Wave Farm is violating FCC rules with payola scandal

Playing songs with a financial incentive is a no-no

Wave Farm’s community radio station WGXC is at 90.7 on the FM dial, but not for long if it keeps breaking the rules of the Federal Communications Commission. Radio DJs are not allowed to play songs where they might have a financial benefit. On June 2, the “Signal to Noise” show from Al Crisafulli played songs from Poem Rocket and Savak. Both bands are playing shows this month in Catskill put on by Al Crisafulli and his Dromedary Records label. He also played several other songs related to his own record label. So WGXC is currently using the public airwaves so private citizens can promote their own capitalist projects, even though the rules say that is not allowed.

Crisafulli also played tracks by Scrawl and The Spinanes, who are playing at his festival later this summer (well, the lead singer of the Spinanes is performing).

What is even worse is that the radio show is playing songs of bands performing at a Wave Farm board members venue. So the appearance here is that the concert promoter and concert venue owner will benefit financially from the illegal airplay. Crisafulli posted on social media beforehand, telling the WGXC staff he was going to break the rules, and then posted on social media about how he had broken the rules. When I worked at Wave Farm (see below) I trained Crisafulli, and made it clear to him he would have to contact staff to schedule an interview on a different show if he wanted to promote his own works. Clearly, that lesson did not stick.

Note: The writer of this article has an axe to grind with Wave Farm.

I founded both the non-profit transmission arts organization Wave Farm (that derived from free103point9, the pirate radio station I founded with Violet Hopkins and Greg Anderson), and the community radio station WGXC. After I founded the organization, I made my wife executive director. Last year, she divorced me, and fired me from the job I founded.

Well, she had the Wave Farm board fire me, a spineless bunch she has hand-picked to do her bidding, and controls. Whatever. I have literally moved on.

The only reason I mention this, or care at all, is both my ex-wife and Wave Farm still have many of my belongings. Records, transmitters, flyers, videotape archives, tapes, weird instruments, historical pirate radio materials, and many personal items one collects over 25 years. There is a chest full of my old newspaper clippings, for instance. A baseball that as a child I had signed by Brooks Robinson, Eddie Murray, Jim Palmer, and other members of the 1970s Baltimore Orioles. There’s birthday presents, and other gifts I should have back. But for some reason, the Wave Farm board has not contacted me since December, when a board member wrote that they would get back to me in a few days. They never did. My ex-wife floated a few dates that I could come over and pick up my things, per the legal agreement she signed, but they were not dates I was available. She is also not currently allowing me the dog visitation I am legally allowed to have. Now she and the board refuse to contact me in any way, and they still have many of my belongings. It is very weird.

First, if you are a quarter-century old nonprofit about to fire your founder, it would seem like you would come up with a plan beforehand. They did not. They promised me severance pay, and then failed to come through on their promise. They promised to return my emails, the account they took from me as I was downloading it the week after they fired me. They still have not returned my emails. They still have not let me come to Wave Farm, and figure out what stuff is mine, have me take it away, and be done with it. Instead, they are dragging this out for a year now with no end in sight.

I hope eventually Wave Farm lets me get my belongings back. The idea is to open a pirate radio museum with the historic artifacts, once they allow me to retrieve them.