From dorm basements to city airwaves, college radio taught America to love discovery. Host Maggie Mercury traces how tiny stations, duct-taped studios, and fearless playlists turned scenes into movements.
No SFX. No music. Just story. Same signal—new legend.
Before playlists were data, they were devotion.
In this episode, Maggie Mercury takes us into the basements and back rooms where college radio rewired how America listened—tiny FMs, carrier-current hacks, milk-crate libraries, and volunteers who believed curiosity was a public service. We follow the pipeline from campus charts to club calendars, from first spins to first tours, and the engineers who kept it all alive with tape, solder, and stubborn grace.
This is how scenes became movements, and how small rooms made big culture.
No SFX. No music. Just story, memory, and the courage to program for discovery.
Retro Waves: Legends of the Airwaves is a JourneyWise Studios production. For more, visit jwstud.io.
AI Disclosure: Vinny Vinyl, Maggie Mercury, Rusty Fader, and Shep Golden are original AI-generated personas created by JourneyWise Studios using verified historical sources and advanced voice synthesis. Their performances honor the craft, emotion, and spirit of radio’s greatest era—preserving its stories through the power of sound.
