Channel Surfing.....

Back about a hundred years ago as part of a Junior Achievement project I got to sort of apprenctice as a disc jockey at 1510 WLAC am radio in Nash-Vegas. A real radio station. Matter of fact, the WKRP sit-com could well have been patterned off of that station. There was a drive time hippie wild guy (Bear With the Hair Bradley), and then at dark a cool soul guy took over, mucho akin to Venus Flytrap (Spider Harrison, a.k.a. Spiderman). Now keep in mind that we're talking the mid-seventies. Jeez, I hate dating myself that much. Ah, but what the hell.

This past weekend I got to spend sixteen hours behind the wheel and all the miles were spent on our glorious Interstate system (please read into my sarcasm.....).

As a form of amusement, just to pass the time, I made judicious use of the "SEEK" button on the tuner of my radio. You know, the button that you punch and it scans to the next recieveable station. Every time a song sucked (or turned country) I'd hit "SEEK" and we'd move on to something else, until we found a non-sucking (or non-country) song. Something I could holler with in the privacy of my own vehicle until the next tune sucked.

What really tripped me out was the formulaic non-radio that exists right now. The stations appear to be owned by the conglomerates that own the catalogs of artists, like SONY or VIRGIN or CBS. There are no real disc-jockeys anymore.

While punching the "SEEK" button I'd be changing cities (you know how stations fade as you travel and you have to find a new one?) And then I realised that there was in fact a pattern to their madness. It's all the same. If you're a radio station these days you buy a subscription to a format. And while I was surfing I was able to see the same pattern of tunes, only mixed up by the advertisements of different urban areas, whether it be a real estate agent or car dealers or gutter installers. It was all the same.

But what really tripped me out was the total lack of imagination and the use of naming a station with a tag line that could just as easily be aligined with an under-arm deodorant.....here's just some, and I'm sure I missed a couple.....add them in your comments if you wish.....

The Power
The Bomb
The Fish
The Way
The Quake
The Buzz
The Flame
The Dove
The Rocket
The Mix
The River
The Wolf
The Star
The Jack
The Rock
The Party
The Magic
The Zone