Going underground

Every Islander knows the drill: stuck in a line of traffic, slowly navigating one of the inescapable left-turn-fueled bottlenecks that bedevil our Island. Bored and possibly annoyed, we turn to our radios, hoping for a distraction to help pass the time. 

This was my plight a few years back, crawling toward Cronig’s Market in Vineyard Haven in my old Jeep. Summer congestion at least affords an opportunity to explore the dial. 

I gambled with the scan button, prepared to be disappointed. There must be something worth listening to. That exhausting clutch of NPR stations clinging to the bottom frequencies, rich in catastrophe and impotent complaint? Skip. The predictable treacle of corporate rock stations, the incidental banter of sports talk radio — skip and skip. 

Then … magic. The scan function settled on a tune that caught my ear. 

“I am waaaiting,” an unmistakable voice pleaded. “I am waaaaiting.” I couldn’t quite place it, but the song had all the trappings of a Stones deep cut, replete with dulcimer, harpsichord, and Charlie Watts’ signature backbeat. 

“Damn right I’m waiting,” I chuckled to myself, pausing the scan to hear the rest of the tune. We’re all waiting at this particular corner of State Road. Curious, I grabbed my phone and launched the music-finding app Shazam, all the while edging my Jeep past Look Street and toward Cronig’s. 

I was right — it was the Stones, and it was a very deep cut: “I Am Waiting,” the tenth tune on “Aftermath,” the 11-track album that the band recorded in 1965. 

I eyed my radio’s dial. For the very first time, it rested on an unfamiliar frequency: 96.7 FM. No call letters, just “96.7” — prime radio real estate. Who plays deep Stones cuts in the middle of the day — on this Island? 

The next tune came on, a jarring, post-punk tangle that felt vaguely familiar. Shazam told me it was “Rat Trap” by the Boston Spaceships. Not exactly a hit. Who’d ever play this song? 

I decided to wait in my car, figuring a DJ would offer me some much-needed context. But the next song was a blues cut so obscure that even Shazam couldn’t find it. On and on it went — a B-side from the Beach Boys, an old Michael Hurley folk track. 

For 15 minutes, no DJ came on, and no ads played, either. This station simply made no sense. It was as if some grinning trickster had hijacked the airwaves with a giant jukebox containing thousands of completely unrelated tunes. 

Was there an underground radio station in the heart of our little Island?

Like nearly everything worthwhile on the Vineyard, I found the person responsible for the station — call letters WVVY — through word of mouth. He was a longtime Island contractor named Jim Galvin, a musician friend told me after I related my first contact with the station. But Galvin was reluctant to speak, and through intermediaries he pointed me to Richard Fisher, a former stockbroker and passionate music aficionado who moved to the Island years ago and now serves on the WVVY board. 

A Long Island native weaned on vinyl and FM radio, Fisher told me that indeed, most of the station’s airtime is filled by an automated jukebox computer system affectionately named “Otto DJ.” Otto was set up around the time the station launched in 2008, and it’s run continuously ever since. Fisher wasn’t sure how many songs are on the computer’s hard drive, nor was he certain of their provenance, but he estimated Otto has roughly 4,000 tunes to choose from. “Certainly could be more,” he added.

Most of the music is vintage — pre-streaming, as it were. The balance of WVVY’s airtime is peppered with two- to three-hour shows hosted by an eclectic group of volunteer DJs, all of whom found WVVY through word of mouth. There’s “World According to Music” with Hocine, “The Rock and Roll Rick Double Hour” with Rick Padilla, “The GG Spot” with Gimili Galvin, Jim’s daughter. Fisher himself hosts the “Electro Lounge,” a three-hour show on Friday nights that features cutting-edge techno and house music. “I put in 15 hours each week to make that show,” he told me. “It’s a labor of love.” 

After our initial conversation, Fisher said he’d put in a good word to Galvin, and we agreed to meet at the station a few days later. I asked if Galvin might be there. “Hard to say,” Fisher replied. Apparently, you never know with Jim. 

WVVY’s headquarters is nestled in the sub-basement of a funky “multipurpose” building at the end of a quarter-mile-long dirt track off State Road in Vineyard Haven. Fisher told me that Galvin built the place himself. Besides the station, the structure houses both yoga and art studios, as well as a dojo and an atelier space where, I’m told by a reliable source, countless hangovers have been nursed. There’s also a large band room and a private music studio used by Galvin’s son — an accomplished musician who sometimes plays with the Lemonheads. A narrow spiral staircase fashioned out of wood and stone — reminiscent of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia — connects each floor. 

Fisher and I descended two floors to the sub-basement to find WVVY’s beating heart: a 100-square-foot closet littered with the happy detritus of radio history — the home of Vineyard underground radio. 

