One last drive
Get in, we’re going for a drive.
Close that door. Yeah, sorry, it’s a bit heavy. You have to really pull it closed. Don’t mind the shaking of the cab after it slams, that’s normal. You see the sand bags in the truck bed over the tires? This thing — a ‘92 Chevy — it’s crazy light. Just slides around in the snow.
Watch out for the metal on the seat belt. It’ll be hot after baking in the sun all day. But buckle it quick, we need to get going.
Listen to the rumble of the engine as I turn the tiny key. It’s low, isn’t it? 30 years old, that engine. The soft growl wakes up the console in the front, most importantly the radio, which holds four channels in its presets. Click the first.
That was 96.5 The Buzz.
You see, today, Sept. 14, it’s actually not called that anymore. In a sudden, out-of-nowhere non-announcement, the station just changed its logos and Twitter accounts and Facebook pages. Last night, radio personalities from the station Tweeted ominous warnings of what would be coming. Many appropriately shared photos of liquor. The morning show today was some syndicated show for alternative stations across the country.
It wasn’t the morning show we listened to on those cold mornings when we used to get in this truck. No, back then, we’re have to scrape the frozen morning dew off the windshield, then pray the cab could thaw us out on the 11 minute drive to school. Gloveless hands growing white gripping the rubber wheel as we awoke, we’d listen to Afentra. Maybe we’d sit in the cab and watch the ice melt down the front windshield while Two Door Cinema Club or The Arctic Monkeys finished a song live in studio.
But no longer. Instead of localized news and jokes, there’s now a national show about who knows what. I didn’t have the heart to turn it on this morning.
But ignore that for a minute. Turn left with me in this car — roll down that window if you want. Yeah, it’s a crank. Told you this thing was old. Turn it up, if you want, and blast out the breeze flowing through the cab. Want some sunglasses? You can borrow mine. It’s bright, isn’t it?
Can you smell the hot pavement? The exhaust from that semi-truck coming out of the grocery store? The incoming rain? Can you taste the cotton in your mouth, the dehydration of summer seeping in? How about a quick trip to QT? Or Winstead’s?
There are certain staples of Kansas City, no matter which corner you’re from. There’s the KC Heart, maybe the newest but most recognizable now thanks to Charlie Hustle. There’s Boulevard Beer. Knowing the Royals are bad. Associating the Chiefs with tailgates, not wins.
There’s Fox 4 and KCTV 5 and the Kansas City Star. There’s 101 The Fox and 106.5 The Wolf on the radio and — God help us — Mix 93.3.
And there was 96.5 The Buzz, which for some of us curated the soundtrack to our lives. A perfect mix of coming of age wonders — like Kids by MGMT or Little Secrets by Passion Pit — with early 2000s Death Cab for Cutie and a Blink-182 song every 70 minutes or so. They hosted shows — Buzz Beachball — and brought in bands that infused the barbecue town with a steady stream of up and comers.
There was the occasional top 40 alternative song that poked its way into the 40 minutes of music per hour. The Coldplay song rising the charts, the new Billie Eilish. Lorde. Lots of Lorde.
But there was a distinct sound that came from 96.5 The Buzz. It seemed to attract a certain person looking for belonging. That was reflected in its radio hosts and its playlists and its noise — which demanded you roll the window down as you sped home to beat curfew, the street lights blinking off the roof of your car.
There was a time, a few years ago, when the station almost went away. But the community rallied with the “Listen Longer” campaign and it survived.
There was no chance for that this time, apparently. The syndication has begun, and the usual, gutturally tag of “The Buzzzz” from the same guy who voiced the “Ticket Fairy” is no longer.
There’s hope some hosts stick around. That some shows — like the the Church of Lazlo and the Sonic Spectrum — will stay. We’ll see.
Please, don’t get out just yet. Stay for another loop around the block, will you? Indulge me for just another few minutes on this drive, because when you get out, it’s really over, the magic of the station and we can’t pretend we’re back in the place where we found our own music for the first time.
Hear the cracks of acorns under the tires. They’re somehow perfectly on beat to Daylight by Matt and Kim, aren’t they?
Look at the sun fighting its way through the leaves of the oak trees. Remember with me the way the station felt warm in ways hard to explain, how the playlist seemed to always match the mood, and how when you left town and returned, you knew where home when Arcade Fire or the Black Keys or The Joy Formidable or CHVRCHES came in clear on 96.5.
I see this is your stop. Just pull the lever there. That’s the one. Yeah it creaks a bit.
Be sure to slam it shut. When you leave, I’ll hit the seek button to find something new.
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