The Sound of silence: Classic rock station The Sound FM 100.3 played its final songs and left the air on Thursday
When most radio stations get sold, change formats, or otherwise go away it’s usually a sudden switch. One minute you’re listening to eclectic rock and and roll, the next there’s a Spanish-language broadcast in that spot on the dial.
So listeners and employees of The Sound had it better than most when after the classic rock station at 100.3 FM was sold in September to a Christian broadcaster it was allowed to stay on the air for weeks, giving everyone a chance to make peace with its departure, say their goodbyes, and on Thursday morning pick the final songs The Sound would ever play.
The switch got flipped at 1 p.m .Thursday, which meant longtime DJ Uncle Joe Benson got to host most of the final shift, though almost all of the station’s on-air personalities and DJs were in the studio at some time during the morning. And from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., the time when Benson would traditionally pick and theme for the segment the 10 at 10, most of them took a turn picking a final favorite or meaningful song to play.
Morning hosts Andy Chanley and Gina Grad went early in the hour, Chanley picking Neil Young’s “Thrasher” — “But me I’m not stopping there / Got my own row left to hoe / Just another line / in the field of time” — while Grad chose Three Dog Night’s “Shambala,” a song she said never failed to make her feel happy from its first notes.
After Mimi Chen, host of “Peace, Love & Sunday Mornings” who had Benson play a Crosby, Stills and Nash cover of the Beatles’ “In My Life” came Cynthia Fox, who along with Benson and fellow Sound DJ Rita Wilde, has been playing classic rock on Southern California radio since it was just plain old rock and roll.
“The song I selected I’m going to play as a tribute to my dad who gave me the gift of music,” Fox said. “It’s such a gift. He really believed in the power and the importance of music in our education and I’ve been able to carry that on.
“I feel lilke this song really captures the power of music to heal, transform and inspire the community,” she said, and then stepped aside for the Who song “Pure And Easy,” with its refrain, “There once was a note / Pure and easy / Playing so free, like a breath rippling by,” to represent her last cut.
Wilde, whose love of Bruce Springsteen is maybe only equaled by her love of U2, went with the Boss for her final track.
“Life is about choices and chances, opportunities and gratitude,” she said. “Life changes, things happen, things get torn down. but you’ve got to remember the good things, the memories.
“This is a song that Bruce Springsteen played last time he played the Sports Arena, before they tore it down,” Wilde said. “It’s called ‘Wrecking Ball.’ It’s not a sad song, you get to get up and dance. Just remember, be grateful, be thankful and be good to each other.”
Benson followed, wrapping up the 10 at 10 as 11 a.m. arrived, like those who preceded him talking about how wonderful it had been to work at The Sound, then reading a quote from the Beatles’ song “The End,” and finally, with a simple request — “Turn this sucker up” — playing Led Zeppelin’s “Rock And Roll.”
The next 90 minutes passed with a selection of symbolically chosen songs — “The Sky Is Crying” from Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, “Once In A Lifetime” by the Talking Heads, and “Waiting For The Sun,” by the Doors — among the tracks Benson played.
And then a little after 12:30 p.m., the station handed the microphone back to Chanley with an announcement that “Ten years ago (he) was our first DJ, 10 years later he’s our last.”
“We always pretty much shut up and let the music talk,” Chanley said of how The Sound always dealt with the sad news of the world that bubbled up at times over the past decade, and how amid the sadness of these farewells they’d do the same now.
“There are 11 words at the end of this album side that say a lot,” Chanley said. “This is how KMET shut down, right, Cynthia? (Fox had been at that much-loved station when it closed in 1987.)
“We’re going to play one last album side and then sign off at the top of the hour: Side two, the Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road.'”
And then, with a vinyl LP on the turntable, pops and hisses occasionally in the mix, they shut up and let the music do the talking: “Here Comes The Sun,” “Because,” the medley of “You Never Give Me Your Money,” “The Sun King,” “Mean Mr. Mustard,” “Polythene Pam,” “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window,” “Golden Slumbers,” “Carry That Weight,” and finally, “The End,” with the 11 words Chanley had mentioned 20-some minutes earlier: “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
The needle lifted and Chanley returned with another 19 words of his own: “This has been KSWD Los Angeles. This is The Sound. And this dream will self-destruct in three, two –”
Silence.
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