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Z Rock

ABC pulled the plug on the format. remember it always comes down to money Always.

Not a lot of good ratings from what I recall lots of satellite stations were rimshots or am's.

did good in chico ca that's why the last verison of it's still there carrying on in it's own way bridging the old and paving the new. www.zrockfm.com.

Also armed forces radio soldiers on with it's own version of zrock.

you can wiki search z-rock for more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-Rock
 
I have a cabin near Chico and listen to that Z Rock often, its currently at #1 in ratings in the Chico Market
Are their any other stations still going with Z Rock Branding? Were there any that tried to carry on as Z Rock after the network died?
 
There would probably still be more former Z-Rock affiliates calling themselves Z-Rock, but when the network went away, ABC wanted something from the stations to keep using the name. I don't remember what... It might have been continuing to clear ABC inventory, money, etc. The Z-Rock affiliate I used to work for changed its name for that reason only, but continued with the format.

Giving up that much inventory just to use the name wouldn't have been a smart business decision.
 
"We don't brake for wimps."

The affiliate in my area went all-50s. Another ABC format. Then all sports, which they've been doing for close to 20 years.
 
"If it's too loud, you're TOO OLD!"

I did a fair amount of traveling for work around the time Z-Rock was popping up in different markets in the late 80s. My home market of Philly didn't have any hard rock once WYSP packed it in for Classic Rock, and Philly certainly never had anything like Z-Rock. So it would be great to visit a Z-Rock market and crank it up in the car the whole time I was within earshot (co-workers thought I was a little bit nuts. They were right.). 94.5 KZRK in Denton/Dallas-Ft. Worth, WZRQ 102.3 Albany, WTZR Tidewater, KZRX Globe/Phoenix and WZRC(AM!) New York (hadn't listened to music on AM for years before WZRC came on).

Although it was never a Z-Rock affiliate, WHVY/WXZL 103.1 Grasonville/Annapolis/Baltimore was another great hard rocker ("If you can't get us at home, MOVE!")

All rimshotters or compromised signals. All worth pulling in. R.I.P.
 
Z-Rock, We had that in Fresno on 107.5 FM and 620 AM, from 2/1990- 3/1991, their call letters at first were KZRZ, but was protested by KRZR 103.7 rock 40 at that time that started 6 months before.
they changed their call letters to KZZF , and with the strong competition with KRZR 103.7 which went AOR ( and lasted for 21 years until last year)and KKDJ 105.9 (which when Modern a year later as The Edge), Z-ROCK was a great station.
 
musichead1029 said:
"If it's too loud, you're TOO OLD!"

I did a fair amount of traveling for work around the time Z-Rock was popping up in different markets in the late 80s. My home market of Philly didn't have any hard rock once WYSP packed it in for Classic Rock, and Philly certainly never had anything like Z-Rock. So it would be great to visit a Z-Rock market and crank it up in the car the whole time I was within earshot (co-workers thought I was a little bit nuts. They were right.). 94.5 KZRK in Denton/Dallas-Ft. Worth, WZRQ 102.3 Albany, WTZR Tidewater, KZRX Globe/Phoenix and WZRC(AM!) New York (hadn't listened to music on AM for years before WZRC came on).
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I remember listening to Z-rock on 1480 a few times when I went to the NY area. (IIRC it was on from 1990 to 1991 or 2). Sadly, its signal didn't reach that far. Cool station/network, though. While it was unusual to put an underground format like Z-Rock on AM, keep in mind that FM stations were rejecting Z-Rock as it was difficult to sell. Therefore, SMN made a plea in late 1987 to AM stations to pick up the format; and several did. Besides WZRC, others included WFYV (1460) Jacksonville FL, KKZR (1070) Houston, KLZ (560) Denver, KZOW (950) and later KMZZ (980) Minneapolis, KSJL (760) San Antonio, TX, KZQQ (1550) Salt Lake City (briefly) . KZRC (1010) Portland OR. I believe Ft. Meyers FL had a station at 770 and Charlotte NC had a station at 610. I believe others may have existed as well.

I know of two hard-rock formatted stations on AM which were not Z-Rock affiliates. One was KSJX San Jose (Better known as 1500-X-Rock) and the other probably was KZXR which was somewhere out of central California.

musichead1029 said:
Although it was never a Z-Rock affiliate, WHVY/WXZL 103.1 Grasonville/Annapolis/Baltimore was another great hard rocker ("If you can't get us at home, MOVE!")

All rimshotters or compromised signals. All worth pulling in. R.I.P.
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Yeah, I remember when this station first went on the air! IIRC it was April Fools Day (actually morning) 1991 at about midnight! They lasted until about 1993 before going kaput. They were first known as "103.1, the Underground" then as "Rock 103". They'd boost their power form 3 to 6-kilowatts around 1992 or so. I remember in 1993 driving to OC with the sunroof out and this station cranked up on the Kenwood in my 1987 Dodge Shadow.

Sometime in the late 1990s, some of the people responsible for putting both 'Underground/Rock 103.1' and the original '97 Underground' on the air put a Part 15 AM station together which used the calls WDKW at 1630 kHz. Its handle was "1630, The Claw" IIRC. It was broadcast out of Dundalk MD which is just east of Baltimore and it was possible to get the station on the east end of town and parts of downtown Baltimore, but it too lasted just a short time. What is now left of these operations can be found online at http://97underground.com/.
 
