PIRATE RADIO:
WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

Los Angeles, California; St. Patrick's Day, 1989: Thousands of K-LITE listeners switched on their radios this morning only to find that their favorite music wasn't there. In its place were Joan Jett, Guns 'N' Roses, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, and a host of other hard rock and alternative acts blasting out of their speakers. The renegade station, claiming to be broadcasting from an abandoned warehouse off of Interstate 10, was calling itself Pirate Radio.

Glam Rock was reaching its peak in popularity as the decade wound down. Westwood One seized on the opportunity to capitalize on this, apparently, when they purchased FM 100.3 in Los Angeles and changed the format to top-40 with a hard edge and a diverse playlist, the likes of which the southland hadn't seen since Ten-Q. (Find someone who likes all of the following artists: Madonna, Elvis Costello, Tone-Loc, The Dead Milkmen, XTC, Skid Row, The Bangles, Milli Vanilli, INXS, Metallica, and Depeche Mode, among many others.) Anchored by morning man Scott Shannon (late of New York's Z-100), the station was commercial-free for its first month on the air. Whitney Allen anchored afternoons. Shannon also brought with him a guy named Shadow Stevens, who called himself Shadoe Steele on the air because he was not the same Mr. Stevens who did American Top 40, Hollywood Squares and those wonderful Fred Rated commercials of the early 1980s.

Pirate Radio gradually increased their emphasis of glam metal as time went on, featuring more and more acts like Warrant and Firehouse. Their "illegal station" gimmick eventually wore off, but they held on to the name even after they went all-hard rock in the middle of 1991 and Shannon left. On his last day, the announcer said, "Z-100 has left the building", a tip of the hat to Shannon's former employer.
Apparently bested in the ratings by Long Beach's heavy metal king KNAC, Pirate Radio went off in 1993 and switched to a modern rock format -- which lasted less than six months.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?: After their failed attempt at modern rock, KQLZ switched back to lite rock and adopted the calls KXEZ (which KYSR had recently abandoned after becoming Star 98.7). In 1996, they changed calls again, becoming KIBB (B-100.3), top-40 with a slight urban bent. On November 19, 1997, they became "Mega-100", an R&B station with an old-school flavor. They were KRBV "V-100", with an Urban AC/Urban Talk (Hybrid?) format from 2006-2008 (Source: Wikipedia), and are currently KSWD The Sound, a Triple-A outlet since 2008.
Scott Shannon can be heard today on New York's WPLJ 95.5 as part of the Scott & Todd morning crew. Whitney Allen went over to KIIS-FM.

SPECULATION: A 1997 issue of Rolling Stone noted that many hard rock acts (read: hair bands) from the Pirate Radio era have regrouped and/or made new albums, and are popping up on tours and college radio. Could the next Pirate station be in vogue?

Image originally sent by Sal Garcia; modified by Jason Jones and Team FX MM

Scott Shannon's Bio (WPLJ page)
Scott & Todd page (WPLJ)

KKBT (Wikipedia)

V-100 Website

Check out Pirate Radio .wav files at The Sound Booth!

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