And welcome back to 35000 Watts, the podcast. My name is Michael Millard. I’m the director of 35,000 Watts, the story of college radio, a feature documentary about our favorite subject, college radio. And this episode is the very first in a series of episodes where my co host Lisa will interview college radio alumni. Today, we have a special guest, Mark Arot from WRFT.
Thanks for joining us, Mark. Thanks, Lisa. Great to be here. Looking forward to this. Yeah.
So tell us your story. I, you know, I went to Temple University from a high school in Philadelphia. Me and my best friend, decided to go to Temple University Ambler campus, which is a satellite campus of the main campus. We decided through a mutual friend of ours who was already involved to join the college radio station at that time, WRFT. It was just really free form, really small, the the main campus of Temple had a big world renowned jazz station, and students couldn’t get a touch of working and having on air shifts at that station.
So the Ambler campus had this little tiny radio station where people who majored in communications, radio, television, film would have a place to go and get a get an airship. It was all volunteer run, no budget, had to fundraise everything. Just it’s basically a converted closet. So there’s something really unique about that station that you shared with me in the past. It was a really small station.
It was 5 watts when I first joined. It was a carrier current, which I couldn’t believe your documentary even got into that topic. But, it’s basically we were hardwired into the cafeterias on campus and the dorm, and, then we bumped up to 20 watts, which was all that coverage of maybe a mile around campus. We were small. You know, sometimes I was doing that show, I was wondering if anyone was listening.
We were a real small station. And I was music director of the station in the late eighties. We believe we were one of the first stations to play the dead milkman and have the dead milk that big guy. Yep. They they they were Philadelphia based, and they were just trying to get their music heard anywhere and everywhere.
My, best friend John, who I talked about before, he somehow got a hold of their music, their Big Lizard in our Backyard album. We we just played it to death, and my my friend John reached out to them, brought him on to our show. Him and I did a show together first at my first couple years of college. And I know we have them on. They, signed albums, hung out in radio show all day.
Later that year, our station had the responsibility of running the annual talent show on campus. We had a, you know, local, you know, all people any Temple student could perform and be part of it. We used to have local celebrity judges. And I believe later that year, we invited the dead milkman to be judges. I’m not sure if it was all of them, some of them, or else.
The Iran. That was a long time ago, but we firmly believe we started the main event. That’s awesome. So what’s your favorite dead milkman song? Well, it’s got me pitchin’ Camaro.
That that’s the one that took root, you know, at our station and got everyone totally into them. And they are such a great example of college radio music. Oh, yeah. For sure. They’re out there.
They’re fun. For you, they were the local aspect, which is one thing that we love to talk about for college radio is giving those local bands exposure. And, you know, they had out their lyrics. They had out their musicality. So what a great example and what a fun experience you got to have with them.
There there was also and this just hit me. There was also a gentleman who was on our radio station, he kind of trained me, he was graduating as I was coming in, a guy named Frank Brown. He, basically was in a band called Flight of Mavis. I don’t know if you heard of them. They’re more famous locally.
They they have a little bit of college radio success, but, he was part of our station as well. We see a lot of that in this college radio, journey we’ve been on, you know, bands that get their members on the station or members that go on to make bands and be successful. You did that. Right? Yeah.
I, you know, had a latent ability to play. After I graduated, and stopped WRFT, there’s a big hole in my life. You’re watching your documentary and listening to your first two podcasts, you you didn’t realize you were onto something good until after you left. And after I left, there was just a big hole in my life, not having that music, that camaraderie, so I just decided to pick up a musical instrument because that that whole 5 years of college radio just inspired me to do that. Seeing live shows, seeing bands, meeting people in bands, it was it just inspired me to do that.
I started playing keyboard and piano and realized I was picking up by ear the bass notes. And a couple of my buddies, you know, played guitar as hobbyists, and I just bought a bass and just started doing that. My wife, who we were dating at the time, her best friend’s brother was a singer songwriter and just broke up with his band. And she kind of nudged us together, and him and I have been playing music together for the last 30 plus years. It’s a band called Don McAvoy and a great whatever, dmcgw.com for the cheap plug.
