One of the true heritage stations of the Modern Rock format, XTRA (91X)/San Diego, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. In this week’s eQB Cover Story, 91X PD Christy Taylor checks in about her transition from MD to PD over the past year, as well as her radio career thus far, the unique challenges of the San Diego radio market, the impressive history of 91X and much more.
Christy Taylor
By Joey Odorsio
One of the true heritage stations of the Modern Rock format is XTRA(91X)/San Diego. The station celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, with PDChristy Taylor at the helm. Taylor rose from MD to PD just about a year ago, and in a chat with FMQB, discusses her radio career thus far, the unique challenges of the San Diego radio market, the station’s impressive history and much more.
Let’s start by recapping your radio history.
The short version of a boring story is: I started interning for a Hot AC and News station up the road from my house in High School. Then I went to Ithaca College for TV/Radio, where I was a part of WICB. I also interned for WLIRand WDRE over the summers. Eventually they needed a board op and I scored my first minimum radio position at WDRE. One thing led to another and I got a part time gig at Top 40 station WWYL in Binghamton my senior year of college. This experience helped me land a gig at WFLY in Albany and I got my MD stripes. Eventually we started an Active Rock station in the building, and I was able to switch over and be APD/MD under Nik Rivers for the Edge in Albany (and he went to Ithaca College too!).
I heard there was an opening at K-Rock in New York, applied and didn’t tell anyone. They contacted me the next day and I ended up doing weekends at K-Rock for a few months.
Kallao exited 91X and I knew [then-91X MD] Capone from when he was in Albany at Channel 103.1 and I was at The Edge. So I reached out to Capone, and he told me to send an Alt demo, not a Rock one, so I sent in my K-Rock stuff. I was hired for nights here and when Phil Manning exited, they upped Capone. I had been sitting in on all their music meetings, since I missed programming, and Capone promoted me to MD. When Capone left to go to Crush Management, I was lucky enough to be chosen to be PD of 91X!
How has your first year on top gone?
Good. The first few months I felt like I was treading water, but now Robin [Roth] is in place as MD. For the first few months when I started we didn’t have an MD, but now that she has her feet under her, it feels relatively normal. It’s obviously more than a 40 hour a week job but it’s a good job. I like it a lot, it’s fun, and I’m passionate about it.
San Diego has two Modern Rock stations, which is a rarity in 2013. How does that impact 91X and what other radio dynamics exist in the market?
We were one of the original stations in this format: you had KROQ, who we modeled ourselves after in the 80s, you had WLIR on the East Coast, and a handful of others. There were only a few of us who existed in the New Wave era, playing that music in the olden days of Alternative. Based on the fact that people grew up with this music, there seems to be more of a market for consumption for it here. With the beach vibe of the city, and its laid back lifestyle, people really, really like Alternative.
Here’s an example I use a lot and think is noteworthy: In New York you don’t have an Alternative station right now. K-Rock is gone, the Triple A is gone; you just have the Classic Rock (WAXQ). But you have more than a few stations that share Urban/Hip-Hop/Rhythmic songs, maybe even more if you count the Top 40s. Now imagine that completely reversed, where you have no real Urban station in San Diego. You have a bunch of Top 40s, some Rhythmic-leaning in the Dance sense, but no Rap station. Now think about Alternative in San Diego: there are a bunch of stations sharing music. You have us (91X) and KBZT, but you also have a Triple A that plays a lot of Alternative records and a lot of the ‘80s records that 91X broke back in the day. Then you have Rock 105.3 (KIOZ) which is an Active Rocker whose library can lean Alternative at times. And you can’t forget Jack FM, which plays whatever Jack wants, which sometimes means they are sharing songs with us too.
Also, the era of music we’re in is great for Alternative: you have The Lumineers on Top 40, you have Grouplove on Top 40, you have Macklemore starting at Alternative and going to Top 40, you have Alex Claire going to Top 40, you have Gotye…So there’s a lot of sharing in the market and it’s a great time.
It raises the competition bar quite a bit, doesn’t it?
It’s very competitive but I don’t really know any different as a first time PD, so it keeps things fun and interesting and keeps me on my toes. What we have is the heritage of a brand that is a top-of-mind brand in San Diego. We typically are recognized as one of the strongest brands in San Diego, not just in radio, but brands in general that are unique to the market as a San Diego brand. It’s a brand that’s recognized not just by radio people, but listeners know it all over the place. I’m just really thankful I get to do what I do. It’s fun managing a brand like 91X.
You alluded to this earlier, but what are your thoughts on the state of the Modern Rock format in 2013?
