Posts Categorized: News

Fat Tuesday at WMPG is a highlight of the year, as hundreds gather on USM’s Portland campus to taste Cajun inspired cuisine and groove to New Orleans inspired music! On February 28, WMPG held it’s 22nd Fat Tuesday Cajun Cookin’ Challenge at Woodbury Campus Center. Over 500 attendees tasted the Cajun creations of nine local food establishments, and then voted for their favorites. WMPG is proud to announce the 2017 Cajun Cookin’ Champs, Sodexo USM Dining Services , with…

WMPG was the host radio station this year for the national Homelessness Marathon broadcast. This live event took place on Thursday January 19th from 7-11pm. The show originated from WMPG’s Portland studio and was carried across the country and aired on other Community and Public radio stations. The program can was heard live on WMPG if you missed it you can listen to it here where we carried a  live video stream linked here . Our friends at Community Television Network 5 (CTN5) also were in attendance at the…

WMPG presents special programming on Martin Luther King Day! Listen here to WMPG on Monday January 16th from 8:30-10:30am and a rebroadcast 4-6pm. The program will feature a range of spoken segments by Dr. King including his 1964 Nobel Prize Award ceremony, from mass meetings around the Southern States where he insisted that passive resistance would be most effective, as well as from the pulpit inspiring congregations to activism. There will be plenty of civil rights songs, foot-tapping gospel tunes and soul classics. This special is presented by WMPG volunteer Michael Cutting.

Modern Noise – WMPG’s new music reviews produced by our USM students. They will feature music that they are listening to and will tell us all about these cool new releases and why they love this music! The first review features Epoch which is the fourth studio album by electronic artist Tycho. Check out the review by Bethany Petritsch for EPOCH . The second review features If These Trees Could Talk, an instrumental post-rock band from…

This past summer WMPG, once again, made the final cut in a few categories in the Maine Association of Broadcasters annual contest of who is producing high quality radio and television programs. Please give a listen to to our winning productions. DJ Bobby Shaddox won for his locally produced program titled “The 2015 American Folk Festival” highlighting the music and interviews with the performers at the Bangor Summer Festival. listen Lorenzo Raffa from the “Lorenzo Commentaries”…

Get ready to listen as WMPG DJ Jim Ward presents his special holiday program for all on Christmas Eve. Beginning on Saturday Dec 24th at 5pm you will hear songs, comedies, radio dramas and more – that invoke the Christmas spirit. Get ready to be surprised by Jim’s eclectic program. It’s a marathon because the show continues all night and ends on Christmas morning at 8:30am. Jim will be up all night monitoring Santa and…

  USM President Glen Cummings joined host Duke Harrington on WMPG’s Norumbega News on Thursday December 8th. President Cummings makes some bold statements like “USM is the most important university in the world because it is only through schools like USM—schools whose mission is access, who educate first generation students, asylum-seekers, recent immigrants, and adults returning to school. The educational needle of our nation is moved….with our nation sharply divided on issues from immigration to gay…

WMPG will again be hosting our renowned Fat Tuesday party. This will be the 22nd year that we celebrate Mardi Gras with our volunteers, listeners, USM and the greater Portland Community. It all happens on February 28, 2017 from noon to 3pm at the USM Woodbury Campus Center in Portland. WMPG will be broadcasting New Orleans music live from the event. There will be plenty of WMPG on-air personalities to spin tunes, and there may…

Portland’s first ever Moby Dick Marathon Reading is happening at the Portland Museum of Art Nov 17-20th, and will include readers from WMPG! WMPG’ers include: Steve Hirshon, Paul Drinan, Dave Champlin, Connie Zhu, Jessica Lockhart, Sam Bullock, Buzz Poole, Jonathan Woodward, Fred Frawley, Logan Puck, and Jim Ward. On Thursday, November 17, the PMA kicks off a four-day, marathon-style reading of Herman Melville’s masterpiece in the Bernard Osher Foundation Auditorium . The book will be read (and perhaps on some cases, performed!) aloud…

Wow – Thanks to everyone who made the 21st Annual Record Sale a huge success! The weather was perfect, the set-up and clean-up was the fastest ever. After deducting expenses, donations to WMPG from this event are $11,394. This is the most ever from the annual record sale. Thanks to everyone who donated records and CDs or helped work the event. It couldn’t have happened without all your help. The Friday night load-in was amazing!…

