Do Your Local AM/FM Stations Play Metal?

Do Your Local AM/FM Stations Play Metal?

I've lived in several cities in my life- Born in Saint Mary's, PA, Grew up in East Peoria, IL, Went to college in Normal, IL, then moved to Grand Haven, MI, then Tempe, AZ, and finally back to East Peoria, IL.

In Saint Mary's, where I still go back occaisonally to visit relatives, the only decent stations are Megarock, a classic rock station which occaisonally plays Zeppelin and AC/DC, and does a 2 hour show called Rock Hard Saturday Night, and a classic hits station, WQKY 98.9, the River, based in nearby Emporium, which plays Dee Snider's House Of Hair on Thursdays. There was also another station in the 1990s call the Revoltion, an alternative/modern rock station coming out of State College, which occasionally played metal, usually the mallcore variety, until it changed formats sometime around 2005.

In Normal, the main rock station, WIHN plays mostly alternative music(It's a college town), emo, and mallcore, though they do occaisonally play some old Metallica or Priest or Maiden in addition to airing House Of Hair on Sunday mornings(when most people who'd listen in are either sleeping off the night before or in church!). The Illinois State University(Where I went to school) station, WZND, though does have a heavy metal show on Thursdays, though it's only available thru cable radio or online. WESN, the college station for Illinois Wesleyan University in next-door Bloomington(Franklin Street, running thru both towns, is the ONLY street in the entire world with a university on both ends), which was available over the open airwaves, did have Death by Volume on Mondays and Saturdays, which included Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer, Metal Church, Helloween, Mercyful Fate, Megadeth, and Manowar.

In Grand Haven, the best station available was WKLQ in Grand Rapids, which had Out of Control Saturday Night(Which admittedly played a lot of mallcore), Rock Hard Sunday(Featuring 80's hair bands), and New Metal Monday(which SOMEHOW saw fit to include Insane Clown Posse!!). Sadly, WKLQ got rid of those shows and went downhill and finally changed formats. WMMR in nearby Muskegon plays House Of Hair on Sundays.

In Tempe, the best station is KUPD, which every Sunday has Into The Pit, a 2-hour metal show with some pretty raw stuff. Another station, KDKB, plays House Of Hair on Saturday nights.

Back in East Peoria, until 2006 the best local station, WIXO, really doesn't have a metal show, although they do play metal, although most of it's more like mallcore and nu-metal bands like Saliva, Papa Roach, etc. A new station, WDQX 102.3, MAXfm, which is at least not corporate owned, plays some pre-sellout Metallica, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Pat Travers, Rainbow, etc.

And last but not least, the local album rock station, WWCT, which I grew up listening to, and was the best local station at the time, and played Sabbath, Priest, Riot, etc., had taken a nose dive from the early 1990's until about 2003 when they switched to an all-request format, playing requests from Suicidal Tendencies, Slayer, Megadeth, to Johnny Cash(!!), and also had House of Hair on Sunday mornings, until it changed formats in October 2006 to adult hits and finally 2 years later to alternative rock.

There has never been a local station that streams rock, metal or any other music other than puerile pop pap in my area. I did once find a DAB station that streams rock/progrock from the 70s.
As of consequence I turned to the internet and found HMR – never looked back since.

Living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, we have a few rock stations:

102.1 The Edge has the best DJs but the music is more alternative or newer rock for the most part.

107.1 Q107 is a classic rock station -- I hear my father`s band `A Foot in Coldwater` played here pretty frequently (he made some good tunes; some heavier, but the ballads were the ones to stand the test of time).

Lastly, there`s 97.7 HITZ FM, whose DJs are downright terrible but it plays the heaviest tunes -- I`ve heard such bands as Slayer, Megadeth and some of the cleaner Opeth tracks.

In Cincinnati, there's really only one station if you hope to hear anything with a fast drum beat and distorted electric guitars, and that is 102.7 WEBN, which classifies itself as "Album-oriented rock." WEBN plays a lot of classic rock, not really metal - By which I mean Led Zeppelin, Nazareth, AC/DC, Black Sabbath... They very occasionally play something like Slayer, but only songs that everybody knows and has heard a million times. About the only "metal" they play is Metallica, which is played about once every 2 hours.

I used to listen to WEBN all day (I used to drive for a living) and was already quite bored with it before I realized that I was bored with it. About 6 or 7 years ago, I bought a 80-gig iPod, which holds about 20,000 songs, and I never listened to commercial radio again.

One good thing about WEBN - they do play the same rote hard rock, and they are basically the "music trendsetters" telling you what you should like, but they do not play pop, R&B whatever the kids are listening to these days.

But I'll stick with my iPod, where I control EVERY song and I already know I'm gonna hear something that I like.

While I now live in Detroit 'Rock City', the only commercial station here to ever play anything close to Metal was WLLZ, which went off the air in 1996. We currently have WRIF which plays stuff like Disturbed, SOAD, Ozzy and Metallica but it is really just a C0ck Rock radio station for meatheads who dont understand what metal really is.

My College radio station, WMTU, at one point played about 40% metal. Of course that was partly true because I was the Program Director there and my friends and I took over the place for about 5 years.

