UltimateAVmag.com: When Local Eggs are Bad Eggs

Up until some dreadful time today, Connecticut radio station 104.1 played new alternate rock music and did it very well. Not enough of a market to justify formulaic shock-jocks, the former owner, the great, the diseased, the much-maligned Clear Channel radio conglomerate ran 104 WURH like a great indie radio station. No live DJ's, in fact, the few radio breaks they took between songs mostly made fun of the other stations (many of whom they owned). WURH was where I could hear the Killers, the Kings of Leon, Cage the Elephant and a bunch of stuff I didn't care for either, but it was all new for the most part and who isn't at least a little sick of classic rock at this point! Once a week, they played an oldie like that dreadful Four Non-Blondes song whose title I paid a hypnotist to make me forget, but for the most part, radio 104 was always fresh!

Today, all that changed. Needing to divest itself of some of the eight stations in its Connecticut roster, Clear Channel sold 104 to Connecticut local Red Wolf Broadcasting, who promptly reverted the call letters to WMRQ (Mr. Queer as it shall be known) as the station was apparently known back in the nineties before Clear Channel scarfed them up. And guess what, I've been listening to them for a few hours and it seems they have the same play list they had back then too! In other words, it's oldies for tweeners. How disgusting.

They've played a total of two new songs from the just deceased 104's playlist, one from Kings of Leone, the other the new "Wrong" song off the new Depeche Mode album (so technically, it's only one and a half new songs). And now the DJ's will talk. It's unavoidable. They're hiring DJ's, and in time, they will learn to talk. I've seen an example of where this is going already when the afternoon DJ proudly announced that Wednesday's is now biker day! That's right. It's like a crazy uncle that never spoke, and then one day, he sits up says he's joining the circus to tame lions.

But here is the saddest part of this tale of whoa. If you have RDS radio (you know, that little news feed on your dashboard that tells you the name of the artist and song title while it's playing), you'll see that Mr. Queer radio hasn't had time to figure out how to turn off the old feed from the Clear Channel music server and you're reading the name of the songs that you WON'T be hearing while you listen to the Beastie Boys remind you to fight for your right to P-A-A-A-R-T-Y!

So the precious silence is gone and now "live" DJ's will be bringing us their wit and wisdom around the clock. Can't wait to listen to the morning drive-time show dissolve into the same morass of chit and chatter that the new local owners will strive to replicate in their bid to be just as droll as the big boys, who ironically, ran one of the best radio stations in the country until sometime today when the world ended.

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Reader Comments

Posted Thu May14, 2009, 6:15 AM — By Jarod

Don't ya hate it when people try to fix what isn't broken?

Posted Thu May14, 2009, 6:32 PM — By Will

Fred, As a former DJ, I must say that I am thoroughly appalled by your...dillydallying. Get the good word out immediately, man! None of this waiting half a day; your good public deserves better! Hah.) But seriously, folks: even when I worked in radio (ending 20 years ago), the state of FM was execrable. It only has gotten worse, I'm sad to say. Back then--having a professional stake in the trends towards conglomeration--I lamented the multicast computerized systems that only barely concealed the fact that content was not produced locally and no DJs were "live"; with some hindsight (and a couple of graduate degrees and different career prospects), I can see that this was somewhat of a blessing. Even then, I never listened to the lame CONTENT of the stations for whom I worked (how confused I was when Adrian Belew actually hit the Top 40!). The gigs paid for my college tuition, some decent hi-fi gear and a nice eclectic music library. Oh, and I got laid a lot. (Them were the days...)

Posted Thu May14, 2009, 6:55 PM — By Nancy

I am mourning the loss of WURH as well. What I loved about WURH was the complete lack of annoying talk, and the mix between older and newer alternative, and between harder rock and folkier sounds. I would often go look at their playlist and add songs to my collection. I don't want MORE Dave Matthews, U2, and other stuff that gets played everywhere. I want Modest Mouse, Gorillaz, and Death Cab for Cutie. I want to hear bands that I haven't listened to in 8 years, and I want to hear bands that I've never heard about before.

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