The Execution Of All Things 97X
Just over a year ago I got an email from my good chum Banto tipping me off to this fantastic Internet radio station that he’d stumbled across.
He’d been looking for something English, something Alternative, and he thought he’d found just the very thing when Windows Media Radio Station Guide suggested a feed from Oxford.
Several clicks later and he discovered there’s more than one Oxford.
As well as the hotbed of academia and boat racing that’s just north of Reading in the UK there was also, it transpired, an Oxford in Ohio, USA. Banto had stumbled across the Future of Rock’n’Roll.
He’d found 97X.
After a few weeks of heavy listening he had to tell someone equally anal about music about his discovery. That’s where I came in. Initially I wasn’t 100% sure about tuning into an American radio station. I’d heard “things” about American radio, it wasn’t all like WKRP but more a bland parade of manufactured pop acts and commercials.
Not entirely unlike British radio stations then.
With my famously weak willpower it wasn’t long before I caved in and decided to give this wunder-station a listen. I was hooked within the first bars of the first song I heard (to my shame I can’t remember what it was but I know I loved it).
From then I listened to 97X most days at work. When I logged on first thing in the morning I immediately called up 97X and listened until I left in the evening (with only work occasionally intruding on my listening pleasure).
It was strange, a station thousands of miles away that appeared to have not only raided my CD collection but also had lots of suggestions for new items to be added to it. And items did indeed get added. I’d never heard of King of Woolworths or The Postal Service before. The Decemberists, The Shins, Rilo Kiley, Over The Rhine; all added into the playlist in my brain alongside Franz Ferdinand, U2, Venus Hum, Gomez, Super Furry Animals and so many many other bands that this tiny station conjured from its gargantuan repository of music.
I found my fingers clicking through to arcane websites to obtain CDs by bands that hadn’t a chance of nationwide US release let alone appearing this side of the pond (though there were notable exceptions). Soon my shelves were creaking just a little bit more than before.
I had my 97X and all was good in my world.
Shivvy Shiv and The Bakerman got me through the morning, then came Barb who made the afternoons fly by and to who I made the occasional request (OK, so she didn’t play the EXACT Super Furry Animals track I’d asked for, but she played something nearly as good).
And I’d find myself wondering what was on offer this week at the Oxford Kroger.
Working overtime at the weekends? Not a problem. There was Sounds Eclectic and the Blues and Reggae hours to make the “joys” of server rebuilds and network upgrades go just a touch smoother.
But even the best romances never last.
In January the bad news came falling like chubby rain on a sunny day. Unexpected news to all and sundry, 97X (as we knew it) would be leaving the airwaves. Banto phoned me up to check whether I knew but I’d already seen the posting on the website. Hence I could tell him that it was only the airwaves that would be going quiet: the internet would still hum to the sound of 97X.
At least that was the plan.
But it’s a funny thing this internet business. It transpired that it’s more expensive to run a pared-down internet radio station than it is a proper “broadcasting over the ether” radio station.
The hoped for funding never materialised and you can guess what comes next.
Last Thursday at midnight EST the great radio station called 97X, the radio station that I wish I’d discovered so many years before, the radio station that I’d come to depend upon to keep me going through the day, went off the air.
And since then neither Banto nor I have really known what to do.
On Friday morning he phoned me up to tell me that he hated me. He’s a bit jinxed when it comes to discovering good things and then seeing them turn to dust. He thought he’d better tell me he hated me just in case I went the same way as X-Ray magazine or our favourite radio station.
We’ve both scoured the boards at the 97X website for possible alternatives. So far it’s not as bleak as we feared; there are a few internet stations out there that are nearly as good, one even admits that it was inspired by 97X. But there’ll never be another WOXY.
I feel lucky to have been able to listened to it for as long as I could. I’m sad that I’ll never get to cruise round Oxford, Ohio, with the radio blaring out my favourite station, looking for Jungle Jim's. And I wish it was still around. Though, as the Bakerman said in his final sign off speech (which you can download from here), the station went off the air being the best it ever could be.
