WQAQ
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
WQAQ (98.1 FM) is the student run radio station at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut.
The organization is approved and funded by the Student Government Association and completely run by students, including an elected management staff. Though primarily a "college alternative" format, there are also many hip hop, metal, and talk shows. The station is on the air throughout the school year, 24 hours a day.
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[edit] Antenna Controversy
Prior to the Fall 2006 semester, and allegedly without any notification to the students, WQAQ's broadcast antenna was removed from its location atop the campus student center, forcing the station off-air and putting the station's FCC license in jeopardy.[1] [2]
[edit] Programs and Features
Annually, WQAQ hosts a spring concert (past acts include Minus the Bear, The Bouncing Souls, Say Anything and The Receiving End of Sirens) and an Open Mic Night (a battle of the bands competition, recent winners including Camera Shy Paparazzi and Chris Fredda). Several notable shows include the WQAQ morning show which features the best of all genres played on the station, Political Eruption (a political news talk show), and the Afternoon Drive show begun by Steve Kistner. WQAQ's longest running show is Slacker Radio, a punk music show.
By the initiative of former Program Director Chris Cooper, WQAQ began broadcasting 24 hours a day and updated to digital broadcasting, including internet streaming.
[edit] Catch QaQ
Catch QaQ is primarily a comedy talk show that also features college alternative music. The show was hosted by Jack O'Brien and John Radzinski and featured Rob Guerrera, and several other WQAQ guest hosts.
The Beginning The show in its infancy started out in 2003 as the cult favorite "Jack and John at the Crack of Dawn," and was on every Sunday morning (late late Saturday) from 4 a.m. - 8 a.m. A semester later, Jack and John added Rob Guerrera to the show and moved to Sunday (6 p.m. - 8 p.m.) nights, to become Sunday Night Live. In its second year, the show finally became "Catch QaQ", a play on words of the book Catch-22. During its second year the show started weekly bits, including the infamous "blast off;" a segment of the show in which each host has a prepared 2-3 minute rant regarding anything on their mind.
Segments In its third year Catch QaQ found itself back with original two hosts, Jack and John, as Rob left the show to co-host a purely sports show. The show continued on and added even more segments, including:
- Interviews with bastard actor and Catch QaQ legend Orson Welles
- Painting of the Week: Jack and John thought there was not enough visual in an audio dominated radio field. In the segment the hosts create and talk about an imaginary painting from a hallowed book found in the Arnold Bernard Library and its significance to the world of art. Normally the bit drifted toward talk of something being phallic in the imaginary painting.
- Babies of the 80's: a segment created by former host Rob, in which the hosts ask trivia about clips from 80's television shows
- Hall's "missed the" mark: A direct complaint to the University Newspaper's (QU Chronicle) "political" cartoon drawn by Nancy Hall. The Cartoon was poorly drawn and was barely unique, biting, or funny and extremely predictable. In fact during music breaks Jack and John drew their own Hall's Mark Cartoon mocking the real one and posted it on the studio walls.
- CD of the Week
- Weekly Weather reports: A 'different interpretation' to normal weather reports. The hosts, who often invited anyone who was in the lobby to join in, screamed out the weather report as loud and obnoxiously as they could to the tune of Stone Cold Steve Austin's introduction.
- Weekly Blast-offs: The rants are the most listened to portion of the show. In the past, blast offs have ranged in topic from the price of bottles of water and vending machine selection (lack there of), to George Bush, Roommates, and Republicans in general. At the end of each semester the hosts have an Ultimate Blast off, which is a longer swear-laden oral assault on anything.
- because college radio is so lucrative, Jack and John needed to add more money, so they added sponsors, Cheetos, Dominos pizza, and more.
The Final Episode For the final taping of the show, Jack appeared nearly naked, taking off an article of clothing each break. Meanwhile John and Rob were adorned in fancy attire for the event. The hosts relived the last four years and did one final Blast off. Jack ranted about his feelings, saying, "why should I feel sad about leaving this place (Quinnipiac)?," and ended by saying that there is no place as superficial as Quinnipiac. Then he quickly remembered that he was moving to New York City.
Rob "blasted" about life after school (he graduated after the fall 2006 semester) and stated, "Health insurance, life insurance, car payment...everything, under the sun becomes yours." And in classic Rob anger said, "once you leave school no one gives a crap. Oh you were the president of the school? GREAT. Get in line. Oh you were head of the Spanish club? Adios muchacho. You were head of TKE? Get the hell out of my office!"
John ended the parade of cynicism and sarcasm by thanking everyone at WQAQ and other personal friends for all their help and support. He also made sure to mention specifically "Rico-gate," a favorite target of John's when a student fell off a balcony and died playing a drinking game from his third floor dorm.
The show ended with the three saying, "this is (Jack) (John) and (Rob) and we're signing off." Then played "always look on the bright side of life" by The Monty Python and "Exitude" by The Killers.
[edit] Slacker Radio
Slacker Radio is a punk rock format radio show. It has aired every semester beginning in the fall of semester 1999 and continues to the present, airing at varying times over the years.
