Back in the bad old days of the 80s and 90s, before Clinton killed radio and Telecom by selling it out to Clean Channel (see the Telecom Act of 1996), we had a local Top 40 radio station that was my gate way to pop music. It was thee station that I listened to when I was a teen, at least in the morning on the way to school.
WIQB was an ubiquitous presence in town. There were bill boards, a ad that played before films at Fox Village Theater, and sponsored and participated in local events. I recall every winter that they would participate in Rocking for the Hungry, a food drive for those on the bottom of the social ladder. They also at least in a couple of cases were more than willing to play local artists and promote local musical events.
Their morning crew were a pre-Shock Jock set cast with a main DJ, Rob Reinhardt as I recall, and a couple of co-hostes. They played music, talked about traffic, weather, and local news. At some point in the 80s they started taking listeners calls about movies they had seen over the weekend and what they thought of them.
For a while they had an oldies show on Sunday mornings and played Dr Demento on Sunday Nights. Sure they were a Top 40 station and they played the hits of the day, it should be noted that they also did play older tunes that had fallen off the charts as well. They were kinda a JACK FM kinda deal before that format reached the airwaves. They also were operating in a radio environment where the way to gain market share was to take chances on stuff that others were not playing. I vividly recall hearing them say, The only station where you are going to hear.... and then play something that was new, that was unproven and that had yet to reach the charts.
WIQB vanished somewhere along the way, I fell off listening at some point and last I checked their 102.9 location on the dial was occupied by WWWW W4 Country ... A quick google search confirms that right now W4 is still there, they are owned by Cumulus Media Inc, at leas that's what their web page indicates.... however I have found this....
from: http://encycl.opentopia.com/term/WWWW
WWWW - "W4 Country" - is a country music radio station based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, broadcasting on 102.9 MHz. The WWWW calls were originally used for 106.7 FM in Detroit, Michigan, first with easy listening and later an oldies format. Throughout most of the 1970s, it was an album-oriented rock station. During the heyday of the short-lived quadraphonic sound fad, it featured quad broadcasts and was known locally by fans as "W4 Quad." In 1980, WWWW changed its format to country, and was then known as "W4 Country" for almost two decades until switching to adult rock as WLLC-FM "Alice 106.7" in 1999. After a switch to classic rock as WDTW-FM "106.7 The Drive" in 2002, country music made a return to 106.7 FM on May 19,2006 as "106.7 The Fox". The "W4 Country" brand name and WWWW calls were revived for 102.9 FM in Ann Arbor in October 2000 and continued even after WDTW relaunched as "The Fox," which disappointed many fans of the original "W4 Country" who had hoped that the brand name would make a return at 106.7.
The 102.9 frequency began operations in March 1962 as WOIA and was (and still is) co-owned with WOIB-AM 1290 in Saline, Michigan. In 1970, the stations became WNRS-AM/WNRZ-FM, "Ann Arbor's Winners." WNRZ-FM changed its format from country to album rock in March 1975 and became known as WIQB, with a call sign which designated the number "103" (AM 1290 has since been through a multitude of format changes and is now WLBY, an affiliate of Air America). Like the original WWWW-FM, WIQB broadcasted in quadraphonic sound for a time in the 1970s as "QuadRock 103." WIQB's rock format went through several metamorphoses during the 1990s, including adult alternative during the late 1990s and then active rock by the end of the decade. As an active rock station, "Rock 103 IQB," then owned by Cumulus Broadcasting, was low-rated, continuously losing to Detroit's WRIF in the Ann Arbor Arbitron reports. "W4 Country" has proven much more popular in Ann Arbor, and is now often the top-rated music station in the market. Its signal into metropolitan Detroit is impeded by WHTD(102.7 MHz) in Mount Clemens in Macomb County, but WWWW still frequently shows up toward the bottom of the Detroit ratings. WWWW's signal is much stronger toward the west and north of Ann Arbor, and the station gets a listenable signal as far away as Flint and Lansing.
Both the former (106.7) and the current (102.9) WWWW are now owned by Clear Channel Communications.
