I’m Thrilled

And I’ll tell you why.

Let me explain.

On occasion I feel nostalgic for a radio station I discovered in 1988.

The music programming on KROQ (106.7 FM) in the Los Angeles area back then was, shall we say, top notch.

Personally, it was a major influence on my musical tastes. And likely some of my cultural attitudes as well. Sometimes I have to wonder if I’d ever even had any inherent taste in music at all prior to that.

I guess you could say that the radio brainwashed me.

Actual bumper sticker I got from Richard Blade, no later than 1992 (I think).

Sadly, my love affair with KROQ came to a halt a few years later. We moved to a place just outside the county line. And that FM radio signal was just a bit too weak to reach me.

Maybe it was the mighty mountains surrounding the Conejo Valley. Perhaps the peaks of the Santa Monica Mountains were too tall for the repeater atop Mount Baldy. The radio signal would sometimes get a little stronger after dark. But the frequency was always washed out when I’d get home from school. It was a nice treat when the days began to grow shorter that first winter out there.

Parenthetically, none of that mattered to my new schoolmates. Few of them had ever even heard of KROQ, let alone the bands I liked to listen to. And the few that had the slightest familiarity with “that type” of music? They were pretty much all kind of outsiders.

Even someone looking like me was subject to xenophobic attitudes. I can recall that feeling. It’s tough when most of the school has grown up together. But most people just try to blend in.

I didn’t try to stand out. But I’d be damned if I was just going to try to blend in.

All in all? It was weird.

At Buckley, around 1990, KROQ was very much a mainstream radio station. Almost to the point of being boring. My big sister listened to it. Even back when she was still a senior there. Even my mom put up with it most of the time.

Ultimately, the parent company of the radio station, sold the station to Clear Channel Communications. Infinity Broadcasting had been the steward to guide musical tastes into the twenty-first century. But they had to bail. And I don’t blame them for that.

A new style of management took the programming in a different direction at 106.7 KROQ. But, that is another story for another time.

In conclusion, I want to say something about the “Roq of the 80s” station on Audacy, please accept my heartfelt thanks for making this happen.

PS: I’m looking forward to seeing a full “Roq of the (80s and) 90s” playlist as well some day soon.

If it isn’t too much to ask, may we also have a station for Roq Bloq Weekends and Rodney on the Roq? You may as well add one for Swedish Egil as well.