Built out of “a pile of radio junk,” Bethesda, Maryland’s WHFS was a music fan’s dream of a radio station: the p | dG1fRHB6UFlhZk5DdFE
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00:00 Hello, we're glad you made it. Welcome to the future.
00:09 FM stood for fine music. That was the line that everybody used.
00:14 Elevator music, middle of the road, strings of Montevani.
00:17 And then HFS comes along and kind of altered the universe.
00:21 W H F S, Memphis, Maryland. Coming to you from high top, the Triangle Tower.
00:30 Ease on back, take your clothes off and have some wine.
00:37 It was the greatest station I'd ever heard.
00:41 Radio was changing, the political climate was changing.
00:45 We were right in the middle of it.
00:47 It was a small time radio station in a big time market.
00:51 It was more than just the politics, it was the cultural thing.
00:54 A whole lifestyle. Dope smoking hippies and acid trips.
00:58 We couldn't wait to get home and put our ears on that radio
01:01 and find out we're the next thing that was off the radar of established America.
01:08 Commercial stations were eco-driven.
01:11 On the FM stations it didn't seem like that.
01:13 It was more humble and more engaged in the actual conversation.
01:18 Kind of family affair, it would be very welcoming.
01:22 It wasn't fake, you know.
01:24 You're listening to W HFS at 102.3 FM.
01:31 He was a wheeler dealer, he was a salesman, he was the face of HFS.
01:38 The idea behind it is to introduce new music,
01:40 as opposed to a brainwashed music format
01:43 that is the result of either ill-advised consultants
01:47 or people who are not really into it.
01:50 We never played anything that wasn't of our own choosing.
02:00 You know, there were no rules.
02:02 It was very improvisational and freewheeling.
02:06 You could hear a Bonnie Raittune followed by a Joni Mitchell cut to a Jimi Hendrix cut.
02:12 And then you go to some, you know, wipeout.
02:14 Or if you wanted to play live songs with the word "blue."
02:18 Put together with other things that I'd never heard from a different genre.
02:22 You wouldn't get bored.
02:24 They were almost a cult radio station,
02:30 literally setting out on the airways this drum beat.
02:34 HFS, of course, was like outstanding.
02:37 You know, they were like top of the heap.
02:40 People still are talking about HFS.
02:42 That's why we're doing this.
02:44 There is a passion attached to that, that has been removed from the media.
02:49 [music]