Sunday Morning Radio: 91X, San Diego, CA

(This may become a recurring feature here. If you think it would be a cool feature, let me know!)

There’s just something about Southern California radio. There’s an energy there that’s kind of undescribable, but if you listen you get it. The jocks always seem to be casual nearly to the point of distraction, and the formatting seems loose nearly to the point of falling apart, but somehow it all works. When I was in California back in the 80s, stations like KROQ (on the New Wave side) and KNAC (on the hard rock-metal side) seemed to be the perfect soundtrack for getting in the car, rolling down the windows, cranking it up and driving wherever.

The direct descendant of KROQ (besides the real thing, which is still there and will be featured in the coming weeks) would be San Diego station 91X. Their regular programming is kind of Modern Alternative (lots of Foo Fighters, Black Keys, Vampire Weekend, like that), with healthy scoops of Grunge, a little Hard Rock, some early hip-hop (Beasties, mostly) and plenty of New Wave – especially on Sunday mornings, when they run ‘Resurrection Sunday.’ It’s like hopping into the Doc’s DeLorean and heading back to the mid-Eighties – a little heavy on SoCal faves like Oingo Boingo, Missing Persons and Dead Kennedys (but that’s okay with me), along with the Big Dogs of the New Wave Era like Devo, B-52s, The Police and REM. It’s great to just put it on and let them surprise you as the playlist unwinds.

Resurrection Sunday is a great way to perform a mental escape from the weather here in NY, which at this point is starting to make the usual wintry threats it makes around this time every year.

NOTE: If you know of a radio station that we should feature here, jot it down in the comments and we’ll check them out if they’re internet-accessible. Thanks!