I’ve gotten a lot of emails, Facebook messages, and even one very upset text message from friends apoplectic over the loss of Indie 103.1, which I wrote about here. I’ve been suffering the loss of great radio stations my whole life; what makes this different is that Indie 103.1 may indeed prove to have been the last great independent terrestrial radio station, one where deejays could be tastemakers because they played what they chose. I think this model is now officially dead. Micromarkets serve narrow slices of listenership — on satellite radio, on internet radio — and that’s when there’s a listenership at all. In the age of the iPod, who cares what somebody else wants you to hear?

Much of the music played on Indie 103.1 already exists in my CD rack or stored on a computer, and what I don’t have I can get. The one thing that Indie 103.1 had that is irreplaceable is Jonesy’s Jukebox, a daily dose of iconoclasm from Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones. Jones would play music — or not — or play his own version of songs on acoustic guitar — or talk shop with unforgettable guests — or, well, whistle for a really long time. While I miss the notion of Indie 103.1, I miss Jonesy personally.

Here’s what he’s been up to in the three weeks since the station went off the air:  playing lots of Call of Duty, and looking for a new radio gig. I truly wish him luck on the latter. In the meantime, I guess I’ll catch up on past episodes of Jonesy’s Jukebox.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 7th, 2009 at 11:43 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.