Essay | The Legend of Alternative
Reminiscing About the Radio
I’ve been listening to Steve West’s Legends of Alternative on Alt 94.9 every Sunday morning for a while now. It’s a four-hour block of music on a local radio station and coincides with my weekly trip to the grocery store, where I hope to get there early enough to get a good parking spot. This is where I am in life now, no longer spending Sunday mornings sitting with my eyes closed in the San Diego sunshine while I get a little stoned to reset my hangover… I’m trying to see the doors at Trader Joe’s open while I sit in a good parking spot with my reusable grocery bags.
I turn my blinker on as I wait at the light and this comes on the radio, “I’m a ladies' cat, I’m a feline Casanova (Hey, man, that's that), Get a shoe thrown at me from a mean old man, Get my dinner from a garbage can.” —an outrageous song called “Stray Cat Strut” from the band Stray Cats. This is why I listen to the radio; it’s usually full of familiar-sounding tracks, but every now and then, I get this one that catches me so off-guard that I can’t wait to get home and play it for my husband.
Steve West’s Legends of Alternative is hosted by Bryan Schock but honors the late, great, Steve West. Steve began his radio career here in San Diego, joining 91x right at its inception in 1983. He hosted 91x TV for a brief period in those early years, where he and a co-host, Pam Wolf, would interview bands, share local concert spots, and air music videos on a local TV station. He went on to host one of the most popular shows on 91x, Resurrection Sunday, for decades. And after 31 years at 91x, Steve moved over to Alt 94.9, bringing his love of alternative over and creating the Sunday morning show, Legends of Alternative, where he shared the best alternative, new wave, and post-punk tracks of the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s.
I used to listen to the radio a lot when I first moved to San Diego almost 15 years ago. I bought a shitty used car when I moved out here—a little red thing that I called Flea because the Red Hot Chili Peppers were playing as I pulled out of the used car lot and because the gas pedal had a bit of a kick. I cranked up the local station and felt like I had a bit of independence. I was 23, and this was my first car; this was a big deal.
Listening to the radio felt like I was tuning into San Diego. I wanted to know where I was. I loved this place so much that I just wanted to have San Diego be my soundtrack. I didn’t want to curate a playlist in my own silo, I wanted to hear what the San Diego airwaves were playing. I wanted to hear what Steve West was playing.
You could hear his love of music. He was so knowledgable about every song and every artist that played. And he was welcoming to new listeners, so his favorite B-sides were available to you if you wanted to make them your favorites as well.
Most of the songs felt like something you’d hear in a movie. I’d drive with my windows down, blaring “Love My Way” by The Psychedelic Furs or “The Passenger” by Iggy Pop, whatever was on. The sun was beating on my left arm and my left cheek, and a claw clip messily held my billowing hair out of my face. I was young and in love with my city. The radio became my soundtrack.
The car I have now is called Daisy; she’s a 10-year-old Mini Cooper, and together, we’ve driven up and down the California coast. Even though I’m not shedding a hangover on Sunday mornings, I still love to keep the windows down and lean my head into the sun whenever I’m at a red light.
The Smiths’ “There is a Light That Never Goes Out” comes on next.
You may recognize that song from (500) Days of Summer, when Tom and Summer are in the elevator and she recognizes the song he’s listening to through his headphones. “I love The Smiths,” she says before she sings, ‘To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.’
I first watched (500) Days of Summer as I packed for my trip to New Zealand. I was 20 years old and I’m pretty sure I watched it through iTunes to give you a better reference for when this was. I was instantly hooked on The Smiths. After mentioning this to my dad, an Englishman who was very familiar with the Brit Pop and Alternative tracks from the 80s, he told me, ‘If you like The Smiths, you should check out The Cure.’
He was right, I loved them both. My iPod played a long playlist of nothing but The Smiths and The Cure over the 30 hours it took to travel from New York to New Zealand, forever embedding them as a soundtrack to adventure.
When I first visited San Diego, it reminded me of the outdoorsy spirit and the tropical suburbs of Waikato, where I had studied abroad and almost never went to class. That’s how I knew this was the place for me.
After some time in San Diego, I went back to art school and met a tattoo artist who was attending school on his G.I. bill. During one tattoo session, he told me about a friend who was trying to hire him as a graphic designer. He said, “But they can’t afford me, so I said no.”
This was the first time I had ever heard someone say they couldn’t be afforded. He was kind and not belittling of the company or his friend. He was honest and knew his worth. And he was an artist doing all of that. My mind was blown.
“He can afford me,” I said quickly.
I mean, he couldn’t afford my friend, who owned his own tattoo studio, but I was starting from the bottom. The tattoo I was getting was financially irresponsible.
I was affordable.
The next day, as if by fate, the company was in the hallway of my art school, looking for an intern. I walked up with cling wrap still around the fresh ink and told them to hire me. I went in for one interview, knew this was where I wanted to be, and asked them when I could start. They said, “Monday.”