And it’s always best to quit when you’re on top.
He’d been looking for something English, something Alternative, and he thought he’d found just the very thing when Windows Media Radio Station Guide suggested a feed from Oxford.
Several clicks later and he discovered there’s more than one Oxford.
As well as the hotbed of academia and boat racing that’s just north of Reading in the UK there was also, it transpired, an Oxford in Ohio, USA. Banto had stumbled across the Future of Rock’n’Roll.
He’d found 97X.
After a few weeks of heavy listening he had to tell someone equally anal about music about his discovery. That’s where I came in. Initially I wasn’t 100% sure about tuning into an American radio station. I’d heard “things” about American radio, it wasn’t all like WKRP but more a bland parade of manufactured pop acts and commercials.
Not entirely unlike British radio stations then.
With my famously weak willpower it wasn’t long before I caved in and decided to give this wunder-station a listen. I was hooked within the first bars of the first song I heard (to my shame I can’t remember what it was but I know I loved it).
From then I listened to 97X most days at work. When I logged on first thing in the morning I immediately called up 97X and listened until I left in the evening (with only work occasionally intruding on my listening pleasure).
It was strange, a station thousands of miles away that appeared to have not only raided my CD collection but also had lots of suggestions for new items to be added to it. And items did indeed get added. I’d never heard of King of Woolworths or The Postal Service before. The Decemberists, The Shins, Rilo Kiley, Over The Rhine; all added into the playlist in my brain alongside Franz Ferdinand, U2, Venus Hum, Gomez, Super Furry Animals and so many many other bands that this tiny station conjured from its gargantuan repository of music.
I found my fingers clicking through to arcane websites to obtain CDs by bands that hadn’t a chance of nationwide US release let alone appearing this side of the pond (though there were notable exceptions). Soon my shelves were creaking just a little bit more than before.
I had my 97X and all was good in my world.
Shivvy Shiv and The Bakerman got me through the morning, then came Barb who made the afternoons fly by and to who I made the occasional request (OK, so she didn’t play the EXACT Super Furry Animals track I’d asked for, but she played something nearly as good).
And I’d find myself wondering what was on offer this week at the Oxford Kroger.
Working overtime at the weekends? Not a problem. There was Sounds Eclectic and the Blues and Reggae hours to make the “joys” of server rebuilds and network upgrades go just a touch smoother.
But even the best romances never last.
In January the bad news came falling like chubby rain on a sunny day. Unexpected news to all and sundry, 97X (as we knew it) would be leaving the airwaves. Banto phoned me up to check whether I knew but I’d already seen the posting on the website. Hence I could tell him that it was only the airwaves that would be going quiet: the internet would still hum to the sound of 97X.
At least that was the plan.
But it’s a funny thing this internet business. It transpired that it’s more expensive to run a pared-down internet radio station than it is a proper “broadcasting over the ether” radio station.
The hoped for funding never materialised and you can guess what comes next.
Last Thursday at midnight EST the great radio station called 97X, the radio station that I wish I’d discovered so many years before, the radio station that I’d come to depend upon to keep me going through the day, went off the air.
And since then neither Banto nor I have really known what to do.
On Friday morning he phoned me up to tell me that he hated me. He’s a bit jinxed when it comes to discovering good things and then seeing them turn to dust. He thought he’d better tell me he hated me just in case I went the same way as X-Ray magazine or our favourite radio station.
We’ve both scoured the boards at the 97X website for possible alternatives. So far it’s not as bleak as we feared; there are a few internet stations out there that are nearly as good, one even admits that it was inspired by 97X. But there’ll never be another WOXY.
I feel lucky to have been able to listened to it for as long as I could. I’m sad that I’ll never get to cruise round Oxford, Ohio, with the radio blaring out my favourite station, looking for Jungle Jim's. And I wish it was still around. Though, as the Bakerman said in his final sign off speech (which you can download from here), the station went off the air being the best it ever could be.
And it’s always best to quit when you’re on top.
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