there's not much here now, but i'm hoping, i'm wishing that i'll find more KROQ related articles real soon.

March 7, 1999 - Calendar Section of the L.A. Times - Pop Eye: Eminem Breaks KROQ's Rap Barrier by Steve Hochman
Hip-hop has been rapping at the door of alternative-rock leader KROQ-FM (106.7) for years. From the Beastie Boys through Limp Bizkit, varying degrees of hip-hop - usually mixed with rock and pop sounds - have become common on the outlet. But never real, hard-core urban rap. You'd never dream of hearing a Dr. Dre track on their frequency.
Now rap has its foot in the door, thanks to Eminem. The Detroit rapper's "My Name Is," produced by Dr. Dre in Dre's graphic urban style, is getting a test on the station.
Why his track when others haven't gotten a chance? Does it have anything to do with the fact that Eminem is white?
"Not at all," insists KROQ program director Kevin Weatherly. "This is definitely hip-hop, but it kind of has a novelty appeal to it. That's more a reason why we're trying it. And obviously the exposure it's getting on MTV makes it a little easier to pop it on."
But this is hardly the first hard-core rap track with a novelty element and massive MTV exposure. The difference, Weatherly says, is timing. Young KROQ listeners increasingly are attracted to hip-hop, which has exploded as the sound of youth culture across ethnic and economic lines.
But it's still a long way from broad acceptance among KROQ listeners.
"There's a polar response to the track every time we play it," Weatherly says. "It's getting a ton of requests, but it also gets a lot of negatives. Most of the [callers] have been very young. It seems like 17 and under love it. The listeners over 18 like, but they don't want to hear it on KROQ."
Indeed, the markets where Eminem is working best on alternative-rock stations are ones that lack a dominant hip-hop outlet such as L.A.'s Power (KPQR-FM, 105.9).
"Power is entrenched in that world, and for us getting too far into hip-hop would be akin to them jumping on Hole or Green Day, Weatherly says. "It's not what you expect when you punch into that station."
Frank Williams, West Coast editor of rap monthly the Source, agrees that KROQ needs to protect its niche and move cautiously. But he sees an increased rap presence there as inevitable, and he hopes teh station will be more open to African American rappers soon.
"Think how big this music is," he says. "They have no choice, given what their audience is. At some point, they have to get with the times, and even if some people don't want to hear it, they have to acknowledge those who do. Things are changing and people have to realize it."

March 7, 1999 - Calender Section of the L.A. Times - Pop Eye: SPF WITH A BULLET by Steve Hochman
A piece of advice for record companies: Don't look a gift novelty record in the mouth.
That's the lesson learned at Capitol Records, where a track featuring a spoken-word recitation of advice purportedly given in a college graduation address ("wear sunscreen," "do one thing every day that scares you") is now the hottest thing on the label after gathering dust for nearly a year.
The track, "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)," is KROQ's top requested song by far.
"It's out-pulling Limp Bizkit and No Doubt by a mile," says program director Weatherly. "I've never seen a track so instant as far as striking a nerve."
The track is from "Something for Everybody," an album of music put together by Australian film director Baz Luhrmann related to his movies. The music behind the track is "Everybody's Free," from his film "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet."
While mixing it for the record, Luhrmann encountered the "commencement address" on the Internet, where it had been bouncing around with claims that it had been delivered by author Kurt Vonnegut JR. In truth, it was a piece by Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich. Luhrmann hired actor Lee Perry to read the column over the music.
After the album came out last April, it got a lot of spins on Santa Monica public station KCRW-FM (89.9), but Capitol didn't do much to stir interest until Burt Baumgartner arrived last month as senior vice president of promotion. He thought there was some serious potential.
The track had started to get play in Portland, Ore., after programmers edited down from 7 minutes to less than 5. On hearing that it was the station's No. 1 request, Baumgartner got busy. He pressed some CD singles of the edit for other radio stations, took out a few ads in trade magazines, and soon it was landing in other markets, with influential KROQ putting it on the official playlist in late February. Baumgartner says the phenomenon is now starting to cross over to mainstream pop stations.
"I love wacko recrds," he says. "What radio loves about it is there's no video, no artist appearing with Jay Leno. You can only get it on the radio. It's a media exclusive for them."

