The Record Hospital: A Healthy Kind of Sick

Steve L. Burt '93-'94 stands with his arms stretched between two dials on opposite walls of the small room. The commercial for the Middle East Restaurant trails off, and thundering rhythm fills the studio as Steve fades up the next song. He is bent at the waist, intently playing a heavily distorted air guitar, when the phone interrupts his gyrations. Kardhym Kelley '94 finds the next song on the second turntable and with a quick smile remarks, "Sometimes you don't have any idea what speed setting to play this music."

It's 9 p.m. on Monday night, and at WHRB, 95.3 on your FM dial, the Record Hospital's weekly Top 20 Countdown is underway.

The Record Hospital is a nocturnal organization whose purpose is to "expose people to great rock music that they'd otherwise have a hard time finding," according to disc jockey Burt. On the air from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. every night except Sunday, when it starts at midnight, the Record Hospital has become a fixture of the Boston underground music scene by playing rock that is generally unknown and often unusual. The Record Hospital, however, does not value the music it plays solely for its rarity.

"The reason a rare record is rare is because it's ahead of its time, not just because it's obscure," explains Geoff Weiss, who served as the music director of 'HRB during the early 1980s. Weiss' philosophy has remained with the station, and continues to shape its mission. "Not only are we playing this music because it is underexposed, but it is much, much more interesting and compelling music than the music that is overexposed," says current Record Hospital DJ, and former music director, Michael Sonnenschein '94.

The Record Hospital broadcasts not the major label music played on commercial radio, but rather independently released rock and roll. Commercial radio stations, such as WBCN or WFNX, almost always play music that is produced and distributed by one of six major record companies. But for every record released by one of these major companies, 100 independently released records are produced and distributed by small companies. Because commercial radio stations need to maintain a large listenership in order to attract sponsors, they hardly ever play music by artists that are not already well-known and could cause listeners to tune out.

College radio does not operate under the same financial constraints, and can therefore afford to be more adventurous with its programming. As a result, while the Record Hospital spins new independently released music and virtually unheard-of older records, the music on most commercial radio stations is bland and repetitive.

Working out of a studio in Cleveland, a band may press only 600 records. However, through a network of friends, record stores and small distributors, a copy will end up at 'HRB.

In her 1993 book, Route 666, rock critic Gina Arnold examines the rise of college radio in the wake of the birth of punk in the '70s: "When mainstream radio lost its grip on music, then the long-dormant airwaves of the college radio stations...became an invaluable American network...the inevitable conduit for all the independently released records to be given their due. They played the unheard music."

College radio has become the exposure point for independent-label records. Over the past 10 years, the Record Hospital has launched the careers of many local bands. Members of The Lemonheads were Record Hospital DJs, and the program was one of the first to play Bullet L Volta, another successful Boston band.

By scouring record stores for rare records and maintaining an active relationship with independent labels the Record Hospital has become one of the most well-respected college radio stations in the Northeast. Gerard Cosloy, president of Matador Records, one of the largest independent record companies, explains the unique position of college radio and the strength of WHRB. "Because college radio is not ratings dependent, it should be seen as an opportunity to do something different, to be devoted to informing the public about music they wouldn't hear otherwise. Unfortunately, at many colleges this opportunity is not taken advantage of. WHRB is an exception to the rule."

Douglas Wolk, the managing editors of College Music Journal, a trade magazine for college radio stations, states that "the rock program at 'HRB is just about as good as college rock radio gets, in terms of just being leaps and bounds ahead of everybody else in finding new music."

Formed in the early 1080s, the Record hospital is still working to establish itself among Jazz and Classical departments which are substantially older. Yet for the past eight years the Record Hospital has stayed on the air, even through the summers, due to the efforts of a small community of extremely dedicated volunteers. Disc jockeys often spend their own money to buy new records for the station and frequently keep their shows for a couple of years after they graduate. Record Hospital disc jockeys are often musicians themselves, in addition to being self-described "crazy music lunatics," and many bands are formed are formed from their ranks.

The community of WHRB listeners overlaps with Harvard, but extend into the larger community. "We have a substantial lestenership outside of campus and in a lot of ways we do not really really see ourselves as fundamentally here to serve the Harvard rock listener," says Sonner-schein, who himself became devoted to the Record Hospital during his years of alienation at a local high school.

Generally the Record Hospital plays music with a hard edge, but in recent years it has become more melodic. Of course, disc jockeys' musical tastes very widely. "It's actually a pretty diverse range of music. You can hear hard-core punk, wimpy pop music, or sort of avant-garde and experimental music. It's not all grunge stuff," comments Sonnenschein.

Some unity is brought to the steady stream of new releases by the Top 20 Countdown on Monday nights from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Cohosted by Burt and Kelly, the countdown is made up of the 20 new songs that have been played the most because of listener requests and DJ selection. The countdown allows listeners to become more familiar with new songs and receive additional information about new artists. The Top 20 is followed by Ultrasound at 11 p.m., which focuses specifically on up and coming Boston-area bands.

Tuesday nights the play list tends to be more melodic but punchy, while Wednesdays are also somewhat more accessible to non-hard-core fans. Thursday nights are characterized as noisier and artier, while on Fridays, Douglas DeMay '94 plays gut-level, hard-core, emotional stuff to a very loyal audience. On Saturday night the Record Hospital becomes "Rhythm 95," and the music changes to a combination of rap, hip hop, dance hall and funk. Sunday nights the station returns to Record Hospital and plays songs that are more closely tied to the punk movement of the late 1970s.

In 1994, college radio remains a symbol of an alternative to the top-down, image-driven, commercial music being pushed on American youth by multi-million dollar companies. Following independent music requires a certain devotion, but the rewards are worth the effort. As Wolk observes: "You've got a hundred incredibly horrible independently-released records coming out every two days, but for every hundred incredible horrible ones, there are three that will change your life."