Radio Free Georgetown: The hippies who ran Georgetown University's WGTB

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Blast from the past. While looking up something for a coworker, I ran across this article. It appeared in the edition of the Washington City Paper edition of twenty years ago today.

WGTB had this show called "Old Howard's Rock and Roll Jukebox." It came on weekday afternoons from 4:00 from 6:00 p.m., give or take. I have several hours of it on open reel tape.

Radio Free Georgetown
The hippies who ran Georgetown University's WGTB plugged the Viet Cong, gay liberation, and abortion rights on the Jesuits' dime. Who did they think they were?

GUY RAZ JAN 29, 1999 12 AM
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As early as 1972, WGTB received national press attention for a promotional contest asking listeners to guess the date and time of Nixon's impeachment. The pitch opened with sound of Adolf Hitler addressing the Reichstag and segued into the presidential march "Ruffles and Feathers."* "To those few responsible people left in Washington..." a voice boomed, asking listeners to send in replies. Members of the Grateful Dead, among others, sent in a postcard. The winner, who came pretty darn close to the actual date of the president's resignation, won a Gerald Ford dart board.
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But WGTB's most significant asset was its regular music programming. While local for-profit station WHFS -- and only that station -- came close to playing similar music, WGTB operated under a totally free-form philosophy, with no commercial support -- which meant no limitations, no playlists, and no industry pressure to broadcast any particular kind of music. "Nobody ever came into the studio saying, 'You can't do that,'" says former DJ David Selvin. "I could play Edith Piaf next to Jimmy Cliff. I would play Judy Collins singing 'Pirate Jenny' next to the Doors."

The station was responsible, in part, for introducing Britain's Canterbury Movement to American audiences, recalls DJ Steven Lorber. Bands like Gentle Giant, Caravan, Gong, and Soft Machine were almost entirely unknown to American radio listeners. "Musically, WGTB was light-years ahead of other stations. I played the Sex Pistols' 'Anarchy in the UK' the week it came out -- they were an unknown band at that time."

"We played an eclectic mix of music with an urban focus," says DJ Mark Gorbulew, who also made his mark on the D.C. music scene. Gorbulew left WHFS in 1971 after a political dispute ("I publicized a rally for the Black Panthers," he says) and landed at WGTB, agreeing to bring his wildly popular radio program, Spiritus Cheese, to the station on a volunteer basis. Spiritus Cheese broadcast nightly out of Copley basement, focusing on black soul, blues, and jazzóbut also on the influence of black artists on white rock. "We would feature an artist -- say, Elvis Presley," recalls Gorbulew. "Then we'd play all the original versions of Elvis songs sung by black people like Muddy Waters or Chuck Berry." Gorbulew, so goes an urban legend, was also the inspiration for Marvelous Mark of Doonesbury (a legend that Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau denies).

WGTB's music programming was influential enough that some contemporary observers believe the station was indirectly responsible for the rise of Richard Branson's Virgin Records. "We were playing the hell out of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells," remembers former Music Director John Paige. During the filming of 1973's The Exorcist on the Georgetown campus the movie's producers liked what they heard coming out of Copley. The eerie sounds on Tubular Bells, they decided, would suit the film perfectly. After The Exorcist proved a success at the box office, Tubular Bells sold 10 million copies. It was one of Virgin's first major releases, the album that catapulted the small company into the big leagues.
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And just as the late-'70s punk movement got under way, WGTB caught on, early enough to out-innovate any other station. Cerph Colwell, then a DJ at WHFS and now a host on WARW, concedes that his station didn't catch on to the rise of punk: "HFS completely missed the boat." ... "From '76 to '79, the music really happened," says DJ Lorber. "It was really a DIY operation." ... "GTB was one of the first stations in the country to play XTC, Pere Ubu, and glam rock," says Paige. So while the station was stripped of its politically radical edge, the music remained adventurous. And slowly, the political stuff crept back.
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For Ken Sleeman, the golden age of GTB lives on through his humble attempt to bring the same kind of music to the folks who live within a few blocks of his home. Evenings, when he's in the mood, he fires up 1080 AM, where an audience he can probably count on one hand can tune in to a few minutes of Aphrodite's Child. The music still sounds thrilling, but remote and nostalgic, less urgent than it did back in its day.

* "Ruffles and Feathers"? I'll bet the writer means "Ruffles and Flourishes."

[50 Shades Of Blue]

1. Thanks! I used to listen...