Your Rock Alternative

FM106.3 WHTG, Eatontown

In the mid-1980's, I worked at the snack bar for Sea Girt, NJ's public beach.  Sea Girt sits about 20 miles south of the town where I grew up, so I spent a good deal of time driving my silver Toyota Tercel in the summers.  As I drove down Route 18 each day, on my way to cook hamburgers, hot dogs, fries, and pork roll, egg, and cheese sandwiches for Bill Parcells and for beachgoers recovering from a night at The Parker House, I listened to a local radio station called FM106.3, "Your Rock Alternative." The bumper of that Toyota sported the station's black, vinyl "FM106.3 -WHTG-" sticker until I junked it in about 1993.

Loretta Windas, Bart Cross-Tierney, Rich Robinson, Mike Marrone, and Matt Pinfield (who, of course, found national fame as an alternative/indie music expert and MTV host) were with me in the car, at the snack bar, and, usually, wherever I was for the evening.  They played The Smiths, The Cure, New Order, Violent Femmes, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Church, Psychedelic Furs, The Replacements, The Pixies, Camper Van Beethoven, R.E.M., U2, local-ish acts like Dramarama, and on, and on.  You could not hear most of this music anywhere else on commercial radio in the New York area in 1987.  I listen to the music I do today because of that station and those DJ's.

I feel like the station peaked from about 1986-1988.  Maybe I missed some good years while I was in college, but as the 1990's dawned, and "alternative" became just another category for music-industry marketers, WHTG started to sound like a lot of other stations.

Tonight, I took CoolDaughter #2 out for a taco as we waited for her sister to come home from her summer camp field trip.  I saw a poster advertising a WHTG reunion coming up later this month and featuring Dramarama and good, old Matt Pinfield.  The show will take place down in Ortley Beach, NJ.  There must have been several advertisers on WHTG from Ortley Beach back in the day, because I can't hear the name of the place and not think of the radio station.  Appropriate, then, that they'd have their reunion there, I guess.

Maybe CoolMom and I will take the minivan down to Ortley Beach, and I can go crazy when the current incarnation of Dramarama breaks into "Anything, Anything."  Maybe Loretta, Bart, Rich, or Mike will also be there, and I can pair faces with voices.

I wonder if they'll have any of those stickers.