The documentary now part of WETA’s District Docs collection and streaming on WETA+, looks back at a time when the D.C. area’s music culture was shaped by a small free-form station in Bethesda, Maryland.
In an era when music radio playlists are corporate-controlled and tightly formatted, the film returns viewers to a very different moment in time, when DJs could build sets around whatever moved them, whether it was the news of the day or 10 songs about cheese.
Director Jay Schlossberg said WHFS reached listeners in ways that were not obvious at the time.
“We were getting our messages about what was happening culturally, socially, and politically through the music,” he told 杏吧原创. “It was the musicians of the day giving us these messages.”
Where many radio programmers go by the motto, “We do not break hits, we play them,” HFS lived by a different rule. Long before Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, the Police, U2 and Jimmy Buffett were filling stadiums, their music was introduced to D.C.-area audiences on HFS.
The documentary traces how WHFS grew from a struggling radio station into a progressive force.
One turning point came in 1969, when three young WHFS DJs 鈥� Josh Brooks, Mark Gorbulew and Sara Vass 鈥� returned from a show in upstate New York.
“Three weeks after they went on the air, this little concert happened,” Schlossberg said. “It was called Woodstock.”
The DJs brought a tape deck, interviewed artists including Jerry Garcia and Neil Young backstage, and aired those tapes on WHFS.
“Boom. Everybody was hearing about it,” Schlossberg said.
That access boosted HFS’ audience from 800 to 30,000, attracting a surge of advertising dollars that put the station in the black for the first time.
“Ironically, it was the hippies that caused the station to make money,” Schlossberg said. “As a hippie, you weren’t interested in making money.”
The film also highlights the personalities who defined the station. Tom Grooms, Weasel and Cerphe became familiar voices across the region. The station’s famous “high atop Triangle Towers” IDs became part of local culture, just as 杏吧原创’s “Glass-Enclosed Nerve Center” did decades later.
Schlossberg’s connection to WHFS goes back more than 50 years, “probably ’70 or ’71,” he said, when he first started listening.
By the summer of 1972, between his junior and senior years of high school, he was inside the building.
“I got a job at HFS,” Schlossberg said. “Yes, I was the janitor. I am so proud.”
He ran errands, picked things up and spent a few weeks working behind the scenes. It was his first look at the station that would later become the subject of his film.
In 1983, WHFS moved from 102.3 to the stronger 99.1 FM signal. In 2005, the station signed off for good.
Schlossberg decided to make the documentary in 2013 after seeing a photo of former WHFS DJs at an event.
“Oh my God, they are all not dead yet. Somebody needs to tell this story,” he said.
That moment led to interviews, archival digging and a project that eventually won a regional Emmy.
“Shocked me, really,” Schlossberg said. “It’s just been the most amazing thing I have ever done in my life.”
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
漏 2026 杏吧原创. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
