i’ve been driving my daughters car to work the past few weeks so i’ve had the opportunity to listen to the radio since there’s no pandora or bluetooth. my default radio station for a couple decades has been modern rock/alernative live 105 (KITS 105.3 FM). in the past couple years, i might have tuned in for a song or two if i was lazy to play pandora through my phone, but i’ve had the opportunity to listen now for a couple hours each day while driving across the bridge. in the first day or two, i was getting used to the playlist, but after a couple days passed, i realized how far live 105 has fallen since the glory days.

i suppose it’s hard to maintain the continuity when your station is bought and sold several times and the music format completely changes from modern rock to hip-hop to top 40 and back again. the part that annoys me the most is the lack of local personalities on the station. it seems that shows are pre-recorded by some DJ at a CBS Radio park in montana somewhere. the same dj’s are doing the same thing on 3 or 4 other CBS stations around the country but we’ll never know.

there are still some guys working hard to keep the station afloat. steve masters is back on the radio after some time away and aaron axelsen works 80 hours a week with subsonic and sound check, but there’s just something missing without the local banter. the morning traffic also is just a few seconds long, mostly covering the status of the maze. what about the rest of the bay area? today, 92 westbound was closed for 3 HOURS and it wasn’t mentioned at all. where is [sal castaneda] and the black shadow? oh, that’s right – he’s reporting actual traffic at channel 2.

Tthe music rotation is also stale. the top 25 alternative songs play every hour it seems [live 105 playlist]. where’s the variety? cognos ‘come with me now’ has played 9 times in the last 18 hours. that’s once every 2 hours. it’s  a also terrible song, which is why i notice it even more.

RIP live 105

[wiki on live 105]