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Name: Del Reynolds
Age: 5x
Occupation: owner of several northern Michigan radio stations
Last Seen: Cheboygan, MI
Bee-otched For: pissing off knuckleheads
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Northern Michigan: where there's four rock stations and none of them care enough about those who love new rock.
Back in the 1990's, stations like WKLT had nothing to worry about. They could air moose farts 24/7 and they'd still be a healthy #2 in the ratings. Yeah, there was classic rocker The Bear and pop alternative The Zone, but if you were a fan of KoRn, Rage Against the Machine, Tool and other bands that had balls, fuhgeddaboutit.
Thankfully, The Zone added those bands and more in 2000, and they kicked ass throughout most of the 2000's. However, poor management and bad decisions killed the station in 2009, replacing it with Real Rock 105/95-5.
One minute, Real Rock sounded good, the next minute, it was a mix of decent music and crap from the 70's that KLT overplayed. On April Fool's Day, Real Rock dropped the 95-5 signal and it flipped to simply "Rock 105".
Rock 105 is pretty much a mainstream rock station that focuses on the 1990's with a few newer tunes mixed in. Yeah, it's thankfully not like KLT, but there's a few big problems. One of them is the lack of new rock. Right now, Rock 105's currents include Pop Evil's "Trenches", Nine Inch Nails' "Came Back Haunted", Imagine Dragons' "Radioactive", Pearl Jam's "Mind Your Manners", Volbeat's "Hangman's Bodycount" and not a whole lot else.
One of the biggest disappointments regarding Rock 105: WHERE THE FUCK IS FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH?!?! Their latest single, "Lift Me Up" is not on the playlist! This is the most-successful real rock band in America right now, and Rock 105 has so far passed on it.
Even worse, Rock 105 plays a shitload of pop crap that no station with the word "Rock" in their name should ever play, such as Gin Blossoms, Counting Crows and Dave Matthews Band. Then again, since their programming director, Cartman is a self-proclaimed alternative nerd, that's what the people of northern Michigan get.
It's sad that back in 2006, The Zone had a great programmer in Chad Barron who made the station stand out from the crowd. But then, Del Reynolds re-took over the station and the others he sold off to Northern Star back in 1998 and flipped it into a virtual jukebox claiming that it wasn't billing well. But, that's northern Michigan. Now, Rock 105 is the only home for new rock in northern Michigan and they're not doing a great job at it.
Oh, and where's anything from Device, Disturbed's David Draiman's new band? How about Deftones' last two singles? Halestorm? The list of new rock absentees goes on and on.
Also, I love how Del blew up the 95.5 signal in Traverse City and made that into another lame AC station. Did he learn ANYTHING from what happened to WSRT? That station was an abortion and judging by the fact that Easy 95.5/106.3 only has 83 likes on Facebook, it's heading down that same road.
You see, this is why people have Pandora, Slacker and Sirius. They have a better product for little to no cost. They care about rock's future while Rock 105 and WKLT don't. Why is WGRD here in Grand Rapids kicking ass? Simple: they love their listeners. Great morning show, good music and great jocks. I can't say that about Rock 105. As long as they're keeping their currents at a bare minimum and overplaying Everclear's "Father of Mine", I'll be happy that I have a ton of apps on my phone to keep me happy when I'm up north.
Maybe that's why the Spring Arbitron books for northern Michigan haven't been released....
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