Details On The Fox 104.3's Saturday-Sunday On-Air Schedule!!

Today on the SMS, we're outlining the weekend schedule on The Fox 104.3 FM, which is quite different than what listeners to CJQM will be accustomed to from Monday-Friday! Remember, there is no "Shows" tab on the station's website yet, but the schedule is more or less verbatim to what you'll hear on Q92 in Sudbury and their sister stations in North Bay, Timmins, and Kingston. After spending much of Saturday mornings on autoplay music rotation, the first scheduled program of the day is This Year In Rock, which airs from 11:00 AM-12:00 PM with a re-airing from 6:00-7:00 PM. Hosted by Adam Kane of 92.1 CITI in Winnipeg, he looks at ten notable rock songs from a given calendar year, while he also outlines historical events and milestones from the year in question, often with a Canadian slant. The local premiere episode from January 11th was on 1976, while this Saturday's episode focused on 1978.

This show is roughly comparable in purpose to the syndicated Time Warp with Bill St. James on Sault Michigan's Rock 101, though Time Warp is four hours long and has more of a sonic collage of audio clips beyond just songs (also, the two shows do not conflict, as Time Warp runs on Saturdays from 6:00-10:00 AM). I like hearing more modern tunes than what This Year In Rock has focused on so far, but classic rock fans should be into it, and Adam's trivia and facts add some spice! From 12:00-6:00 PM on Saturdays, you'll hear Dan Koo (the Country 104.3 holdover in the 2:00-6:00 PM weekday timeslot) back in the booth, and after the This Year In Rock replay at 6:00 PM, the last scheduled program on Saturdays from 7:00-9:00 PM is The Biggs & Barr Show with Pastey Jamie, the Ottawa-based zoo crew show heard on The Fox weeknights from 6:00-8:00. Less unique programming, but there's lots to enjoy for rock fans!

For the record, Biggs & Barr were followed on Saturday the 11th by the syndicated Greg Beharrell Show from 9:00 PM-2:00 AM, but Greg's show has not visibly resurfaced on the former Q104 since that night. If you liked what you heard on the first three nights after the format change, or are curious as to how Greg is on air, click here to find his current affiliates!

Lastly for the regular schedule on The Fox 104.3 is the biggest diversion of all, as Sundays there are Classic Rock Sundays! From 6:00 AM until midnight, CJQM and their sister rock stations devote 18 consecutive hours to music almost entirely from the 1960s-1980s, which will please classic rock fans and former The Bear listeners to no end! In terms of scheduled programming, Sunday's first show (from 9:00 AM-12:00 PM) is the Church Of Rock, which is hosted by Cosmo Grant out of CHEZ 106 in Ottawa. This program is loosely themed around being an actual Sunday church service, with Cosmo's "sermons" being trivia and context on certain songs. Informative program with a good range of classics, and I even heard a couple of 1950s songs on air during the Church of Rock! Note that the show's first hour does run opposite the last hour of The Chop Shop with Steve Black on Rock 101, in case you're planning what to hear.

From 12:00-8:00 PM on Classic Rock Sundays, DJs are in the booth, with the first being "Big" Kris Bawden (a.k.a. BK) until 4:00 PM. BK isn't otherwise an on-air personality on The Fox or Q92, but he is also out of CHEZ in Ottawa. The Fox's weekday afternoon DJ Lew MacDonald takes over from 4:00-8:00, and he is definitely well tuned to classic rock, as he also hosts the Classic Rock Lunch from 12:00-1:00 PM on weekdays. The last scheduled program of the weekend is the Sunday Night Vinyl Series, which airs at 8:00 PM and seems to have a somewhat variable end time. Each week, host Howard Manshein (also out of CITI in Winnipeg) plays a notable rock album in full, from front to back, while adding trivia and context before and afterwards, as well as at the midpoint when the vinyl would be flipped over from side A to side B (nice touch!) For the local premiere episode, the album played was Rush's "Moving Pictures".

Last night's album was Van Halen's 1978 self-titled debut, and if you noticed that both albums were by the band who was spotlighted with their very own "week" of coverage and extra songs played on air, you're not alone! I don't know whether the Sunday Night Vinyl Series selection is made prior to or as a result of what band gets the weekly focus, but keep that in mind going forward! It does go head to head with the second hour of the modern hard rock-focused hardDrive with Lou Brutus on Rock 101, so make note of that as well. Beyond the possibility of the Sunday Night Vinyl Series album being post-1989, I did catch at least one instance of a 1990s song being played during Classic Rock Sunday (Colin James' 1990 hit "Just Came Back" was definitely played one week ago), so the 1960s-1980s focus isn't 100% ironclad. Personally speaking, I honestly prefer The Fox's general rotation to Classic Rock Sundays, but there are still lots of good tunes then!