But, yeah. Just play all original musics, and I just lay bass lines down to his original songs. Got a YouTube page, Facebook page, and all that, but, semi famous locally. Comes and goes. So, yeah, you mentioned that you listened to the first two episodes in the podcast, and I’m sure that you remember that my experience was like that too in that after I left my college radio station, KTXT, I felt like I had a hole in my life.
And one of the things I remember so greatly was like, god, I could have done so much more. I wish I would have done more. So going back to your time at WRFT, tell me what you thought you would have changed or wouldn’t have changed. I I don’t know. I was making up as I go along.
I was just a just a young kid. I mean, I was there from 85 to 90. You know, I want in, and I was kind of a shy, reserved kid. I was starting to come out of my shell in high school, so I thought being part of the radio station would help with my public speaking and my organization skills and making new friends. And the cool thing about that station was we had every different major in that college join the radio station.
It was communications majors. I was a landscape design major and horticulture major, and then I converted to business administration. There’s 1 guy in radio station who became a a doctor and runs a hospital in the Philadelphia suburbs. And just an amazing mix of people with an amazing mix of musical taste. I mean, my only regret is that, I didn’t stay there longer and start earlier.
I mean Yeah. Just it it was like we’re like kids in a candy store. We get all these records for free as long as we reported it to CMJ. You know, that led to if we’re reporting stuff to CMJ, whenever that band would come in the town, they would give us tickets, and we go see shows for free at all the great local venues. And it was just It was magical.
Wasn’t it? It was just magical. It’s, it’s amazing. I had time for my schoolwork and part time job in my life doing all that radio station activity, my show, behind the scenes stuff. We were making radio dramas at the time.
Oh, tell me more about that. My friend John, who I joined the station with, he he wrote an Hey. Hey. It’s my favorite dog. Science fiction series.
Doing today, Spot? Called Kilo De So to and the piece of paper. We have to go. You’re gonna be late for your class. Take Spot with you.
Anybody from the radio station that we could to go to college. And we’ve had the last making. You and Spot have to be real careful now, mister Bill. Mister Bill goes to Simple Ambler. Because we’re about to cross Meeting House Road.
Wait. Stop. Come back, Scott. Watch out for that car. Oh, no.
Why? Why? Why? Why, why? Why, why?
Why? Why? Boy, mister Bill. That car must have been doing about 60 miles an hour. Yeah.
Somebody should do something about those speeders. Now do you have any of that in your amazing archives? That was kind of a pandemic project for me. Yeah. I I realized, you know, at at the time, I just decided to start recording my radio show.
I thought W RFP Hamburg, it’d be great at 4:40 AM. Hello. Hope you’re Mark’s. Hi. I’m your host, Mark.
I’ll morning. Morning. Hello. Welcome to Mark’s Molly. My cohost Mark.
I’ll be on Zoom Talk this afternoon. And today is a very special day, of course. It’s Valentine’s Day and Mark’s Molly Shack today. We’ve transformed into the Lowe’s network. That’s right.
Every song in your day will be my alternative art. And the love will appear somewhere in its title. So it should be a lot of fun today. Also please remember 11 o’clock, mister Bill Goes to Temple Ambler. That’ll be the last time you’ll hear it on my show before the regular radio drama start up next week.
Also before we begin, I’d like to thank everybody who showed up to our WRFT alternative dance last Thursday night. It wasn’t really that crowded. About 20 people showed up, but all those people had fun and they were all receptive to the new music and alternative music that we play because that’s what we do here at college radio and that’s what college radio is all about, opening your minds to new music. And speaking of opening your minds to new music and continuing with our little love theme here on Mark’s Melody Shack Love Network, here’s a song by a gentleman named Otis Ball. He is, good friends with the group, They Might Be Giants, and here’s the title track of his album, I’m gonna love you till I don’t.
Right here on the Melody Shack, WRFT Ambler Campus Radio 5:40 AM. 2020 came, and I realized, I don’t know if these tapes are gonna last much longer. I better do something about it. So as I found a local guy, it cost me, like, $600 to do it. Dang.
