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We had a ton of fun looking back at the last 20 years of our lives on The End. To help sum up our experience, check out this rad montage of photos and video that we collected to celebrate!
For the entire 20 years that The End has been a radio station we’ve always tried to support NW music AND break new bands.
A perfect example of this was the ascension of Harvey Danger.
From a demo tape to one of those most played songs in alternative radio history here’s a glimpse (courtesy of Q-13) of Harvey Danger on their way up.
There was a lot of media hoopla around the release of the outlandish and tabloid-esque “Kurt & Courtney” documentary. When KIRO 7 talked to The End’s Bill Reid, he wasn’t shy about voicing his skepticism about the film as well.
It was certainly one of the more strange in studio visits we’ve gotten
At the height of his ultra-popular MTV show, Canadian comedian Tom Green stopped by The End to talk about his quest to swim across Lake Washington.
It wouldn’t have been a proper 20th Birthday without getting in touch with the voices of The End’s past to hear their favorite stories time spent on these airwaves.
A special thanks for Andy Savage, Jodi (currently rocking mornings with Bob Rivers), Steve The Producer, Bill Reid, Dick Rosetti, Brian Beck, DJ No Name, Marco Collins, Travis Bailey, Nathan from the Real World Cast and everyone else that helped bring this together.
It’s been a fun stroll down memory lane
1077 The End – 20th BDay – Stories From Old DJ’s by 1077 The End
Click here to stream the entire countdown hour by hour
1. Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit
2. White Stripes – Seven Nation Army
3. Sublime – What I Got
4. MGMT – Kids
5. Beck – Loser
6. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Under The Bridge
7. Weezer – Undone (The Sweater Song)
8. Green Day – Basket Case
9. Pearl Jam – Jeremy
10. Modest Mouse – Float On
Michael Sutton, the “Friend of The End” who earlier in the day gave us a tape of the station sign on had some kind words/fond memories he wanted to share on our 20th birthday. They brilliantly capture what the founding fathers of the station set out to do and what we still try to accomplish today.
Once again we thank him for everything he’s done for the station over the years. It’s the passion of music fans like him that has kept this station on the air for 20 years.
“For three strange days
I had no obligations
My mind was a blur
I did not know what to do”
- School of Fish
Written by Michael Sutton
When people think of 107.7 The End’s place in the history of Seattle radio and rock & roll in general, it is always linked with the fuzz bomb power punk of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” the Generation X anthem that launched a new decade and, more importantly, the global acceptance of alternative rock by mainstream culture. But if I was to choose one song to describe The End’s 20 years of collegiate angst and indie rattle, it would be “3 Strange Days” by the now-forgotten School of Fish.
I do realize that such an obscure selection would provoke a collective WTF from alt historians; however, isn’t being different at the core of this music? While I wouldn’t call “3 Strange Days,” a breezy blast of Let’s Active-ish guitar rock, an all-time favorite of mine, it vividly described what I was feeling at the time of the radio station’s debut.
Time to go old-school now and flashback to exactly 20 years ago today – August 23, 1991. There was no Internet for public consumption, and consequently no online radio stations. No iPods. No mp3s. For an alternative rock fan outside of America’s hipster circles – KROQ in Los Angeles, Live-105 in San Francisco, 91X in San Diego – Seattle radio was a virtual wasteland at the time.
I was in serious pain.
From 1984-1987, I lived in the Philippines, and I regularly listened to three incredibly adventurous New Wave radio stations on the FM dial – WXB 102 (which I would resurrect online myself several years ago with the original DJs), BM-105, and NU-107. These stations played post-punk acts such as Joy Division, the Smiths, the Lotus Eaters, Xmal Deutschland, the Pale Fountains, and the Railway Children on a daily basis. Imagine my agony when I relocated to Washington State in 1987 and found only the likes of Whitney Houston, Bon Jovi, and Bruce Springsteen. The FM dial was a gallery of horrors; as you flip from left to right, it seemed to get progressively worse.
KJET, a low-watt AM radio station, provided the goods, but as wonderful as they were I could only pick up their signal for about two or three hours in the day time before 1590 turned into white noise. By 1988, they were gone, too. Campus radio station KGRG provided some nifty modern rock in 1989; however, they broadcasted in mono and gradually lost their affection for U.K. imports over the years, losing me in the process.
By 1990, I declared alternative music to be dead.
Nobody expected 107.7 to switch from bland Adult Contemporary to New Wave and alternative rock on August 23, 1991 except for company officials, staff members, and radio insiders, none of whom bothered to inform us. It was a scorching hot Friday afternoon, a dull, quiet, uneventful one until R.E.M. ripped through the airwaves on 107.7 on the FM dial.
