🎙️ Meet WSCA’s DJ of the Month for October!

WSCA is powered by the passion and personality of our volunteer DJs — the voices that fill our airwaves with music, stories, and the kind of energy you can’t fake. To celebrate them, DJ Rob Howell kicked off a new series highlighting one of our on-air hosts each month.

You’ll get to know the people behind the mic — their shows, their favorite tracks, and what keeps them spinning for the Seacoast community. Keep an eye on our website and socials for each new feature, and join us in showing some love for the folks who make community radio what it is: real, local, and full of heart.

Meet this month’s DJ – Mark Lefebvre, host of Scurvy Dog Radio, Sunday mornings, 9 – 12 noon. 

How did you get involved with WSCA?

I always wanted to be a radio DJ, seriously, since I was about 14 years old, I had a cassette deck and I would record songs off the radio and do the in-between DJ stuff. So I had that, kind of as the thing that I always had on my bucket list. But I didn’t pursue it until 13 years ago, when I came here, and the way I came to WSCA was when my wife, Vivian, found an ad that was placed in the Portsmouth Herald back when we used to get print newspapers, back in the day, and they covered local stuff. And there was an ad in there for promoting DJ training, and it was free. So I figured, “What the hell.” I was vaguely aware of the radio station, just through Vivian’s cousin Louis Spinazola, Spin Doctor, who knew SuperSport, and so I was aware of that program. But nonetheless, what happened was I attended the training, and I apprenticed with Super Sport, and they threw me into the deep end about two weeks later, and I proposed a show that was mostly a lot of what I play now, but it was specifically Americana and indie music. We didn’t call it Americana back then, kind of roots music.

Then I had Scurvy Dog Radio.  For about three or four years.  And then I took a break, and when I came back, I did a Saturday morning show called EarAche My Eye, right before SuperSport. And those of you who know Cheech and Chong, EarAche my Eye was a bit that they did. When the kid was asleep and his alarm went off and he wouldn’t go to school, his father would come in. “Earache my eye!”  So I would play deep album tracks from, like, the 60s and 70s. It was seven to nine on Saturday mornings. I had a listenership of about five. And then I took another break and I said to Dirk (Rick Dirk), “I want to dust off Pirate Scurvy Dog Radio.” And he said, “How about we collaborate and do a four hour Friday afternoon show?” So what Scurvy Dog Radio is today is sort of a conglomeration of all of those pieces: album rock, americana, and punk, but in a way that my listener has no idea what the heck I’m gonna play.

In my first stint with Scurvy Dog Radio, my wife did the show with me. It went really well because it was like, she would sit directly across from me. I ran the board. I pretty much selected the music, but she would do the community announcements and the weather and stuff like that, and then we’d talk, we’d be back and forth. It was banter. And the Portsmouth Herald got wind of our show, and they came in to do an interview with us while we were doing the show and to take pictures. And we described ourselves as Wayne’s World meets The Honeymooners.. She would tolerate me in my shenanigans and she would deflate my ego in a very loving way. And it just worked, it just worked. It was kind of cool.

The name Scurvy Dog – I envisioned a show that had a pirate theme to it. I envisioned a pirate radio station. I was informed by the movie where, you know, I’d be in a rowboat halfway between here and the Isle of Shoals with a transmitter, and with a turntable, and I’m playing whatever the hell I wanted to play, nobody telling me how to play it. And so Scurvy Dog Radio came out of that. 

I usually enter my show with what they call a cold open. My cold open is usually a comedy bit. I’ll take a snippet of something stupid a government official said, and I’ll open the show with that, and then I’ll play three or four relevant songs. Like this week, it’s basically going to be the war on America. And I’ll play three or four songs, and then I’ll open my show, and then just go down my rabbit hole. I play the disclaimer at the beginning of the show so people know it’s my opinion, not the radio station’s, not the board’s, blah, blah, blah, right? 

What do you like most about being part of WSCA?

