Memories of WCVT

By Jeff Dugan

Pete leaving FM studio; Myron in foreground

                 In the late 70s and early 80s, there was only one place for Progressive Rock in Baltimore: Towson State's rock and roll renegade WCVT FM.  I loved the place.  Run totally by students, this powerhouse cranked out programming 21 hours a day and all weekend long.

                WCVT is gone now but I will always remember some of the great times I had there.

Stu, JoAnn Dodds, Jerry, Babs, Brice, JJ, Charlotte, Kevin, Rod & Dave

In Training

                I was trained as a DJ on WCVT's AM sister station one night after hours.  Brice Freeman the Program Director, a fellow student and mentor, took me under his wing. 

                This was the training:  I played a record.  When it was over I opened the mike and said "That was The Beatles from the White Album.  Now here's Brice Freeman with the news."  Open the newsroom mike.  Then Brice read some news stories and that was it.  Of course Brice hadn't pre-read the stories, this was just practice for me.  As it happened, Brice cracked up over a story about a man who had been crushed between two cars near the campus.  We joked back and forth on the mikes and I played another record.  I had done well.  Then the phone rang.  Apparently, unbeknownst to us, you couldn't really turn off the AM sister station.  It was hard wired to the University Union and the dorms.  A young lady complained "about that cruel newscaster and the poor man who was injured." 

                "Congratulations," Brice said.   "You're now a DJ."

Letting Out Novak

                One of my first shifts was a midnight to three slot playing progressive rock.  It was a good shift since most of our listeners were pretty weird and, as it turns out, night owls.  I relieved Kevin Novak.  Novak is now the police spokesman for Baltimore County but in 1979 he was a college student with an eight to twelve jazz show.  Since he got off so late, the building had to be locked behind him.  When Kevin's shift was over and mine began, I put on an Alice Cooper album.  It was one on which the first three songs ran together.  I figured I had about 12 minutes to go downstairs, let Novak out, and lock the door behind him.  Since I had time, Novak and I stood and talked by the door for awhile.  By the time I returned to the booth, the Alice Cooper album was skipping.  It had been skipping on the first song. Then that phone rang.  It was Brice.  Uh oh, the Program Director had heard my mistake. 

                "Sorry," I said.

                "I was in my car" Brice said "and I heard the record start to skip.  Since I was following my girlfriend in her car I couldn't even pull over to call you.  All I could do was count." 

                "How many skips?"

                "77."

                Off to a good start.

I Fell Asleep

                With that kind of sparkling performance behind me, I soon rose to the rank of FM Operations Director, Brice's right hand man.   Click Here: Brice's Announcement

                One of my most important duties in this capacity was to fill the weekend All Night Shows with "volunteers."  It sounds bad, working midnight to six in the morning but usually it wasn't too difficult to get someone to do it.  We had about 120 students working at WCVT AM/FM during its heyday and almost half of them were certified as FM DJ's.  But the inevitable did occasionally happen as it did one Saturday night.   I couldn't find anyone and had to do the show myself.  This particular night I was tired.  The life of a college student takes its toll.  I was alive for the first two hours but by about 3:40AM I was looking grim.  I put on George Harrison's Apple Jam, which took up the entire side of an album, and laid my head down on the console for a moment. 

                Forty minutes later my eyes cracked open.  The glare of fluorescent light arrested my attention.  Then I heard it.  Wif.  Wif.  Wif.  Wif.  Apple Jam had run out probably 20 minutes earlier.  I was guilty of dead air.  Then I laughed.  Hell, it was the middle of the night!  I opened the mike laughing:  "Guess what?  I fell asleep!  If anyone is out there, you probably fell asleep, too.   Wake up and turn off the radio.  I'm goin home... "  Then, with the mike open,  I fumbled around and found the cart that played the Sign Off announcement.  It was Jimi Hendrix version of the National Anthem.  Curiously, while it played, I got a second wind.  So I followed the Sign Off announcement with the Sign On announcement, signifying the beginning of a new broadcast day.  

