Radio News

Going out with March like a lamb tonight, I turn my attention to radio.

Here in the greater New York area, the "smooth jazz" (translation: fake "muzak-style" jazz) station WQCD-FM recently went off the air after nearly twenty years and was replaced on the dial at 101.9 FM by a new rock station, WRXP-FM. This new rock station may be the most important rock station on Big Apple radio since the late and lamented WNEW-FM was launched in 1967. (It went off the air in 1999, but the call letters stayed the same for another eight years.) WRXP - the call letters are short for "Rock Experience" hopes to play all kinds of rock music, from early classics to the grunge and alternative acts of the nineties to current bands, presenting the music as a continuous whole. This is how I believe rock should be presented, and I hope the station is a success.

Apart from Ramsey Lewis's "Legends of Jazz" series, which used to air on WQCD at 10 P.M. on Sundays, the previous station is really no loss.

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the Atlantic, BBC Radio 2 suffered a real loss. Seventies rocker Steve Harley ended his "Sounds of the Seventies" radio show after eight years on the air. No word yet on whether a similar show will take its place, but I'll miss Steve's erudite banter and knowledge of seventies pop. And yes, he played my request! Good luck with Cockney Rebel, old mate.