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| From | Stewart Mason <flamingo@theworld.com> |
| Subject | Re: L.A. has a new "indie" alternative radio station? |
| Date | Sun, 04 Jan 2004 01:48:34 -0500 |
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At 12:15 AM 1/4/2004 -0600, Billy G. Spradlin wrote:
>Clear Channel didnt have a rock station in the LA market and this brings them
>in. They proably paid a lot of $$$ to Univision to do so! Had KDL been a
>50K-100K "blowtorch" with a great signal they would have gone the Buzz/Edge
>route and gone head-on against KROQ.
I'm not sure that's true: the Buzz/Edge format is officially tired, and
it's being either retired or retooled in a lot of markets. Here in Boston,
WFNX (which is owned by the Boston Phoenix, our local alt-weekly) last year
aggressively and very publicly dumped its format by doing a Top 500
Alternative Rock Tracks of All Time -- which was a surprisingly enjoyable
weekend of radio -- and reinvented itself. They made a point of announcing
that bands like Limp Bizkit or Creed or whatever were no longer welcome on
their station, and in their place, they've gone with a format that's about
1/3 what could be called "classic alternative" -- lotsa Ramones, Smiths,
Stooges, R.E.M., etc. -- and 2/3s things like the garage revival bands and
Jet and the D4 and the Shins and the like. I haven't seen any books since
the switchover happened last spring, but I do know that when I'm in stores
that are playing WBCN -- which is like the 900-lb. gorilla of Boston
commercial alternative radio, and surprisingly enough, isn't owned by Clear
Channel either as far as I know -- they've started following FNX's lead.
There's a lot less Angry-White-Guy-In-Baggy-Pants and a lot more leather
trousers on the air even at the commercial radio stations, and surely even
Clear Channel has noticed this.
All I know is that I was trawling the megahertz a few days ago while I was
waiting to pick up Charity at work and I heard a set on 'FNX that was the
White Stripes' "The Hardest Button To Button" followed by the Jet single
followed by Romeo Void's "Never Say Never" followed by the Rapture. That's
not really enough to make me permanently make the leap from the left of the
dial, but that's also a damn sight better than I've heard on any Buzz/Edge
station since at least early 1995.
S
NP: HARD AGAIN -- Scott Tuma
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