                Somehow I stayed until five and bagged the last hour.

A Nuclear Leak

                This type of unwavering professionalism could only lead to one thing:  I was elected Program Director.

                If I'm at all smart, I'll never forget this particular abuse of power:

                I was driving home from the station through the city one evening when I saw all the big TV news trucks in town parked outside of the BG&E building.  "I smell a story," I said to the guy I was giving a lift.  "Let's check it out."

                We went into the BG&E building only to find some guy being interviewed across the lobby about 40 yards away.  We couldn't get anywhere near him.  Frustrated I asked a janitor what was going on.          "Nuclear leak," he said. 

                "Oh my God! A nuclear leak! Where?"

                "I think it was Calvert Cliffs, I dunno," he said as he shuffled off with his broom.

                I turned to my friend.  "I gotta call the station.  Do you have any money?"  He gave me two quarters.   That was the beginning of my downfall.  If he'd been broke, I'd have saved myself a lot of embarrassment.  Even one quarter would have been plenty.  But he gave me two.

                I raced to a phone booth outside and called the station.  Doug Albright was on the air.  (Doug teaches school now and I hope he teaches his students to get the facts straight, unlike I did; but, I digress.)

                "Doug.  It's Jeff.  You gotta break programming, man.  Just cut off the song you're playing and tell the people there's been a nuclear leak!  Tell 'em that details are sketchy now but you'll have more information during the news."

                "What?!"

                "I don't have time.  Just do it, man!"

                "OK, you're the boss."

                Now, that was probably bad enough, but no, I still had another quarter.  (I'll tell you now that the leak occurred three days earlier.  It was measured at 1/100th of a millirum.  You don't have to be a scientist to know that ain't much.  This was a non-story.)

                I slipped the quarter into the slot.  "Hello, information?  Get me the number to the Associated Press."  The quarter came back out of the phone.  I slipped it in again and dialed the number.

                "Hello?"

                "Yes, this is Jeff Dugan from WCVT.  There's been a nuclear leak!"

                "What?"

                "Jeff Dugan, WCVT.  There has been a nuclear leak at Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant."

                "Who is this?" Pause.

                "Is this the Associated Press?"

                "No, it is not."  I had inadvertently reached an elderly black woman somewhere in Baltimore. Undaunted, with the need to serve my fellow broadcasters (and a desire to get my name on that little sheet of paper that clicks out of the AP machine back at the station,) I pressed on.

                "Ma'am, please get a pen."  God bless her, the old lady sat down the phone and went off in search of something to write with.  She quickly returned.

                "Now what is it, young man?"

                "You gotta call The Associated Press, ma'am.  Tell them Jeff Dugan sent you.  There is a nuclear leak.  At Calvert Cliffs.  This is urgent.  Thank you!  Goodbye."

                I drove home with a feeling of accomplishment.  I asked my dad if he had heard about the leak.  "Oh, yeah," he said, "that was about three days ago.  Nothing to it." 

                Ashen faced, I called Doug Albright on the air.  "I've ripped apart the entire newsroom," Doug gasped, nearly out of breath.  " I was looking for something on this leak, anything.  Then I found a little item stuck up on the hook about three days old.   I led with it. "

                "Uhh... Good job," I stammered and hung up the phone.

                Although I've worked in television and radio for over twenty years since then, I've never, ever contributed anything to a newscast since that day.

My Favorite Drink

                As Program Director, I saw a few perks.  One of which was the ability to meet musicians as they came through Baltimore.  I'll never forget my interview with Wendy O. Williams, the daring lead singer of The Plasmatics.  I had just witnessed the band's performance from the vantage point of "the pit" at Painter's Mill Music Fair.  Wendy's act consisted of smashing a working television on stage and chain-sawing a guitar in half while she sang.  While these theatricals were going on, Wendy O bared her chest and the band ravaged through some pretty good punk rock tunes.  I saw people in the audience tearing each other apart for those guitar bits she threw out.  I was glad I was in the relative safety of the sound engineer's pit next to the stage.

