The Radio Wars

I was barely into the trek home yesterday when I landed in the middle of an apparent turf war. I had passed a group of three, placing vinyl banners for The End 107.7 on every lamp post and wooden pole available. Not two blocks away I came across another three, also placing vinyl banners on all available free space for KISW 99.9.

It was as if The End kids had started from the south, marking their territory like vinyl pissing dogs, and the KISW clan came down from the north. The apparent Mason-Dixon Line is Edgar Martinez Drive, just where Safeco Field sits. When I passed the three unpaid KISW interns, the girl with eye makeup heavier than an acid trip bummer was muttering into a cell phone and looking despondently down towards the interns from Seattle's home for alternative rock.

Walking back through the war zone this morning, I was traveling through the rawk territory of KISW, all of those black banners far more insistent pollution than the empty energy drink cans and crumpled newspaper. As I was not wearing a denim jacket or longish hair, I didn't really feel safe until I crossed Edgar Martinez.

Then again, I wasn't wearing any of that strange skater/goth uniform (with some dayglo here and there for attention) that seems to be the alternative code of dress. But I did at least have my iPod as proof that I had some Smashing Pumpkins, some Modest Mouse. I just hoped that my complete catalogue of Zeppelin's studio albums wouldn't cause me to be pushed back into KISW country and make me late for work.

I believe that The End 107.7 is owned by the same company that owns Live 105 in San Francisco - they have the exact same play list, are skewed for the exact samely dressed demographic. I will assume it's Clear Channel as, due to government deregulation, they seem to own most of the western hemisphere. It would appear it's the same company that owns the once mighty World Famous KROQ.

I hold a special place in my heart for Southern California's KROQ. Back in those halcyon days of the mid to late 80's, KROQ was playing stuff that could not be heard on any other station in the area. *Well, you could hear a lot of it on 91X, but that was coming from over the Mexican border and difficult to get clearly too far outside of San Diego. My discovery of KROQ coincides with my beginning infatuations with music, so admittedly my memories are painted a bit rosy. But daily I was being seduced by the likes of The Cure, The Smiths, Oingo Boingo, The Clash, X, Depeche Mode, Love and Rockets, Pixies. Man oh man, it was love.

I look back at the original World Famous KROQ as this bastion of salvation in the sad wasteland that is suburban Southern California; a delightful, neon church in a rotting landscape of conspicuous consumption and denial. It spoke to the outsider in us, gave us some sort of power, taught us to love.

It what? Never mind...

About the time I was moving out on my own, MTV was co-opting the music I had spent the last four years listening to and selling it as "alternative". When it was discovered that there was a market for it, suddenly every douche bag programming manager was slavering over "alternative". Grunge came in, a new wave of punk came in, and eventually everything morphed in to this thrasher rap/rock amalgam that fit every station’s play list, no matter what they were selling themselves as.

I'm honestly unsure what the radio stations are playing these days. Like that codgerly old man I promised myself I would never become, I walk past lines for station sponsored shows and bemusedly shake my head at the kids who seem so willing to merge their identity with the rest of the line, all those similar outfits and hairstyles.

But hey, maybe they're cleverly playing on the idea that choice is an illusion in these corporate owned days. On checking the websites for KISW and The End 107.7 to see what their play lists are, I discovered that the websites are EXACTLY the same. Maybe I'm the douche bag living a deluded life.