WWWW - "W4 Country" - is a country music radio station based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, broadcasting on 102.9 MHz. The WWWW calls were originally used for 106.7 FM in Detroit, Michigan, first with easy listening and later an oldies format. Throughout most of the 1970s, it was an album-oriented rock station. During the heyday of the short-lived quadraphonic sound fad, it featured quad broadcasts and was known locally by fans as "W4 Quad." In 1980, WWWW changed its format to country, and was then known as "W4 Country" for almost two decades until switching to adult rock as WLLC-FM "Alice 106.7" in 1999. After a switch to classic rock as WDTW-FM "106.7 The Drive" in 2002, country music made a return to 106.7 FM on May 19,2006 as "106.7 The Fox". The "W4 Country" brand name and WWWW calls were revived for 102.9 FM in Ann Arbor in October 2000 and continued even after WDTW relaunched as "The Fox," which disappointed many fans of the original "W4 Country" who had hoped that the brand name would make a return at 106.7.
The 102.9 frequency began operations in March 1962 as WOIA and was (and still is) co-owned with WOIB-AM 1290 in Saline, Michigan. In 1970, the stations became WNRS-AM/WNRZ-FM, "Ann Arbor's Winners." WNRZ-FM changed its format from country to album rock in March 1975 and became known as WIQB, with a call sign which designated the number "103" (AM 1290 has since been through a multitude of format changes and is now WLBY, an affiliate of Air America). Like the original WWWW-FM, WIQB broadcasted in quadraphonic sound for a time in the 1970s as "QuadRock 103." WIQB's rock format went through several metamorphoses during the 1990s, including adult alternative during the late 1990s and then active rock by the end of the decade. As an active rock station, "Rock 103 IQB," then owned by Cumulus Broadcasting, was low-rated, continuously losing to Detroit's WRIF in the Ann Arbor Arbitron reports. "W4 Country" has proven much more popular in Ann Arbor, and is now often the top-rated music station in the market. Its signal into metropolitan Detroit is impeded by WHTD(102.7 MHz) in Mount Clemens in Macomb County, but WWWW still frequently shows up toward the bottom of the Detroit ratings. WWWW's signal is much stronger toward the west and north of Ann Arbor, and the station gets a listenable signal as far away as Flint and Lansing.
Both the former (106.7) and the current (102.9) WWWW are now owned by Clear Channel Communications.
Thoughts, comments, remembrances of your fave High School radio station?
Fixed call letter mix up.
Showing posts with label Ann Arbor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ann Arbor. Show all posts
Monday, January 16, 2012
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
More on Ron Asheton
I think I met Ron Asheton once, in passing really, I think it was at the old performance network, he was practicing with Powertraine, Denis Tek of Radio Birdman was there, along with Scott Morgan of course, and as I recall Ron was leaving as I was coming in with my brother. I do remember the first time I saw Ron and knew who he was, it was in 1997 or so when his band Dark Carnival was playing the State theater in Detroit (I refuse to call it by that SF club name) and recall clearly Chris “Box” from Mazinga giving Ron a copy of the first Mazinga single we'd put out on Reanimator. I don't know that Chris would ever have thought that he was going to get to play with Ron someday, not to mention live around the corner from him.
Around the corner, that's maybe why his passing sent a chill though my body, because he was a local guy. The last time I saw him, was when my brother and I were coming home from the local grocery story a couple of months back, and Ron was driving in the lane next to us. It really wasn't a shock, because our local grocery store was his local grocery store. He lived, at least a chunk of his life, about three city blocks from us, interrupted only by a swath of I-94, a swath that I could hear from my bedroom window when I was a teen and a young adult, and that I assume he should have been able to hear as well..... of course I didn't know who he was when I was a teen or when I was in my early 20s. It was only when I was in my mid to late 20 that I discovered The Stooges and the fact that they were local boys, a pair of brothers and their buddies from school. A couple of kids that had started something and when they were young and wild not had much commercial success... just like us.... and lived (well most of them) to see their legacy (that's a shout out for the Mazinga guys for those not in the know) legitimized.