                After the show I went backstage for my interview.  Wendy O bounced in, threw her arms around me and gave me a big kiss.  We collapsed on the couch and the interview began.  We chatted amiably about the band, their recent appearance on Good Morning America and life on the road in general. 

                Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something. 

                Casually, I turned from my conversation with the scantily clad woman.  I looked at this, this guy. He had a mean look.  The kind of look a man has when he intends to rip off your head or perform some equally painful biker ritual.  Six foot two, sporting a bright blue mohawk, a spiked leather bondage shirt, black hightop sneakers and a large shocking pink tutu. 

                And he was coming right at me. 

                He stopped, looked me in the eye - and stretched out his hand.

                "Hi, my name's Richie.  Can I get you a beer?"  What? Was it Wally Cleaver under all that garb?

                I enjoyed the cold beer he fetched, finished a great interview with Wendy O and hung out the rest of the evening with her, Richie and rest of the band.

So I Don't Play Soccer

Spiro devours "death dog" from the hot dog cart located outside the university library.  In doorway is Kevin Novak, Ron Berry (who obsessed equally over Billie Jean King & Angie Dickenson) and Lynne DeLuca.  (That single can of disinfectant in the foreground was in the studio offices during my entire college career. I don't think it was ever used.)

                As I wound down my college career I weaned myself away from the station toward the end in order to finish the semester with enough academic credits to graduate.  One of my last roles though was as a talk show host.  I shared a show called Media Makers with Spiro Morekas.  Spiro was then, as now, a very good radio sportscaster.   Spiro and I chatted on this live call-in show every Tuesday night and we took turns booking the guests.  For example I had booked Dr. DeBrabender (no joke) to talk about the meaning of life.  Spiro didn't talk much that night.

                Spiro booked Keith van Eron.  At the time he was the goalie for the Baltimore Blast.  I confess I didn't have a lot to say to Keith.   But I do remember rambling out one question:

                "Keith, you're a soccer player, a goalie...  It's your job to have people kicking things at you, often at a high rate of speed.  People kick things at you all day, every day.  Do you ever get a defensive attitude about life?"

                Keith's measured response: "Uhhh, no."

                He turned back to Spiro.  I don't think I asked him anything else.

Kevin Estis talks to Steve Melewski and friend (note: indoor smoking was still OK!)

                 WCVT marked a great period in my life.  Working there touched a lot of us in ways we could never duplicate.  We brought a special kind of music to the people that no one else was doing at the time.  We made friendships that lasted and still continue.  But perhaps the most important thing was that we learned how to run a radio station.  Maybe we were too successful.  The students of Towson unfortunately don't have that opportunity anymore since the station was taken over by paid administrators and the format was changed.  That's OK.  Maybe WCVT was something that had to happen, then had to end.  Times change.  I only wish young men and women today could have the same opportunities I had because it really was a great experience.  Where else could a 20 year old burnout stage a concert with his favorite bands, have thousands of people show up, and then broadcast it live? 

                Or create a blues show or a local band show just because you felt the community needed one?  

                Or goof off on the air and get praised for your originality?

                 It was a blast.  I'll never forget it.

Sue, Barbara, Tara, Roberta, Brice, unknown, John, Ingrid and Teresa

_____________________________________________________________________

Want more?

Click Here: Brice's Letter to the Editor, Towerlight Oct 17th, 1980

Click Here: A City Paper Letter to the Editor, circa 1980

Click Here: My review of a Ramones concert

Click Here: my broadcaster's license (remember those?)

Click Here: Photos from the New York radio convention, 1980

Click Here: A Classic! WCVT air schedule from Fall 1980

Click Here: Original! WCVT personnel list 1979-80