WAAF-FM in Worcester, Massachusetts was my first professional radio gig out of college. Worcester was the birthplace of Robert Goddard, father of modern rocketry, and Abbie Hoffman, the Yippie, and was home to a bunch of schools including Clark, Holy Cross and Assumption. But in 1980, it mostly felt like a gray, working class New England town. While old factories closer to Boston were starting to transition to high tech, those makeovers were slower to reach central Massachusetts. The Centrum wouldn’t open for a couple more years, giving Boston and Providence a run for their money when it came to arena acts like KISS and Aerosmith. In the meantime, WAAF, 107FM, was the place for hard rock.
The words, “Cocaine Realty Building,” were chiseled into the façade of our offices at 34 Mechanic Street. Even if it was the actual name of the family that owned the building, it couldn’t have been more fitting for the disco era. And it was a gift for the DJs—like Jeremy Savage, “The Master Blaster,” and Harvey Wharfield, “The Halibut King” and Commander of the Rock and Roll Air Force— who proudly used it on the air as their broadcast location.
These were our people, 1980.
Worcester had the unsavory nickname of “Wormtown,” a place where “grits” got stoned on their way to school at seven in the morning. A survey of the Boston metro radio audience revealed that WAAF had the highest concentration of heavy beer drinkers among all listeners, at 21 or more cans per week. We sold ads based on those numbers, and Wormtown made its way into the DJ’s broadcasts, too.
This got to be a bit much for the city’s mayor, who issued a cease and desist letter. “I am a firm believer in the freedom of the press,” he began, before asking that “a more positive response could be received from your station.” The heading on the letter read, “PROGRESS—IN THE 80’S”
But we went tit-for-tat. The chamber of commerce had just released its new “Discover Worcester” bumper stickers when I made a discovery of my own: two of the bumper stickers, with the help of an X-Acto knife, could be cut-and-pasted into one, new bumper sticker which read, “Disco Wormtown.” Mine wasn’t the only car that sported one.
Hard rock wasn’t my cup of tea then, or now. I did a Sunday morning air shift when I’d rather be in bed with my girlfriend doing the New York Times crossword puzzle. I’d go to radio conventions where Ted Nugent was the guest speaker, joking about strapping his kids to the amps if they misbehaved.
A lucky listener in spandex: winner of David Lee Roth’s pants.
But as promotion director I spent less time playing music and more time managing promotions. We gave our listeners the opportunity to demolish cars with a sledgehammer. Van Halen’s David Lee Roth gave us a pair of his spandex pants— used—to give away to a listener with the most memorable story of what they would do to get into them (I don’t remember the story). We held an “air guitar” contest at a bar, where, from the vantage point of the stage, I got to witness the room erupt into thrown chairs, overturned tables, fistfights and a lot of broken glassware.
“This is the only time I can do it legally… It’s a way to take out frustration—like they were Iranian cars.” It was 1980, and we had just gone through the Iranian hostage crisis.
At the center of it all was the WAAF GirAAF, an eight-foot tall costumed mascot reliably inhabited by my buddy Bob. It consisted of a plush outfit with a long, hardshell head— hot, stuffy and a surefire way to quickly lose a few pounds in sweat.
On St. Patrick’s Day, the GirAAF made a surprise appearance at a machine shop, where cheers went up as he handed out green bagels to the pale workers. On Groundhog Day, he gave away 107 pounds of ground hog meat as a retort to Punxsutawney Phil. He’d pitch at a baseball game where DJ’s competed against a rock band. He’d wander through a bar, where someone would invariably toss a glass of beer through his face screen. What, and leave show business?
The GirAAF’s alter ego, Bob Goodell.
We’d hit the road in the WAAF van, its shag carpet-lined interior forever reeking of beer, and its artsy airbrushed image of the GirAAF frequently getting vandalized or dented, requiring yet another visit to the repair shop in Springfield.
Harvey Wharfield, the Halibut King, and the WAAF GirAAF.
We memorably joined the New England Patriot Cheerleaders and 100 lucky listeners on a bus trip to Smuggler’s Notch, Vermont, a ski resort. Participants found creative ways to sneak liquor onto the bus, and on the way back, we made a middle-of-the-night stop at L.L. Bean—open 24 hours—where one of our pilgrims got arrested for being drunk and disorderly.
Still, my time in New England wasn’t all hard rock. On weekends I might pay a visit to Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, the longest place name in the United States (unofficially, "You fish on your side, I'll fish on my side, and no one shall fish in the middle”) otherwise known as Webster Lake.
Or maybe I’d grab some fried dough in the parking lot of Spag’s on Route 9 in Shrewsbury, a discount emporium that sold everything from tires to soap on a rope. There was the boardwalk at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, or I could always visit Boston; Quincy Market was the first place I ever saw someone, in this case a Black kid, get punched unconscious in broad daylight by a white kid. “He was on the wrong turf,” explained a fruit vendor, matter-of-factly. Back in Worcester, we just hit cars with sledgehammers.
WAAF’s success not only made it a player in the Boston market, but led it move there years later, much to the dismay of its hometown fans. In 2020, it was sold to the Educational Media Foundation.
It’s now a Christian radio station.
They may not be playing Ted Nugent, but I bet the author of God, Guns & Rock'N'Roll is still listening.
© 2022 David Potorti
Hilarious. Laughed out loud at "These were our people" and the cigarette dangling from the one groupies fingers. Also, I've contacted the judges and ask that you get 1,000 bonus points for typing out the name of that lake. Bravo!