Though no longer a professional clown, Dex still rocks suspenders every day, while his natural horizontal mullet is classic Bozo. Loftus knew he'd fit perfectly on UNregular, and soon after their meeting Dex began hosting his local music show out of the Sanctum lab. By February, with five flagship shows and counting, the team decided to sign a lease, together, for the loft where they now operate.
"The whole motivation was to find an affordable spot where we could do whatever we needed to do, whenever we wanted to do it," says Loftus. "We didn't want to live under anybody else's rules — we weren't interested in having someone saying, 'You can't write that on that wall,' or 'You can't puff that shit in here.'" Adds Goodenow: "The place we're in now is pretty much our dream space. We can make as much noise as we want, plus there's a great burrito joint downstairs and a 7-Eleven down the street."
SERMON ON THE MOUNT
It's April 20, or, as the chill kids say, "four twenty." This is a high holiday at UNregular, where there's already a daily bowl-packing bonanza when the clock strikes 20 minutes after 4. I'm on the UNregular Morning Show with Matt Tomor (a/k/a The Only Matt on Radio) and comedian Derick Freire, who are kicking off this year's observance with a wake-and-bake spread of bong hits, donut holes, and nearly a dozen local weed activists. A few lucky callers will win Kashtrays, which come in handy for cleaning glass pipes, and the guests rap about marijuana policy while passing spliffs the size of dildos. Like a lot of UNregular programs that aren't dedicated to pot talk, Freire and Tomor often turn onto toking tangents.
The UNregular crew has the day's weed festivities planned out, from breakfast bowls to brownies for dessert. Their listeners expect it at this point; if ERS is for hipsters and RKO is for dipshits, then UNregular is decidedly for stoners. They've come to graciously accept that role — especially since eyes everywhere turned to New England in the wake of California's failed 2010 attempt to legalize. Increasingly, the station is the central voice box and congregating place for the region's marijuana-reform movement. So naturally, the 4/20 celebration doesn't end when the UNregular Morning Show signs off.
With their mobile equipment in tow, Crespo and his Boston Local Music Show cohorts roll out to Great Scott in Allston, where a special live broadcast featuring Spiritual Rez and other green-friendly bands jam out. The whole time, Dex reminds people to ascend Mount Mary Jane — the highest point on Boston Common — at 4:20 pm for a group smoke. UNregular started the tradition on this day last year, when they walked from the station to the Common, blunts blazing, broadcasting from the street and encouraging heads to join them.
The UNregular base has grown significantly since then, largely thanks to popular weed shows like the Boston Pot Report and Two Hotheads. That's obvious not just in their analytics, but on Mount Mary Jane, where hundreds of smokers — hippies, suburban gangsters, college preps, construction workers, and seemingly everybody else in between — trekked for the fiesta.
