Sunday, April 30, 2006

Rock radio is still alive in Memphis.

We gave you Rock 'n Roll. You're welcome.
by AC - permalink

There's a radio station in Memphis broadcasting at 92.9 FM called 93X. Right around when they lost Howard Stern they were playing a pretty stereotypical mainstream rock playlist. Any current top-40 rock or alternative track was given six or seven rotations a day. At any given moment you could find the song currently playing on 93X running simultaneously on two or three other crappy Memphis stations. It had been the only station I could tolerate in this town for years, the station that introduced me to Deftones, and it was finally letting me down. The whole thing was just really depressing. And the fact that it was so hard to find good rock in the town that first broadcast Elvis Presley's "That's All Right, Mama" in 1954 and basically gave birth to rock 'n roll was absurd to me.

But 93X turned it around. Their playlist now is as good as any I've ever heard. Just now, as I type, they're following up "Punk Rock Girl" by Dead Milkmen with Metallica's "Master of Puppets." This weekend I've heard them play the new Tool single from 10,000 Days, but they also ran track 10 (I forget what it's called) just for the hell of it. To put that in perspective, the last Tool single, "Parabola," from Lateralus, was played on 93X so rarely that I heard it only once. Under this new format, they've already played a deep track from the new album, and by the way, they just played "Sex Type Thing" by Stone Temple Pilots. I think that was on Core.

They're still playing too much Saliva, I guess because they're from Memphis. The only Saliva track I actually like is that acoustic version of "Your Disease." Which they do still play sometimes. And do I want to hear "Lump" by the President of the United States of America, which it playing now? Yes. Yes I do. Thank you, 93X. You don't suck anymore, and I salute you for that.

Update, five minutes later: "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" by Pearl Jam. You see? That's good shit.

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