🎙️ Meet WSCA’s DJ of the Month for March 2026!

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 – John Donohue (JD on air), Threads , Monday nights from 8 to 10pm

Can you tell us about the origin story of you as a DJ at WSCA?

So the background of Threads… Let’s see. It’ll be 5 years this May. I actually sent in an inquiry to the station about an idea for a show. I had the idea of doing album sides, which  I grew up with on the radio. I reached out and said, “Hey, my idea is to do a music show, do album sides,“ and I was told that I can’t do that. So the general idea is I tried to do a riff off of that. Threads. Try to connect things. Sometimes it can be music in the same genre. Maybe it’s within a certain year. Maybe it’s got something topical. Sometimes musically, like I’ve done stuff where I just do a deep dive on, for example, Jimmy Iovine and/or other producers. Some way of kind of connecting it. Not all the time, not every show all the way through.

I’ve also done stuff on certain studios. And then it can be things as silly as every song tonight has a reference to a number in the title, something like that.

What other ones have you done?

Also, current events.  If there’s something going down, I try to tie in things related to that. Like I did a show not too, long ago when everything was going crazy in Minneapolis. And I just felt this like rage. So Rage Against the Machine, the Clash, the Sex Pistols, just like angry, angry, aggressive, you know, anti-authoritarian type music. But I try to catch myself and not get on that soapbox too much because I’m thinking, hoping, people just want to listen to music too. 

I’ve done shows  that there’s horns in every song, or where there’s keys in every song. I try to keep myself in check on not doing too much Grateful Dead, Phish, Widespread Panic, Little Feat, because I could do that show every week. So I have to check myself on that. I always try to work some new music in there, if I can, if it makes sense with the show.

Are you a collector?

I’ve got a lot of CDs from back in the day. I don’t have as much vinyl as I used to.

So you haven’t bought CDs in a long time?

I still buy occasionally for certain artists like Dawes. I’m a big Dawes fan. I kind of go out of my way for artists that I think buying the physical medium might actually help them. I’m not going to be as inclined to get U2’s most recent vinyl or CD. But for other artists, I still do occasionally. I head over to Bull Moose as my go-to, Bull Moose Music in Newington. And I still do physically buy if something really grabs me or if I want to get my hands on the physical product with liner notes/lyrics. 

Anything else in the origin story? People that trained you?

Jon Nash obviously was crucial just in regards to the training via Zoom, because again, weird time, weird place. And then just having to stick with it because the in-studio training thing just wasn’t happening for a while there with COVID. A funny story about my training. So I had done a little bit of college radio, but that was a long time ago. And it certainly didn’t involve anything like streaming in addition to physical medium. And Mark Pruett had me sit down, gave me the rundown on the board. And I remember at the end of it, he’s said, “So what do you think?”  I’m like, “Yeah, pretty cool.” And he said, “Well, let’s try it. And I said, “What do you mean? Now?”  And he’s like, “Yeah, let’s get you on air. Let’s just make sure you can get on the air and do it.” And I said, “I’m going to make mistakes.” He’s like, “Yeah, you’re going to make mistakes, but that’s okay.” And I got on, did things well enough, and he’s like, “All right, work on this, work on that, and come back in a week, and we’ll try it again.” And then he cut me loose. So Mark was great on that.

And how did it go right after that? Like your first shows? Do you remember them?

Yeah, I definitely do. I notice my mistakes, I think, much more than probably the average listener does. Like just a little stumble or something like that. I just remember being extremely nervous. My biggest thing was I was nervous coming out of the songs. Like when all of a sudden it’s just your voice on there. I felt good about my musical knowledge and talking about the artists and things like that, but it was just hearing my voice in the headphones kind of took me quite a while to get used to. It just felt weird.

But now you’re good.

Now I feel totally fine. And one thing I will say, the best advice Mark gave me was when you’re talking on air, act as if a very good friend of yours is sitting next to you and you and that friend are talking about music. That’s kind of the interaction to have with the audience. And that kind of stuck with me.

All right, let’s talk about music a little bit. First band that you ever got totally hooked on as a kid?