The birth of The End was like receiving a cold six-pack of Coke after wandering through the desert. I was only 23 at the time, and I still vividly recall the youthful excitement that I felt. I don’t think that kids today have that same kind of relationship with radio, that quick beating of the heart when you hear bands you’ve always loved blasting from the FM dial. Classic rock fans can’t relate to this; they’ve always had commercial stations playing their worn-out Led Zeppelin and Eagles tunes. They don’t remember a time in which they couldn’t hear them on the radio.
School of Fish’s “3 Strange Days” was among the “new music” that The End introduced in its first weekend. And that’s what that weekend felt to me – three strange days. I couldn’t believe I was hearing a non-stop barrage of the Cure, New Order, Echo & the Bunnymen, Siouxsie & the Banshees, and even the Housemartins, whose “Happy Hour” I hadn’t heard since I was in Manila where it was a smash. And The End was spinning these New Wave jewels with the latest from Electronic, Tin Machine, and a local band called Nirvana. I couldn’t stop listening and recording. I loved all of the DJs, especially Marco Collins, Bill Reid (whom I remembered from KJET), British iconoclast Norman B. (a favorite of mine when he was upsetting KXRX’s bell-bottom crowd with an alternative weekly), and the late Bryan Jones. The eclectic mix of music – from the rave-fueled boogie of Big Audio Dynamite to the metallic roar of Soundgarden to the acoustic-folk melodrama of A Man Called E (later of the Eels) to the radiant glow of the Ocean Blue to the vintage jangle of the Beatles to the brooding intensity of Joy Division – was radio at its finest.
I have a million memories of The End; however, it’d take a book to share them all. Whether it’s going to the Emerald City Comicon with Marco Collins years after he left the station or inviting Andy Savage to my college to host a student election debate or meeting Bill Reid for the first time and realizing how tall he was or having lunch with former PD Phil Manning or sending Kim Monroe advance copies of Depeche Mode and Radiohead CDs (including Kid A), they’re all unique and are as special as listening to the station itself two decades ago.
I’ve never worked for The End, but for some reason I’ve always felt part of them. The intensity and passion of those early years are firmly embedded in my memory. I kept all of my End memorabilia – airchecks, personal letters, stickers, clippings – in boxes. Ten years after The End debuted, I was hired by the All-Music Guide to be a staff writer, and it was at that time that The End contacted me to contribute something to their 10th anniversary.
And now it’s 20 years. The End has survived the various twists of the music industry, and congratulations to them. Although I do feel I am too old for their target demographics now, I still root for them, and hopefully they’ll continue to educate and expose young listeners to – and when was the last time you heard this? – “The Cutting Edge of Rock.” For us bored college kids in the early ’90s, The End wasn’t just a radio station. It was a way of life, our culture beaming over the airwaves. It may have had the body of a corporation, but it had the soul of real people.
We searched As we prepared for the 20th Brithday of 1077 The End, we searched hi & low for the actual audio of the station coming on the air.
We knew the story well….at 3pm on August 23rd, 1991 the guy that owned the station announced a format change. No longer would you hear “Michael Bolton” or “Barry Manilow” The 107.7 frequency was now home to “The Cutting Edge of Rock”
Then, it was “The End of The World As We Know It”
After an extensive search, it appeared as if this audio no longer existed, until Michael Sutton, a “Friend of The End” from day one got in touch and sent us the following MP3.
It’s impossible to cover everything when you’ve been around for 20 years, however, this was a HUGE missing piece of the puzzle and it’s return to the station makes this 20th birthday all the more special. THANKS MICHAEL!!!!!
1077 The End – Station Sign On – August 23rd 1991 by 1077 The End
Weezer has been a part of SO MANY of our great memories the last 20 years…however, their idea to have a hootenanny at the Vera Project tops ‘em all.
Here’s the scene: The End invites approx 150 listeners to bring their own instrument and jam on 6-7 songs with Weezer. EVERY kind of instrument was there including guitar, bass, drums, flute, cello, violin, gong, harp and countless others…some of which we had never seen before.
Fears of a complete clusterf*$% quickly went away as everyone involved was swept up in the music and the power it had to unify us all for a couple of hours that special day.
When brought all of the old DJ’s back to The End for this 20th birthday celebration to tell their favorite stories…more than a couple refered to this specific moment on The Morning End with Andy Savage.
We’ll have Steve & Jodi describe what went down:
1077 The End – Steve The Producer Passes Out by 1077 The End
Now you can watch it here:
