I woke up this morning thinking about SF Bay Area radio in the 80s and how I discovered new music. When I was younger, I mostly listened to the rock station KOME (don’t touch that dial, there’s KOME on it!”). I was in 7th grade and listening to KOME on December 8, 1980 when it was announced that John Lennon had been shot.
KQAK “The Quake” launched in 1982 with a new format that consisted of new wave, punk rock, post-punk, reggae and ska—one of the first commercial stations in the country to play this kind of music. A buddy and I used to drive up to San Francisco early in the morning to be part of the studio audience for the morning show with Alex Bennett. I first heard bands like The Smiths and The English Beat on KQAK.
Sadly The Quake went off the air in 1985, but by then I had started listening to KFJC, a college station based at Foothill College, that would play, literally, anything. I discovered so much punk rock through that station and learned about so many local $5 shows–Dead Kennedys, Butthole Surfers, Red Hot Chili Peppers. I was listening to KFJC in 1989 when I first heard Negative Creep by Nirvana. I immediately drove down to the Mountain View Tower Records and bought Bleach on vinyl. I managed to see Nirvana in 1990 at the Kennel Club in San Francisco (along with Tad and Dickless).
Those years and those sounds ended up shaping the world of my novel Mountain View.
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