Tag: #martyr’s

Wizards have been Broadcasting since 1974

While they cannot be seen due to their cloaks of invisibility on the airwaves of sound, the Wizards at WZRD Chicago 88.3 FM are all around, providing innovative programming, public service, and genres of music as diverse as this great big wild and wonderful world. The 50th anniversary party was a celebration of WZRD, a freeform radio station housed at Northeastern Illinois University. This memorable event was run by volunteers as curated by Meagan Panici. WZRD is a college radio station that was founded in 1974 by a group of community minded college students with a focus on creating a collective spirit where egos are left at the door as each disc jockey drops their individual identity and becomes known only as a “wizard.” 

WZRD has a broadcast range of about 10 miles in a densely populated area, and also streams live online. In the spirit of freeform, which requires each DJ play at least six genres in a three hour slot, four very different bands who had previously performed at WZRD for the regular series Thursday Night Live (run by technical engineers Alejandro Aguilar and Rick Martin, who also was the first-ever station manager of WZRD) were represented at the event: Cosmic Bull, with a genre critics have called “Disco Americana,” Silver Abuse, who were on the cutting edge of the punk movement in Chicago, Sons of Ra, with avant-jazz fusion, and Charlie Otto + His Gear with electronic progressive rock and dance music. The event was held at Martyrs, 3855 North Lincoln Avenue on Saturday, May 4th, and had free entry. The force of the power of music was with the Wizards who jammed most righteously in celebration of the 50th anniversary.

Karen Wehrle, a former wizard herself, introduced the event,

“In the late 1970’s when I was a teenager, my friends and I would listen to WZRD especially Sunday Morning Nightmare with Terry Nelson. Teenage Party with little Dougie Brown and Tan Tea Time with Craig Schmidt were all DJs who influenced my world of music. They gave me so much knowledge of music that still stays with me now. My friends and I would record songs off the radio on our cassette tapes…”

The genius behind the event is Meagan Panici, who was recently nominated for the Chicago Reader’s “Best Radio DJ” Award  and was thrilled when she came in hot on the heels of WXRT’s legendary Terry Hemmert. When asked about her involvement with WZRD’s 50th anniversary bash, Panici responded,

 “I booked the venue, the four bands, promoted the show, hired a designer to make the poster, put together a slideshow with the help of Terry Nelson, Amy Buscemi and Karen W (Wehrle, who was a wizard in the late 1970’s) which played between bands – I hired the food truck and helped shape their menu….”

“…Terry gave me a bunch of CDs with station IDs and songs from those artists and I digitized them for our house music. I got a cake and helped with acquiring the merch. Set up the live stream like 5 days before. It was quite an effort! I’ve never done all the aspects of a show before. I’m really proud of myself.”

Panici is justifiably proud to be such a hard working member of this community station, which is run entirely by volunteers under the guidance of media coordinator Dennis Sagel. Sagel, whose humble demeanor hides a very firm handshake, provides a disciplined work ethic that helps WZRD set the standard for other local university radio stations. 

According to Cosmic Bull’s Mark Vickery, “WZRD changed the trajectory of Cosmic Bull for the better. When we had only a few gigs under our belt, Meagan brought us in for Thursday Night Live, and that performance was so good I knew I had to get this band in the studio. And here we are today with a full recorded LP!”

Other features of the event were Grossett’s Irie Jerk Mobile Food Truck with Jamaican cuisine, Lindsey Michelle Taich, an artist who was painting while the concert blossomed all around her, and handmade beaded earrings made by Mayan women in Guatemala and sold by Jonathan Villacres of Yoga on the Beach. Round Trip Records was represented with real vinyl, and WZRD had a booth where commemorative t-shirts, stickers, and other swag were for sale. The real spine of the event was all the wizards – past and present – who attended with unbridled enthusiasm and support. 

Another Thursday Night Live favorite, Charlie Otto + His Gear closed out the night with a dance party. According to Panici,

“Charlie used to be in a Talking Heads cover band that I was the promoter for. He started his career in the music biz at Martyr’s at a bartender and the owner Ray (behind the soundbooth) helped (him) get a custom made guitar from Adrian Belew’s people. He also met his wife working there.”

Otto fit right in with the wizard theme as he has an eye on the future while performing electronic progressive rock and dance music. Another 50th anniversary event is in the works, according to Panici, with some “big names” being interested in performing. Listen Live to what other wonders from the wizards await their listeners at https://wzrdchicago.org.

A Wizard Revealed

In the name of full disclosure, this article has been written by a wizard who has been working as a volunteer DJ at the radio station since 2011, and has had over a thousand interviews. In that time, I have had over a thousand interviews from homeless people to future judges from theatre directors to musicians, and everyone in between. I felt called to become a wizard because of my best friend, Effie Mihopolous, another wizard who was also a double alumni of NEIU. (Mihopoulos is most famous as a critic, poet and the publisher of both Salome Dance Magazine and Ommation Press, which published Cornelius Eady’s “Victims of the Latest Dance Craze” and won the Lamont Prize in 1985. This made history because it was the first time such a small, independent press had won The Lamont Prize, which is a very prestigious award in the world of poetry. It is akin to the Academy Award of the poetry world). Mihopolous passed away from breast cancer in 2010. Prior to that, I had breastfed my first son, Vincent, at the radio station as a guest for a show at WZRD with the theme of “What Matters.” I have both my Bachelor of Arts in Theatre (1989) and my Master of Arts in Teaching: Secondary Education English/Language Arts (2012) from NEIU. In graduate school at NEIU, I shot a collaborative assignment for a film titled “Lipstick on the Mirror” using the former configuration of the radio station WZRD Chicago, 88.3 FM as a location. This article was written as part of my current Master’ s program in New Media Journalism with Professor Jeffrey Sharon at Full Sail University.