Anheuser-Busch / KMOX

While in St. Louis we took a tour of the Anheuser-Busch brewery.

The tour was very interesting. Anheuser-Busch was formed in 1869 and became the largest brewer in the United States in 1957. Three buildings on its site are listed as National Historic Landmarks. Afterwards we got two free glasses of beer. I chose a Shock Top and a Stella Artois. I had no idea that A-B brewed, imported or distributed so many brands besides Budweiser: Beck's, Michelob, Natural Light, Bass Ale, Rolling Rock and Bacardi Silver among many others.

The best part of the tour might have been seeing the famous Budweiser Clydesdales. There are five "hitches" or teams of horses that travel the country for promotional purposes and one hitch that stays at the brewery in a historic brick stable. To become a Budweiser Clydesdale the horse must have a reddish-brown coat, four white stocking feet and a blaze of white on their face. If not, then it's off to the glue factory they probably stay at Anheuser-Busch-owned Grant's Farm or their breeding facility Warm Springs Ranch.

I knew these horses were massive but you really have no idea until you're right up next to one (I'm 5'11".)

I also saw two beer wagon dalmatians scamper through the stable but they ran off before I could get a picture.

KMOX is a News/Talk station from St. Louis, Missouri. Anheuser-Busch owned the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team from 1953 to 1996. The Cardinals home of Busch Stadium was originally going to be called Budweiser Stadium but was prevented from doing so by Major League Baseball. A-B went ahead and named it Busch Stadium and then slyly introduced a new brew called Busch Bavarian Beer.

KMOX

While walking to our eventual dinner destination one evening, I spotted the home of the legendary KMOX, "The Voice of St. Louis."

1120 AM is a 50,000-watt clear-channel News/Talk station that first broadcast on Christmas Eve 1925. They carried St. Louis Cardinal baseball games from 1954 until 2005 when they lost the rights to KTRS. The 2011 season marks the return of KMOX as the flagship station of the Redbirds.

Eagles

I saw this beautiful eagle at Grant's Farm in St. Louis. It was just perched out in the open...a sign said that it had been injured and was unable to fly anymore.

WEGK was a Classic Rock station licensed to Starview, Pennsylvania. 92.7 FM is currently Smooth Jazz WSJW.

WEGW is an Active Rock station from Wheeling, West Virginia.


"Eagle 106.3 KYGL" is a Classic Rock station licensed to Texarkana, Arkansas.

Actual Sticker Sighting #12 - KRMS

I saw this sticker in the parking lot at Grant's Farm in St. Louis. KRMS (K Robert M. Smith-the original owner) is a News/Talk station licensed to Osage Beach, Missouri.

Gateway Arch / WARH

Today we spent a few hours in and around the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri. The Arch stands 630 feet tall (as well as wide) and is the tallest man-made monument in the United States. It was built as a structural expression of westward expansion of the US and was completed in 1965.

To get to the top you have to crawl inside this bizarre little "egg pod."

Here's the view looking west into downtown St. Louis. The Mississippi River and Illinois is directly behind. On the left you can see part of Busch Stadium where U2 had played a few nights before. They were in the process of replacing 110,000 square feet of grass which was removed for the concert. The new sod had to be replaced and in playable condition for the St. Louis Cardinals return from a road trip in one week. Earlier, we watched an excellent and dead-on U2 tribute band at a plaza downtown.


At the north base of the Arch.

"106.5 The Arch" WARH is an Adult Hits station licensed to Granite City, Illinois, just outside St. Louis.

Another Arch-related radio sticker can be seen here.

Actual Sticker Sighting #11 - WDRT

I saw the above bumper sticker while driving to St. Louis on I-70 in Effingham, Illinois. WDRT ( W DRifTless Community Radio) is a non-commercial, volunteer run station licensed to Viroqua, Wisconsin. The Driftless Area is located primarily in southwestern Wisconsin but also includes parts of Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. The term driftless refers to a lack of glacial drift, the material left behind by retreating glaciers.

