Hard-Disc Jockeys
Indie 103.1 dumped him for a computer, and all DJ Chris Morris got was this column
By Chris Morris
Late last week, I hopped on the Los Angeles Times blog “Pop and Hiss” to see if anyone had logged feedback on Todd Martens’ post about the cancellation of my Indie 103.1 show Watusi Rodeo. The most recent comment, from “LeslieS,” read in part, “The trend in commercial radio leaves me searching for my radio’s soul.”
Leslie: Radio has no intrinsic soul. Radio is a thing of currents, waves, and ions. It enters the air, vibrates for a moment, and fades away. Radio is soulful only when it is animated by some sort of inspiration, intelligence, or daring.
Indie 103.1 seemed soulful when it materialized, like a present under the tree, on Christmas Day five years ago. The frequency had previously hosted a variety of interesting, failed formats: dance stations MARS-FM and Groove Radio, and short-lived triple-A World Class Rock. As Indie’s DJs made their bows, it sounded more and more like the long-gone, wild, maverick KROQ of the late ’70s. I was charmed by Steve Jones’s unpredictable, meandering show; other specialized blocks, like my friend Henry Rollins’s Harmony in My Head, also echoed the free-form programming I had grown up with – real people programming real radio.
In 2005 I took over the country-rock specialty show Watusi Radio after original host “Doc Holiday” – veteran radio promotion man Michael Whited – moved to Tennessee. It became the only full-service roots-music show on L.A. commercial radio. I was a lucky guy: I could play pretty much anything I liked, within reason, with zero interference from management. I could bring on live guests of my choice. The only programming advice I got was, “Say the name of the station more.”
Yeah, it was too good to be true. Then Radio As Usual reared its head.
Indie won hearts and minds, but it couldn’t dent the ratings. A large part of its trouble stemmed from its weak signal; a poster on the industry message board the Velvet Rope wrote recently, “The problem is Indie 103.1 has a transmitter with all the power of a hair drier.” It also lacked the advertising and promotional budget to really compete in a tough market.
Entravision, Indie’s corporate owner, wanted numbers, so in February 2007 founding program director Michael Steele was fired. He was replaced by Boston alt-rock programmer Max Tolkoff. Max was schooled at San Diego’s 91X under programmer Rick Carroll, whose “Rock of the Eighties” format made KROQ so robotic. As one of my ex-colleagues at Indie said recently, “He’s a radio guy.” The characterization was not meant to be flattering.
It’s tempting to paint Max as the villain, but that would be unfair. For more than a year, his hands were effectively tied by Indie’s general manager Dawn Girocco, who stood behind the station’s specialized programming. But after Dawn left for the Times this August, Max started doing what came naturally to a “radio guy”: He tightened up the format.
The same shows name-checked by Rolling Stone this year in their citation of Indie as the best station in the country – Brent Bolthouse and Danny Masterson’s Feel My Heat, the Crystal Method’s Community Service, Rollins’ program – were either cancelled or moved from high-traffic weeknights into the weekend backwater. Joe Escalante, the intelligent host of Indie’s morning show, was relieved; he kept his advice show Barely Legal Radio on the strength of his advertising sponsor Legalzoom.com. The playlist was squeezed, and ’90s alt-rock – Smashing Pumpkins, Jane’s Addiction – became the bedrock of the sound.
Last week, Max finally started fine-tuning the weekend programming. He called me on the morning of Dec. 1 and told me I was done. In what he must have thought was an act of charity, he offered me a midnight shift for no pay. Dave Navarro is doing his new midnight show without compensation. Rock stars can do that; I declined. I have been replaced by a rotating cast of jocks, playing the station’s computer. Let’s call them hard-disc jockeys.
So far, Max’s changes haven’t translated into ratings increase;. Indie was nowhere to be found in a rundown of L.A.’s top-rated stations issued by Arbitron last week; the station is currently commanding a sliver of the market. Interestingly, competitor KYSR – alt-rocker 98.7 – notched a huge increase in November, while KROQ, still No. 9 in the market, also posted a big month-to-month gain.
So: I’m gone, like a radio wave. Indie 103.1 is being restyled as a knuckle-dragging imitation of KROQ. My guess: It will be simulcasting Spanish programming by the end of 2009 at the latest.
Tragic? Yes. Anything other than Radio As Usual? Not at all. Soulful? Please.
Published: 12/11/2008
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Someone finally said it. What little hope there was when it came to relief from KROQ, that hope is now dying slowly.