My Time At WMPG, Portland Maine. A Brief Recollection.




I arrived in Portland as a refugee from the Boston area in 1989, in search of greener worlds, better natural environments. Maine does have gorgeous coastlines, woods and mountain access. There are also several good community radio stations, including WERU in Blue Hill to the north (or Down East, as they say) and Portland's WMPG, the station of the University of Southern Maine. In early 1990 I approached WMPG about doing a show of experimental and "progressive" music and fairly quickly was given a show, I think an 11PM to 2AM slot, when the studios were still in the Student Union building out in Gorham.

My show followed The Dads, whose Dad's New Slacks was the most outlandish and experimental show at the time. We became pretty good friends, the Dads Townsend and Pajack and I (Bert wasn't available), and our shows sometimes bled into one anothers if I recall correctly. When my show morphed and moved to another time, we continued to collaborate. Michael Townsend was particularly encouraging of my approach to radio and we worked on numerous projects together in the 4 short years I lived in the area. Portland is lucky to have Michael there as an ongoing creative force and living history book. I particularly recall how much Michael contributed to the re-writing of the station bylaws and constitution (around 1991), when there was considerable friction growing between staff and volunteer programmers over how the place should be run.

I hosted a program called The Plagiarist for 2-3 years. I would play records for the first hour (a sub-show I called World Receiver) and then slide into sound collage for the 2nd hour. Usually I would create a backing tape of sample sound environments during the week and begin the collage using that, then mixing in found sources at the station: multiple looping CD players (AB repeat function) and recording the lot on the Otari reel deck used also for echo effects. After about a half hour I would usually flip the reel tape and play that first half-hour backwards into further mixing. I really enjoyed the show, felt generally inspired much of the time and had some great visitors on air, including Leo Loginov, the Russian pianist who I went to Moscow with later in 1992 and who was part of The Plagiarist Trio which performed at the New Music Across America Festival at Portland Performing Arts that same year. We made an LP of that concert and recordings from Russia but by now most of those records are lost, destroyed and otherwise dispersed. I hope WMPG has one. Jeff Plansker also visited via phone link and in person for some crazy nights of absurd radio antics. There is a 7" record we made called Louisiana Cookin that gives a picture of some of that, copies are still available! Phil Stewart, who commanded a show on Russian and Eastern European rock, was also involved with a lot of the edgier activities at WMPG. We made a radio coloring book as a fund raiser gift. Michael and Ron Welch (the Radio Poet, who now lives in Spain) began a series of shows focusing on the 4 elements, the first and perhaps only one we did being on AIR, where we ran an amplified fishing line out the window and across the street which truly amplified the sound of wind. Michael and I were invited up to Bowdoin College by Paul Miller (aka DJ Spooky, then a student at Bowdoin) to perform electronic music with video to a small but friendly audience. There was another show or 2 in which we sampled Spanish absinthe prior to programming, there were jam sessions in the basement during lightning storms. There was a leaflet-publication we made called Panic Boredom which commented sarcastically on various management schemes we disagreed with. The station was a beautiful haven for fun, experimental activity and I hope it has stayed that way to some extent and does so forever. I packed my bags and went to Russia in October of 1992 for 2 months after which I moved to California.

(Photo found on a flicker page via Google search for WMPG and used without permission. I hope photographer doesn't mind...)