(TheBRHM.com) In the late 1990s-early 2000s, my city had two rock radio stations: one for classic rock and hard rock and another for alternative rock. Both stations had its own blocks of music with the hard rock station—The Eagle—playing more of a mix since it had more decades to pull from and it wasn’t formatted to play the newest music from a band.
Multi-Station Bands: Bon Jovi, KISS, Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Co.
You did have a few older bands that got radio play on both stations. Bon Jovi and KISS are two bands that come to mind with 2000’s Crush and 1998’s Psycho Circus, respectively. They’re both bands from roughly a decade or two prior to the late-90s and had hits or singles you could hear on either format.
Of course, the hard rock station played the most known songs. Even at night, you weren’t getting the cuts that fans would love nor were we getting bands outside of the well-known ones—at least in my market. It’s to be expected with the influence some bands have or had on broadcast radio even when old songs are the focus.
A band that existed in an interest spot is Red Hot Chili Peppers. My hard rock station was odd in that you could hear RHCP songs from the 90s which seemed to be the cutoff for everyone but Metallica and Megadeth—but more so Metallica. For Red Hot Chili Peppers, the starting album for tunes on both stations is 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik which was loaded with hits—pretty much like Californication in 1999.
On mainstream radio, it’s as if the first four albums—seven years of music—didn’t exist. For someone who likes to dive into a band’s early stuff, it was like Evil Dead or Friday the 13th and the first films in both franchises. Yeah, you could watch them but if you didn’t, you weren’t missing a ton.
The Xtreme Block
A bit of detour before we get in the most memorable block on our hard rock station: the Xtreme block. Over on the alternative rock station called the X—truly creative—there was an evening block called “Xtreme X”. This block usually ran on Saturdays starting at 9PM and featured mostly nu metal and modern—at the time—hard rock acts. So we’re talking Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, KoRn, Linkin Park, Mudvayne—with Slayer, Fear Factory, and Hatebreed thrown in the mix.
Fear Factory always stood out to me because they were always a featured band on shows here around Halloween time. I’d say it just isn’t a Halloween advertisement without Fear Factory and Sloss Fright Furnace being mentioned. In the case of the contemporary bands on the station, you could hear their most recent songs during the day and throughout the week, but on “Xtreme X” the DJ would give you something else off an album—and even off older albums!
If a lot of that sounds dated, you’re not the only one who thinks so as the station changed formats several times over the years. Then you have the Eagle which held its format.
Time to Get the Led Out
The block you could always count on over on the hard rock station was the Led Zeppelin marathon. The voice tag would proclaim “It’s time to get Led out!” every day at 5 PM Central. It was always with an echo and one of two songs would fade in: “Immigrant Song” or “When the Levee Breaks”. You’d think they would mix it up but nah. Mind you, you wouldn’t know which of the two you were getting but it was just those two songs to kick things off during 5 o’clock traffic.
I guess you couldn’t be too picky if you on your Led Zeppelin options pre-streaming, pre-mp3 players, and while you’re stuck in some sluggish traffic. If you were unfortunate enough to be stuck in traffic the whole hour, you likely heard “Stairway to Heaven” close out the Led block.
While we’re in a time where radio isn’t the main method of enjoying music, what memories do you have of rock radio? Was it the broadcast blocks? Marathons? Winning tickets? Requesting songs? Let us know in the comments!
Staff Writer; James “Metal” Swift Jr.
This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.