WHRB: Committed to an Esoteric Image

Last January WHRB announcer Pete Salerno '68 won Playboy magazine's nationwide jazz prediction poll, a dis-jockey contest to guess what the readers would choose the most popular jazz numbers of the year, Salerno scored first participate the readers' taste, but, he says; "it was a calculated win. I had substitute my own taste." As a part of the contest, he was supposed to popularize the records he chose, but "there were a couple I couldn't even put on the air...our listeners would have called up to complain."

Salerno's attitude is typical--the people down at WHRB's studo in the basement of Mem Hall refuse to prostitute their taste and pander to the people at large. WHRB has a fixed image, and they are proud and defensive about it. No rock 'n' roll ever comes over their air, and the word they use most often to describe themselves, and their listeners, is "esoteric". "We have an eclectic, esoteric, kind of programming," says Joe Erlanger '67, this year's Station Manager. Another member modestly asserts that WHRB'S programming standards classical jazz, and folk music "the finest available in Boston."

Nothing Slicked Over to Sell

This esoteric image doesn't simply mean that WHRB plays no "top 40" records. It means that there is no "Muzak"--sound track and other light music--and that there is nothing "slicked over, or glossed over, to sell." You won't hear Baez, Seeger>, or Peter, Paul and Mary very often, if at all, on WHRB, says Randy Webb '67, head of News, Sports, and Public Affairs at the station. The station doesn't want to give time to what he calls "little white boys playing Negro music." Following the image also means that commercials "with the Kingston Trio singing jingles," are taboo. Even in classical music, familiarity can bar a acceptable work from the WHRB list--something like Beethoven's Fifth is never heard on a regular show.

The overall programming, too is aimed at an audience seriously interested in music. They strive for "variety and balance" says Erlanger. The "Afternoon Concert," "Music of the Renaissance," or "Great Chamber Music" shows are balanced by the popular trad jazz show "Here Comes the Hot Tamale Man" (Barry Hilton '66), the daily "jazz Entree," or the Baladeers" and "Hillbilly at Harvard." There are also documentaries, and weekly broadcasts of the Ford Hall Forum and the Mem Church Sunday service, although much less time is given to non-musical, air."

No demographic studies are available now to show exactly who these discerning listeners might be and just how many of them there are but President Jim Hill '67 is at no loss to predict his listenership. WHRB, he says, he reaches the "academic underground of Boston," Largely on its FM frequency. It goes to college students, professors, and "other academic professional people with well-educated backgrounds." The station doesn't even try, or want to try, to infringe on the listenership of WBZ, or WMEX. Its FM advertising, for example, is almost entirely for publications such as The National Observer, or the Boston theaters. The beer and coke ads go only over the closed AM circuit to Harvard and Radcliffe.

WHRB's followers relate almost entirely to the music, Hill feels, and not to the personality of the announcers. They feel it an intrusion to have the announcer interrupting with anything but the most formal statement of what it is, who wrote it, and when. This policy doesn't give the announcer much chance to express his own feelings, but most of them don't seem to want the chance. Even Salerno, whose daily "Jazz Entree" makes him the most consistently-heard of any WHRB announcer, says he has no desire to build up a fan club or become an "air personality." "I'd get all kinds of crackpots calling in" with their problems, and "I couldn't take that," he explains.

It is, in effect, a Saturday Review kind of radio station that the listener hears at 93.5 on the FM dial. But unwavering devotion to this image of quiet good taste and serious musical interest raises some difficult problems.

One of these is money. "All radio stations run on a shoe string," says Webb and WHRB is no exception, even though it has no salaries to pay. Expensive equipment has to be bought fairly often, as WHRB expands and tries to keep up with the "state of the art." The station just moved in January to its new Mem Hall studio, and although Harvard provides the space, they paid for all the renovation and new equipment, Webb explained. The station is also in the process of converting to FM stereo broadcasting, installing a larger transmitter, and improving its closed circuit broadcasting to Harvard and Radcliffe.

The better the equipment, and the better the programming, the more professional the sound. But, no matter how good WHRB standards are, WHRBies are not professionals interested in radio communication alone. Like any college activity with a considerable time commitment, the station is run by devotion as much as ability and professionalism doesn't always inspire devotion. "Mother WHRB's children demand that they have fun while they serve her, and this demand sometimes clashed with the "electric, esoteric" image.

The ugly question of rock 'n' roll, for example, crop up every once in a while, and it isn't totally solved by the more-relaxed-than-usual reading period orgies. The issue has repercussions both inside and outside the studio. Outside, it means that anyone interested in rock simply has no WHRB members don't find this disturbing in the least. "I'm not especially concerned--I'd rather do a good job than have University listeners," says Webb. Others do care--slightly. But there is no significant "rock bloc" as there are folk, jazz, or CM (classical) blocs. A recent effort of one member, for example, to have an OBG (oldies but goodies) rock orgy was voted down in a members' poll.

