For our first post-Banquet podcast, we get a fresh perspective today. Dr. David Crider, now a professor at SUNY-Oswego, was a high-school summer staffer at WJPZ during The Pulse years. It was the foundational knowledge he learned under the staff there that led him to a career in radio, then higher education. He now advises the student-run station at Oswego, WNYO.
As a student at West Genny, David learned that then-Z89 was looking for break staffers to keep the station on the air when the SU students went home. He quickly joined up, learning from the outgoing Class of 1995 - folks like Dion Summers, Jeff Rossen, and others. Soon, David was doing sports updates and on-air DJ shifts. He was learning from others like Scott MacFarlane and Jason Palladino, who he'd become great friends with.
While the flip to the Pulse came as a surprise, it really got David excited, as the station was aligning with his own musical tastes. Soon, he and Brent Axe were doing a morning show together, Live and Loud in the Morning. He was also doing overnights (for break staffers that was the full midnight to 6:00AM), including New Year's Eve/Day.
When it came time to go to college, David went to school that had its own radio station, Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania. Following WJPZ's flip back to Z89, David was able to keep the Pulse brand alive, albeit a bit further south. When WQSU flipped from block format to alternative, they became 88.9 The Pulse.
Today's guest spent several years in radio, interning for Brent Axe in Utica and working in Syracuse at WSYR with Alex Silverman. In between, he worked in Pennsylvania radio in several different gigs, which he takes us through.
When he tired of the radio industry in a professional sense, David decided to pursue a career in higher education. This led him back home to Newhouse, where he got his Masters. So his time at Z89 and his time getting a Syracuse diploma were a decade apart. He later got his doctorate from Temple University, before joining the faculty at SUNY Oswego.
As the faculty advisor to WNYO, Dr. Crider constantly draws on what he learned at WJPZ, as he explains.
Like many of our episodes, today's includes a funny story from a New York State Fair broadcast - this one involving a stolen picnic bench and Governor Pataki's security detail.
The WJPZ at 50 Podcast is produced by Jon "JAG" Gay, Class of 2022, and his company JAG in Detroit Podcasts
JAG: Welcome to WJPZ at 50. I am Jon Jag Gay, and I'm excited to have a fresh perspective on the podcast today. This is a point of view we haven't had on the show before, and that is a summer staffer. We go up to SUNY Oswego. Professor up there. Dr. David Crider. Welcome to the podcast.
David: Thanks for having me, John. Glad to be here.
JAG: I'm so glad you reached out because I wanna see WJPZ through your eyes growing up in Syracuse and then getting involved with the station. Take me through that.
David: All right. Yeah. I'm from the Syracuse area, originally went to West Gennesee. So I was aware of Z89 growing up and I knew that it was major player and that it was a University station staffed by college students that was competing with 93Q and all the big stations, which was really exciting.
My way into the station was actually through one of my high school classmates at West Genny. So much like a lot of people who have been on the podcast, I too did the morning announcements in high school. Yep. And there was a student a year ahead of me named Tim Zewaki. And he had worked summer staff at WJPZ as a high schooler.
He went by the on-air name Z-Man. I think I thought if he's doing it, I could do it too. So I found a way to get in touch with the people who were running the station at that time and they said, yeah, come on in. We need the help during the summers. For people who don't know who might be of more recent WJPZ vintage, what they would do during the summertime is that obviously a lot of the regular staff goes home for the summer, and so you have a skeleton crew overseeing the station, and they would bring in local high schoolers and college students who are from the area or going elsewhere and just home on break to fill in those roles so they could continue to have a 24-7 staffed radio station. And so that was my way to get in the door the summer between my high school, junior and senior years when I was 16 years old. And that's how I got started in the summer of 1995.
JAG: So let's paint a picture here in the overall history of WJPZ. What year is that you came into the.
David: So that is, it was still Z 89, the original version. At that time period. And as I was coming in, I know you've brought up that fantastic class of 1995, and I met a couple of them just in passing. As they were leaving, we were getting onboarded and trained by some of the people who were just about to leave and graduate.