Ron lived to see his art heralded, lived to see it spawn, well punk rock and much of what has flowed from it since. I am sure in the next couple of days we are going to see tributes and comments and biographies of Ron Asheton, but I just want to say, thanks for all you helped to build, and prove about how a couple of kids from Ann Arbor Michigan could over come their second class citizen status as Townies and set the world on fire...
Around the corner, that's maybe why his passing sent a chill though my body, because he was a local guy. The last time I saw him, was when my brother and I were coming home from the local grocery story a couple of months back, and Ron was driving in the lane next to us. It really wasn't a shock, because our local grocery store was his local grocery store. He lived, at least a chunk of his life, about three city blocks from us, interrupted only by a swath of I-94, a swath that I could hear from my bedroom window when I was a teen and a young adult, and that I assume he should have been able to hear as well..... of course I didn't know who he was when I was a teen or when I was in my early 20s. It was only when I was in my mid to late 20 that I discovered The Stooges and the fact that they were local boys, a pair of brothers and their buddies from school. A couple of kids that had started something and when they were young and wild not had much commercial success... just like us.... and lived (well most of them) to see their legacy (that's a shout out for the Mazinga guys for those not in the know) legitimized.
Ron lived to see his art heralded, lived to see it spawn, well punk rock and much of what has flowed from it since. I am sure in the next couple of days we are going to see tributes and comments and biographies of Ron Asheton, but I just want to say, thanks for all you helped to build, and prove about how a couple of kids from Ann Arbor Michigan could over come their second class citizen status as Townies and set the world on fire...
RIP Ron Asheton,
RIP Ron Asheton,
By Jim DeRogatison January 6, 2009 4from http://blogs.suntimes.com/derogatis/2009/01/ron_asheton_rip.html
The term "godfather of punk" is one that's too often abused: The genre can't possibly have had 189,958 progenitors, could it? And bandying it about too lightly only cheapens it when referring to a musician for whom that really was the case.
As reported by the Detroit Free Press, Ron Asheton, who founded the Stooges with singer Iggy Pop and was one of a half-dozen players who defined what punk-rock guitar could and should be, was found dead in his home in Ann Arbor, MI, Tuesday morning. He was 60 years old.
I last spoke to Asheton circa the Stooges reunion in 2007, but we first connected in the late '90s when I was researching the roots of punk in Detroit for Let It Blurt, my biography of rock critic Lester Bangs. The two were friends and mutual admirers, and it seems fitting to give Lester the last word on Asheton's enduring contribution to music, to culture and most of all to punk. From "Roots of Punk (Part One)" in New Wave magazine, 1978:
"'1969'" featured the only use of wah-wah that I had ever liked on any record (mainly because Ron Asheton didn't do anything with it, no flash bulls---, he just blanged out a chord and let the technology play its own self), and most importantly of all, THAT HE AND IGGY DIDN'T GIVE A S--- ABOUT ANYTHING AND NEITHER DID WE. We knew that over in Michigan his lifestyle was identical to ours, just getting f---ed up all the time and trying to find the girls who'd f--- us and usually failing. F--- the establishment, f--- the counterculture, f--- the Beatles after that white atrocity, f--- rock 'n' roll for that matter, everybody being so goddam protective about it like it was some sickly child or something, f--- the government and f--- the war and f--- the college and f--- the hippies and f--- everything. F--- you. I'm f---ed up already. Listen, when one of your best friends is slumped in your room stoned just this side of death on Seconals, drooling on himself and mumbling "I dunno, man, lately I think I been turnin' into a vegetable..." you really don't want to listen to Abbey Road, much less "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," a title I can't even type without sneering.Thanks, Ron, for giving us an alternative.
By Jim DeRogatison January 6, 2009 4from http://blogs.suntimes.com/derogatis/2009/01/ron_asheton_rip.html
The term "godfather of punk" is one that's too often abused: The genre can't possibly have had 189,958 progenitors, could it? And bandying it about too lightly only cheapens it when referring to a musician for whom that really was the case.
