By Paul Palazzolo

Every weekday morning, senior audio/radio major Cassidy Pignatello leaves his apartment in Brooklyn for a 7 a.m. commute to the University.

“I used to be a resident [of the University] until this past May,” Pignatello said. “Now I live in an apartment complex, I feel like I’m in high school.”

Pignatello, an Orange County, N.Y. native, shares what many seniors who reside on-campus feel.

“A lot of my friends graduated this past May, so I felt alone on campus and I wanted to live in the Park Slope in Brooklyn to live on my own,” Pignatello said.

Even though Pignatello misses some conveniences that living on-campus provides, says he made the right choice.

“I don’t miss waking up at 3 a.m. to my loud neighbors,” Pignatello said.

Pignatello has a two-hour commute but he maintains a motivation to commute everyday to the University to work at the campus radio station, WRHU. He is the program director of the radio station. His job is to oversee all of the programming that the station releases the public.

“I take care of all 40 different formats, I see everything,” Pignatello said. “I defend all of the interests of the radio station and I’m responsible for the sounds of the station.”

There is a large amount of responsibility resting on Pignatello’s shoulders.

“I can take a lot of heat because of the large radius [35 miles] of the stations and the Web cast,” Pignatello said.

Even though the audience of WRHU is in the 18th largest radio market in the United States, Pignatello does not fear the potential pressure of his high position.

“His ability to deal with many problems under pressure is one of his strengths,” Bruce Avery, general manager of WRHU, said.

Upon meeting Pignatello, he is a friendly person who will make friends right off the bat.

“Cassidy and I met on move-in day of his freshman year and we talked for three hours,” Joe Rubacka, a 2004 alumnus of the University, said. “Our friendship blossomed from there. We are roommates for the last three years and we are in the band We Live Together.”

Pignatello also sticks out compared to other people on campus. Because he grows his hair out, it almost appears to be an afro.”One time I grew out my hair and then I cut it off. After I cut my hair off, my friends didn’t recognize me because they were looking for my poofy hair,” Pignatello said.

Pignatello’s conspicuousness is a characteristic that relates to his fondness of obscure genres of rock.

“He has a strong background in many genres,” Avery said.

Pignatello found out about the University’s radio station on his campus tour while he was in high school. Pignatello was impressed with WRHU and two weeks after he arrived for the start of his freshman year, he picked up an application for the radio station. During the second semester, he started to push for changes within the program.

“My first administrative position was producer of ‘Airwave,’ a program that covers obscure, subculture genres of rock,” Pignatello said.

Pignatello became producer of ‘Airwave’ because he liked the genres of music that were celebrated on the program. He also had interest in exposing listeners to relatively unknown categories of music because they have a higher integrity.

“This type of music is known to very few people but it would be liked if people listened to it,” Pignatello said.

While Pignatello was producer of ‘Airwave,’ he aspired to move up within WRHU.

“I wanted to change things and I realized that everyone gets frustrated about their radio station,” Pignatello said. “If I wanted to do something [about improving the radio station], I needed to be program director.”

Pignatello said during his sophomore and junior years, he needed to keep working on ‘Airwave’ in order to move up in WRHU. His motivation of moving up is singular.

“[Being program director] is the most artistic activity I can do for the school,” Pignatello said.

During the interview process for program director, the management of WRHU felt strongly about Pignatello’s credentials.

“[Pignatello] was a good candidate because of his musical knowledge, sense of humor, prorate management instinct and incredible work ethnic,” Avery said.

Pignatello felt he was qualified to be program director.

“When I was ‘Airwave’ producer, I was not trained for the genre,” Pignatello said. “I had to learn everything about my program myself.”

Pumped up from the promotion to program director, Pignatello quickly developed into a strong leader for his fellow members.

“[Pignatello] has a soft-spoken way to manage,” Avery said. “He seems to almost always de-stress the situation that comes in.”

Even though Pignatello wants to have a perfect performance during all of the station’s shows, there have been mistakes.

“I think it’s important to train our announcers with the music on our shows because the music can be so obscure that many people don’t know how to pronounce artists,” Pignatello said.

He recalls the times when he was ‘Airwave’ producer and things went wrong on the air as well as off.

“If I don’t mispronounce anything or have to correct myself, nobody would notice and would not call up the station,” Pignatello said.

He recalls a listener who called him every time he ran his show.

“I used to have this guy call me every time I did my show and he asked me about different songs’ titles that I played during the show,” Pignatello said.

Pignatello remembers during one of the last shows for the year, the same caller called up but this time he complained about the mellow, slow-paced songs he was playing. Then that person said nobody listened to the show and recommended the station air more upbeat music.

“That was the last time that he called me, he was disgusted with my show even though he wanted to know the titles of the songs that I played,” he said.

Pignatello wishes every caller would have his taste in music playing on the show, but he knows that is impossible. There are some people who love the music but there are people who are critical about the music as well.

Pignatello recalls attending the College Music Journal music marathon last year. The music marathon is a series of concerts that showcase various artists. Because Pignatello is part of WRHU, he was invited to the event. One night, he attended a show at the Luxx in Brooklyn and went to see the Decemberists. After the Decemberists, Pignatello got a call from his production manager at the time, Dustin Gervais, to travel into Manhattan to go meet him for another show at the Blue Note.

After the last show, Pignatello and his production manager went to a bar where they met the lead singer from Weed Killer.

“Weed Killer is in the genre tripcore,” Pignatello said. “It’s a combination of hardcore and music to make you trip,”

Pignatello received a press kit from the band. The singer was trying to sell Pignatello on the genre that he performs.

“It’s sad because they don’t get how others perceive them,” Pignatello said. “They are so focused because they want to be progressive, it’s a strange music phenomenon.”

Even though Pignatello was not sold on tripcore, he was impressed by Weed Killer’s music. His impression of the music caused him to open his eyes to Weed Killer and artists who are similar. He wishes to continue finding more artists after he leaves the radio station.

Pignatello will graduate from the University in May. He plans to intern a college radio station that promotes his musical interests after graduation. Because he is working towards something that he wants to do, he is not concerned with the money.

After interning for a year, Pignatello is considering attending graduate school and becoming an apprentice at a recording studio with high integrity.

“As long as I don’t hate my job, I’ll be fine,” Pignatello said.