Myself, I do want to hear modern stuff along with older songs, but 18 hours of classic rock will have a lot of appeal for many listeners, especially with the Canadian content factor. If you want songs from the 1990s or this millennium though, you'll have to tune in before 6:00 AM Sundays, or wait until Monday. Barring future programming changes or hosts/DJs coming & going, this concludes our look at The Fox 104.3's on-air schedule, so hopefully this helps give a better look at what you're hearing on Sault Ontario's new rock station, and whether you're all-in on The Fox or if you like bopping between it and Rock 101 or any other stations as songs/shows dictate, enjoy this new variety on the local dial! Thanks everyone!

Details On The Fox 104.3's Monday-Friday On-Air Schedule!!

After a few days of double checking the on-air schedule, here is our second post all about new Sault Ontario rock radio station The Fox 104.3 FM! In our post from this past Sunday, I looked at general information about CJQM's switch from country to rock, and gave some insights into their playlist rotation, but today's post looks at the on-air programming lineup during the work week (we'll look at the different weekend schedules in a post early next week). At press time, The Fox's website does not have a "Shows" tab like its sister stations to reflect the shows and DJs on air, but you don't need one, as the local station shares a nearly identical schedule as The Fox 101.9 in North Bay, Q92 in both Sudbury & Timmins, and (where all four stations get their base playlist and schedule) K-Rock 105.7 in Kingston. The only programming exceptions from those markets are a North Bay Battalion talk show and the "Friday 6pack" in Kingston.

The Fox has two different zoo crew programs during the week, including The Brock & Dalby Show from 5:30-9:00 AM and The Biggs & Barr Show from 6:00-8:00 PM, bookending overnight autoplay with no hosts or DJs. The former show is hosted by Brock Lewis & Drew Dalby out of K-Rock in Kingston, while Chris Biggs & Jason Barr (alongside Pastey Jamie) host the latter from CHEZ 106 in Ottawa. Both shows are formatted similarly, in that their host segments pop up between the station's music rotation, though only Brock & Dalby introduce songs. If you just want to hear the hosts and their on-air segments (like The Draft and The Quiz on Brock & Dalby, or OttaWHAT?! and Lights Out on Biggs & Barr), you can hear both programs sans music/commercials and with some additional exclusive content on major podcasting services, plus Rogers' Seekr application.

Which of the two zoo crew shows that you like more will be subjective (let alone if you factor in Scott Cook In The Morning on Rock 101 in the morning drive timeslot, which runs from 6:00-10:00 AM), and while I have laughed a little more at Brock & Dalby, both shows have certainly had their moments. I do like when radio hosts have someone to play off of and react to, so keep both shows in mind if you haven't tuned in yet, and if you like what you hear, catch up with their podcasts!

From 9:00 AM-6:00 PM weekdays, The Fox enters normal rock radio airplay with DJs in the booth, plus weather and news reports. Mid-week, you'll hear three DJs, including Heather Williams from 9:00-11:00 AM, Lew MacDonald from 11:00 AM-2:00 PM, and Dan Koo from 2:00-6:00 PM. Heather is out of CHEZ in Ottawa, and also hosts the Today In Rock interstitials, where she names off three major events in rock music history on this day in the past. Lew is out of K-Rock in Kingston, and his time in the booth encompasses the Classic Rock Lunch, featuring an hour of just pre-1990 rock songs from 12:00-1:00 PM (call it an appetizer for Classic Rock Sundays, which we'll outline early next week). The 2:00-6:00 DJ changes in every market in this five station loop, so Dan is the only locally-based on-air personality, and also the only on-air holdover from the hosts/DJs on Country 104.3.

If you're tuning in online to Country 600 in North Bay (which shared the same playlist and schedule as 104.3 until last week), Dan is still on air there too, so things will be familiar regardless. I suspect Dan will also be the primary conduit for local promotions and interviews for The Fox, but we will see how that bears out in the coming months. I'm not one to compare and rank DJs on a given station, but all three have handled their spot well on CJQM, so continue getting familiar with all three if you have the former Q104 on during the week! Lastly, if you were tuning in to The Fox from launch, you may have heard a different host/show at nighttime during its first three days on air, namely the syndicated Greg Beharrell Show, which has been heard on dozens of rock stations across North America and isn't exclusive to Rogers. It aired last Thursday & Friday from 6:00-10:00 PM and this past Saturday from 9:00 PM-2:00 AM, but was not on this week.