So I met Dion Summers, I met Jeff Rossen. I met a few of the other people who were just finishing up their run at Z and out the door. And I got trained by people like AC Corrales who was production director at that time period. Jay Sweet. Jay Palladino, who's gonna play a major role in my WJPZ story. Sal Carpaccio was the sports director at that time period, and I started doing a lot of sports there.
Along with him, Scott Silverstein was helping me out in the sports department. Scott MacFarlane was there as well. This is when Dan Austin had just become general manager. Jeff Wade was the programming director, so they were both there for the summer overseeing things.
JAG: So this is the summer of 95?
David: Yes.
JAG: What was it like going in and learning from these legends in JPZ history, and then all of a sudden, you're playing a key role there in the summer when a lot of the staff is gone?
David: It's definitely weird, I gotta say. Because you walk in as this high school kid and I was totally green and I had a lot to learn and I had the enthusiasm. But I definitely did not know anything that I was doing, and it really is that greatest media classroom atmosphere. It's. Okay, you're gonna work here, but we want to bring you up to our standards.
The standards that we expect, the standards that our listeners have come to expect from WJPZ. And so we got trained very heavily. We got brought in just to start out doing sports updates or just shadowing and gaining that confidence step by step until we were ready to do more with the station.
So I was helping Scott Silverstein out with a show called Minor League Magazine that saw the Syracuse Chiefs and covered them. So I got to see a lot of games in the press box at Old MacArthur Stadium before they tore it down. Which was really cool because at that time I had already had some experience writing for the local Penny Saver writing up local high school sports.
But this was really the big time. To me at least, that's what it felt like.
JAG: So you alluded to this in emailing to me in just a moment ago as well. You established relationships with a lot of these folks that went beyond just training at JPZ, right?
David: Yeah. So another member of the summer staff who was there with me was Brent Axe. And it's funny that we grew up in the same area and we both went to West Genny's schools, but then he went off to Bishop Ludden. Yeah. And we reconnected through WJPZ because he came in the same time that I did. Also as a high schooler. And we both had an interest in sports and so we were both doing sports at the same time.
And then we both wound up making our way up as DJs. And this is after the station flipped to The Pulse. We both came in deciding to, okay let's be DJs. And as time went on in the summer of 96, we wound up having the morning show by the end of the summer. We were the Axe Man and DC Yeah.
And we were doing the z I guess it wasn't the Z Morning Zoo. What would we call it? The Pulse Live and loud in the morning. So we were doing mornings at the end of the summer of 96. 17, 18 years old in market number 70, whatever Syracuse was at that time period. And not to get a big head at that time period, but it was kind of hard not to feel like, okay, we're here and we're up against Howard Stern.
And we're up against Ted and Amy, so we better be good. Brent and I wound up working together after we left WJPZ. He got a job in Utica working with Brad Davies, who went on to be a pretty big deal sports talk show host down in Houston. And so Brent was starting out his sports talk career and he let me come in as an intern along with him and that got me started towards my first professional job.
So I pay a huge debt of gratitude to Brent for a lot of things that happened in my time. and also Jay Sweet, Jay Palladino. He and I became fast friends that very first summer because we both had very much the same sense of humor. We were both good at busting each other's balls quite a lot. And so we became really good friends.
And as time went on, he knew that when breaks were coming up, he could call me and I'd come right in to work whatever shift he needed me to work. And we wound up working together again at WSYR. We wound up being housemates at one point, and we just became really good friends who stayed in touch throughout our professional careers.
And when the time came for me to get married in 2015, I called him up. He was down in Orlando at the time, working in tv. And so my best man just dropped out. You're be part of the wedding party. Would you like to be my best man? And he jumped all over it. So yeah, Jay Palladino was the best man at my wedding.
JAG: That's awesome.
David: And he still guested lectures with my Oswego students today. So we have remained very good friends 25 plus years later.
JAG: I do wanna come to your career in a minute, David, but let me back up for a second, as a high schooler. You're watching this big switch from Z 89 to The Pulse, and again, that you know it's been covered in the podcast.
That was a tense time at the station for a number of reasons we don't need to get into here. What was your perspective on that as a high schooler watching all of this happen around you?