Mystery Sticker #20

There was a KSJM "Power FM 97.5" in Tucson, Arizona circa the mid-1990s but I can't prove that this sticker is from there. Anybody? Anybody?

UPDATE:  See comments.

Radio Arabella

Radio Arabella is a network of pop music stations in Austria and Germany. The 94,0 frequency broadcast in Salzburg, Austria from 1998 to 2004 but has since been taken over by KroneHit. Here's a commercial for their main station in Vienna:

R.I.P. WRXP

New York City airwaves will soon lose an Alternative Rock station as WRXP (W Rock eXPerience) will likely flip to News/Talk after a little more than three years on the air. Last month Emmis Communications announced that they'd be selling "101.9RXP" along with Chicago stations WLUP and WKQX. As I'm writing this, WRXP's website still has the station streaming jockless and with commercials.

Radio PAC

Radio PAC broadcasts from Pompadour, France.

KSAJ

KSAJ (K Salina Abilene Junction City) is an Oldies station from Abilene, Kansas.

WXLQ

WXLQ was a Country station licensed to Gorham, New Hampshire. In 2000, WXLQ was sold to New Hampshire Public Radio and now has the call letters WEVC.

WQLH

WQLH (W Quality Light Hits) was a Light Adult Contemporary station from Green Bay, Wisconsin. 98.5 FM currently airs a more upbeat Hot AC format known as "Star 98."

WKRC

550 AM WKRC (W Kodel Radio Company--the original owners) is a News/Talk station from Cincinnati, Ohio.  They are one of the oldest radio stations in the state having gone on the air in 1924.

WEFT

90.1 FM WEFT is a non-commercial, community radio station in Champaign, Illinois.

KXKZ

KXKZ is a Country station licensed to Ruston, Louisiana. They've dropped the "Kix" branding and now call themselves "Z 107.5"

KQAA

KQAA "Kool 95" was an Oldies station licensed to Aberdeen, South Dakota. 94.9 FM is currently KLRJ, one of a million or so stations in the Christian K-LOVE radio network.

Radio in the Movies #5 - "A Prairie Home Companion"

"A Prairie Home Companion" is a backstage look at the last performance of a long-running radio variety show. It stars Garrison Keillor as himself along with a large ensemble cast including Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, Lindsay Lohan, Virginia Madsen and Tommy Lee Jones. The fictional APHC has run on WLT radio (With Lettuce and Tomato) for 30 years but an oily businessman has bought the theatre with plans on shutting down the show. The security guard narrates the story and becomes attracted to a mysterious woman in a white trench coat.  There’s also music—lots and lots of music--all of it fitting into the standard APHC repertoire of folk, bluegrass, standards, country and gospel. Harrelson and Reilly play singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty while Streep and Tomlin play the duo the Johnson Sisters. All the actors sang their own songs and played their own instruments. I’m not a huge fan of this type of music but the characters and Keillor’s charm and impeccable voice made it worth watching….once. This was the last film directed by Robert Altman who died about 5 months after it was released.

The two sides of a Guy Noir t-shirt.  Guy Noir is a private detective regularly featured on A Prairie Home Companion and portrayed by Kevin Kline in the movie.


The actual A Prairie Home Companion radio show first aired on Minnesota Public Radio in 1974. It still broadcasts live Saturday nights from the Fitzgerald Theatre in St. Paul on almost 600 public radio stations.

KSJN is the flagship station of Minnesota Public Radio's classical music network. Before 1991, 99.5 FM was best known in Minneapolis for being the home of WLOL, a top-rated CHR station.  KSJN's previous home on the dial was at 91.1 FM.

KSJN had a sister station at 1330 AM from 1980 to 1989.

KIKI-AM

KIKI was a Top-40 station in Honolulu, Hawaii. 830 AM is now home to News/Talk KHVH.

KIKI carried a Country format circa 1997 and had also moved to 990 AM. KIKI now carries a News/Talk format.

Happy Independence Day!

WBZ is a News/Talk station from Boston, Massachusetts. CBSBoston.com claims that on September 15th, 1921, WBZ became "the first station licensed as a "commecial" radio station," when it was located in East Springfield, MA.