Yeah. It was worth every penny. Totally. Digitize them all, classify them all. You know, I I wrote individual write ups, playlists for each episode, posted them.
Project. Pandemic. Again, you know, at the time Yeah. I was at home. Work wasn’t busy.
Just needed something to do. Well, that’s been one of the challenges of putting the film together was finding people like you that have amazing archives and have taken the time to already digitize it. You know, we were asking for content from the film from the very get go because, you know, people like us just have old cassette tapes living in our basement somewhere. Have we digitized them? No.
Could I even find mine? Maybe. You know? So thank you so much for sharing all that amazing content and the work that you put into it with your cataloging. I feel like you’re one of the people that I could reach out to and go, hey.
What were you doing about this song in 1986? And you would have a story behind it. You know? Or you would have a reference point to go to. So thank you so much for being such a huge supporter of the film from the very get go and, you know, staying with us through the 2 or 3 years it took us to actually get it produced.
And here we are doing the podcast, and I’m just thrilled to have you on our episode today. So how did you find out about our Kickstarter project and when we launched in 2022? You found me. I think I did. Okay.
Found me. I I had posted all the the show up to something called the Internet archive, archive archive.org. Just search Mark’s Melody Shack, and you can find it. And I don’t know. One day, I’m on my Facebook feed.
This thing from 35000 watts pops up. You wrote it, and I I don’t know if you found it on Temple’s website because I may have shared it with Temple as well, my archive. And then you you had a clip of my show. You you Yeah. Write up about it, and then you you found me, and then we started talking, and that was that.
So you had mentioned when you were going to college, you originally were a landscape architect major, and then you switched to business administration. Did your time in college radio maybe helped make that decision? Why the switch? And what from college radio helped you succeed in your career and where you’re at now? The landscape design degree was only an associate’s program at Temple at the time, and, you know, I guess I wasn’t gonna make a living with an associate’s degree.
And I wanted to stay I like the campus, and I wanted to stay longer. I love the radio station. I didn’t wanna leave it. And I figured, you know what? Everything in life is a business, so I decided to pursue my bachelor’s in business.
My dad used to get on me, you went to college for 5 years. I’m like, yeah. But I got 6 years’ worth of degrees. Got associates and a bachelor’s in 5 years. So, but the radio station was a common thread through all of that, and it definitely helped make me a better speaker, more sociable, able to make friends, able to live off the cuff a little bit, and do more with less, which is the business mantra of today.
And what did you end up doing? What was your career? Well, I I after I graduated, I worked for a landscape architect and land planner. But then I met my wife. We bought a house, got engaged, and I wasn’t making much money there.
So I totally flipped to construction project management. I, worked for an outfit that renovate I went to an outfit that renovated banks and sold bank equipment, worked there for a few years. Then I got into windows and exterior facades. I worked for 1 company for, like, 4 years. And then the company I just stopped working for, I got laid off.
I worked for them for 23a half years. I was basically a project man project manager in charge of all the projects and client contact and, you know, paperwork and all that. But, definitely, college radio helped me come out of my shell and be more of a people person, which was tough for me to do if you knew me when I was younger. And now you’re like this playing in a band and, you know, the successful career project management. Well, that is just awesome, and yay for you.
Thank you so much for sharing that. How do you feel that your college ready experience contributed to the community? You’re talking about the small 5 watts, 10 watts carrier current station, but how it had to have reached somebody. Oh, people love that talent show we put on every year. That that was a big thing on campus.
People stroll into the station, make requests, call the station now and then. But, you know, most of us we we have all different kinds of shows. Most of us were doing eighties alternative underground stuff, but there are still classic rock shows, blues shows, pop shows, top 40 shows, all that. You know, people walk in this we we played anything. If anyone requested a song, we played it regardless of your format, which was kind of funny if someone’s doing a blues show and somebody comes in requesting, like, a dance song, it made for some funny moments.
But, yeah, some people were paying attention, and, you know, they kinda dug what we were doing. But at the time, eighties commercial radio, you know, all it was was Madonna, Michael Jackson, Phil Collins. And here you are breaking bands like the Dead Milkman. Yep. That’s so cool.