Part of his opposition seems to be a built-in defense mechanism. Jim Hill saw the proposed orgy as a "foot-in-the-door" threat, and feared future administrations would weaken farther until rock was at WHRB to stay. "College stations with a high percentage of rock-tend to be very amateurish," he say with distaste. Amateurish is nothing WHRB wants to be. "I like it [rock]," he says, "but rock on FM would be a travesty. It would bring us new personalities and new talent--if we could fit it in with our image, but we can't." The listeners are too "discerning;" even on the relatively relaxed "Jazz Request Show," says Salerno, "if we play something too close to rock, people will call in and complain.

Even a little bit of rock--a few shows a week-would be impossible, because it would only alienate the people who don't like it, without picking up the dedicated Dick Summer fans, explains Joe Erlanger. "Either you don't do it, or you go all the way." The competition in Boston is too great for a station to operate without a consistent image, Erlanger feels.

There is another reason in WHRB's rejection of rock besides intellectual self-indulgence, however, Right now, they simply don't have the equipment or the announcers to do it. Playing down the personality of the announcer, as WHRB does, it not a philosophy suitable to rock, and the equipment that makes regular WHRB broadcasting challenging and fun would make rock impossible. Members consistently oppose buying new equipment which would make broadcasting easier without improving the sound. They feel that it reduces the scope of the work, and cuts down the challenge. There is a certain camaraderie inspired by working with backward equipment that they are understandably loath to part with.

WHRB now has most of its recording on 20-30 minute LP's and changes them by hand. There is an announcer in one room, and in another room separated by a glass panel, the controlman who is responsible for whatever actually goes out on the air. The controlman changes the records, and switches the "air" for music to an announcement or ad when he gets a hand signal from the announcer. This method is slightly cumbersome, but it worked well when the changes from record to record to "spot" are few. It does not work well when a DJ uses all 45's, which must be changed every two or three minutes. It results in too much "dead air" - time when nothing is being broadcast.

Commercial stations solve this problem by using what are called tape cartridges. Tape cartridges have all the spots needed on them. The DJ merely inserts the cartridge he wants, and pushes a button when he is ready for it. He also has a high speed record changer, to cut down the dead air time between records. With a tape cartridge system and high speed changers, there is no need for a separate controlman--the DJ does the whole show himself.

But WHRB likes it controlmen, and they like their job. The members have no desire to replace men with machines. There are many WHRBies, in fact, who know very little about music, (at least when they come, and before they have spent hundreds of hours in a controlman), but whose interest is purely technical. Bob Kalayan '67, this year's head controlman, does nothing but technical work, and, he says, "the more complicated it is, the more fun." It takes only five or six hours to train a controlman to minimal standards, but beyond that, there is all kinds of scope for a good man. What a controlman really likes is "har"--short for harassment. The more shifts from one tape to another, or from tape to live broadcast; the more "splits"--when there is one thing to be run on AM and another at the same time on FM; the more times he is recording something that will be used later in the show as well as controlling "air"; and the more times something nearly goes wrong and the controlman practically has to see to one tape with his foot and another with his teeth, the better it is.

The idea is to make things as complicated as possible without committing a "feep"--a mistake that goes out over the air--a heinous crime for any good controlman. And the emphasis is always on "elegance"--such as determining the point at which a record should be started down to the exact groove.

The famous reading period orgies are another way to add some spice to the esoteric life, and they are extremely popular with both listeners and the members. As Webb puts it, "Orgies are a chance for CM's like me to let their hair down." He is responsible for the orgy of War Horses--classical music other stations might play, but which WHRB would never touch on a regular show--Beethoven's Fifth, perhaps the Ninth, Dvorak's New World Symphony, and "almost all of Tchaikovsky." Other members offer orgies of "Mothers Day request music," Bossa Nova, Muddy Waters, Mozart, or "Music in E flat."

The orgies, the controlman's devotion to complication and elegance, and the station camaraderie are all steps to remaining happy while esoteric. And if few members stay active throughout their college careers, there is a steady procession of candidates who want to work and who have real technical skill and who have real technical skill and musical interest. The station has both devoted members and devoted listeners, and if it does not have a large Harvard-Radcliffe audience, WHRB considers that one of its minor worries. The college is there, but it is incidental.

Strange things do happen on the AM circuit to the College, though. A Cliffie once picked up her phone to make a call, and was slightly suprised to hear music coming out of the receiver. It turned out to be the same music WHRB was playing, so the Cliffie hastened to call the men who live under Mem Hall. "Do you know," she said, "that I can hear WHRB on my telephone?" The WHRB man did not know this, but he was equal to the occasion: "Turn on your radio and you can hear us even better," he retorted.

She didn't, but he probably would not have cared--being protected by his knowledge that, somewhere, over in Boston, in far corners of Cambridge, in the 'academic underground," there were countless esoteric households who were listening to good music, and not over their phones. --each of them sincerly thanking him for never letting the Beetles, Baez, or Beethoven's Fifth clutter his "air," and for remembering to play their favorite Renaissance music