Greg Gattine and Franz Kaisik in the music library at WDST

Franz Kaisik is not a morning person. Yet weekdays he's up long before the crack of dawn.

"Four-forty-nine, to be exact," he says.

What's with the odd number? "I've got it timed down to the minute as to how long it takes me to get out of the house."

Kaisik's sidekick, Greg Gattine, isn't a fan of getting up either. "It sucks just as much at 8am as it does at 4:30am."

But they rise early because they have to, for these two gentlemen are the co-hosts of "The Morning Show," aka "Gattine & Franz," which airs Monday through Friday, from 6 to 10am on Radio Woodstock, WDST. If you are a morning person, by force or otherwise, you may be familiar with their banter, reports, giveaways, and special guests.

Aside from the miserable hours, they really love what they do. "Getting paid to play records on the radio?" blurts Gattine. "What could be easier than that? I'm very grateful to get away with what I do. And I love getting calls from listeners telling me that a song I played made their day."

Franz Kaisik and Greg Gattine in the studio

"I really dig the show business aspect of the whole thing," adds Kaisik. "The performance. If you do a good riff, as they say, you know it. That's still a thrill."

Though they make their jobs sound cushy, watching them in action negates the notion. I visited the studio recently and sat bug-eyed as I observed them squeezing in task after task as they raced the clock. Gattine quickly took call after call during a commercial break, giving away tickets to a Grateful Dead movie. After finding his winner, he continued clicking on phone lines at high speed, thanking all the losers. Meanwhile, Kaisik was online, rapidly scanning CNN and other Web sites, looking for up-to-the-minute headlines. Oops! Suddenly, they're back on-air, riding the waves. It was bam, bam, bam, from one minute to the next.

One might think they'd be a little nervous with the breakneck workload, but both say they're not. "It took me a while to get over it—seven or eight years," admits Kaisik. "Unless there's a massive breaking news story. Then I still get nervous." Gattine doesn't know if his feeling relaxed is a good or bad thing. Regardless, they pull it off flawlessly.

Greg Gattine

Part of the reason they perform with such ease is the many years they've put into the field. When Gattine was a senior in high school, he decided to try radio after hearing a commercial for the Connecticut School of Broadcasting. With no formal education ("You think radio people are educated? Have you listened lately?"), he landed his first radio gig in 1981, doing overnights at WJJB in Hyde Park, an automated Top 40 FM station. His task was changing reel-to-reel tapes when they ran out. He worked at WBNR/WSPK through the 1980s, and at WPDH from 1989 through 2000. Thinking he was finished with radio, Gattine landed his position as program director at WDST the same year, and took on his current duties, overseeing all on-air aspects from music to promotions to contests, and everything else in between. His life is made easier by a staff that includes music director Jimmy Buff, promotions director Noel Nelson, and production director Rick Schneider.

Kaisik, however, did have a formal education. He majored in communications at SUNY New Paltz. "Of all the careers I was contemplating, it seemed to be the least boring," he says. "Monotony is a big fear of mine." After graduating, he saw a job opening for a part-time news reporter at Kingston's WKNY, WDST's sister station, where he began co-hosting a morning show with Nic Harcourt in 1991. When WDST bought the station in 1995, Kaisik moved on over. Basically, he's been with the same family since the beginning. "It's like the mafia," he says. "I can't leave the place." As news director at WDST, he's in charge of world, national, state, and local news, and sports and entertainment stories; he's also the coordinator of on-air PSAs (public service announcements) and the community calendar program, which runs on weekends. Much of the information he unearths comes from online research. "I'm trying to remember what I did before the days of the Internet, and I can't even recall what the heck I did here. I just remember a lot of pain."

Monotony doesn't have to be a fear for Gattine either, as he has his finger on the pulse of the music world. "I come to work every day under the assumption that the greatest rock and roll song hasn't been played on the air yet, and maybe today I'm going to get it in the mail."

Franz Kaisik

Both Gattine and Kaisik have had unique experiences in radio that go beyond the normal grind. Kaisik relates a story from his broadcast at Woodstock '94: "My parents' house is within walking distance of Winston Farm, so every night I'd hike through the woods to shower and sleep, then hike back through the woods at 4am. The first morning there suddenly appeared a massive 10-foot fence around the perimeter of the farm. It was pitch black. So, I had to scale this thing at 4:30 in the morning with my backpack and everything on me. It was a proud moment."

He also mentions the Bill Clinton/Boris Yeltsin summit at Hyde Park among his favorite career moments. "I got within a few feet of those guys, it was pretty nifty." A great morning show moment involved having David Johansen in the studio with Joe Piscopo on the phone as they reminisced over the good old days on "Saturday Night Live." "They took over the whole show!"

Gattine had a weird experience the very day of our interview. "This morning wildlife educator Rusty Johnson brought in an alligator and a peregrine falcon. I hit the floor when he took the bird out." He also concedes that he has to keep an open mind with famous guests, as he can never tell who will be easy or tough. "The first time I interviewed the Counting Crows, they had just released their first CD. I thought they'd be fun, because they were coming to a happy hour gig I was broadcasting. They were all just jerks. I interviewed Sting during the last tour, and I thought he would be aloof or even pompous. He spoke to me like a friend."

No matter what the day holds for Greg Gattine or Franz Kaisik, they're happy to still be working for one of the few independently owned radio stations in the region, especially  one celebrating its 25th birthday this spring. "As far as the Mid-Hudson is concerned, every other station is Cumulus or ClearChannel," says Kaisik. "Conglomerates are the norm these days, and it's a real challenge to find any locally owned and operated stations. It's a sad trend, but we're hanging on."

Gattine and Franz make light of the morning

Adds Gattine: "Gary Chetkof bought the station in 1993 because of his love of music. He is always challenging us to find new music and artists, and to expand the boundaries. He's very committed to the station, and I can't see any of us working for a corporation."

May the airwaves continue to rock with the sounds of freedom.