December 14, 1998 - Calendar Section of the L.A. Times - KROQ Christmas Benefit Turns Into Smashing Love Fest by Robert Hilburn (for Night 1) and Steve Hochman (for Night2)
Day One - Courtney the celebrity shines at the Shrine, but even a later, longer set at the Roxy raises questions.
Was there really any doubt that the ultracompetitive Courtney Love would steal the spotlight during the opening night of KROQ's weekend pair or Almost Acoustic Christmas benefit concerts at the Shrine Auditorium?
Hard-rock melodramatists Korn charmed the mostly teenage crowd by walking on stage with a squad of Scottish-clad bagpipe players.
And Streetwise Offspring caught everyone offguard by teaming up with pop's unhippest figure, rapper Vanilla Ice, during its hip-hop-styled satire, "Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)."
But Love, who has begun to slowly retest live performances with her band Hole after a lengthy hiatus devoted to acting and recording a new album, simply outmaneuvered them.
First, she guaranteed herself a choice spot in Roling Stone's "Random Notes" by bringing out actor Edward Norton, her reclusive beau, to play guitar on "Malibu," an enchanting song from the band's new "Celebrity Skin" album. Then, Love, who has resisted even acknowledging a relationship with Norton, gave him a kiss and climbed aboard for a brief piggy-back ride.
To capture the night's spotlight even more, Love announced that Hole's short Shrine set would be followed by a full-lenght, after-midnight performance at the Roxy. Suddenly, the KROQ benefit was no longer the most exclusive ticket of the night. As prized as the tickets are, 6,000 fans got to see the Shrine event. Fewer than 500 could crowd int he Roxy.
More important, the Roxy set's additional lenght would give us a glimpse of how Love and Hole are progressing at a time when many in the industry feel the band is at a crossroads.
The transformation of Love from punk goddess to Hollywood glamour puss has shattered her credibility in some pop-rock circles, and the question is whether she can win it back. The "Celebrity Skin" album is a great start, but the battle will be won on stage and the Roxy show underscored the challenge.
In both the Shrine and Roxy sets, Love showed she is one of rock's most charismatic and electric figures, and someone capable of bringing passion, risk-taking and individuality to her own music. There were flashes of brilliance in the loose, informal 90-plus-minute Roxy set, which ended at 3:15 a.m.
Buth the raggedness of the latter set - the pacing was off, the "Celebrity Skin" songs didn't soar melodically the way they do on record and Love failed to step into the emotional heart of some of the new songs - pointed out the difficulties of being a part-time musician.
By the end of the Roxy set, which included such surprise covers as Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," you wondered whether Love, with her acting options and her A-list celebrity status, is willing to pay the price that rock 'n' roll demands.
For all the valuable things she brings to the music, she's not irresistable enough to captivate us by simply stepping on stage. Talent and inspiration are key elements of rock excellence, but so is commitment - and that's what Love needs to demonstrate, preferably with a tour that begins answering questions.
For those fans whose musical night ended at the Shrine, Offspring generated many of the evening's most satisyfing moments, thought the band's use of four Billy Barty-sized dancers for some playful S&M antics during a band medley that went from Soft Cell's "Sex Dwarf" to Devo's "Whip It" fell flat.
Headliner Korn's set unleashed dark, relentless, grinding rock that aimed for, though generally fell short of, the liberating intensity of Nine Inch Nails and, especially, Rage Against the Machine.
Aside from the nicely crafted pop and good humor of Barenaked Ladies, the remaining offerings ranged from the relatively anonyous pop-rock of the Cardigans to the kind of featherweight novelty acts - Blink 182, Sugar Ray and Reel Big Fish - that somehow find a welcome home on the KROQ holiday shows alongside the truly memorable alt-rock heroes such as, in this year, Love and - from Saturday's bill - Billy Corgan.

Day Two - Garbage and a warm, humble Billy Corgan lead a mixed-bag of sets from veterans to new flavors of the day.
Billy Corgan's holiday wish list, as presented toward the end of his often-gripping performance during KROQ's Almost Acoustic Christmas concert Saturday at the Shrine Auditorium, is a fairly simple matter: "I would like to ask your indulgence for one more song. I'd like to wish you a merry Christmas. I'd like to thank God for the planet."
Does that sound like someone in the midst of a career crisis so deep that, with sales of "Adore," the most recent album by his band, the Smashing Pumpkins, falling far short of many expectations, he just fired the group's high-power management team and now stands at a business and artisic intersection?
Instead, in this truly acoustic performance accompanied not by his bandmates bu tonly by pianist Mike Garson, he was nothing but humble and grateful, warmly embracing the audience, and being warmly embracing in kind for his songs of internal yearnigns. It was closer in demeanor to Jackson Browne than a post-grunge rocker.
And it was a sharp change of tone fromt he preceding set by Garbage, far away the other highlight of a mixed-bag evening ranging from the novelty swing of the Brian Setzer Orchestra to the brooding hues of all-time KROQ favorite Depeche Mode, which was joined by Corgan for its final song, "Never Let Me Down Again."
Both Corgan's warmth and Garbage's power offer encouragement to anyone fearing that there's no place left for sincere artists in a modern-rock realm increassingly geared to the catchy and clever as opposed to the meaningful, where hit singles are mroe important than the people who make them.
Example: Last year's Christmas shows included Everclear. Saturday featured Everlast. Anyone paying less than full attention could be excused for not realizing that hey are different acts. That's no swipe at either's value. Everclear is an earnest, talented trio, while Everlast's Erik Schrody showed in his openign set that the former House of Pain Leader has evolved his old group's brash hip-hop into a richly scruffy and highly promising meld of rock and rap.
It's a swipe a the fact that their value in the marketplace today seems to rest only on whether they can provide radio hooks. Saturday's lineup was littered with the like, many of them veterans of the pop wars currently riding breakthough hits. Cake, a band that's been at it for a while, is now hot stuff thanks to two quirky, trumpet-laced, rap-rock pieces. Semisonic, whose leader Dan Wilson is also a pop veteran, has caught on with the elastic power-pop melody of "Closing Time." Soul Coughing has also broken through with the neo-beatnik "Circles."
While these are artists of relative merit getting a well-earned chance, the reality is that a year from now, every last one of them could be discarded in favor of someone else who happens to have a catchy song. In that kind of world, what's a Pumpkin to do?
Saturday, Corgan could take heart in the clear evidence that his music continues to touch his audience, with the fans singing along and showering him with shouts of affection.
"My life has been extraordinary, blessed and cursed and won," Corgan sang in "Muzzle," a 1995 song of personal affirmation. Indeed, the "curse" of lowered commercial expectations could well prove a blessing for a both his art and his bond with his fans.
Garbage, to has not lived up to some sales projections for its second album, "Version 2.0." Yet there was no air of disappointment evident Saturday, but rather extra determination and purpose. This was the band's third KROQ Christmas appearance in four years, each time better than before, and this one relentless in the power of its electronic-enhanced rock and the performance of singer Shirley Manson.
Prowling, pacing and stalking the stage, she seemed a '90's rock Ann-Margret, but with the fierce, feminine independence of Chrissie Hynde - two of whose songs, not coincidentally, are quoted in the current single, "Special." This band is indeed special and certainly capable of transcending both the stifling hit mentality and the burden of inflated expectations.

