RIP

Rest In Peace Atlanta radio. It was announced today that 96 Rock will be changing format tomorrow to Active Rock (whatever the hell that is). I think it's what my kids listen to, basically screaming laid over a constant bass riff.

When 96 Rock started in 1974, I was 7 years old, not quite up to listening to Rock music (Mom and Dad were more of the easy listening types). But when I started to form my own taste in music 96 Rock was THE station to listen to. Through High School, that's all there really was (with a bit of punk and some new wave thrown in). Bruce Springsteen, REM, Rush, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin were all standard fare and, cheesy as it sounds, the soundtrack to my teen years.

More recently 96 Rock had morphed to sort of a Classic Rock format. Not bad, mostly stuff that was already classic when I was in High School. My taste in music has matured quite a bit since those days, but every once in a while 96 Rock was a good fallback. In addition, they had the best morning show on radio in Atlanta, The Regular Guys. TRG show was, for the lack of a better term, shock radio. Nothing really terrible, just inventive, funny stuff that was original and entertaining. TRG got suspended a couple of years ago because of a backwards porn stunt they were recording to poke fun at FCC rules in the wake of boob-gate. They were off the air for about a year but came back and were better, and smarter, than ever. Their latest incarnation lasted until last month when Clear Channel fired TRG.

I haven't listened to 96 Rock since that happened and probably wouldn't without some major development. It is sad to see though that the station that I grew up with is going away.