The Weasel, an Inimitable Voice From a Different Time, by Tom Kipp

theweaselThe (truly) inimitable “Weasel” (aka Jonathan Gilbert), who was the 2 to 6pm “drive time” star of Annapolis, MD’s “progressive”/”alternative” WHFS 99.1 FM, during my years managing The Record & Tape Exchange in Fairfax, VA (1988-92).

No other voice like Weasel’s has ever found a regular home on the airwaves, to say the least! (Not that there IS another….)

Still at it, from recent reports:

http://www.citypaper.com/news/cityfolk/bcp-legendary-radio-jock-jonathan-gilbert-better-known-as-weasel-returns-to-the-air-20150309-story.html

One of Weasel’s endearing and/or infuriating trademarks was that he’d “nicknamed” all five days of the work week, and would reiterate said monikers ad infinitum, throughout his shifts. If memory serves there was “Megalomaniacal Monday”, “Wacky Wednesday”, “Throbbing Thursday”, and “Frantic Friday”.

His Tuesday coinage escapes me at the moment (“Terrible”? “Tacky”? “Terrific”?), but then it HAS been 23-plus years since I departed for Seattle!

I was more in the “found him endearing” camp, and he certainly played interesting music, but it wasn’t hard to understand why his peculiar voice and mannerisms drove my old RTX boss right up the wall. Then again, he’d been listening to Weasel for a good 15 years longer than I had, since several of his close friends also DJ’d at ‘HFS.

http://www.nosuchthingaswas.com/2011/04/remembering-those-frantic-fridays.html

Weasel could be quite hilarious, actually, and endearingly bizarre, as in an interview from 1989 or so with my beloved Maria McKee, which I preserved on a cherished cassette, which I still re-listen to in my car from time to time.

As Lou Reed put it, “Those were different times….”

Tom Kipp