear Q105 or something, because, to be honest, hip-hop is the contemporary thing now. We have hip- hop shows, of course, but our diversity is what’s important.’

The student disc jockeys, who are typically more likely to have alternative rock or contemporary music shows, learn to appreciate the cultural and musical opportunities presented by the station.

"Unfortunately, not too many students listen to CNI," Aoaeh says. "What exactly the reason is I’m not prepared to say, though [listening to the station] would broaden horizons. When I listen to other stations it’s the same thing over and over. At CNI, it changes every three hours. You hear new types of music, and it’s an important learning experience."

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