As reported by the Detroit Free Press, Ron Asheton, who founded the Stooges with singer Iggy Pop and was one of a half-dozen players who defined what punk-rock guitar could and should be, was found dead in his home in Ann Arbor, MI, Tuesday morning. He was 60 years old.
I last spoke to Asheton circa the Stooges reunion in 2007, but we first connected in the late '90s when I was researching the roots of punk in Detroit for Let It Blurt, my biography of rock critic Lester Bangs. The two were friends and mutual admirers, and it seems fitting to give Lester the last word on Asheton's enduring contribution to music, to culture and most of all to punk. From "Roots of Punk (Part One)" in New Wave magazine, 1978:
"'1969'" featured the only use of wah-wah that I had ever liked on any record (mainly because Ron Asheton didn't do anything with it, no flash bulls---, he just blanged out a chord and let the technology play its own self), and most importantly of all, THAT HE AND IGGY DIDN'T GIVE A S--- ABOUT ANYTHING AND NEITHER DID WE. We knew that over in Michigan his lifestyle was identical to ours, just getting f---ed up all the time and trying to find the girls who'd f--- us and usually failing. F--- the establishment, f--- the counterculture, f--- the Beatles after that white atrocity, f--- rock 'n' roll for that matter, everybody being so goddam protective about it like it was some sickly child or something, f--- the government and f--- the war and f--- the college and f--- the hippies and f--- everything. F--- you. I'm f---ed up already. Listen, when one of your best friends is slumped in your room stoned just this side of death on Seconals, drooling on himself and mumbling "I dunno, man, lately I think I been turnin' into a vegetable..." you really don't want to listen to Abbey Road, much less "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," a title I can't even type without sneering.Thanks, Ron, for giving us an alternative.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Dear Ann Arbor,
Just a couple of quick notes
Your utopia is really a dystopia
Mind your own business
Get some manners
Everyone in this place really needs to take a bath… soap is not oppression
Keep your guilt out of my day to day life
That will be all..
Your utopia is really a dystopia
Mind your own business
Get some manners
Everyone in this place really needs to take a bath… soap is not oppression
Keep your guilt out of my day to day life
That will be all..
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Intro... intro.. Go!
Welcome to my new Blog... when I say new I do mean my first here on Blog Spot, but not my first on the web. I of course am a bit of a interloper and keep various blogs at various sites. I have the Myspace thing, but that's mainly for keeping track of my friends in Sweden and the Twin Cities (and a few strays) who don't e-mail or what every, I have my mog (www.mog.com/iren) where I write about music, but that's my music place and everything else belongs somewhere else... I have a multiply account and a Garage Punk Hideout page, but none of those really were what I was looking for when I thought of this new project.
What project is that you ask, well The Restless Kind (when I manage to not type The Restless King) is going to be my blog home for 2 main things, recording my job search and my virtual wanderings. I will sometimes post other stuff here as well, mostly reposted stuff from mog (mostly when I want to reach more I-Balls with something). The plan is to post frequently, often and often with our editing..... I want this to be raw, in the moment and reflective of my moods, be they good bad or what ever.
So the two main types of posts as I mentioned are going to be about work and travel. The work stuff is going to help keep track of my job search, first for a job that pays the bills, second for a job that has benefits and lastly for that all too elusive dream job, the one that satisfies my needs not only in terms of pay, but my sense of fulfillment. In the course of these blog posts you can expect rants, observations, a few stories and mostly like a few links to places that I am looking for work. I am sort of hoping that you out there reading this might also find some use in my job posts with info and tools that I am going to write about. The one thing that I know for sure is that it's not going to be a easy haul, and that even if I secure employment that is ok, I will keep on posting about what else I am looking for, my impressions of the american work world and what I see that is right and wrong. The first thing that I have to say about work is that you owe it to your self to go out and rent The Wire season 2...
