Ages: KOMP: 58, KXTE: 38
Occupations: radio stations
Last Seen: Las Vegas
Bee-otched For: saying "Good Riddance" to Green Day
Christ, I'm getting old.
It's been 30 years since I was a 13-year-old lad watching MTV when I saw the song " Longview " video by a new band called Green Day. The group's major debut album, "Dookie", was a 1990s cornucopia of polished punk rock that has stood the test of time.
In those 30 years, they had their good hits with the ballad "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)" and the blockbuster "American Idiot" album. They had their low points, too, like the follow-up to "Dookie", "Nimrod" (although "Brain Stew" would become a rock radio standard with or without "Jaded") and the experimental "¡Uno!", "¡Dos" and ¡Tre!" albums. Their current offering, "Saviors", has been called one of their best albums.
If you want to hear any of their new album or even their classics in Las Vegas, you're SOL.
Two of Sin City's radio stations, active rock KOMP 92.3 and KXTE X107.5 "Xtreme Radio" have pulled the iconic punk band's music from their playlists because of comments made by lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong at a recent concert at Oracle Park in San Francisco. Armstrong, who was born in nearby Oakland, voiced his anger over his hometown baseball team, the Athletics, moving to Vegas by calling the city a "shithole" on stage.
No word on if the band's opening act, Rancid - also from the Oakland area - is still on those stations' playlists. On stage, guitarist Lars Frederikson attacked A's owner John Fisher because his family makes money off of the backs of Bay Area people only to abandon them. Fisher, whose net worth is $3 billion, is the son of Donald and Doris Fisher, the co-founders of the Gap clothing brand. Fisher, a Republican, has owned the A's since 2005 and is considered one of the worst owners in sports. The team finished with a 69-93 record this past season.
For decades, Oakland had the A's, Raiders football, and Golden State Warriors basketball teams. The Warriors, who played in the aging Oakland Arena, moved to the Chase Center in nearby San Francisco five years ago. The Raiders moved to Vegas in 2020 and now play at Roomba-shaped Allegiant Stadium.
The big elephant in the room for Oakland was its stadium and arena. Oakland Coliseum opened in 1966 and has long been considered one of the worst stadiums in sports. As a matter of fact, the Raiders moved out of Oakland for Los Angeles from 1982-1994 only to return. The Coliseum was one of many cookie-cutter multipurpose stadiums built in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, along with The Kingdome in Seattle, Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, and Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. While most cities successfully replaced those embarrassing relics of late 20th century America, Oakland failed miserably to replace the Coliseum, noted for its design flaws.
When the A's played their last game in Oakland recently, Fisher wrote a letter apologizing to their fans. Fisher blamed the city of Oakland for not pulling through in building a new stadium which would have kept the A's in town. However, many in the community and even a few in the sports business all agreed that Fisher is a man of multiple excuses. He could have financed a stadium with his own money but chose to abandon his hometown because another town was willing to build his stadium for him, free of charge.
The proposed Las Vegas ballpark is scheduled to open in 2028 on the site of the soon-to-be-demolished Tropicana Hotel and Casino. The stadium, which some people joke about looking like the Sydney Opera House, will only seat 33,000. If it's built, it will be the smallest stadium in Major League Baseball next to the Tampa Bay Rays' Tropicana Field. Until then, the A's will be playing their home games at a minor league ballpark in Sacramento, where the team will simply be known as the A's.
After Armstrong's verbal bitchslap of Vegas, the programmers of KOMP and KXTE - a former affiliate of Howard Stern's - decided to punish him by doing the same thing country stations did to the Dixie Chicks when lead singer Natalie Maines trashed Dubya on stage years ago: dump their music. KXTE midday jock Carlota confirmed the purge on her show last week. On the station's website, they detailed some of her anti-Green Day speech, stating that what Armstrong said was "inflammatory" and "crossed the line". Carolta even pointed out that the Raiders were only worth "a billion or two" while in Oakland, but are now worth over $6 billion.
KOMP announced the ban on their Instagram page. KOMP 92.3 has pulled any and all Green Day from our playlist. It’s not us, Billie…it’s you. #vegas4ever, said the statement.
In the radio ratings, KOMP is in 11th place with a 2.8 share while KXTE is at a 2.2 in 16th place, its lowest book in months. KXTE made headlines last year when they temporarily flipped to a hot talk format with Stern clones loading up the schedule, including the godawful Grand Rapids-based Free Beer and Hot Wings Show. The format was a ratings bust and it returned to alternative rock, a format it had since 1996.
Not all Vegas stations have banned Green Day; IHeartMedia's classic rocker KYMT 93.1 The Mountain still has the band on their playlist.