A changing music scene killed Z-Rock. It was cool in 1991-92 to add Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam to the playlist, but everything quickly began to tilt in the "alternative" direction, and the typical metal bands were eclipsed by that change overnight. Lee Abrams strategy of adding stale classic rock tunes to Z-Rock only accelerated it's demise. I remember having the phones blowing up the first afternoon that Eddie Money and Foreigner were added to the gold catagory...

Caller: "You guys are total posers!!!! F*** YOU!!!!" ::)

We could fill any venue with Z-Rock, but the demographic was heavily age 12-24.

It was a blast. Free concerts, schmoozing with the bands, and plenty of young, horny headbanger girls 8)
 
stereolane said:
A changing music scene killed Z-Rock. It was cool in 1991-92 to add Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam to the playlist, but everything quickly began to tilt in the "alternative" direction, and the typical metal bands were eclipsed by that change overnight. Lee Abrams strategy of adding stale classic rock tunes to Z-Rock only accelerated it's demise. I remember having the phones blowing up the first afternoon that Eddie Money and Foreigner were added to the gold catagory...

Caller: "You guys are total posers!!!! F*** YOU!!!!" ::)

We could fill any venue with Z-Rock, but the demographic was heavily age 12-24.

It was a blast. Free concerts, schmoozing with the bands, and plenty of young, horny headbanger girls 8)
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I hadn't realized that Abrams was 'watering down' the network with inappropriate (for the format) music. No wonder it failed! Methinks also that if quality AM transmission standards were to have been implemented, that alternative musical formats such as this didn't have to be sacrificed.
 
klutch00 said:
stereolane said:
A changing music scene killed Z-Rock. It was cool in 1991-92 to add Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam to the playlist, but everything quickly began to tilt in the "alternative" direction, and the typical metal bands were eclipsed by that change overnight. Lee Abrams strategy of adding stale classic rock tunes to Z-Rock only accelerated it's demise. I remember having the phones blowing up the first afternoon that Eddie Money and Foreigner were added to the gold catagory...

Caller: "You guys are total posers!!!! F*** YOU!!!!" ::)

We could fill any venue with Z-Rock, but the demographic was heavily age 12-24.

It was a blast. Free concerts, schmoozing with the bands, and plenty of young, horny headbanger girls 8)
Click to expand...

I hadn't realized that Abrams was 'watering down' the network with inappropriate (for the format) music. No wonder it failed! Methinks also that if quality AM transmission standards were to have been implemented, that alternative musical formats such as this didn't have to be sacrificed.
Click to expand...

The "watering down" occurred when the smiling shark was added to the logo. All of these "power gold" cuts were added one day during PM drive. The only two that stand out in my mind are "Two Tickets to Paradise" by Eddie Money, and "Cold as Ice" by Foreigner. I think it was the Eddie Money song that caused the guy on the phone to call us "posers" and tell us "F You!!!"...And I really couldn't agree with him more! Mad Max Hammer was on-air when the dreadful music shift occurred.

Lee made a big mistake. He should have swung the music the other way, toward the Seattle sound. During unsold stop-sets overnight we were playing stuff like Jane's Addiction, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and other ALT bands that were about to become huge. Lee missed it.
 
Guys...There are alot of good Rock stations out there nowadays. Just as good as old Z-Rock.. and I loved Z-Rock when we had it in Cleveland Ohio and also they had it in Cincinnati. It was scattered everywhere through the country out of Dallas.

Anyways.. old PD from Z-Rock does rock945.com its almost like the old Z-Rock playing New Hard Rock-Metal ... With today's Active rock, it's not the classic metal the people in the late 30s,40s listened to...but its today's style of Hard rock like Disturbed,Avenge Sevenfold...etc..etc no 90s style alternative... station is out of Spokane but they really need to expand that to a national scene.

Also you guys might like KZZR out of NM... just got done playing

Slayer, Disturbed, System of the Down in their past 3 songs to give you guys a idea.

Anyways, miss the old Z-Rock but the 1 guy said it correctly.. Z-Rock went down hill when
the Hairbands went out....then the Metal followed..but it's $$$ and revenue that brings
everything down..
 
My first exposure to Z-Rock was with it's flagship station in Chicago back in 1986-87...I went to a boarding school west of Milwaukee and we used to get it up there. By far the best radio station I've ever heard. Sadly, I was moving to Florida that summer so I used a couple of cassettes to record a couple of hours worth...I listened to those tapes quite often. First time I'd heard Anthrax, Motorhead, Slayer..lots of bands I hadn't heard in a while back then as well. Then I had my dad make me a couple of more tapes later in the year.

Then on new years day in 1988, ZRock came on the air...though on a very weak AM signal...but still, it was there for at least 2 years before the affilate chose not to renew the contract. A friend of mine about a year or so later told me that there was a station in Ashville, NC broadcasting ZROCK so he would send me tapes of the ZROCK 50. Last time I had heard it was going up I-75 in So GA in 1994....but by then it had started in with the alt-rock-grunge mixture.

I did discover that http://www.kdkt.us/ is essentially Z-Rock...Mad Max Hammer, The Tiptonizor, Rockin Ron....there's also a Facebook page, just an FYI
 
When Key Market bought KNAC in '93, the first thing they did was bring in Lee Abrams to consult. He stood in front of the staff and proclaimed, "The days of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest are over." In the blink of an eye we were playing Offspring and Green Day. It's probably for the best that KM sold the station shortly after and it was laid to rest while it still had some dignity.
 
agentUrge said:
A friend of mine about a year or so later told me that there was a station in Ashville, NC broadcasting ZROCK so he would send me tapes of the ZROCK 50.
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The only Z-Rock I'm aware of in Asheville was WZLS and they leaned classic. They certainly weren't hard rock.
 
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