David: I certainly didn't have any inside information about what was going on. I was listening to Z, much like any other listener would do in the fall of 95, and then all of a sudden. One day I'm listening to the morning show and I was hearing rumbles from people cause I was about to come back and help out during the winter break.
And so I was hearing rumbles like there's something going on with the station. And I listened one morning and I heard the endless heartbeat. And I'm like, what is going on? And next thing I know, five o'clock, suddenly they change format and they're The Pulse. I'm like, okay. So it looks like I'm coming back to an alternative rock station when I come in for winter break, which actually was given my musical tastes of the time period and going forward.
It was fine for me as a DJ to come in and say, all right I'm gonna get to play this music. All right, cool. Sounds good to me.
JAG: I'm laughing because you and I are pretty close in age, and I'm thinking if I'd walked into an alternative station at that time period, I would've been good with it too. I can totally relate to what you're saying.
David: Yeah, and then I walked right in and was doing the overnight shift. As you do being break staff. I know a lot of people have been telling stories about being on 1:00AM to 4:00 AM or two to four. If you're break staff on the overnight, you have to work six hours, midnight to six. Midnight to six. So not only do you have to figure out how to be entertaining in the middle of the night, but you gotta figure out how to be entertaining for six hours and stay awake and not fall asleep.
And my wife kids me constantly that I am not a coffee fan, but this is the one time in my life that I tried to become a coffee drinker cause it was the only way it was gonna save me at that time period. But it was, again, weird being in high school. And I would go to cover a high school basketball game at West Genny for the newspaper, for the PennySaver.
And I'd finish up the game, and then everyone would be like, all right, we're gonna have a party over at uh, so-and-so's house. Can you come? I'm like, no, I gotta go over to the radio station. I gotta go over to JPZ. And do the overnight shift and they're like, oh fine, we'll call you from the party and we'll call in requests.
I'm like, all right, cool. Built in audience. Fantastic. And I also worked the infamous New Year's Eve slot, which is 12:00AM to 6:00 AM New Year's Day, the first six hours of the new year. And the enticement is 99.9% musical freedom.
JAG: Really?
David: So you could play whatever you wanted as long as it was in the library. Fit the format. And so that was how they'd get you to come in and work that midnight to six on New Year's Day. Cause they knew nobody else would work. The shift.
JAG: Wow, that's brilliant. Yeah, and not to mention, you talk about built-in audience, midnight on New Year's, the beginning of that show, you can bank all the calls you want because everybody's calling.
David: Oh yeah. And it definitely helps you put together the playlist too, cuz like, all right, I gotta figure out what to play for six hours, help me out, call in requests. I will play literally anything you want.
JAG: It's almost like DJing a wedding. You just have a request list and you go off of that at that point.
David: Yeah.
JAG: So before I move on to your professional career, any other memories that stick out to you from your time at JPZ?
David: When I tell people that I worked at JPZ and that I have a degree from Syracuse University, I know people are trying to do the math of their head and trying to figure out the fact that it doesn't overlap.
So I worked at JPZ from 95 to 97, and I got my master's degree from Newhouse in the media studies program from 2007 to 2009. So these two things did not overlap at all.
JAG: He's doing the math. Carry the one, yeah. Wait a second. There's Okay. Yeah.
David: Which is, it's a blast to try to explain this at alumni banquets and to try to tell them, oh yeah, I worked at WJPZ. I went there in the 2000’s. I never saw you around there. No, that's not when I was working there. So during that time period, there was a lot of excitement amongst all of us who were break staff because you knew you were part of something so big and so important. And I'm glad that I got to be on the podcast with you cuz it really allows us to spotlight those people who came in and are maybe not headliners in the WJPZ story, but we all played a role in keeping the station on the air during the summers, and we took that duty very seriously and it helped give us a good foundation when we went off to our respective colleges and figured out what we wanted to do for a career. We already had that experience.
So I think that was what was more important than anything during that time period was getting that first experience of learning what you can and can't do. Learning lessons about the things that you should know from a legal and ethical standpoint. I learned about what you should do and not do regarding payola, which wound up being very important about a decade later when all those payola scandals hit the radio industry and I had to think back like.
