10.10.17 Bee-otch of the Day: WGRD

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Name: WGRD
Age: 69
Occupation: rock radio station
Last Seen: Grand Rapids, MI
Bee-otched For: treating their listeners like Dust in the Wind

   

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Talk about a rude awakening.

This morning at 4:30, I woke up with my old school radio clock alarm blaring out a commercial on WGRD. OK, no big deal. Commercials help pay a radio station. The commercials stop and a sweeper saying "97-9 GRD.... Rocks!" plays into "Home Sweet Home" by Motley Crue. OK, the Crue is acceptable for an active rock format. But, the next song reeked of what SHOULDN'T air on an active rock station.

And that, my friends, is "Carry On My Wayward Son" by Kansas.

For the past few months, GRD has been adding more butt rock to their playlist. Bands that NEVER got airplay on the station like Def Leppard, the aforementioned Kansas, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Pink Floyd, Queen and Billy Squier now get played regularly. Now, I don't mind Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin on any active rock station, but when I hear the singers of Kansas wail "CARRY ON MY WAYWARD SOOOOOONNNNN.... THERE WILL BE PEACE WHEN...." blah blah blah, off goes the radio. And when it's 4:30 a.m., I wish I owned a gun so I can shoot it.

So, WHY is GRD playing so much goddamned butt rock all the sudden? Is Townsquare deliberately trying to kill the station like Hanlon did to KLQ ten years ago? Fuck, the KLQ of 2007 actually sounds better than the GRD of today. At least they never played Lynyrd Skynyrd or Kansas. But we all know what happened in the end: KLQ flipped to all-sports WBBL and GRD took the active rock slack. Back then, Free Beer and Hot Wings still had Zane and Jerry Tarrants was a damn good programmer. However, JT left and GRD has been in a downward spiral since. Sadly, I feel that the station's programmer is some suit at Townsquare HQ in Connecticut and he thinks that Grand Rapids is some backwards hick town. However, they don't care a rat's ass that GR already has two classic rock stations and if I want to hear butt rock, I'd listen to those stations.

If I ran GRD, I'd eliminate all baby boomer shit except for Ozzy and maybe Pink Floyd. There's a SHIT TON of kickass rock from the past 25 years that never gets played anymore. But since Townsquare, along with iHeartMedia and Cumulus own 95% of all the radio stations in Grand Rapids, there's no chance in hell that terrestrial radio will ever play them again. We might as well stick to listening to Pandora and SiriusXM so we don't have to sit through Styx to get to Five Finger Death Punch.

As long as GRD keeps playing butt rock, there's definitely a Point of Know Return.

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