long live HFS (not)
this is super-old news in the d.c. blogosphere by now, but i wanted to write about it anyway: as of yesterday around noon, local station 99.1, WHFS, was totally and unexpectedly turned into a salsa-carribean music station. yup.
this isn't really sad news for me, as i rarely listen to radio any more. i mean, i guess i'll have to fix the preset stations in my car, but that's about the biggest incovnenience it'll cause. but i do want to credit HFS for two great things it did for me:
1) it turned me on to radiohead. when "the bends" came out nearly a decade ago, i was hardly what you'd call a music fan. i owned no CDs, had never been to a live concert, and couldn't place half the bands shown on MTV. but when i heard "high and dry" one day on HFS during the winter of '95, i was immediately hooked. i bought "the bends," listened to it three times a day, and officially commenced my ten-year obsession with radiohead, which in turn has really affected my life in a lot of other positive ways (travels experienced, friends made, new music exposure, british musicians stalked, etc).
2) this is also radiohead-related, but so what: during the tibetan freedom festival at RFK stadium in 1998, radiohead's performance was canceled due to lightning. several friends and i were making a disappointed trip home, listening to HFS, when a cryptic announcement came on air; it announced something to the effect of a secret concert that night at the 9:30 club, featuring one of the bands that had been lightening'd out of the TFF. "karma police" then started playing, and the whole thing wasn't so cryptic anymore, and we hauled ass to the 9:30 club and just made it in the door. which in turn led to one of the greatest concert moments of my life: michael stipe and thom yorke singing "lucky" together. i assure you, it was totally orgasmic.
anyway, DCist has a post with a big ole comment thread here; frank ahrens, former resident of our apartment and go-to radio guy for the post has a chat here; some other post guy will have another chat about HFS here at 2pm; and Heres a Hint has a good post that reflects a lot of my feelings about HFS and radio in general here.
Comments
I always thought of you more as a Nissan Pavilion kind of girl.
i kill you.
Was there even a big bash? I am sort of surprised by this news. But then again, every time I turned on HFS all I heard was Been Caught Stealing. Weird.
Maybe it was stolen.
I was beginning to think my rant was simply a "say the opposite of everyone" type thing, but I now feel more secure in my post and am done second-guess myself (for today). I, too, must now reprogram my car radio.
haha, yeah, they often overdosed on the jane's addiction. and no, there was absolutely no warning about it, which was definitely weird.
See, I think it was stolen by salsa lovers. And I don't mean the spicy red stuff you eat with yellow chips. No. I mean that Dirty Dancing type shit.
Ah well.
I'm not even sure Dirty Dancing featured Salsa.
I know nothing. And will cease my banter.
yeah, that happened to my favorite radio station in virginia beach....just started playing country one day out of the blue. oh well, maybe our generation needs to learn how to salsa and merengue!
mmmmmmm lemon merengue tastes so good. ;]
For no real reason, I suspect Clear Channel. If they're involved, I'm outraged. What station is it again?
For no real reason, I suspect Clear Channel
I'm with you! But it turns out HFS was owned by Infinity. Just as evil, but not as big. DC101 is owned by Clear Channel, though, and obviously they'll benefit from HFS leaving. Let the conspiracy theories commence.
I remember that canceled show. Or rather, I remember getting so f-d up at the show that I thought the world was ending when the lightning struck. Ah, sweet 1990s innocence!
I can't believe you got into the free 9:30 club show. I was too busy passing out to hear anything about it until the next day.
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