I’m going to say the Beatles for sure. So my parents weren’t huge music people and they were kind of of their generation, right? So it was like Bobby Darin, Frank Sinatra, like that, the crooners or whatever. But I do remember they did have a little bit of a soft spot for especially some of the early Beatles stuff. They weren’t on board with the whole Sergeant Peppers and all that type stuff. But I still have the album. Meet the Beatles. And it just kind of just hit. I remember just hearing it. 

And then I had two cousins who lived just down the street from me where I grew up, and they were older than me. They were huge music guys. And we were in New Jersey so Springsteen was everything, especially those first three albums. And then they just turned me on to tons of other 70s music: ELO, Jackson Brown, Warren Zevon, and that kind of like just took it.

Was there one artist that you remember being specifically your own pick? How old are you?

I would say the first artist that felt like mine was U2. Certainly when the Boy album came out, like that was mine.. So U2 was the first one that kind of was like, all right, this is mine.

Favorite concert?

I’ve seen a lot of shows over the years. I would say probably my favorite concert was probably U2, Fall ‘84, Radio City Music Hall. Small venue before the Unforgettable Fire Tour. So before they went, massive. That one’s up there. Pearl Jam at a small venue in New York City back in 1994. Plus all of the Dead shows over the years. 

WSCA. Anything about the station you want to talk about that’s particularly appealing to you?

I’d say for me, it all starts with the music. I just moved to Kittery last July, but I have lived in Portsmouth since ‘94. So just the music first and foremost is what grabbed me. A smaller station because I’ve always gravitated more towards the college stations, not the big commercial stations. So the music grabbed me first and foremost. And then I’d say once I got involved, then it was absolutely the sense of community and the Button Factory Stage. Because I think my first time I ever was aware of the station was somehow with friends winding up in here for some live music. I was like, “What is this? What is this little place?” 

And I think I love the fact that it’s volunteer driven. So there’s people like you, like us, all giving time, all the thought that goes into it, if you are doing a show, be it music, talk, whatever, the thought that goes into that. I just think it’s pretty cool, I think it’s a cool collective of people. There’s great variety: Brazilian Channel, jazz, whatever. I regularly get turned on to artists and songs that I’ve never heard before from other DJs playing stuff which is really cool.

What are you doing outside of the radio station?

I work. I’ve got a full-time job, so I work in downtown Portsmouth, so that’s, you know, five days a week. We’re an in office shop, so, you know, that takes a lot of my time. And then obviously, my wife. My kids are older. My youngest is in college, my other two daughters are out and about. Winter time, I know a lot of people are bummed out about the snow but I’m a skier.  love that. That’s why we moved. I relocated up here from the New Jersey/New York area back in the 90s. Yeah, I just think it’s the best place in the world, to be close to the ocean, the beach, mountains nearby, Portland, Maine, striking distance for whatever: culture, art, sports, Boston. Yeah, I just think it’s a great spot. 

My wife and I were walking into Kittery Foreside yesterday. And I love living somewhere where I can regularly hear seagulls. That lets me know, even if I haven’t been to the beach in a while, it just lets me know I’m close enough.

What sort of feedback have you gotten about your show? Can you recall specific compliments that you received about your show?

Yeah, I mean fortunately I’ve got some good friends from high school and college and work colleagues who listen regularly, not always live, but a lot of times on the playback. I’m going to paraphrase what my one buddy said, something to the effect of, “It’s almost as if you’re keeping in touch with what I’ve got going on, even though we haven’t talked or texted in a while.” I love hearing the props if I turn somebody on to some good new music. I really like that. I also like reminding somebody about some, you know, be it one hit wonder or obscure band or something new, just something you haven’t heard in a while. I love getting requests because you sometimes wonder like, all right, who’s listening out there right now? And to get a live request, it shows you that somebody’s listening. I love the fact that most of the requests have been, if there is any thread or theme to that particular show, the listeners are thinking about what fits in there as well. 

Anything else?

I’d say, I think we got something. I always feel like we got something special here. Hopefully everyone will understand the importance of what the DJs do and how we do it. I think there’s a lot of people who feel pretty strongly about what we’re doing here. Us, you, and the work you do. We think more than ever you need community, right? I think having the WSCA Community Radio community, it’s really vital to have that going with everything else that’s going on in the country and the world right now. I think the most important thing is for the people in Portsmouth to feel like our community has a radio station. And then our responsibility is to just spread the word on that, right? So, yeah, right on.

Thanks JD.