Please take our short survey, we have a few programming questions! Your input is very valuable. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/wmpgprogramsurvey

A huge thanks to everyone who donated or attended this past Friday and Saturday to WMPG’s “Production Room Studio Re-Do” pledge drive and CD/Record & BBQ. With all the donations now added up we raised over $6200. Thanks especially to all the WMPG volunteers who made it all possible. The DJ’s themselves have already donated more than $10,000 to this project and with grant money received from the Maine Association of Broadcasters and now money raised…

On April 28th The Maine Association of Psychiatric Physicians presented WMPG’s  Dr. Anne Hallward with the Dr. Ulrich B. Jacobsohn Lifetime Achievement Award for  “extraordinary and tireless efforts” on behalf of those with psychiatric disorders. This was in recognition for her WMPG program Safe Space Radio . If this wasn’t enough on May 17 the American Psychiatric Association  awarded her the American Women in Psychiatry’s Jeanne Spurlock Social Justice Award for Safe Space Radio’s work to give voice to marginalized and stigmatized populations.  This was  given to her in Atlanta at the…

We are happy to report that Jessica Lockhart has been named WMPG Program Director. Her official start date began on May 16th. For those of you not familiar with Jessica, she has a long history with WMPG and USM. She currently is a USM Media Studies Instructor for Audio Production. For WMPG she has taught classes in Hindenburg and Audacity, assisted us with managing our Begathons and previously served as WMPG Program Director. She also helps with training the incoming…

We are sad to report that long-time WMPG Blues DJ Myron Samuels passed away suddenly and unexpectedly this past Friday. Myron has been with WMPG for more than 25 years and he anchored the Wednesday night Evenin’ Sun Blues program. Myron not only was one of the original Evenin’ Sun Blues DJ and an expert on the Blues but was a formidable harmonica player and could sing out the Blues anytime anywhere. Many a time he would break out the harp…

Local designers of wearable art for women, men and children will show their most creative fashions on the WMPG runway on Sunday April 10th, 7pm doors, 8 pm show at Port City Music Hall. Artistic Director Cindy Flanders reports that this year’s show includes works from new and returning designers. Styles run the spectrum from formal to street. Statement Jewelry pieces, repurposed, up-cycled and embellished clothing as well as vintage inspired garments. WMPG’s Fashion Show…

With WMPG’s recently concluded semi-annual Begathon drive, one way the Java Jive DJs want to thank and say “We love you!” for all your support is to wind up March’s Women’s History Month featuring 5 mornings—(6:30am – 8:30am) — of feminine sound from some of the brightest stars in the Constellation Musica. We’ll kick off the week in sonic style catching Betty Carter & Ella Fitzgerald breezily scatting their way through Kathy G’s ‘Fascinating Rhythms’ on Monday….

  WMPG DJ Jackie Nice was recently interviewed and had a video profile done on her by Randy Visser and Standing Oak Media . It is a wonderful feature that shows Jackie at home talking about her life and how she ended up at WMPG bringing us her weekly Eastern Sands program heard every Sunday from 3:30-5pm. Thanks Randy and great job! Profile Video Link  

Wow – what a day!  The turnout was huge this year for our 21st annual WMPG Cajun Cookin’ Challenge. More than 500 people attended the event and when all the votes were counted we had a winner! Congrats to  Gritty McDuff’s as they took the honors and bragging rights this year. They served up a wonderful Catfish and Sausage Gumbo that impressed the voters. Coming in second was 2015 Cajun Cookin’ Champs Bayside American Café , with a Andouille Sausage and Chicken…

The 18th Annual Homelessness Marathon,   http://news.homelessnessmarathon.org/ — will originate from Washington, DC, starting at 7:00 p.m., EST on Wednesday, February 17, 2016 and ending at 9:00 a.m. the following morning. That’s fourteen hours of discussion about poverty and homelessness in America. Our hosts on the air will be Pacifica radio WPFW.  Our hosts on the groundwill be the Church Of the Epiphany, which reaches out to DC’s homeless a part of its ministry, and also Street…