Last week, a California record company executive sent out 50 advance albums of what he hopes will be the next hot band: Bradford.
But the only radio station in the country whose listeners can hear the British import right now is in Utah, according to Howie Cline, general manager of L.A.-based Sire records and a vice president of Warner Bros."The kids who like alternative music who live in Salt Lake City have an opportunity to have a more progressive listening format than they do in L.A. or New York City," says Cline. "And the reason for that is because of KJQ."
In this politically and socially conservative state, this Ogden-based radio station patches together three frequencies to broadcast its musically aggressive sounds. The station plays "fat chunks o' music" from new bands the likes of Boom Crash Opera, That Petrol Emotion and The Strawberry Zots.
The station has carved out a market niche that Danny Elfman, lead singer for the group Oingo Boingo, likes to call "a little pocket of craziness."
Radio is a competitive industry, where listener ratings translate directly into advertising revenues. That leads many stations to lean toward traditional formats, ignoring new bands for the golden oldie warhorses. Most stations, too, dump the familiar, happy-talk chatter onto the airwaves, yet flatter themselves that they are being anti-establishment.
But KJQ, one of only a handful of independent stations in the country that creates its own play list, prides itself on being a station with an attitude.
"It's a series of sub-attitudes that join into one large attitude," says Biff Raffe, the station's music director.
The station inherited some of its on-air personalities and programming from the now-defunct KCGL. Once only dialed in by the youthful musical avante-garde - new wavers, punkers and totally rad skateboarders - KJQ, now two years old, is filling the ears of more mainstream Salt Lakers.
While some critics might say the station is losing its progressive edge by pandering to the mainstream, Raffe says programming decisions are constantly balanced to mix the alternative with the accessible.
"When you turn it on, you never really know what's going to happen musically," Raffe says. "The station is adventurous. Contrast that to almost any other station on the dial."
"It's always entertaining, but it can be moody at times," says Mike Summers, program director.
What is amazing about KJQ - the station consistently ranks among the top 10 of the valley's 50 stations - is congruent with Utah's distinctive, fragmented culture. The station is gaining listeners despite the market's strong preference for country and easy listening music.
"What makes KJQ unique is they are out there looking for the next big, new thing," Cline says. "If the guys at KJQ tell me a record is working for them, that's enough to make us realize that it can happen around the rest of the country. They're a real bellwether station for us, one of the most bellwether stations around the country. And I don't know why it works out that way, but it does."
With its trendsetting, sometimes jarring music, this is a station whose on-air personalities work hard to tell the world they don't take themselves too seriously. Beyond the typical radio industry irreverence, the station does the unheard of: it makes fun of itself.
"Part of the reason for KJQ's success," says Bill Allred, one-half of the station's "Radio From Hell" morning team, "is our irreverence for the business we're in." (The DJs claim that the "hell" in their show's title, by the way, refers not to Utah or Utahns, but to the technical condition of their spider-infested studio.)
Raffe jokes on the air about KJQ's "fusion of high technology and substandard equipment." The station itself, according to Allred, "looks like an old animal hospital where they used to euthanize dogs and cats."
Summers says just finding the frequency is something of a gamble. In Salt Lake and Davis counties, the frequency is 92.7 FM, Ogden listeners tune in to 95.5 FM and those in Utah County - where the morning show is billed as "Radio From Heck" - at 104.9 FM.
"Our attitude is: If you're lucky enough to find it, you might enjoy it," Summers says.
"It kind of frightens me what we could do if we had a good signal," Allred says.
Sometimes, the station's various frequencies are so weak that employees say even a small wrinkle can cause disturbances for listeners.
The station asks its listeners to fax jokes and song requests and uses sound effects to "blow up" Top 40 and country songs during the evening show, "The KJQ Zone." The morning DJs have even have claimed university status for their show. According to Allred, a Weber State graduate, if his alma mater can grow up into a university, "then, by gum, we can, too.
Allred, and sidekick Kerry Jackson, have started a "Utah word of the day" feature, where listeners call in favorite Utah-isms. His favorite: "chesturjoors," a place where underwear is stored. The university show offers "foreign language" credit each morning.
The one thing the station guarantees it will never do is buy listeners by giving away cash. "We never got into the giving money thing and we never will," Raffe says. "It's not what the audience expects from us."
Besides, according to one of the station's own on-air commercials, "we're too cheap, anyway."