Did I ever get offered that? Oh I did. And I called on my WJPZ training and told them, I will not accept this. All right, I'm good. I'm not gonna get in trouble for this.
JAG: That was when Governor Spitzer went after that, before he had a scandal of his own, if I recall right?
David: Yes, exactly. WJPZ gave me really the foundational knowledge that carried me through not only my years going to college myself, but throughout my professional radio career.
And really that is where it started and most everything. That I can attribute my success to in radio and beyond that as a professor today, it all started there. It all started at JPZ with a great crew of people that included the SU students like Dan Austin, like Jeff Wade. I still remember how he'd always sign his memos, love and rockets after the band.
And also from the people who were just high schoolers like me and a lot of them went on to do things as well. I know Dennis Crawford was break staff. He worked at 93Q for a bunch of years. Shannon from Marty and Shannon was break staff. So a lot of us who came in there and worked the break staff and went on to do a lot of great things in the industry as well.
JAG: All right. Let's go to your story now, David. Tell me where you went to school and what happened from there.
David: I wound up going to undergrad at Susquehanna University, which is in the middle of central Pennsylvania. If you've never heard of it, that's fine. I tell people that I think Susquehanna is actually a Native American word that means middle of nowhere. We had a 12,000 watt college radio station that reached more cows than people. And I was still coming home and doing break staff at JPZ up until the flip back to Z89 in the summer of 1997, and that's when I left. And it was for a handful of reasons. I think there was a feeling amongst some of us, and I'm sure you'll get into this, when you talk about The Pulse on the podcast, there was a feeling amongst some of us that there wasn't a lot of transparency with what was going on with the flip.
And it hit us outta nowhere and. Also, I had just been offered that internship opportunity with Brent Axe, so I knew my time was gonna be split anyway. And I also I realized that working at college radio doesn't necessarily put money in your pocket. So I needed a job fair and I just started working at the deli counter at the old P&C supermarkets and decided, okay, I'd better start focusing more on make it some money for myself and less on working at JPZ.
So that's ultimately why I left, but I was able to do a year at OCC, get through some financial issues, return to Susquehanna just in time to actually take the memory of the pulse to a new station.
JAG: Really?
David: So I was working at WQSU F M, which is Susquehanna's student run college radio station, and my junior year, so this is 98 99.
We decided we wanted to be less of the traditional block scheduling college radio station, and more of a strictly formatted competitive station because our faculty advisor at the time decided that, hey, we've got 12,000 watts. We should use them and we should try to be competitive. And we recognized that there was a gap in central Pennsylvania for an alternative rock station.
So we said, all right, that's what we're gonna do. We gotta come up with a name because we can't just call ourselves via our call letters. We gotta come up with something fresh and exciting. And so we were having a student management meeting and one of my friends noticed that I had an 891, The Pulse bumper sticker on my backpack.
Ha. And he said why don't we just call the station the pulse? Okay, sure. That sounds great. So ever since then, since 1999, and you can look it up today, WQSU has been known as 88 9. The Pulse and still is to this day. And we can thank WJPZ and indirectly me for that.
JAG: The Pulse lives! I love it. Dan and Jeff and many of the alumni of a certain age are certainly going to appreciate that.
David: After I finished college, graduate from Susquehanna, I get a job at WSYR working as a talk show producer. And I had been able to do that while I was going to OCC too. So I got my first job in professional radio when I was barely 19 years old, which is definitely something I tell my students. Yeah, nobody really does that anymore.
I was the last of that group who could get in really early. So I had been working as a producer when I was in central Pennsylvania at Susquehanna. I had gotten into the local, big broadcaster there, Sunbury Broadcasting, working as a producer, working as a part-time disc jockey for 94 KX, which is the big 50,000 watt pop station in central Pennsylvania.
And so I started to gain some experience, but what I really wanted to do was be a DJ. Now I wound up with a crossroads moment in 2001, where Jay Palladino had gotten a job at Westwood One down in New York City. And he was trying to bring me into the fold there. So I'd be working in New York City for decent, given the cost of living, salary.