I think it’s the influx of new people. You know, I’ve been here a while, not as long as some of the others, but I’ve been here 13 years, and the shows and the programming and the ideas and that we’re allowed to come in and be creative and kind of do our thing, and it all kind of works together. It’s almost like appointment radio, where you find a handful of DJs that you really like listening to, and you dial into them every week. So Jason Ross is on Friday afternoons, 10 minutes before four. I get a notice. So I think it’s the variety of what we play, the freedom that we have within FCC guidelines, and just the influx of new ideas and creativity.

Are there WSCA shows that play music that you would not listen to otherwise?

Jason Ross. And Jedediah. Jedediah is probably a little bit more eclectic, and I would say that Jason just is fearless. He’ll never play the most popular song on an album. And in fact, I think he goes out of his way to play something that’s even more obscure.  I don’t go out of my way to play music that is not accessible. I try to make it accessible in terms of either a melody or rhythm or something or, you know, it triggers something that somebody listened to when they were a kid. But I’ve got my favorites. I’ve got my favorites.

Jason Ross will tell you that he has 1000s of lps. And I’ve never met anybody that was so knowledgeable about so many different genres of music going back to the late 50s.  And he’s 10 years younger than I am.  And I mean, you know, he’ll have a collection of Jerry Lee Lewis bootlegs or imports or, you know, live music, you know, just making up Jerry Lee Lewis, and now I go to a lot of shows with him. He’s turned into my radio bud.

Are there WSCA shows that play music you don’t usually listen to?

I like the jazz show.I listen to your show  because I don’t know probably 75% of the artists that you play. But it works. I listen to Nikki’s show, right? So like the rhythms –  I like the rhythms. And I rarely hear something on her show that I play on mine. She’s all over the place. I mean, she’ll play the English Beat and then follow that up with, you know, some African drum circle, you know, that type of thing. But it’s always got beats. It’s always good.

What was the first band that you really went bongers for as a kid? 

 First? The Beatles.  Abbey Road floored me. And in retrospect, “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver” were the ones. And I thought George Harrison’s triple album, “All Things Must Pass” was the best solo album. 

What band have you most recently gone bongers for?

Drive By Truckers is by far my favorite touring band. I’ve seen them seven times, and I saw them twice in one week, and then I saw them three times in one year.

What is it about them? 

Their energy on stage. They bring it every show, and they’re angry, they’re political. There was a show the day after Roe v Wade was overturned and I took my son. It was in Boston, at the old Roxy, it’s now called Club Royale. I had my son there, and that’s the first show I went to see with him. They played for two and a half hours and they were pissed. Oh man, it was a great show.

So I’d say my favorite band is  Drive By Truckers. That’s my go to. And Frank Zappa, Sun Vault, Wilco… And I always, always, always go out of my way to play something from the Rolling Stones.

What stations do you listen to besides WSCA?

I listen to WMBR.  It’s MIT. They’ve been on the air for 60 years.The two shows that I listened to, the early one, it was called Breakfast of Champions. I don’t listen to that as much anymore, but Late Risers Club from 10 to 12, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday is punk, and the guy that does Monday’s show is a professor. He’s old as shit, and he’s the one that turned me on to all this music that I play from Melbourne. He goes to Melbourne – he does a workshop for a couple of weeks. And while he’s out there, he’s just gathering up all the latest and greatest from Melbourne. I love college radio stations. WUSM Southern Mississippi. When I went into treatment and went to rehab down in Mississippi, that was the radio station that was on. We had a radio in our room, and I would listen to that. That was all southern rock, obviously.

Do you listen to music at home?

I don’t play physical media at home, which is ironic. In my basement I’ve probably got, I’d say, 1000 albums. I buy probably 20 albums a week, and there’s a record shop down in Hampton where I buy my records. The basement is all set up. I can’t be bothered though. I’m trying to think about what I’m going to play on Sunday. It’s not playing what I already have, it’s finding what I don’t have. That’s my game.

 

Photo and interview by Rob Howell, WSCA-Lp DJ, host of What Now, Saturday, 4-6pm