November 5, 1998 - L.A.Times - Radio Pushes Bands for Freebies by Chuck Philips
here are some small parts that mentions KROQ:
Charity Show Concept Took Off...
When KROQ-FM launched its acoustic concert series nine years ago at Universal Amphitheatre, rock acts Social Distortion and Dramarama jumped at the chance to donate their services and perform at the high-profile charity event.
...
Two Big Stations Deny Pay-for-Play...
The nation's two most powerful rock stations - KROQ in Los Angeles and New York's Z-100 - deny ever offering to play an act's songs in exchange for an appearance at their concerts.
..."As more and more stations started doing concerts, the business practices just became more and more questionable - but that's not representative of what we do at KROQ," said Kevin Weatherly, vice president of programming at the CBS-owned station. "We only look for bands to play our shows whose records we already currently support."

October 25, 1998 - Calendar section of the L.A. Times - Are They Psycho? by Patrick Goldstein
(this article was about how everything today is being resurrected and reinvented. there's a small mention of KROQ.)
...Tune in KROQ-FM (106.7), one of the best barometers for teen trends in America, and you'll hear a procession of martini-and-cigar-era swing bands.

October 15, 1998 - Calendar section from the L.A. Times - My Favorite Weekend
Dr. Drew Pinksky hosts the syndicated radio talk show "Loveline" and its MTV version. His first book, "The Dr. Drew and Adam Book: Coping with Live and Love," is in stores this week.

-BOOTH MOORE

July 7, 1998 - L.A. LIFE: Spanish stations grab most listeners
By Fred Shuster, Daily News
Spanish-language radio continues to dominate the Los Angeles radio market in almost every age group and time period, while Howard Stern remained the top English-language morning personality, according to spring ratings released Wednesday.
At No. 1 in daylong listening was KLVE-FM (107.5) with its steady diet of Spanish ballads, earning a 6.3 percent share of the audience. Next came Mexican regional music station KSCA-FM (101.9) with a 5.8 listener share.
Talk radio KFI-AM (640) and urban/top-40 KPWR-FM (105.9) -- Power 106 -- tied for third place and a 3.9 percent share. Urban r&b radio KKBT-FM (92.3) -- the Beat -- came in fifth with a 3.8 share, while Spanish-language KLAX-FM (97.9) was sixth with a 3.5 percent share.
Five stations tied for seventh place and a 3.3 percent share -- smooth jazz KTWV-FM (94.7), top-40 KIIS-FM (102.7), new-rock KROQ-FM (106.7), adult contemporary KOST-FM (103.5) and oldies KRTH-FM (101.1).
In the morning derby, KSCA's Renan Coello placed first with an 8.1 percent share, followed by KLVE's Pepe Barreto with a 6.8 share. KLSX's Stern placed third with a 5.1 percent audience share.
Among listeners ages 18-to-34, Spanish stations KSCA and KLVE were at the top, followed by Power 106, the Beat and KROQ.
Copyright 1998 Daily News Los Angeles

March 5, 1998 - Calendar Weekend - Mixing Ribald and Real Life
Co-host of 'Loveline' show relies on his humble past as day laborer to dispense practical advice on Gen-X relationships.
(this is also a long article that i promise will type up)

OCTOBER 1997 - Buzz - 100 Coolest People in L.A.
Tad KROQ "intern" and worst celeb interviewer...
Tad: "So, do you believe in extraterrestrials?"
David Duchovny: "That's the stupidest question I've ever heard."
Tad: "Um...Did you ever want to go to outer space?"

JULY 1997 - Details - Breaking the Airwaves (um, i promise that i will type this up, but you know, it's real long, so i'll type it up as soon as possible. and i'll scan the pictures too.)

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