And I get a call from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, another town I'm sure nobody's ever heard of. Market number 168, I believe.
JAG: A measured market at least.
David: Okay. Yeah. And they call me up and say, we heard your tape from 94 KX. How'd you like to come down and be a DJ for our station? And I turned down New York City to go to market number 1 68 because I wanted to be on air.
So I feel like my professional journey has always been marching to my own beat, following my heart, going where it just feels right to be rather than taking the logical path and moving your way up steadily to the big jobs. Because I just felt that was more what I wanted to do.
And so I wound up working at this station in Chambersburg called Revolution 1037. And I was there for three years. And first it was as a DJ pulling down some pretty decent numbers at night. And then I was asked to become the assistant program director. And when I got the job, along with my friend Brad, who was named program director, the owner sat us down. Small market, small company and said, this station's kind of in disarray. Can you guys get it up to college radio level by the weekend?
JAG: Whoa.
David: And immediately in the back of my head I'm like, I could do better than that. I worked at WJPZ.
JAG: Yes!
David: So we got the station back up in on its feet doing really well. Couple years later, I wound up having some creative differences with the owner after I became program director music director for about a year and a half.
And so we parted ways and I wound up back in Syracuse and it wasn't long after that I decided that I had grown a little sick of the radio industry. I didn't like the fact that the politics of the industry are such that if you're able to get that early start and have success early, at a young age, you're a successful program director as I was at the age of 24, 25, and then you find yourself looking for a job.
If you put program director on that resume, you're not gonna get a lot of phone calls, I feel like.
JAG: For just on-air gigs?
David: Yeah. Cuz there's that suspicion. I think that if I hire this person, I may have just hired my replacement. So I didn't wanna deal with that anymore. And I decided how can I take what I know and what I love and the experience that I've gained and make it work for me in a new way?
And I decided the next logical step was to go to grad school and start to teach. And that's what brought me back to Syracuse University to get my master's at Newhouse in the media studies program. And that actually allowed me to reconnect with WJPZ during those years because if I wanted to do research, I had the laboratory right there, and I could talk to people who were there at the station and get their help with giving me perspective on something I was covering.
I could talk to people who are professional as well, but that standard at WJPZ has always been so professional that you may as well go there as well and know that you're gonna get some great perspectives. So through that, I was able to meet Mina, who you've already had on the podcast. Through working back at WSYR, I met Alex Silverman.
He and I worked a lot of weekends together. Him news anchoring and me producing.
JAG: Remind what year this is again, David?
David: 2008, 2009. And so I was hearing about all the stuff that was happening at JPZ again during that time period because Alex was the general manager during that time.
And there's a great blast from the past story with this where Alex walks in one Sunday morning with a binder and he's I brought this in for you cuz I think you'd find this exciting. And I open it up and it's all the playlists from the Pulse years. Cuz they saved everything. And I'm like, wow, this has taken me back.
And they look at all these songs that I'd completely forgotten that I played as a DJ. Wow, this is so amazing. So I could definitely see the importance and the respect that the current students had for what came before it. And after that I started coming to the Banquet every couple of years. Even though I was down in Philadelphia, getting my doctor into Temple University, I came back a couple of times to start coming to the Banquet, really starting to connect with the alumni cuz I recognize the importance of kind of being part of this larger story.
Upon finishing my doctorate at Temple. I got my current job at SUNY Oswego. Started out as part-time as an adjunct. And worked my way into a full-time tenure track position, and that's where I am today. I'm an assistant professor of broadcasting at SUNY Oswego, and so I've been at Oswego for eight years now. I'm working my way towards tenure and promotion, and I've been advising the student run radio station at Oswego for the last five and a half years, WNYO, which has been just a tremendous honor being a part of that station. Watching students come in there and learn their craft and go on to do fantastic things, both at the college level and go out and get jobs. So I'm so glad to be back in that area and I definitely think that's where my heart is.
Not only teaching students, but also being there in that college radio atmosphere and fostering that educational experience for students where they get to try things out and learn everything and figure out if this is something that they wanna do and what they're good at. WNYO has managed to win a handful of New York State Broadcasters Association awards on my watch.
