One is a successful young musician, the other a struggling middle-aged fisherman who is also the West Tisbury shellfish constable. One is almost painfully reticent; the other could talk the leg off an iron kettle. But Willy Mason and Tom Osmers share a powerful sense of place and a commitment to preserving unique parts of Vineyard culture. From 4 to 6 p.m. each Friday, they co-host a live show on community radio WVVY (93.7 FM), with an eclectic blend of music and news about fishing, farming and the environment. Tune in some Friday with the two of them.

Interviews by Mike Seccombe

Willy: I guess I first heard about Tom when I was about 18 [about five years ago]. He just came up in a conversation, as someone associated with many of the good things happening on the Island. Like passing around food.

I met him a couple of years ago. When we started doing the musical potlucks [at the Chilmark Community Center] over the winter he was there every time, shucking scallops for everybody, helping set up, helping clean up, just helping every way that he could.

I think the radio show started last winter, pretty soon after the station started up. I got given a slot for a show, and I knew I wanted to do some of news show, but I wasn’t quite sure what. I did a couple of shows experimenting, then I asked Tom if he wanted to come by and do a little report.

I don’t know if either of us was quite sure what to expect, but he nailed it. It was the farming and fishing report.

I did a bit of fishing when I was younger, but never regularly. I was never a commercial fisherman. And I was never a farmer, but I was always interested in trying to find elements of the Island that would provide some sort of culture that would ground me, in a specific place.

I guess you could say it was anti-mass culture. I don’t have any problem with elements of the mass culture that are common to the entire country, but I think growing up someplace with strong local customs and traditions is helpful.

And it can be hard to find. You see a lot of towns that have lost most of the elements of their culture — you know, farms getting replaced by strip malls, the new pieces of the economy.

Here a lot of those traditions are still available.

Tom, he’s a link connected to the older aspects of Island culture but also very eager to participate in the new culture that’s being created at the same time.

I think that’s one of things I appreciate about being around him, is the opportunity to learn from people of all ages. Instead of being stuck in college somewhere where everybody’s the same.

I do the music. I’m pretty shy on the microphone and you know, we’re new at it, so we’re still finding out the best way to go about it.

The show just comes together right there at the studio. Sometimes we’ll meet up a little early at the station, if we’ve got the time. Usually I’ll show up, start the music going, and we’ll sit out and discuss the news, how much there is, what we’re going to cover and then come up with all kinds of brilliant ideas what we could do in the future. How some people can call in; what kind of correspondents could come in.

Every week it starts off with world news and comes in closer and closer to the Northeast. Zooming in to the neighborhood, which is nice. We have all these local correspondents’ reports peppered in.

Were just trying to provide news that people don’t get otherwise. I think it works pretty well like that.

Yeah, he does most of the talking. If I could come up with the words, I probably throw a few more in.

Tom: Willy and I kind of crossed paths because of this beautiful girl, like a tribal princess or daughter of a chieftain in Africa or something. She loved food, and it was the last year that a big harpooned swordfish came into Menemsha and I had a big hunk of that swordfish. She ended up living at my house for a while. But she kept disappearing and I kept missing her and saying, where is she? And I found out, damn it, she was with Willy.

So we met, and had a couple of barbecues and Willy and I got to be friends.

One of the best things happening on the Island now, especially for the people who live here year-round is you get these musical events. There’s Che’s [Lounge in Vineyard Haven], the music in Menemsha and that continuing potluck and music at the Chilmark Community Center, which provide a good way to bring the community together on a regular basis. I’m not one of the musicians or anything; I’m just trying to keep fishing as part of it.

I’m a hand-line fisherman. I go hook and line fluke fishing. There should be more fishermen working in a fish-friendly fashion as opposed to a few big industrial users. I make less and less; I just cut new holes in my belt. I do pickup work.

I believe in the maintenance in a certain level of artisanality. It brings honor to the work and gives the person a chance to express their love of what they’re doing and it doesn’t damage the planet with the exhausts of the fossil fuels and the incidental. The less we use the better, in many ways.

One of the great things about this Island is people do care. They examine their lives. Granted there are some of a different mind set who do come here. But those that love it and who come to stay think of themselves at least as being well-informed and conscious of how their actions have large impacts.

And it seems there’s a connection between the people that attend the shows at these music venues and the agricultural community. A lot of them are farming, doing gardening for people, into living local, slow food. Quite a few of them are fishermen in a sustainable harvest fishery, the hook and line fishery, the more artisanal, local production.

I know a lot of these people. It isn’t easy to live here. I try to help in any way we can basically.

When I heard they were going ahead with this new radio station, WVVY, and being involved in fisheries management issues, I realized that a large part of that was information and being able to present that information.

So I talked to Willy about it, a news show, the Fish and Farm Report, [covering] issues related to the fishing and the agriculture — especially the growing organic, small-scale sustainable agriculture movement that’s going on here.

Sometimes on a news show, it’s just a big shovel of bad news, so we try to mix it up and stay away from the world’s big troubles and talk about things to do with fishing and farming and certain positives about changing attitudes, environment, climate.

We have correspondent reports which come from everywhere. From Chester County, Pennsylvania; we get the farm and bee report from a fellow that used to live here. Then we have another fellow who worked here for Andrew Woodruff. Now he’s in Maine, so we get a report from there. We have a fellow in Vermont who also worked here. And we work closely with advocacy groups.

I like Willy and his music a lot. And he also collects some of the news. Like, last Friday he brought in that T. Boone Pickens article about how wind power would make a new Saudi Arabia of wind in the Midwest.

The farmer in the field, the fisherman on the deck. I want to have the truth as they see it in either one of those two industries. We’re mostly just trying to promote understanding, while having a little music to kind of ease your mind.