The show was begun in 1999 by Chris Fredda, a freshman at Quinnipiac University. Featuring mostly underground and local punk and ska acts, the show was a specialty amongst the mostly college alternative programming. As more punk acts broke into the mainstream and the student body diversified, Slacker Radio's popularity grew and became a centerpiece of WQAQ's expanded rotation of punk music. Due to its notoriety and lack of commercial competition in the New Haven area, Slacker Radio was often able to get exclusive interviews and IDs from up-and-coming artists such as Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, The Used, Midtown, and Allister.
During the four years that Chris Fredda hosted Slacker Radio, there were many recurring features to the show. At the bottom of every hour, a cover song would be played in a segment known as "Cover Up Your Bottom", loosely modeled on WHTG-FM's old "Pull Up the Covers" morning show segment. "Punk Rock Academy" was a segment titled after an Atom and His Package song that would educate listeners as to the history and progression of the genre by playing older artists with a historical introduction, followed by artists who were directly influenced by them. The show would also often feature a segment in which a popular punk song would be played and callers would be asked to identify the older, lesser known song that it was ripped off from. Each show would also normally feature an acoustic block with mostly folk-punk songs or acoustic versions of punk and ska songs. Annually, Slacker Radio would do one all acoustic show.
As its popularity increased, Slacker Radio became the centerpiece of the "Thursday Fourplay", a block of four of the best shows WQAQ had to offer, featuring "Sex with the Iceman", "Airhead Radio" with Justin Weiner, "Scooby's Doobie" with Sarah Papsun, and "Slacker Radio". During this time, the hosts of the four shows would often make appearances on each other's shows.
During 2001-2002, Slacker Radio aired twice a week with occasional co-host Justin Weiner, drummer from Massachusetts punk band Ridgemont High. In addition to its normal 2 hour afternoon show, "Slacker Radio Overnight" would air in a special 4 hour edition from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. This time slot allowed more variety and experimentation. Whereas the afternoon show attempted to showcase new releases, the overnight often did retrospectives of older artists or older classics from popular artists. The overnight show would also often extend outside of the normal format and include more college alternative and cross-over artists.
Chris Fredda's final year as host saw Slacker Radio reach its peak success as punk rock had become a major portion of WQAQ's college alternative rotation and punk shows had become a daily feature from noon until 4 as well as in many of the overnight and weekend spots. One of these daily punk shows, "Gym Class Heroes" featured co-host Andy Yaworski who's musical taste as well as knowledge led Chris Fredda to offer him the host spot on Slacker Radio.
Since taking over as host, Andy Yaworski has seen Slacker Radio begin streaming on the internet and has continued to debut the latest music from new and rising artists as well as staples of the punk rock scene.
[edit] The Political Eruption
The Political Eruption is a weekly, hour long political talk program. The format of the show normally consists of 4 segments interrupted by brief Public Service Announcements, promos, and news updates. Each segment consists of a different topic or news story that is then debated by the hosts. The show has always had two hosts, usually one representing a more progressive viewpoint and one a more conservative viewpoint.
The longest consecutive host was Chris Fredda (progressive) though other notable co-hosts include Eric Mansur (conservative). In 2001, Chris and Eric broadcast live during the attacks of September 11th, providing news updates without political commentary. Many shows that year then concerned the War on Terror and the aftermath of those terrorist attacks.
[edit] Scooby's Doobie
Scooby's Doobie was a weekly college alternative format radio show. It was started in 1999 by Dave Carlson and Sarah Papsun, though Sarah hosted alone beginning in 2000. Scooby's Doobie was at one time part of the "Thursday Fourplay" block of programming and often featured Chris Fredda of Slacker Radio as a guest co-host and sometimes fill-in host.
[edit] Notable Former Staff
A number of former WQAQ staffers have gone on to careers in commercial radio and entertainment:
- Thomas J. Kelly III 1998- Former DJ - Stand Up Comic & Host of This Show Again podcast and star of Little Merman.comand creator of IHateWeddings.com
- Justin Louis - Former Production Director, DJ - WJLK-FM, "94.3 The Point", Monmouth/Ocean, NJ
- "Little" John Principale - Former APD/MD, DJ - CBS Radio
- Ryan Jones - Former Music Director, DJ - WTIC-FM, Hartford, CT
- Drew Carrano - Former DJ - WPLR-FM/WYBC-FM, New Haven, CT
- Rob Guerrera - Former DJ - Mike & Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio, Bristol, CT
- Theo Keetell - Former Music Director/DJ - Sony Music/Columbia Records Radio Promotion, College Marketing. Currently Marketing Director, PUMA North America
- Jack O'Brien - Former Production Manager & DJ - Audience Liaison, The Late Show with David Letterman, New York City, NY.
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[edit] Motto and Mascot
The station motto is "The Soundtrack of Quinnipiac" and the mascot of the station is a duck, owing to the call letters QAQ ("quack").
The station has recently taken on another motto in 2005, "WQAQ: From the Underground Up."
[edit] External links
- WQAQ official website
- Query the FCC's FM station database for WQAQ
- Radio Locator information on WQAQ
- Query Arbitron's FM station database for WQAQ
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