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Does Your Local AM/FM Radio Station Play Metal?


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I've lived in several cities in my life- Born in Saint Mary's, PA, Grew up in East Peoria, IL, Went to college in Normal, IL, then moved to Grand Haven, MI, then Tempe, AZ, and finally back to East Peoria, IL. In Saint Mary's, where I still go back occaisonally to visit relatives, the only decent stations are Megarock, a classic rock station which occaisonally plays Zeppelin and AC/DC, and does a 2 hour show called Rock Hard Saturday Night, and a classic hits station, WQKY 98.9, the River, based in nearby Emporium, which plays Dee Snider's House Of Hair on Thursdays. There was also another station in the 1990s call the Revoltion, an alternative/modern rock station coming out of State College, which occasionally played metal, usually the mallcore variety, until it changed formats sometime around 2005. In Normal, the main rock station, WIHN plays mostly alternative music(It's a college town), emo, and mallcore, though they do occaisonally play some old Metallica or Priest or Maiden in addition to airing House Of Hair on Sunday mornings(when most people who'd listen in are either sleeping off the night before or in church!). The Illinois State University(Where I went to school) station, WZND, though does have a heavy metal show on Thursdays, though it's only available thru cable radio or online. WESN, the college station for Illinois Wesleyan University in next-door Bloomington(Franklin Street, running thru both towns, is the ONLY street in the entire world with a university on both ends), which was available over the open airwaves, did have Death by Volume on Mondays and Saturdays, which included Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer, Metal Church, Helloween, Mercyful Fate, Megadeth, and Manowar. In Grand Haven, the best station available was WKLQ in Grand Rapids, which had Out of Control Saturday Night(Which admittedly played a lot of mallcore), Rock Hard Sunday(Featuring 80's hair bands), and New Metal Monday(whichSOMEHOW saw fit to include Insane Clown Posse!!). Sadly, WKLQ got rid of those shows and went downhill and finally changed formats. WMMR in nearby Muskegon plays House Of Hair on Sundays. In Tempe, the best station is KUPD, which every Sunday has Into The Pit, a 2-hour metal show with some pretty raw stuff. Another station, KDKB, plays House Of Hair on Saturday nights. Back in East Peoria, until 2006 the best local station, WIXO, really doesn't have a metal show, although they do play metal, although most of it's more like mallcore and nu-metal bands like Saliva, Papa Roach, etc. A new station, WDQX 102.3, MAXfm, which is at least not corporate owned, plays some pre-sellout Metallica, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Pat Travers, Rainbow, etc. And last but not least, the local album rock station, WWCT, which I grew up listening to, and was the best local station at the time, and played Sabbath, Priest, Riot, etc., had taken a nose dive from the early 1990's until about 2003 when they switched to an all-request format, playing requests from Suicidal Tendencies, Slayer, Megadeth, to Johnny Cash(!!), and also had House of Hair on Sunday mornings, until it changed formats in October 2006 to adult hits and finally 2 years later to alternative rock.

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I've lived in SLC all my life, and we don't have much that lasts for long. The rock station plays a couple of mainstream metal songs occasionally, the stuff that everybody's heard, and every night plays a segment called Mandatory Metallica which plays 30 minutes of just Metallica, their metal and non-metal material. The local independent radio station KRCL has had various metal shows on throughout the years, with varying degrees of quality and success. My former drummer Dave Dyer DJ'ed one of their earliest shows in the early 90's called Dyer's Eve, playing mostly thrash and 80's metal, with some crossover and hardcore stuff as well. There was another show on at the time called Slaughterhouse, run by JR Torino, mostly playing grindcore. JR later started a store called The Abyss, and was one of the people that got me into more extreme metal, I bought my first Venom, Bathory, Mayhem, Enslaved, Burzum, and Hypocrisy CDs from him, among many others. Not sure what was on between then and now, but they only have one show on now called Maximum Distortion. It runs on a weeknight and is pretty late, it's 3 hours long, but they mostly highlight mallcore and more popular "metal" stuff. They play some local stuff too, my band had a song played on the show, but most of the other stuff that they played that night wasn't very good and I haven't listened since.

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My every day station in Manchester UK is Real XS which is classic rock but with a little metal. We can also get Planet Rock nationally and Kerrang FM which is national but very Birmingham based. I have to go with the classic stuff otherwise it would get turned off in work. :-)

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