WWLR goes Indy

Steve Cormier
Special to the Critic

WWLR looks toward playing music that can't be heard on "commercial" stations.

New music, both local and global, faces the challenge of trying to be heard and college radio is up to the task of giving it an audience.

At WWLR, Lyndon State College’s radio station, student disc jockeys and faculty advisors alike are looking towards less mainstream music and more independent tunes to fill the airwaves.

“The role of college radio is not playing anything that’s played on other commercial stations,” said Paul Searls, Indy music director at WWLR and assistant professor in the department of history at LSC.

Nick Phelan, music director at WWLR, agrees with the need to play music that’s not getting playtime anywhere else. “Musicians that live off of crackers and ketchup packets because they aren’t on a major label, that’s the kind of people that we want to play.”

“I got here 4 years ago and it boggled my mind, the musical cowardice that was going on at the station,” said Searls. “People were playing the same things that they heard on all the other stations in the area.”

When Searls came to LSC and WWLR he began looking to create a more diversified music format. “It’s been a slow long haul to really make the station do what college radio’s mission is supposed to be, which is to play the 99.9 percent of music you don’t hear on the commercial stations.”

Phelan says the different students behind the mike with majors ranging from meteorology to television studies and business to environmental studies will help.

“We really like the idea of students coming in and playing whatever they want,” Phelan said. “That’s college radio.”
Looking to the community and playing music from local musicians is also important.

“We’re trying to bring in some local and independent music and getting people into the mood of listening to music that no one’s ever heard of and supporting local bands,” Phelan said.

WWLR is putting on a Fall Music Series through November at LSC with new bands from Vermont and New York to try and get students involved, said Phelan. “Another reason we wanted to do that is because there is nothing to do on a Tuesday night.”

Phelan says WWLR is also looking into the possibility of working with Vermont Public Radio and seeing how that could benefit the station, though any deal is still up in the air. “I think internships would be an awesome get,” Phelan said.