Radio stations banning artists and certain songs from their playlists are nothing new. It even happened before the days of rock 'n roll when the BBC in England banned certain tunes because of everything from sexual innuendo to product placement. The Kinks' "Lola" was originally banned until lead singer Ray Davies flew from New York to London to rerecord the line "Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca-Cola". The Beeb had him replace the name of the beloved soft drink with "cherry cola". Throughout the 70s, some American radio stations banned certain songs all because of various reasons, such as The Buoys' "Timothy" (cannibalism), Billy Joel's "Only The Good Die Young" (sacrilegious), and Chuck Berry's sole #1 hit, "My Ding-A-Ling" (guess). Let's not forget that when MTV played music videos, they heavily edited some songs- even more than some radio stations- and banned some music videos. Madonna's "Justify My Love" was banned for being too racy and it shot to #1 on the pop charts.
Remember during the pandemic when "WAP" by Cardi B. and Megan Thee Stallion went to #1 on the pop charts? Interesting to note that the song was not a huge hit on Top 40 radio. Maybe it was because of the fear that if radio stations played it, even the edited version might have gotten them a fine from the FCC. Just my guess. You never heard of any announcements from any radio station that they had banned "WAP" because 1) it would make them uncool and 2) it would have made people buy more records.
IMHO, KOMP and KXTE are nothing more than attention whores and they think that banning Green Day will help their image. In reality, I think most true rock fans have abandoned terrestrial radio long ago for SiriusXM, Spotify, and other areas of digital radio. As someone who grew up in a part of Michigan where the radio sucked ass, I'm entitled to my opinion on whether or not I want to listen to crappy radio or not. I'm a grown man who doesn't need someone to tell me that this band is bad because they badmouthed my hometown or they did this or that. Let's remember that Ted Nugent had a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl in his 30s decades ago and classic rock stations still blare his music. Creed's Scott Stapp threatened to kill President Obama and many rock stations still play "Higher". Phil Anselmo of Pantera screamed "white power" at a concert a few years ago and stations still play his music. And yet, Green Day is bad because Billie Joe's hometown baseball team moved away and he's bitter about it.
Personally, I think every town in America has its problems. I grew up in Elk Rapids, Michigan, a beautiful town. But, there are buildings across from the Village Market that are run down. I know one of them was or is inhabited by a child molester I worked with in high school. Ditto with nearby Traverse City. Recently, Michael Moore wrote about an encounter he had with actor James Earl Jones several years ago. Moore told Jones that he now lived in Traverse City and Jones told him that TC was racist. Back in the 1940s when he was a teenager, one of his teachers took him and his classmates to a nice restaurant in town. As he was sitting down, a staffer at the restaurant told Jones, "No colored people will be served here."
Yes, this shit happened in Traverse City, a town that's far, far away from the Mason-Dixon Line. After all, the town is 92% white, and in the surrounding areas, racism is everywhere. Hell, I have family that live on a farm up north and they're HARDCORE racists. I'll never forget a convo with them where they compared President Obama to failed Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. When their little butt buddy Drumpf freed him from jail, I didn't know whether to laugh my ass off because of what they said, or cringe because of what he did to the people of Detroit.
Last year, I was on Facebook when someone posted that the band Trapt was playing a show in Kalkaska, over by Traverse City. I posted about how their lead singer, Chris Brown (no, not the douche who beat up Rihanna) was a racist and the average rock fan has abandoned him and his band. I even posted a video where they're playing a small bar and the place only had a few dozen people. Regretfully, a few folks poured Hatorade all over me, bitching that people in Kalkaska should be excited that the band behind "Headstrong" was coming to do a show in their town of 2,000.
Folks, this is why I started this site. It was because when I was a teen, I felt like I had no place at the table. I wanted to go to concerts and other things that involved going to Detroit. Instead, I got stuck living in a place where you had to be over 21 to do anything remotely exciting. Hell, some people call Traverse City "Tragic City" because a few years ago, a study proved that the town had the highest amount of alcoholics in the state. Not only that, I fondly remember when the former mayor Jim Carruthers was arrested for drunk driving.
Because of this, there's a part of me that wants to call northern Michigan a place loaded with racist, drunk losers. I don't mind visiting, but I don't want to live there, especially since I read that the average person in TC only makes $33,000 per year and I make WAY more than that here in Grand Rapids. Now, is somebody going to ban me from going up there? Not really. But, I hope someone will think about what I said and hopefully, they can make positive changes.
Personally, I don't think Billie Joe meant to truly hurt the people of Las Vegas. However, I think he should clarify his remarks about calling the town a "shithole". Kinda like how when John Lennon said that The Beatles were "More popular than Jesus" some sixty years ago, people went ahead and burned their records. He then said that he wasn't knocking God and apologized. However, there was one Christian that he offended and it sadly would bite him on the ass. That man was Mark David Chapman. In Billie's case, he should say that he didn't mean to hurt the people who call Vegas home and that his statement was directed at billionaires like John Fisher, who cares more about his personal wealth than the people who made him wealthy.
Until he makes that clarification, people in Sin City will think that he's the American Idiot.
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