The other type of posting I intend to have on this blog is about one of my passions, travel. I have the bug, I am a wander, an observer and interloper in this world. I like to see what is over the next hill, I like to walk the grocery stores of the world, you see and learn so much. I like the streets, the coffee shops, checking out the juke boxes and wandering the book stores. Shopping malls, airports, train stations and I like the open road. I have seen parts of this world that I want to visit again, I have been places that I need to check back in on, and for now, in this semi employed state, I just don't have the cash to really venture into the world... so I am going to do so via this blog. This will take the form of me talking about a place, places or path between places that I want to visit or revisit. There will be links to cities, states, countries websites or wiki pages. I will mention things, places and establishments that I would like to visit and revisit..... you get the idea.. and I will flesh some things as I go along...
For now I think I will start with a few parting thoughts and words for you all...
My name is Eric, I currently live in Ann Arbor Michigan, I am looking for work, I like to travel (mostly in Northern Europe, The Great Lake States and the Pacific Northwest), I am a Rockfiend (as in Rock'n'Roll addict... but I'm not limited to Rock'n'Roll), I and a movie buff, I like good beer, good bread, fresh fruit, pastries, reading, writing, riding my bicycle and spending time with people. Too Much Coffeeman says Addiction is Unavoidable, Choose yours wisely.... I would say that my addiction is Information, and I long to share that information.
Lastly, I want this blog to be readable, I am not a grammar freak, and I can't seem to remember half the rules that they tried to get me to, so sorry if I drive you crazy at all with my writing.... enjoy.
What project is that you ask, well The Restless Kind (when I manage to not type The Restless King) is going to be my blog home for 2 main things, recording my job search and my virtual wanderings. I will sometimes post other stuff here as well, mostly reposted stuff from mog (mostly when I want to reach more I-Balls with something). The plan is to post frequently, often and often with our editing..... I want this to be raw, in the moment and reflective of my moods, be they good bad or what ever.
So the two main types of posts as I mentioned are going to be about work and travel. The work stuff is going to help keep track of my job search, first for a job that pays the bills, second for a job that has benefits and lastly for that all too elusive dream job, the one that satisfies my needs not only in terms of pay, but my sense of fulfillment. In the course of these blog posts you can expect rants, observations, a few stories and mostly like a few links to places that I am looking for work. I am sort of hoping that you out there reading this might also find some use in my job posts with info and tools that I am going to write about. The one thing that I know for sure is that it's not going to be a easy haul, and that even if I secure employment that is ok, I will keep on posting about what else I am looking for, my impressions of the american work world and what I see that is right and wrong. The first thing that I have to say about work is that you owe it to your self to go out and rent The Wire season 2...
The other type of posting I intend to have on this blog is about one of my passions, travel. I have the bug, I am a wander, an observer and interloper in this world. I like to see what is over the next hill, I like to walk the grocery stores of the world, you see and learn so much. I like the streets, the coffee shops, checking out the juke boxes and wandering the book stores. Shopping malls, airports, train stations and I like the open road. I have seen parts of this world that I want to visit again, I have been places that I need to check back in on, and for now, in this semi employed state, I just don't have the cash to really venture into the world... so I am going to do so via this blog. This will take the form of me talking about a place, places or path between places that I want to visit or revisit. There will be links to cities, states, countries websites or wiki pages. I will mention things, places and establishments that I would like to visit and revisit..... you get the idea.. and I will flesh some things as I go along...
For now I think I will start with a few parting thoughts and words for you all...
My name is Eric, I currently live in Ann Arbor Michigan, I am looking for work, I like to travel (mostly in Northern Europe, The Great Lake States and the Pacific Northwest), I am a Rockfiend (as in Rock'n'Roll addict... but I'm not limited to Rock'n'Roll), I and a movie buff, I like good beer, good bread, fresh fruit, pastries, reading, writing, riding my bicycle and spending time with people. Too Much Coffeeman says Addiction is Unavoidable, Choose yours wisely.... I would say that my addiction is Information, and I long to share that information.
Lastly, I want this blog to be readable, I am not a grammar freak, and I can't seem to remember half the rules that they tried to get me to, so sorry if I drive you crazy at all with my writing.... enjoy.
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