We've upgraded to top of the line equipment in the radio station because I've told the students, if you want to have respect for this organization and what you do, you gotta be working with the best in the brightest, right? And so let's get you some top shelf equipment and upgrade all the studios, all the software, the automation system, so you can come in and have that same sense of pride that I had working at JPZ where you know you are in that environment where this is like, how it's gonna be when you go out into the real world. Get that training.
JAG: Now, let's geek out for a second. What kind of upgrades did you do there for equipment and software? If you know off the top of your head?
David: We upgraded the on-air Studio and the production studios to Wheatstone and Wheatnet boards.
And in 2021 during the middle of the pandemic. So that was fun. We upgraded the automation system to Wide Orbit.
JAG: Perfect. So it's industry standard all around.
David: Yeah.
JAG: It's interesting in talking to you about, in this podcast, we've had a number of folks that I have been quick to give credit to, to say, hey, if not for your efforts, the station may not have survived.
Which is why I'm so glad to have you and your perspective on today, David, because without you and the rest of the folks who staffed the station during breaks, these are the days before automation. These are the days before "set it and forget it." These are the days when there had to be somebody there 24-7-365, and thanks to you and many of your colleagues, we were able to keep that station going, keep that tradition going to the point where we're now celebrating 50 years. So on behalf of all the alumni, will thank you for you and your colleagues in doing what you've done.
David: I appreciate that. You don't really think about that at the time cuz you're 17, 18 years old just living in the moment. But now with years and the ability to reflect on this, yeah, we did play a big part in this story and I'm glad I've been able to speak to that.
JAG: Before I let you go, any funny stories you remember from your time at the radio station that come to mind?
David: Oh, I've got a great one. So this was, I wanna say it was either summer of 95 or 96 and we were broadcasting at the New York State Fair. When they set you up at the New York State Fair. We didn't realize this until we showed up for the very first day. They set you up with a spot. They don't give you anything else, .
JAG: It's like this is your designated area. Yeah.
David: Yeah. And if you're familiar with the New York State fairgrounds, it was behind the Center of Progress Building. It's where the Pan-African Village is now. But they hadn't set that up yet. So we walk in to set up our equipment on the very first day of the state fair, and there's just an empty spot.
No tent, no furniture, nothing. So we had a tent fortunately, and we were able to set that up. But we need a table. We gotta make this look nice. We gotta be able to put all our bumper stickers and our equipment. And so where are we gonna get a table? And we happen to be across from that little mini state park that they have at the State Fair.
Nobody's around. Nobody's really watching. We could swipe a picnic table from the state park and lug it all the way down there and use that. It's okay, sure, let's do that. I don't know who my co-conspirators were. I just remember that the idea had been hatched and we go over there. And we start to do the very sneaky like Blues Brothers walk of sneaking this.
JAG: As you're listening to the podcast, David's head is darting back and forth as he's describing this since you can't see him. I'll describe that for you.
David: Yeah. Trying to sneak this picnic table about 200, 300 feet from one place to another, and looking around to make sure nobody of an important capacity is going to spot us. And wouldn't it just so happen that it was right before 10 o'clock in the morning and it's the first day of the State Fair, which means it's Governor's day.
And this is when the governor shows up with his security detail and all the press following him and all the state troopers following him. And just as we manage to get the picnic table over to our tent, we look over and there goes the governor's procession, .
JAG: This is Pataki at that point?
David: Yes, it is Pataki, not Governor D Redman. It's Governor Pataki. And all we're thinking is okay. Everyone's looking at the governor, right? Nobody's noticing these college kids swiping a picnic table right now. We're good. Nobody's watching us because this is gonna be like the worst possible thing ever to happen to WJPZ if we get busted by the governor's security detail, trying to move a picnic table.
JAG: That's great, and apparently, we are past statute of limitations on that. I'm pretty sure. And you guys got away with it.
David: Yes, we did.
JAG: Excellent. David Crider, thank you so much for being part of the podcast today. I'm so glad you reached out because I'm really glad to have your perspective as you're such a big part of the J PZ story. Thanks so much for your time today,
David: Jon. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.