One of these days I will conclude my Spinning Indie 50 State Tour, in which I profile college radio stations in every state in the country. The 17 college radio stations that I’ve featured thus far include stations in Arkansas, Wisconsin, Kansas, Louisiana, Alaska, North Dakota, Nevada, West Virginia, Kentucky, Minnesota, Montana, California, Nebraska, Idaho, Tennessee, South Carolina, and the latest stop – Virginia.
In my most recent station profile I delve into the 55-year history of University of Virginia station WTJU and learn some amazing tidbits from WTJU General Manager Nathan Moore. In addition to sharing with me details about some of the indie rock celebrities who passed through the station in the 1990s, he also told me about some of the crazy antics at the station in the 1980s. According to Moore, “In 1970, WTJU was still a virtually all classical station. It was also all male – UVA didn’t accept women (except to the Nursing school) until Fall 1970…By 1980…It was a wild, sometimes anarchic place with rock, jazz, classical, and a few folk shows. The Rock Director had to remind DJs to not smoke pot in the studio. She had to put a stop to a DJ doing lines off one of the turntables.”
Things have calmed down considerable since the 1980s, and WTJU’s schedule features a wide range of music and public affairs programming.
View the complete article and interview on Spinning Indie.