In between classes and a job at an ice skating rink, I would spend my free time embedding myself at this small company, waiting anxiously for them to hire me full-time. When they did, I quit my job at the rink, finished my classes for that quarter, and said goodbye to the school that would later be discredited so I could focus entirely on my job.
The company that I found myself working for was a tribute band booking agency with thousands of bands on their roster. It was a small but mighty team, creating jobs for tens of thousands of musicians across the country. And that’s when I started my real music education.
Every day, I would drive Flea to the office behind the Harley Davidson dealership and just figure out things that needed to be done. I worked on their website, kept profiles and song lists up to date for dozens of bands each week, edited demo reels, and even created fake album art. I connected so many songs that sounded familiar to band names that I’d heard in passing. To paraphrase their motto, I got to know music from ABBA to ZZ Top.
I started recognizing the sounds and voices that Steve West would play. Suddenly, INXS was more than just the band that sang “Never Tear Us Apart” on the Donnie Darko album, and Johnny Cash was covering Nine Inch Nails when he sang “Hurt” and not the other way around. More embarrassingly, I was a competitive dancer growing up, and the number of times I’d heard “Higher Ground” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers at a competition made it almost alarming that I didn’t know that it was a cover of Stevie Wonder.
One of my favorite memories is watching the guys I worked for jump into a rehearsal room to jam out midday. These were my bosses; we were at work, and here they were taking a mid-afternoon break like I’d never seen in any other office. They were all in different tribute bands themselves, with my boss leading a tribute band for The Cure. That’s how I knew this was the place for me.
I was fortunate enough to meet some local legends throughout my time there, Steve West being one of them. Steve knew my boss, Michael (better known as Zippy), from years of working in the San Diego music scene. He’d swing by occasionally, and since there were only a handful of us in the office, I’d get to be a part of the conversations. He was always kind and so clearly loved music. When he talked about bands he’d seen or songs he was playing, it never felt like he was proving he knew more than you did. He just had such a wealth of life lived with music that it overflowed into conversation and made it contagious to want to know more.
I should have asked him more questions but I didn’t want to be that annoying girl in the office who commandeered the conversation. Instead, I would just listen to him and Zippy laugh and joke around and find a question here or there to justify my existence listening in.
When Steve mentioned he had cancer, he seemed remarkably calm. I barely knew him, but I was struck by how easily he spoke about it. Maybe I’m wrong—our conversations could be counted on two hands—but that was the impression he left with me. He never seemed to burden anyone with the information. Instead, he became an advocate for men’s health initiatives like Blue September, a campaign Steve started to spread awareness for prostate cancer by broadcasting for 36 hours straight, and Movember, a global men’s health campaign that he raised funds for by offering the chance to co-host Legends of Alternative with him.
I would have loved to co-host with Steve and ask him about those early days on 91x TV or what it was like to see Stray Cats live at the very first X-Fest in 1983. I could have asked him what bands have surprised him most in the last twenty years or where he thinks music is going. I could have asked for music recommendations, the B-sides and one-album bands that he could pull out of his back pocket. But I chickened out.
Daisy says it’s 7:58 am, but I can see other early birds starting to peek inside the doors of Trader Joe’s, wondering if an employee can unlock them because it’s “close enough.” I’d rather wait in my car as “Dance Hall Days” by Wang Chung plays. This song plays during the prom scene in Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion and always makes me feel like I’m stepping out at the end of a movie. As if I’ll get out of my car to get groceries, but it’ll be more than just groceries; it’ll be the start of me shedding an old skin and being more confident. As if I never needed anyone’s approval, I just had to be myself all along. Cue the camera to go wide as I walk in, showing the parking lot and then the beautiful, tropical, suburban neighborhood of San Diego before the credits roll.
While I let the crowd pour into the store, I keep thinking about the co-hosting spot. I’m not sure why I didn’t apply. I love to talk music and would have loved to participate in something I listen to every week. And I’d love to honor the friendly voice of music that I listened to on 91x and Alt 94.9 for so many years. Maybe I just felt like Steve West’s shoes are too big to fill?
But if I had applied and won the chance to co-host, I would have included The Smiths and The Cure in the lineup. I would have talked about how, even though it may sound lame to find a band like The Smiths through a twee, 2010 rom-com starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zoey Deschanel, I think TV and films are a great avenue for people to discover music they would have never heard otherwise.
I would have included Echo & the Bunnymen, a band my Dad was listening to when he first came to the States. I would have to include “Under the Milky Way” by The Church as an ode to Donnie Darko, the movie that introduced me to alternative before I knew what it was. Depeche Mode would be in there, another tribute band honoree. DEVO and The B-52’s are there because I got into a bit of a punk and alternative listening kick a few years ago and they have really stuck around. So has The Clash, so they’d be there, too. I think it could have been a fun way to spend some time.
I’ll leave you with this. Inspired by Steve West, the Legend of Alternative himself, here’s what I would have played:
