Tucked in the top floor of Curtis Hall are the studios of WMFO, Tufts’ student-run freeform radio station. The station, running 24-hour broadcasting since 1974, features nearly 300 DJs from the university and surrounding communities, broadcasting anything from pop music playlists to live rock performances to talk-show style conversation segments.
WMFO has embraced a style of freeform radio for the past 50 years, giving student DJs control of what they play on the air. “To me, ‘keeping it freeform’ means playing whatever you want, whatever feels right, and that can change week to week, that can change minute to minute,” said senior Alicia Coble, WMFO’s programming director.
Given its flexibility and freedom of expression, freeform radio has often been adopted by and associated with college stations like WMFO. One of the station’s general managers, Gonzalo Escajadillo, a senior, explained that radio can be a special creative outlet for students discovering who they are in their college years. “It really gives people an opportunity to think about what they want to put out in the world. … and I think it offers a good, really unique space for self reflection,” Escajadillo said.
“It’s fun to listen to peers do something you’ve only heard Howard Stern in New York, and [Don] Imus, … and the major radio personalities that we grew up with. It was cool that, like, some guy from Miller was doing this show,” said former student DJ Todd Markley (LA’96), recalling his days at the station fondly — despite his 2–6 a.m. Saturday slot.
Even with its large body of DJs and wide broadcasting range across the surrounding areas, WMFO is still considered a relatively hidden gem in the Tufts community. “I didn’t even really know about this music scene before coming here. Like, I was not planning to be involved in music or radio. I didn’t know any of this existed, and now it’s like, the biggest part of my life at Tufts,” junior Kymberly Kuras said.
Kuras is now the president of WMFO’s Studio B, the station’s live music studio, and host of “Post Adolescence Glow,” one of two shows that feature live musical performances. Unlike most of WMFO’s shows — which broadcast from Studio A, and feature recorded music or live talk segments — “PAG,” as Kuras calls it, hosts artists for live shows, making the most of the freeform style with often unpredictable performances and conversations with the musicians.
In addition to student DJ programming, WMFO also features shows by members of the surrounding communities of Medford and Somerville, some of which have been running for decades. “Something About the Women,” is the longest-running women’s music radio show in the country, having been on the air since 1973, and “On the Town with Mikey Dee” has featured weekly live performances since 1989.
Most of WMFO’s DJs play their sets via a digital library, but they also have the option to pull from the station’s seemingly endless collection of physical media. Tragically, in 1977, Curtis Hall suffered a major fire which destroyed much of the WMFO studio and its original collection. But, following the fire, WMFO received an outpouring of media donations, many of which are still on the studio’s shelves today.
Now, despite having been almost entirely digital since 2009, WMFO has rebuilt and maintained a massive collection of classic vinyls, cassettes and CDs available for DJs. “I could literally get on my phone right now and listen to any song that’s ever been created, but that is far less impressive to me than the vinyl collection at WMFO. … Rooms and rooms and hallways of vinyl as far as the eye could see,” Markley said.
Markley considered this access to physical media, as well as the freeform operations of the station, to be an outlet essential to breaking out of the monotony of modern media. “I think it’s healthy for us to be exposed to voices we wouldn’t choose to tune into, music we wouldn’t choose to pull up on our phone … and opinions we wouldn’t have heard otherwise. I think it helped us, in some ways, exit the media landscape writ large,” Markley said.
Whether it is electronic dance music or a philosophical discussion or anything in between, WMFO seems to have something for everyone — something you may have heard before, and most likely something you have not. Keeping the station and its culture alive can continue to foster creative expression and exploration for the Tufts community for many more years to come.
Tune in to WMFO on 91.5 MHz on the FM band, or online at wmfo.org. And, of course, keep it freeform.
