MADISON — Performers who took the stage Sunday at Somerset Abbey to help raise money for a nonprofit community radio station based in Skowhegan were as eclectic as the music the station broadcasts.
There was the experimental avant garde band, Unintended Consequences, whose members – Abby Shahn, James Fangboner and Wally Warren – played brass and wind instruments with aplomb, exploring the outer limits of tonality with an original piece called “Traffic Jam.”
The band followed a performance by Merry-Go-Roundup, a country-western band. Members Annie Stillwater Gray, Andy Wendell, Cheryl Seamans and Ellie Howell belted out the tune “Miss Kitty.”
“C’mon, marshal, give Miss Kitty a kiss!” they crooned.
Stillwater Gray is general manager and Wendell is program director of 98.1 FM WXNZ, a radio station that broadcasts from Bigelow Hill in Skowhegan and operates in the former Somerset County Jail in that town. Housed in cell block E of the former jail, the station has one operating studio and two more being developed.
More than 50 station listeners and performers turned out Sunday for the Valentine’s Day fundraiser to help pay for royalties and operating expenses for the station, which broadcasts 24 hours a day with recorded 15-minute sets created by about 15 volunteer deejays.
The music includes jazz, reggae, folk, blues and rock, with more edgy offerings such as rap aired after 9 p.m., according to Stillwater Gray.
Stillwater Gray, who has volunteered for 32 years at the Colby College radio station in Waterville, said operating a station is not cheap. The all-volunteer Skowhegan station, also known as Hooskow Radio, needs the community’s support.
“It’s people from the community creating sets of music that they know about and love,” she said.
Station volunteers would love to have broadcast-quality reel-to-reels and turntables, according to Stillwater Gray.
“Right now, all we have is a CD player,” she said.
Listeners tune in to the station from a territory spanning from Fairfield Center to Solon and Mercer to Canaan, according to Stillwater Gray. The station, which is licensed to the Wesserunsett Arts Council, might offer live broadcasts in the future for special events.
“We’re consciously putting a signal out to underserved areas, and we have a low-power license,” Stillwater Gray said.
Mark Wallace of Anson attended the fundraiser to help out the station, which he described as “unbelievably good.”
“The mixture of music is great, and there will be a piano blues song followed by an old-timey song by Hank Williams, and then some satiric singer-songwriter music,” said Wallace, who teaches composition, public speaking and Shakespeare at Thomas College in Waterville.
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