The Tubes - WRIF

The Tubes are one of my favorite bands of all time. They've been around since the early 1970s but I first discovered them as a kid after checking out a cassette copy of their excellent 1979 television concept album Remote Control from the local library. Their music is a blend of top-notch musicianship, over-the-top theatricality, a wicked sense of humor and just great songs. They are probably best known for the Top-10 song "She's A Beauty" from the Outside Inside album but one of my favorites is the super funky "Tip of My Tongue" from that same record. Check out those horns!



This is one of dozens if not hundreds of band stickers from WRIF in Detroit. The Tubes logo dates it to 1981 when they released the awesome Completion Backwards Principle album featuring the killer "Talk To Ya Later." Crank it up!

WLLZ

WLLZ was a Rock station in Detroit, Michigan from 1980 to 1995. Two other WLLZ decals can be seen here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Time to give thanks, eat turkey, watch football and take a tryptophan-induced nap. Today's football matchups include the Miami Dolphins at the Dallas Cowboys, the San Francisco 49ers at the Baltimore Ravens and the undefeated Green Bay Packers at the Detroit Lions. The Lions have played at home every Thanksgiving Day since 1934.

760 AM WJR is a News/Talk station in Detroit, Michigan. On the left is the logo for the Marathon Petroleum Corporation which operates one of their six refineries in Detroit.



A magnet from 620 AM WTMJ, a News/Talk station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and the flagship station of the Green Bay Packers. They've been broadcasting Packer games since 1929.

WABX

WABX was an Album Oriented Rock station from Detroit, Michigan. In the late 1960s they played freeform progressive rock but moved toward mainstream AOR in the 1970s. By the 80s WABX was the third ranked Rock station in Detroit behind WRIF and WLLZ. They flipped to Soft Rock "Class FM" WCLS in 1984. 99.5 FM currently carries a Country format as WYCD. WABX's logo was ripped-off lovingly borrowed by the current WABX in Evansville, Indiana.

Monsters of Rock / WRIF

The 1988 Monsters of Rock was a festival tour featuring Metallica, Dokken, Scorpions, Kingdom Come and headlined by Van Halen. This WRIF sticker was released to coincide with the June 16th and 17th stop of the tour at the Pontiac Silverdome near Detroit, Michigan. WRIF has been giving out various bumper stickers in the classic "racetrack" shape for much of its 40 year history. Most feature a band's name or logo but some have included sports teams, DJs, and station slogans. The station's website has a section with many of their decals over the years. There are probably hundreds (maybe thousands?) of different WRIF stickers out there. Some people have even made a hobby out of collecting WRIF stix.

WKQI

"Channel 95-5" WKQI is a CHR station from Detroit, Michigan.

Tigers vs Orioles

We drove up to Detroit, Michigan last Saturday to see the Baltimore Orioles take on the Detroit Tigers. I've been an Orioles fan since childhood when we lived in Pennsylvania and could pick up Baltimore stations on television. That was more than 30 years ago and I had yet to see the Orioles play live.

Comerica Park opened in 2000 and is an absolute gem of a stadium.


Baltimore won 5-3!

Comerica is located right across the street from the Fox Theatre which was built in 1928.

WJR (W Jewett Radio & Phonographic Company--the original owners) is a 50,000-watt, class A clear channel station which carries a News/Talk format. They were the flagship station of the Detroit Tigers from 1964 until 2000.



WIOO is a Classic Country station licensed to Carlisle, Pennsylvania. They are one of about 40 stations in the Baltimore Orioles Radio Network.  Howard Stern's longtime co-host Robin Quivers got her first radio job at WIOO in 1979.

R.I.P. Ronnie James Dio

Ronnie James Dio died today of stomach cancer at age 67. Dio was the lead singer of Black Sabbath and Rainbow but I knew him best from 1980s solo output on albums like Holy Diver and The Last In Line. His powerful voice and trademark "devil horns" hand gesture ensure his place as a rock and roll legend.

WRIF is a Rock station from Detroit, Michigan. Previous WRIF stix can be seen here. And here.

Gene Simmons Turns 60

I was looking at a list of famous people who share my birthday today:

Monty Hall
Sean Connery
Regis Philbin
Rollie Fingers
Rob Halford
Geoff Downes
Elvis Costello
Tim Burton
Billy Ray Cyrus
Claudia Schiffer
and
Gene Simmons from KISS who turns 60. Gene really, really, really, likes money. Did you know that he trademarked the moneybag logo with the dollar sign on it? I thought that image had been used for years and was in the public domain. Apparently he used to turn the S of his last name into a dollar sign when signing autographs. A lawyer said he should copyright the two slashes going through the S which he did. He then got a copyright for the moneybag too.

WRIF is a heritage Rock station in Detroit, Michigan. Previous WRIF stickers can be found here.

WLLZ

My Chevy Blazer recently made it to 100,000 miles which, I’m told by some, is when an internal switch is flipped and the engine will soon die. They were kidding of course but the sad fact is that my Blazer has had an array of problems for most of its life. The worst of which has been the front axle area which had to be repaired three times. Something about ball joints and Pitman arms and other terms that I have no idea what they are but get expensive real fast. It's a bad feeling when you hear a horrible thud and get out to see your wheel caved in toward the axle.  Good thing I wasn't going highway speed when it happened.  

I grew up in a Toyota family. Nothing but Coronas, Cressidas, a Prius and a 4-Runner. My dad got 400,000 miles on his 1982 Cressida station wagon. I’ll have to make a decision in the not-so-distant future if I’m gonna use my GM credit card discount and go for another Chevy or switch to another brand. I guess a second Mini Cooper would be totally impractical, especially when I need to haul some wood or bags of mulch.


WLLZ was a Detroit Rock station which lasted from 1980 to the mid 90s. They were a more hit-oriented competitor of heritage rocker WRIF and managed to beat them in the ratings from time to time. The grunge era brought a format change to Modern Rock but in 1995 they switched to Smooth Jazz as WVMV.

WWWW

The country format represented by these WWWW stickers lasted from 1980 until 1999.


Prior to 1980 "W4" was an album rock station most remembered for employing Howard Stern. He hated country music but stayed on briefly after the format change and was known on the air as Hopalong Howie. Stern then bolted back to the rock format at WWDC "DC-101" in Washington, DC. WWWW was licensed to Detroit, Michigan. 106.7 FM is now WDTW "106.7 The Beat."

WRIF

One of the first stickers I ever got was a black & white WRIF decal. I went to the library and found a book that listed radio station formats and mailing addresses. Unfortunately it was 1986 and the book was from 1976 so many of the self-addressed stamped envelopes I mailed out came back Return to Sender because the stations moved or no longer existed for whatever reason. WRIF sent about a dozen of their classic racetrack-shaped stickers which I promptly used to decorate the inside of my high school locker and book covers. After one of the covers got worn out I chucked it in the trash. I guess somebody else liked it because a few days later I saw it covering someone else’s book. I wanted to ask the kid if he enjoyed picking through trash cans for his book covers but never did.
The album rock station’s overall logo hasn’t changed in more than 25 years although somewhere along the way they went crazy and switched from “WRIF 101” to “101 WRIF.” The Riff is licensed to Detroit, Michigan.