WHFS, R.I.P.

Another one down.

This afternoon, after 20 years of playing alternative rock to the DC area, WHFS, 99.1-FM, played Jeff Buckley’s “Last Goodbye” and, with no further warning, switched over to a Spanish pop format. Pretty shocking.
I hadn’t listened to the station in ages. The morning show was dominated by sports talk, the drivetime playlist was tilted toward angry white boy rock, and on any evening in recent memory when I thought to call up 99.1, I got “Loveline” and/or musicians talking about their sex lives.
But when I first moved to the DC area 12 years ago, WHFS-FM was a kick-ass radio station. The DJs knew their stuff and played my type of classic rock – Costello, Talking Heads, the Clash. There was respect for the artists of the punk and grunge era, and an interest in a wide range of artists, all the way from Sarah McLachlan to Pearl Jam, before they became go-to tracks in the play-it-safe lists. The live sessions and Sunday night local music explorations never failed to offer intriguing new sounds.
And those concerts! The HFStival disintegrated in recent years to a “show us your tits” mentality, and I outgrew the 60,000 crowd scene just about the same time I stopped being offered press access. Bur when it was good, it was great – Pavement, Afghan Whigs, the Ramones, Green Day, Beck, the young and hungry Good Charlotte (not the MTV shills they’ve sadly become), Fountains of Wayne, No Doubt, even Tony Bennett!….the list of artists that played that communal summertime lovefest was pretty amazing.
This past December, I took Grace and her pal to the HFS Nutcracker and, even from the nosebleed seats, it was a gas. Franz Ferdinand and the Killers showed that guitar rock was alive and well, Jimmy Eat World showed that you could jump from indie emo darlings to the big time without losing your soul. Hell, even Velvet Revolver was fun in their ridiculously over-the-top cock-rock way (but the Darkness are better, ‘cause they’re in on the joke).
So, while I wasn’t a recent listener, I raise a toast to the WHFS I have preserved in hundreds of concert photos (thanks for the pit passes, guys!) and a dozen or so cassette tapes I made during the vintage years. (Gonna pull them out for the wake). Namaste WHFS. It’s all dead air now.