Yeah. But, you know, at the time, you know, no big deal. But looking back, 30 years from now, it was pretty huge. You were one of our first supporters of the Kickstarter. Thank you sincerely so much for your support in that project.
As an early supporter of the Kickstarter, you had early access to the film when we were getting ready to release it, and I believe you watched it. You were probably one of the first views with some feedback. So tell me, what’d you think of the film? Like I said to my email to you and Mike when it happened, I I my biggest take was I felt less alone. At at the time, I’m sitting in that little closet of a station in that little small campus, and I’m wondering if anyone’s listening, if anyone cared about the songs that we were playing at all.
I mean, my last show, my I basically dedicated it to, you know, that one person who may have been listening. You know, if I changed your opinion or turned you on to some new music, then my 5 years was worth it. Yeah. I just and then hearing all the stories, seeing all the pictures, and people with the same stories, it’s like, wow. We you know what?
Looking back, we were onto something huge, but I don’t think most of us knew it then. Most of us did not know. Most of us are probably thinking, what the hell are we doing with our lives? I I told people, you know, I majored in business, but I minored in college radio. I would have never graduated or survived without that station.
The music in that station saved my life. There there’s just no doubt about that. No way I would have graduated without the station in my life. Not a chance. I think that is a really good takeaway, and I bet if you asked a lot of us college radio alums, they’d say the same thing.
Like, I know I’ve told Mike before, and I think I mentioned it in one of our podcast episodes. Like, you know, you go to college and there’s the Greek system and they’re they’re the Greeks and the freaks. Right? And I was not a Greek person by any means. And, you know, my experience in college radio became what people might experience in the Greek organization or some you know, on a sports team or something like that.
It was like its own club or its own intramural or its own, you know, organization. I was also in a music program. I was a music ed major my 1st year in college, and I had a really tight knit community from the marching band. I went to, I grew up in my college hometown, Lubbock, Texas, and so I knew all of the marching band people all the way going back to junior high. And so I was hoping to go into college and be a music ed major, and, you know, I had this great tight knit community that I had been developing since I was, you know, 12, 13 years old from middle school and on.
And I got there, and it was great and all, but at some point, I had this epiphany where I didn’t wanna play music on my clarinet anymore. I wanted to play music on the radio. You know? And I had been bitten by the radio bug. Like, in junior high, there was a a rock station that had a really great morning team.
And the morning team came to our high school one day to do a live remote, and it was like, you know, the gods were in the building, you know, kinda thing. And, at that point, I’d always had radio in the back of my mind, but then I really got into music and, like, pop music, but, like, alternative music, not the Madonna’s and the Whitney Houston’s of the time. And, yeah, so I actually took a job with an local entertainment guide, which led me into the radio station. And my doors were open. My mind was blown, and it was like, I love the way that you said that you majored in college radio because that’s kinda well, you said minor, but I would say major.
Majored in college radio. That’s great. Fine fine line between the 2. Yeah. Yeah.
Exactly. But I yeah. I guess minoring in college radio sounds a lot better than minoring in Latin, which is what I minored in. And then I I put serious thought into to going into that field after I graduated, but, you know, because and a couple of the my radio station, companions actually did and are still in some aspects of radio. That’s awesome.
But I thought about it. I just I didn’t think the low pay and the vagabond lifestyle was for me, so I just decided to explore music in other ways. But I I still make I still make for a couple of my close friends. I started this in the early 2000. I make them a mix CD of all the cool songs I used to play and all the cost cool songs I’m listening to now.
Of course, it’s stuff nobody’s ever heard of. But a few of my close friends, I still make a variety disc every year. But that’s one of the things I wanted to ask you Yeah. Is even as a former music director, you’ve gotta have a penchant for music. Yes.
You know, not popular music. We’ll just say that. So how do you find your new music today? It’s there if you look for it. I wish I had more time to to listen to offbeat stations, but right now, it’s just so fragmented.
Everything is everywhere. You know, I don’t even know where to get it anymore. I’m just so overwhelmed by the sources of it. You know, I I just hold on word-of-mouth with some of my friends. I mean, all of our radio station folks, we we have a a Facebook page, little private Facebook group.
Sometimes we run into each other at concerts. Sometimes we intentionally get together to see concerts. And then those folks, you know, kinda say, hey. This is a great band. You should listen to that.
Yeah. A lot of word-of-mouth gets me involved in new music. But you’re still involved in that community that you built, you know, 34 years ago or however long. Yeah. That’s great.
I mean, I can’t wait to share this podcast with them. They’re gonna love it. When you were at WRFT, did you ever have any issues come up where, you know, there was a conflict or some tension between students? No. Maybe staff of the station, administration, anything like that?
Within the station, no. We we were a team. We were a club. You know, if anyone anyone outside the organization did something to one of us, you know, we’d all rally from each other. So within, there there is no tension at all.
The the people who ran the campus, the administration, yeah, we had some conflict with them because they didn’t know we existed. You know, it was we’re kinda like the movie Office Space, you know. Hey. It’ll be great if you moved over there in that closet and we took your stapler. That’d be great.
That’s why the administration treated us. So anything we want, we have to fundraise ourselves or find ourselves. We weren’t getting any help from administration at all. They they had their darlings that that they funded and supported. Radio station was an afterthought.
So, yeah, eventually, the the radio station got closed down. I don’t remember what year it was. Maybe 10, 15 years ago, finally vanished from the campus. When you were there, you started at 5 watts and bumped up to 10? 20.
Okay. So how did that happen? I don’t know. We I was so far removed from the engineering side of it. I have no idea.
I mean, I know they had some outside consultant, some some kid who probably did it on a spare time. But, you know, I I joked and said I I was doing an eighties college radio show on equipment from the fifties, sixties, seventies. Yeah. Held together held together with duct tape, chewing gum, and spit. Yep.
That’s how KTXT ran too. Yep. Yeah. But you guys had 35,000 watts. My my life might might have been different if I was broadcasting that kind of signal strength.
Well, if I remember correctly, it was because, you know, Lubbock is a very wide open plane, and we got to share the tower with the local PBS TV station. So if it wouldn’t have been for that, who knows? Yeah. I don’t think I don’t think we could increase wattages if we wanted to because there’s that’s still Philadelphia area. It was the 4th 4th biggest radio market at the time.
So I’m sure at the time. So I’m sure that if if we boosted, we would interfere with some relevant stations. FCC like that too much. Let me wrap it up with this last question. If you could go back and change anything, would you?
Not at all. Not at all. I mean, listening to the listening listening to my old archives was the closest I ever got to time travel. Oh, I love that. Yeah.
Now it makes me wanna go back and find mine. Yeah. I wanna change a thing. I think it was meant to happen the way it happened. I’m not one of those people who, you know, regret decisions I make.
Yeah. It it is meant to happen the way it happened. So no no good news. I’m gonna throw you one more. Okay.
What do you have to tell the current college radio station jockeys and student staff of today? Keep going. Do it. Love it. Enjoy every last second of it.
Just live in the moment. Don’t worry about then. Don’t worry about what’s don’t worry about the past. Don’t worry about what’s in the future. It’s a waste of time, and and live in the present and enjoy it now.
Live it to every second. Well, thank you, Mark. It has been fascinating chatting with you. I’m so glad that we finally got to talk, in sort of real life on this podcast. Remind everyone of your website and your current band.
Our current band’s Don McAvoy and the great whatever, www.dmcgw.com. My old radio show archive, gw.com. My old radio show archive is on archive.org. It’s a site called the Internet Archive. And just in our search bar, just type in Mark’s Melody Shack, and you’ll see hours m a r c.
Right? M a r c. Thank you. And don’t forget, you can always, catch the film yourself at 35,000 watts.com. You can download the film there.
Leave us some podcast feedback if you want. Do you have a great story to share? We wanna hear it. And you can find us on all the socials, 35,000 watts. We are on Facebook, Instagram, and now TikTok, and all of our podcasts are on YouTube as well.
So thanks for joining us today, and as we always say in college radio, keep it locked to the left. We’ll see you on the next episode.