Z-Rock Metal Militia

Though terrestrial radio's influence is waning, with the advent of Sirius/XM, online radio stations, Pandora and so on, the almost 100 year old medium continues. And while I think people still have their favorite radio stations, I'm not sure there is quite the devotion of days past. There were live and local DJs that built more of a rapport with the audience.

My favorites went up and down the dial as I grew up. My first favorite radio station was 59 WOW out of Omaha. The followed by 13K KELO out of Sioux Falls, 62 KMNS out of Sioux City. Night time listening was at KAAY in Little Rock, and my all time favorite on the AM band, WLS out of Chicago. All of them were Top 40 stations, spinning the hits.

When I moved to suburban Chicago, I was awed by the choices on my radio band. I stumbled across some suburban FM station going by the moniker "Z-Rock". It was the greatest thing to a white boy tiring of Top 40 music. It was a hard rock/heavy metal station. Besides the more Top 40 hits by groups like RATT, Quiet Riot, and AC/DC, you would also hear Dokken, Krokus, Iron Maiden, Dio, Anthrax and other acts that were a bit to the left of Top 40 radio.

But Z-Rock wasn't local, it was the first national satellite music radio network. Wikipedia has a good rundown of the network.

Rightly or wrongly, this was the first shot in the battle of live and local radio.

They were on many stations across the country, including the one in suburban Chicago. When I got my travelling job with Motorola, I heard them in many other markets. It was always good to hear the same voices, jingles, and tunes.

A few years after I moved to Charleston, WV, they had a small local station at 1490AM pick up the Z-Rock network. It was a small 1000 watt AM station that I could barely get in my suburban home, but it was the same hard rock music that I live, albeit in scratchy AM. WCZR, AM 1490, Charleston's Z-Rock.

Part of their deal for fans was to join the "Z-Rock Metal Militia." You could go purchase some dog tags at a local store, and then use the tags to get discounts at various stores. Not sure I got a discount for anything, but they were a pre-internet way of organizing listeners. I still have them, and went digging for them. Below is my Z-Rock Metal Militia dog tag.

Since they were running often un-manned stations they had audio jingles to start local commercials automatically. I currently use one of the riffs as my text message alert tone. Fun stuff.

I found a sampling of airchecks from that Chicago station I listened to. WZRC, 106.7 (Z-Rock Chicago). They had two tags lines that were great too. They've been ripped off by other stations, but I think they may have been the first.

IF IT'S TOO LOUD, YOU'RE TOO OLD!

FLIP US ON, AND FLIP THEM OFF!

LOCK IT IN AND RIP THE KNOB OFF!

Here is the aircheck

In listening to this, it is amazing how fresh and modern the imaging is. This above audio is from 30 years ago. I think you could put this on the air now, and still have it sound like a 2016 radio station.