Just over 15 years ago, FM radio gave the presentation of rock n roll its first alternative. No longer did one have to sit through a zillion pimple cream commercials and suffer through 10 drecky ballads to hear the one Beatles, Yardbirds or Byrds tune that occupied the Top Ten. FM radio, the original stations like KSAN in San Francisco and WOR-FM in New York, played the good stuff all the time.

But they also did a lot more. Even though they were broadcast locally, they helped create a national community of listeners. Call em hippies, free spirits, whatever—FM radio was the voice of a new lifestyle. It was so unique and accepting that it couldnt last forever, and of course, as any flick of a current FM dial can tell you, it didnt. In these days of AOR systems, heavy rotation of Judas Priest and/or Fleetwood Mac, and the most insignificant space possible alloted to new artists and independent releases, the first FM programmers are probably rolling over right next to Beethoven. In New York City, there are only two places you can hear new West Coast punk bands like the Dead Kennedys or Black Flag; on college radio, with its second hand equipment and limited transmission range, or on a cable television series called New Wave Theatre" on USAs Nightflight programming.