WEQX 40th Anniversary – Jeff Mo’rad – Xperience History

WEQX 40th Anniversary – Jeff Mo’rad – An Xperience History – by Rob Smittix.

RRX: So today is gonna be unique. My car is in the shop so it’ll be the first time I ever done an interview on public transportation. The bus should be showing up any second.

JM: Well, that’s good. I feel like we’re doing our part and reducing our carbon footprint. We’re doing an interview on a bus first ever for me.

RRX:. I mean, why take an Uber? These buses are way cheaper?

JM: Yeah, I think I might still have some some bus pass credit on my phone. You want me to send that to you? I’ll pay for your bus ride this morning!

RRX: Yeah, definitely. So, how’s it going, man?

JM: Super well. Just listening to some music, preparing for the next Jam and Toast show. It’s beautiful out!

RRX: Yes, it is. Yeah, you can’t complain right now in the Northeast.

JM: No, not at all. I’m a fan of winter though. What about you?

RRX: Not at all, but you’re in Vermont though and I mean… I think there’s a little bit of a difference there with winter enthusiasm.

JM: Yes, we tend to be able to have a little more fun in the snow as opposed to just using it as a city wide trash can.

RRX: Exactly. Oh, the bus is pulling up. This is gonna be fun.

JM: This is unique. I like it.

RRX: OK. Alright. Now it’s official. Now we’re officially riding. Yes. This might be the first CDTA interview ever.

JM: It’s like comedians in cars getting coffees, but it’s DJ s on a bus doing interviews.

RRX: I actually wrote a song and there’s a music video for it on Youtube. Look up Rob Smittix the song’s called “F**k This, I’ll Never Take The Bus Again” I wrote that back in like 2005. So, I guess my premonitions are not accurate.

JM: You’re gonna need a follow up single. “Dammit. I Had to Take the F**king Bus Again.”

RRX: Oh my God, I really should. Right? But… we were talking about the weather and the snow and how you have more fun with it in Vermont than us here in the urban areas of the Capital Region.

JM: I mean, when it’s in your backyard it makes it a lot easier because there’s nothing worse than getting off the slopes, loading into your car and sitting in your car for an hour and a half. Then you get out and your legs are stiff as hell and you can’t even make it inside your house.

RRX: It’s crazy because I’ve never skied. Not once in my entire life but I’ve been to almost all of the ski resorts with one of your colleagues, Jason Keller. We would do live-remote broadcasts from ski resorts back when we used to work at 103.5/103.9 WQBK/J The Edge together.

JM: The two least likely people to find on skis, who have visited more ski resorts than anybody else. I love it.

RRX: I’m not gonna talk too much about Keller but, him and I started at The Edge on the exact same day back in 1996. Keller, I still consider a friend and he is still is one of my references on my resume. What I’m looking forward to is we will be reaching out to him soon to let him know that we will be honoring Keller at the 2024 Listen Up Awards with a Hero Award. This is for his contributions in our music scene.

JM: Yeah. Well, you can’t do much better for a friend than Jason Keller. That’s for sure. How fantastic and very well deserved. I love knowing that and I’ll keep my big mouth shut.

RRX: So, besides that, I see that EQX just celebrated it’s 39th birthday.

JM: November 14th, 1984. The station first flipped on t 10:27am with our first song ever being a disco song. We were, adult contemporary at the time.

RRX: No kidding. I did not realize that.

JM: Yeah. Not for long at all, it kind of turned a little AAA from there and then in the early nineties switched to the alternative format.

RRX: See, that’s when I think the popularity really started growing or maybe I was just at the age where I needed to find myself a station. EQX has been a favorite of mine forever. I’ve always had so much respect for EQX and you guys are still out there doing it. We’re independent too at Radioradiox. I feel like us independents are really doing more than a lot of these big commercial corporations these days. We’re doing more presentations, we’re putting on more concerts, we are doing more sponsorships. I don’t know where the curve shifted but it seems like somehow it has and I’m down with that.

JM: Well, I think that the corporate radio stations don’t have the staff to be able to cover anything or at least the staff that’s willing to put in the hours. I think they just require too much money instead of supporting something and getting it on the air and helping it grow and build. You know? When it’s just about the money that just mucks everything up.

RRX: I agree with that. Brooks was a cool cat, he started EQX, right?

JM: Brooks Brown, who unfortunately passed away about 10 years ago started the work on this place four or five years before it ever went on the air.
As far as just buying the house, he put an addition on to it, turned all the bedrooms into studios and offices, we’ve got a downstairs space where sales people used to have their cubicles but everyone works from home or the road now. So we turn that into what we call studio BB in honor of Brooks Brown and that’s where we’ll have bands come in and and perform house sessions. Although we’ve partnered up with Caffe Lena recently and have been doing them over there.
So we’ve been enjoying doing that. But yeah Brooks… He found out who had the phone number that ended in 1027, got in touch with them and bought that number. He made sure that our PO Box is 1027. The most impressive thing was that he convinced the Carthusian monks who own Mount Equinox to lease a space on the top for our tower and our transmitter. These are monks who have a vow of silence and somehow he talked them into leasing us the space so our 50,000 watts can go out to the four states that it does.

RRX: Brooks is not a sell-out whatsoever, he was talking to me about getting offered millions and he was like, I’d never sell.

JM: He would let potential buyers take him out, wine and dine him, get the whole spiel and then just be like, no f**k off! I have Brooks’ glasses on my desk, which is kind of a cheesy little thing because I like to say that it helps me keep his vision for the radio station. I’m really glad you had the opportunity to meet Brooks because it’s impossible to explain, who he was to people who had never met him as hard as you try.

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