For my money, college/university radio stations can have some great shows, but for consistency, internet radio has been spectacular.

iamnotfrom said:In Cincinnati, there's really only one station if you hope to hear anything with a fast drum beat and distorted electric guitars, and that is 102.7 WEBN, which classifies itself as "Album-oriented rock." WEBN plays a lot of classic rock, not really metal - By which I mean Led Zeppelin, Nazareth, AC/DC, Black Sabbath... They very occasionally play something like Slayer, but only songs that everybody knows and has heard a million times. About the only "metal" they play is Metallica, which is played about once every 2 hours.

I used to listen to WEBN all day (I used to drive for a living) and was already quite bored with it before I realized that I was bored with it. About 6 or 7 years ago, I bought a 80-gig iPod, which holds about 20,000 songs, and I never listened to commercial radio again.

One good thing about WEBN - they do play the same rote hard rock, and they are basically the "music trendsetters" telling you what you should like, but they do not play pop, R&B whatever the kids are listening to these days.

But I'll stick with my iPod, where I control EVERY song and I already know I'm gonna hear something that I like.

Cincinnati? Don't tell me that WKRP is no more!

iamnotfrom said:In Cincinnati, there's really only one station if you hope to hear anything with a fast drum beat and distorted electric guitars, and that is 102.7 WEBN, which classifies itself as "Album-oriented rock." WEBN plays a lot of classic rock, not really metal - By which I mean Led Zeppelin, Nazareth, AC/DC, Black Sabbath... They very occasionally play something like Slayer, but only songs that everybody knows and has heard a million times. About the only "metal" they play is Metallica, which is played about once every 2 hours.

Believe it or not iamnotfrom, there actually was a very small source of real heavy metal radio in Cincinnati back in the mid to late 90's. It was at one of the last places you would think to search on the dial...smack dab in the middle of the classical and NPR end of the spectrum, on 91.7 WVXU. I think it used to be called Heavy Metal Meltdown, or Heavy Metal Countdown. To think, of all places to hear Slayer, Prong, Type O Negative, and Korn, you could find the source on a station that was owned by Xavier University (a private Catholic university). Now the station is part of Cincinnati Public Radio...basically NPR.

Rochester rules for metal..

In my youth (early to late 80's) there was the rock shop on Saturday nights, 10 til 2 AM on WSFW. Obviously twisted sister, Quiet riot, motley Crue, etc, but also Riot, Saxon, armored saint, Accept, anthrax, loudness, WASP, and of course PILEDRIVER and the likes. This is what started me down the path of my evil ways.

Then, I may have mentioned once or twice, this wonderful little gem called the Metal Inquisition hit the airwaves on Thursday nights from 9PM til 3ish on WBSU (Brockport state). It was hosted by this putz called The Trooper (supersonicH8 hadnt been released yet!) from 1988-1992. I played pretty much anything and everything, though i didn't particularly care for the death growl coming out of the Buffalo area (cannibal Corpse, etc). To which I got crucified nightly!! I did a segment called the battle of the nukes (newcomers), where I put new music head to head. The winner moved on to face a new challenger the next week, while the loser became a "smash hit". We literaly would throw the records (12" black plastic discs kids) down the hall into the wall and smash them! (Hows that for censorship blacksnow!) :) A band that won at least once, was spared the smash hit, and five wins in a row got retired with honors. They included Xentrix, Kryst the Conqueror, Artch, Heretic, Agony Column, Blacksmith, and this band called Pantera. This show continued sans The Trooper for another ten years, without even changing the name. It always opened with the pile driver classic, and closed with Motley Crues home sweet home.

At that same time, there were 4 other metal shows on college and non-commercial stations. We all got along pretty well,and discussed our likes and dislikes. I was on the largest station, and had a posse to do promtion, so they all kinda looked up to me. Even today we still have two on the air WBER on Sunday nights and WITR on Wednesdays (I think). Though I dont think WBSU has any metal "show" per say, I'm sure some gets played still.

Commercially, we have five stations that play hard rock and metal within their format, but not exclusively. WCMF plays classic rock but incoorperates Sabbath, Priest, Maiden, Dio, Queensryche, kiss, etc into the mix. WFXF is similar. WZNE plays nu-metal, disturbed, SOAD, etc. And WBZA and WLLW (formerly WSFW) play the house of hair with dee snider weekly, and have hair metal shows. WBZA has the hairspray cafe daily at noon, and the spandex fix at six, while WLLW has the Hair Club on Saturday nights from 10 til 2. Both lean towards the hair metal, but play danzig, accept, metal church, etc. And both have AC/DC, kiss, crue, priest, maiden, twisted, queensryche, ratt, scorpions, etc in regular rotation.

Rochester has great radio stations that incoorperate a fair amount of metal though don't cater to it. And personally, much like HMR, I like the mix. I can listen to some heart, zz top, and even Skynrd with my metal. I really only listen to any of those while in the car though, if I'm home, HMR is on and cranked!

Back then it was "Krank it up, LOUD AND PROUD!" now it's "stay heavy, stay tuned"

ssH8