You guys should run an auction on this site or something.

I'd probably bid up to $20 for that KZAP sticker alone!

I had that KZAP cat sticker on my binder all through high school. KZAP was the big rock station, they played a lot of Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith and Ted Nugent. I came to Sacramento after the end of their super-diverse free-form radio period, but occasional late-night DJs on KZAP would reach deep into the bins, playing Frank Zappa or the Velvet Underground while the station execs weren't paying attention. KROY was more of the lite-rock station. FM 102 was the R&B station, and KPOP was, predictably, straight top-40 pop. KWOD was the other popular youth station, leaning towards what would later be termed "alternative"--Depeche Mode, the Cure, Violent Femmes. After the completion of the Renaissance Tower, KWOD moved their offices/broadcast booth to one of its upper levels. Going up to KWOD to pick up tickets won via a call-in contest was a handy excuse to get a bird's eye view of Sacramento from the vacant office across the hall from KWOD.

KZAP was rock but KROY also got into the rock and roll category as well.
I remember that KROY had this contest where they would play the most requested songs and we would call in dozens of times to request Judas Priest tunes (off of Defenders of the Faith, no Turbo crap for us!)
Ahh the good old days...something else!
We had friends who lived on Kroy way which was where the tower was actually standing, I wonder if it's still there? It was sorta near Hiram Johnson High School. ahh we are dating ourselves now.

I believe KPOP was the first local station for the Paul and Phil show, formerly on KGBY 92.5.

We have a few 93Rock stickers on the photog lockers at work. 93Rock later moved to 98.5 and became 98Rock, while the station formerly on 93.5FM bumped to 93.7FM. For a while it was Howard 93.7, then Jack FM after Stern left for Sirius-XM Radio.

radio matthew: Back then they had a third member, and were called "Robbins, Kinney and Cowan" (I think.) While I didn't care for the Top 40 bubblegum, KPOP had more than its share of wacky DJs. I didn't care much for the morning crew, but found the evening DJ Charley Simons more entertaining. When Kevin "Boom-Boom" Anderson was fired from KZAP for the infamous "Jimi Hendrix Choke-Off" (he had callers impersonate Jimi Hendrix choking to death in order to win a prize) he moved to KPOP.

KPOP became 93 Rock in a supposed takeover--apparently the DJs nailed the door to the booth shut, threw out the Top 40 stuff and started playing rock instead--although I expect it was probably a planned revolution.

The other station that sticks out in my mind was KCTC, the easy-listening station. They specialized in stuff like Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones and Dean Martin, although to reach a more contemporary audience they played Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow and the Carpenters. At the early "Norcal Noisefest" events, Noisefest organizer Jay Truesdale used to play KCTC in between the bands, creating an interesting contrast to the live performances. A few years back, KCTC changed to an "Air America" talk-radio format but it didn't last very long.

KPOP's Rock of the 80s format only lasted 5 months, but it had a tremendous influence on my music taste- I was 11 and only knew top 40 up til then. KPOP played a lot of stuff that was completely new to me at the time, and what kept me tuned in was that they didn't lock themselves in to playing only the 'hit' songs (in other words, songs released as singles) like the stations I'd listened to up til then. Men Without Hats was a one-hit wonder with "Safety Dance" being played ad naseum on the "hit music" stations, but KPOP played a lot of other great tracks off their album. Same with Spandau Ballet, who had their one US hit "True" played over and over, but on KPOP I got to hear their other songs which were a lot different and a lot better in my opinion. I learned about this great thing called imports, which were records out in Europe that wouldn't be released here at all, or at least not for a few more months- they played the Eurythmics' "Touch" album LONG before it was issued in the US and its singles played on the top 40 stations. In fact, on Sunday mornings they would play 3 COMPLETE ALBUMS all the way through- every single song, with no talking in between. I still have a couple of those on tape, and I now regret editing out the commercial break in between sides.

I was devastated when the plug was pulled right when I was starting to really love it- the station that replaced it was everything I'd grown to hate. The same DJs were on during the first week of the new format and they sounded like they had been brainwashed- they had a phoniness to them instead of the "attitude" they had before. They brought in awful station ID jingles too. I actually stopped being friends with people who listened to the "All-New Hit Radio KPOP" and wished awful things on anyone who supported the format that killed my beloved Rock of the 80s.

Fortunately I was able to pick up The Quake (98.9 FM) out of San Francisco fairly well, which had the same format and that lasted until June 1985. I was very sad when that went away too, then surprised when KITS (105.3) DROPPED their hit music format and picked up "modern rock", and actually had more success with it. It was next to impossible to get up here since it was sandwiched between 2 closer stations on 105.1 and 105.5, but spending a few hundred bucks on a Carver tuner solved that problem- sort of, it still didn't come in all the time. Things started looking up though as KWOD finally flirted with bringing the format back here in 1991, but then grunge happened and that kind of ruined my favorite radio format, the same way rap ruined top 40 for those who liked that.

My taste in music has since become extremely diverse, but new wave is still my absolute favorite. I'll be forever grateful to those who made KPOP's 5 months of Rock of the 80s possible, and forever angry at those who took it away from us too soon- most of Sacramento just wasn't ready for it I guess.

Incidentally, it's very hard to search the internet for memories of KPOP in any of its incarnations since the letters are now a common term meaning Korean Pop music.

I always hated FM 102- looking at that rainbow sticker now I remember how hopelessly cheap that looked, especially the lettering. They had a very limited playlist, repeating the worst songs several times a day, their DJs talked a lot over the music, yet they were the highest rated in the area for several years and their signal has always been one of the strongest. I hadn't yet moved into the area to hear them during the "Earth Radio" days but remember seeing those stickers well into the 80s- it must have really sucked for their listeners to have prog-rock replaced by disco at the height of the "Disco Sucks" movement!

Dude, I had that KZAP sticker on my 85 Nissan lowrider pick up. Do me a favor and scan that sticker, KZAP just opened in Paradise, CA! Thanks, bradleyjenkins@gmail.com