WZBC celebrates 35th anniversary

Tune your radios to 90.3 FM and you'll hear them, broadcasting music from the depths of McElroy, just as they have been doing for the past 35 years. Since 1973, WZBC has been Boston College's only radio station serving the students and the community at large, and it will be celebrating its 35th year with a show this Saturday at T.T. The Bear's Place featuring headliner band No Age, as well as local artists such as Neptune, Big Digits, and The Big Disappointments.

Named one of the top 10 independent radio stations by Rolling Stone in 1990, the station is a nonprofit, student-run organization devoted to featuring alternative, independent, and experimental underground music, often showcasing new or unsigned artists. WZBC, however, didn't start off that way. The station, as WZBC publicity director David DeKeyser, A&S '08, explained, originally was album-oriented, often playing popular adult-rock music.

"It was originally, like, Bruce Springsteen, what you would hear on the other radio stations at the time," DeKeyser said. In 1977, another local radio station began to play punk music, and WZBC followed suit, playing other, more experimental music. Spearheaded by then general manger of the station Herb Scannell, BC '79, the station began playing music that wasn't featured on regular FM stations at the time. Scannell, who later became president of Nickelodeon Networks and vice chairman of Viacom's MTV Networks and is now the CEO of Next New Networks, was instrumental in starting the evolution WZBC.

"From one year to the next, it went from listening to the pop of the time to Velvet Underground and Sex Pistols. Since then, it has shifted in exactly what it plays, but it has always tried to cater to lesser-known underground music," DeKeyser said.

Unlike many other radio stations, WZBC is non-corporate and non-commercial, independent of many of the guidelines that other corporate-owned stations are required to follow. The disc jockeys do not have to follow a set playlist or play artists from any specific label. "We're independent of the hands of the music industry that dictates the commercial stations, and we really look to showcase the unheard artists," said Brian Gruosso, one of the music directors at the station and CSOM '10.

WZBC receives an average of 80 CDs per week from both new and upcoming artists, as well as veteran bands with loyal followers. The station devotes air time every evening to specialty music, as well as a genre dubbed "no commercial potential," a blanket-term used to refuse to a cache of music that isn't recognized elsewhere.

"We decided that because we have been allowed this freedom, we take the opportunity to play some of this music that isn't played on the more commercial stations," DeKeyser said. "They are either unsigned, underground, or under-heard, and we figured we should give them a fair shake on our radio station, too."

While the station is independent from corporate sponsorship, it is affiliated with BC as a student club of about 50 students, advised by Judy Schwartz, a professor in the communication department. However, DeKeyser said this doesn't reduce the independent nature of the station. "I think in the past there had been some tension between the station and school, but we've never been censored or shut down," DeKeyser said.

WZBC depends on the Office of the Dean of Student Development (ODSD) for funding, which is then supplemented every other year through a pledge drive in which the station receives nearly $45,000 in donations. Much of this money comes from alumni and from listeners in surrounding towns.

While the station is centrally located within BC, it can transmit its broadcast as far as Framingham, Mass., broadening its listener base far beyond the BC community. "WZBC is not very well known on the campus, but there is a huge community of people that listen to us, especially in Newton," DeKeyser said.

Gruosso said that while WZBC is a college radio station, it doesn't necessarily seek to serve the general student population exclusively.

"Students are the life-blood of the station; without them, we're not a station anymore.

"But we can't focus all of our attention on campus, because our community goes beyond the BC community," Gruosso said.

The station has seen a jump in the number of listeners since it began streaming its station online, and WZBC is now available on iTunes as one of only 15 universities listed under the genre of college radio stations.

"We're trying to extend our listeners nationwide with the advent of online streaming," DeKeyser said.

While the station has been well received by faithful listeners in local communities, WZBC has remained relatively under the radar on campus in recent years.

"WZBC has always served as its own little niche area because you have a really straightforward, conservative attitude at BC, and this is a place for people who don't necessarily fit into that," DeKeyser said.

The station has remained the voice of underground music since the 1970s, and it continues this tradition through its anniversary celebration concert. WZBC traditionally puts on two smaller events every year, although it is featuring a more well-known band, No Age, at a relatively larger venue in honor of their 35th anniversary.

DeKeyser, who helped organize the event, said the station wanted to continue on its current path as a provider of alternative music in the future, as it has been in the past.

"We hope to continue to provide an independent voice among radio stations for independent artists and also to expand our presence on campus," DeKeyser said. "We just sort of want to keep things going that way."