The place drips with mystery and untold stories, and as Fisher began to relate his own, a soft-spoken, gap-toothed Cheshire cat of a man appeared. His reserved demeanor and chimney-shaped woolen cap evoked a Suessian vibe. Was this the Vineyard’s Once-ler? To tell his story, would he demand 15 cents, a nail, and the shell of a great-great-great-grandfather snail?

Galvin leaned against a corner of his closet-sized studio. Its walls are covered with street art — posters from secret shows, hand-drawn cartoons, a hagiographic print of John Lennon strumming an acoustic guitar. 

“Well, there’s Jim!” Fisher exclaimed. “He’ll tell you the history of this place.” 

First, Galvin made it clear that he didn’t trust journalists: “Every time I spoke to newspapers, they misquoted me or lied.” But with Fisher’s encouragement, he began to tell the origin story

The year was 2007 or 2008, he recalled; he’s not one to be pinned down to specific timelines. “I was taking off from the airport one evening,” he said, adding that besides contracting, he’s also a licensed pilot. “And there was music on the tower frequency! I said to the tower, ‘Yeah, I like the entertainment, but really …’” 

Turns out a rogue pirate radio station had set up an unlicensed antenna in the woods near the airport, and its signal was interfering with tower communications. Over his headset, the tower told Galvin they were working on getting it shut down. 

“That was the last of it,” Galvin said. The interference disappeared, and Galvin forgot about it. But sometime later, a friend called and asked for a favor. He and a few buddies had started a pirate radio station, and they’d recently been shut down by the FCC. They needed a new home. Did Galvin have any room in his building? 

Recalling his experience with the airport tower, Galvin told his friend — an Islander by the name of Bob Lee, now deceased — that he could set up in his sub-basement, but on two conditions. First, Galvin was going to be on the board of the new station, so he could keep tabs on the operation. And second, “We were going to do everything right.” No more run-ins with air traffic control. 

Lee told Galvin that when they shut him down, the FCC mentioned a relatively new set of licenses called “Low Power FM Radio,” designed to encourage small-scale, non-commercial voices on the airwaves. The signal would be line-of-sight and travel no more than 10 miles, at best, but it was legit. To apply, they’d have to set up a proper nonprofit and find a way to scrape together enough donations to get the equipment they’d need. They applied for a license, got approved, and with that, the pirates went legit. WVVY was born. 

The longest continuously running DJ on WVVY almost missed his shot to get on the air. Enrique “Rick” Padilla’s signature show on Wednesday evenings is an homage to legendary American DJ Wolfman Jack, but Padilla, a Cuban-American musician born in Miami, also brings the manic energy of Andrés Cantor, the famous Argentinian soccer announcer. His show mixes nearly every genre of rock, from classic Doors tunes to new music from bands like the Hives. 

Padilla, 59, followed an Army buddy to the Island nearly 40 years ago. He established a painting business, where he met Bob Lee back when Lee was still running the pirate station. Lee invited him to host a show, and Padilla was on his way to his first ever gig as a pirate DJ when the station was summarily shut down. He followed Lee to WVVY, and has been on the airwaves ever since. 

“I bring an iPod, bags of CDs, and my computer,” said Padilla. The equipment fails on the regular, he added, which seems part of the WVVY charm. “Sometimes the signal is low, sometimes the CD player is broken,” he said cheerfully. “I gotta go with the flow.”

WVVY’s nonprofit arm runs on a “sub-five-figure” budget, Galvin told me. DJs are encouraged to toss a sawbuck into a donation box to cover electricity costs. When I asked Galvin if he’d like more donations, his eyes lit up. He’s got bills to pay, and everyone at the station would love to upgrade the equipment, buy a recorder so shows could be rebroadcast, and modernize the website. WVVY pays royalties to ASCAP “when we have the money,” Galvin said. The station doesn’t have the technology to keep formal records of what songs they play, nor do they have much of an idea of how many people are listening. Any fees paid are at best an estimate. The place feels a bit like an anarchic collective, and one gets the sense Galvin likes it that way.

That doesn’t mean the folks behind WVVY don’t encourage donations. The station is planning a spring fundraising drive, and Galvin made a point of reminding me to get the station’s address right, should the paper be inclined to print it, so folks can mail in checks: P.O. Box 1989, Tisbury, MA, 02568. The easiest way to give is found on the website: wvvy.org. 

The best part of WVVY, Padilla and others asserted, is the freedom it provides. DJs can play whatever they want, and say whatever they want, as long as it doesn’t veer into politics, curse words, or negativity. “The only rule I have,” said Galvin, “is, whatever you say on the radio, it’s got to be positive.” 

So the next time you’re stuck in traffic, hoping for a miracle on your radio dial, give WVVY 96.7 a shot. You never know what might be playing, but one thing’s certain: It won’t be boring, and it won’t be a downer. The world could use a bit more of that kind of energy these days. 

John Battelle is an Island-based author, entrepreneur, and professor. The founding managing editor of WIRED magazine, Battelle also serves on the advisory board for The MV Times.