I think the state of the format’s great. The fact that people are buying albums again and people are consuming Alternative music and there’s great music out there, who’s mad about that? It just adds to the fact that people want to cume your station and listen to your station and it’s a great thing for music. Down the road I’m sure it’ll swing the other way, because New Wave was a thing for how long? It was upbeat and sorta poppy and a little bit dance-y…sounds familiar, right? And then all of the sudden you haveNirvana and Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam. So it’ll swing back, it always does, but it’s a great time and that time of Grunge was a great time, so hopefully we’ll swing off this into something that’s just as good, with maybe a little bit more grit to it. <laughs>
What are the big hits so far this year for 91X?
Obviously we have some of the same big hits as other stations. Imagine Dragons was a huge breakout of 2012. A song that’s really big for us but no one else touched was Slightly Stoopid, “Don’t Stop.” Sure, they are from San Diego, but not every Slightly Stoopid song calls out. We had top five callout on “Don’t Stop” forever; it even got as high as #2 some weeks.
In 2013, 91X is celebrating its 30th anniversary! How is the station celebrating? The section of the website you built is really great.
We really focused on this close to our 30th birth date, coming out of Wrex The Halls last year. We did four weeks of ramp up to our 30th birthday. We did “30 til 30,” so every day we highlighted a different year in 91X’s history and highlighted songs from that year that you probably haven’t heard for a while and just counted down the days until our 30th birthday, which was January 11. Then we had a 30th birthday show with Slightly Stoopid, P.O.D., Buck-O-Nine, The Rugburns and all these bands that are meaningful to San Diego. Even Sprung Monkey did a special two-song appearance.
It was great and you could only win tickets from the radio station, so it was a free show for the listeners. We had ways for loyal listeners to prove how long they’d been listening to 91X by showing us their ticket stubs and how many events they had attended. It was a great experience and we had everyone come out who meant something to the station. We had a lot of the old staff show up, it was a really, really good time.
Then you have the website on 91X.com that has each year broken down with a little bit of info about each year and some cool pictures. Steve West worked really hard on gathering all that information since he’s the only one that’s been here since 1983. He started three months after the station launched.
We also aired special imaging from bands wishing us a Happy 30th Birthday. Now we’re approaching the 30th anniversary of X-Fest. The first X-Fest was in 1983 and we’re really excited about this year’s lineup.
Speaking of X-Fest, you moved your annual festival back by a few months to get Blink-182 as a headliner. That must have been a huge undertaking, but also totally worth it.
If you go to Blink-182’s Wikipedia page, it will cite 91X as the first station to play their music ever. This station was key in breaking the band. They’re from Poway, which is what I guess you would refer to as a suburb of San Diego. The whole 91X team can remember going to Blink-182 shows back in the day, to the extent that our youngest staff member Kalie’s first show at 13 years old was to see Blink-182 at Warped Tour in San Diego. She crowd-surfed and made memories to last a lifetime that are tied to Blink-182. They’re just such a part of growing up in San Diego, since they’ve been a part of the scene since the ‘90s. To do a 30th anniversary of X-Fest, it was really important to get something that was 91X. All the bands represent 91X in a certain way, but Blink-182 is from here. They have a history with the station; we were the station that was there for them since the very beginning.
But as far as moving the date we’re super thankful that all the bands were able to accommodate us because it’s not easy to switch your routing when everyone else was routing for KROQ’s Weenie Roast and Live 105’s show. It really is a testament to the relationships 91X has in the industry and teamwork we have at the station. We had everyone ready and all hands on deck. We were on social media answering every question. We knew that people were going to be confused and ask questions. We have a great digital department and everyone really stepped up and listeners were complementing us and thanking us for answering all their questions, and saying they were really happy that their favorite station was able to connect with them and answer their questions. Thanks to everyone who helped make the X-Fest move possible.
Can you talk about the importance and depth of your heritage air staff?
It’s great to have a team of people that are so familiar with San Diego, the market and the 91X brand and are so talented on the air. Everyone in the market really loves them and have established a relationship with them, because they’ve heard them on the air on and off over the years. Steve West has been on since 1983, Robin and Halloran have been on since 1986, Oz who does our morning show now, has been on and off the station throughout the years. So it’s great to have that wealth of knowledge.
We have a staff that is comprised of a lot of people who have worked in programming too, which is very interesting for our station. I don’t think every radio station has that: an air staff that’s also been on the programming side of things. Halloran used to be PD of 91X back in the day. Steve West was MD of 91X in the ‘80s. Everyone has had their feet wet in different capacities and it can really helpful. We have a great team “brain,” everyone comes together and works really well and it’s been fun. Everybody still lives and breathes the lifestyle. They’re still on the pulse of what’s going on, even though they’ve been here for almost the station’s entire existence, you wouldn’t get that feeling when you listen to them. Everybody really knows what’s going on in the market. I love my team and 91X wouldn’t be 91X without them.
[eQB Content By Joey Odorisio]
