This story, originally published at 4:12 p.m. July 12, 2024, was updated at 1:46 p.m. Aug. 7, 2024, to include broadcast times and streaming information.
Fans of Bethesda’s beloved and influential free-form progressive rock radio station, WHFS-FM 102.3, will be able to see what they were hearing when regional PBS station WETA broadcasts the feature-length documentary Feast Your Ears: The Story of WHFS 102.3 FM multiple times in mid-September.
The documentary is scheduled to premiere at 9 p.m. Sept. 14 and will be available to stream for free that day on the PBS app, according to WETA. It is also set to air at 2 p.m. Sept. 15, 9 p.m. Sept. 16 and 3 p.m. Sept. 17. Early streaming access on the PBS app with WETA Passport begins Sept. 1 .
The deal was inked earlier this week, director Jay Schlossberg told MoCo360 the day of the signing.
The film follows the station through the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s and includes new interviews with local and national musicians, fans and record executives detailing the influence of the station, which went off the air in Bethesda in 1983. It will also air on the WETA Passport streaming library and will be available on-demand on the PBS Video App.
“We’re always looking for fascinating stories made by and about the people who call the DMV area home, and Feast Your Ears is a near-perfect example,” said Devin Karambelas, vice president of TV programming and operations at WETA in Arlington, Virginia.
The call letters WHFS were in the news last month when IMP Concerts announced the return of the HFStival music festival this year at Nationals Park on Sept. 21. The festival was a summer fixture for music fans when the radio station originated the concert at RFK Stadium in the 1990s, drawing up to 90,000 fans to hear bands played on the station. (The station is not involved with the new festival.)
The station, located during its ground-breaking peak in the 1970s and ‘80s in a condo at Triangle Towers at 4835 Cordell Ave., tweaked radio’s rules by letting the disc jockeys play what they wanted, which was just about everything mainstream radio did not. Readers may remember the 2016 Bethesda Magazine story, “When Bethesda Was Cool,” which prominently featured the station.
The format introduced area listeners to new and unknown artists in rock, country, bluegrass, jazz, as well as emerging genres including punk and New Wave. The station also played local artists who could not otherwise find airtime elsewhere, including the Slickee Boys, Tru Fax and the Insaniacs, and cult-favorite Root Boy Slim. The musician was managed by longtime local visual artist Dick Bangham, who edited and helped produce the film.
The station made local celebrities of its DJs, including Jonathan “Weasel” Gilbert, who served as consulting producer on the film and who lives in Bethesda; Cerphe Colwell; Bob “Here” Showacre; Adele Abrams; and David and Damian Einstein, sons of the station’s owner, Jake Einstein.
Director and executive producer Schlossberg, founder of the North Potomac-based production firm Media Central, said the film drew surprisingly large audiences during its movie festival tour around the country. Audiences saw how a 2,300-watt FM station created “a huge community of local and national musicians, music venues, record shops, health food shops, stereo stores, and a huge population of die-hard fans,” he said. “What they created there morphed into something very special and rarely, if ever, repeated in any other city.” How the DJs did that—purely through the music—is what fascinated Schlossberg, who briefly worked at the station in 1972 as a high school student.
During the 2024 D.C. Independent Film Festival, more than 400 tickets were sold for a screening at the Avalon Theatre on Connecticut Avenue, he said. The film went on to win the festival’s 2024 Best Documentary Feature award.
“Whether you were tuned into HFS in its heyday or are just generally a fan of American history and pop culture, Jay’s film is sure to delight, as it did at festivals in the U.S. and Europe,” Karambelas said. “We’re excited to share it with a wider audience across our broadcast and streaming platforms.”