From what I can tell, episodes of Greg's show (which used to air on Q92 and in North Bay) were used as a stopgap until Biggs & Barr episodes were ready to run on CJQM, though that's just how I read it. As far as I know, Greg Beharrell is not related to Luxury/ex-Billy Bastards guitarist Greg Beharriel. In the event that he resurfaces on The Fox, Greg's show is similar to The Fox's zoo crew programs, in that host segments were dropped in between the music rotation, including light-hearted conversations with callers, and he came off kinda Ryan Reynoldsy, if that's fair. If you're curious, click here to see what other stations that Greg airs on! We'll leave things there for now, but the variety of on-air content, musical or otherwise, is very noted for local rock music fans, so hopefully this post helped outline the weekday schedule! Weekends on The Fox is very different, so look for our coverage of what airs on Saturdays & Sundays on the site next! Thanks everyone!

LSSU Battle Of The Bands Lineup Updates, Plus A New-Ish Local Rock Radio Station!!

For a second straight day, we're focusing squarely on Sault Michigan and the Eastern U.P. for today's post, which fills in some blanks for a major upcoming concert event and looks at a regional radio station that some readers may not be aware of, so here's what you should know!

Here are some clarifications for the lineup of next Thursday's battle of the bands at Lake Superior State University's Arts Centre! First up, you may recall in our initial coverage that I held off on talking about hard rock band Sonic Dayze pending a proper write-up, but as it turns out, they're actually from Traverse City, which may explain why I'd never heard of them! A band travelling out of market to compete in a non-local battle of the bands is not a foreign concept, as Tarnished competed at two battles downstate earlier this year, inclding the Rock Recovery one in Alpena that fellow local hard rockers Double Jack (now Exit 808) played at. However, non-local bands coming here is more of a novelty as the Soo goes, and it'll be interesting to see how Sonic Dayze go over next Thursday, especially if the battle is fan voted again! They've been active since at least February, and multiple live videos can be seen on their Facebook page.

While based out of Traverse City, Sonic Dayze's new guitarist Jeremy "Wylde Child" Gates was born and raised in the Soo, so they're not completely devoid of local ties. I'm not familiar with Jeremy beyond Sonic Dayze media, but they have a good handle on grunge covers and have some deceivingly diverse originals and instrumentation, so don't bypass Sonic Dayze next Thursday at the battle! Regarding the local bands, we can confirm a little more on the debuting Small Town Society, as per personal Facebook postings from band members. Former Stoned Ape Evolution guitarist Melvin Willis will be joined in this group by singer/guitarist Holly Sibbald, bassist Chris Bennett (no word on if he's bringing his stand-up bass), and drummer Daniel Jackson. Still a lot of unknowns on this band, but it'll be interesting to hear how the Small Town Society do next week! Finally, we can confirm that I was 50% right on who's joining Molly Escherich in her band!

This is per a comment reply on our Facebook page when first plugging the battle of the bands yesterday, so thanks to Molly for the kind words! Her comment is ambiguous as to whether she meant that Nathan & Cayd are 50% of "The Other Guys" or if only 50% of those two (as in, only one of them) will be in the band next week, but the full lineup will reportedly be unveiled next week before the battle occurs. I'm still unsure of who Unsure are, but stay tuned in case we get more updates on the second annual LSSU battle of the bands in the coming week!

Let's close this post by acknowledging a new-ish and local-ish rock radio station on the FM dial! Readers who live/travel often in the central Upper Peninsula may be familiar with the McMillan-based radio station (WMJT) once known as Eagle Radio 96.7, which was owned by Darby Advertising from 2006 until 2018. That year, veteran local radio personality Tim Ellis bought their sister station WUPN (95.1 FM) in Paradise, and has since rebranded it as Bridge FM while maintaining its classic hits format, but WMJT 96.7 was sold at the same time to Travis Sumbera, who ran it initially as a hot adult contemporary station named 96.7 Flash FM, named for his dog. Starting in 2022, Flash FM started branding itself on social media as "Luce County's Rock", and fully filed to change their format to a rock station earlier this year. If you've wanted a local alternative to Rock 101 since The Bear left the E.U.P. in 2010, is Flash FM what you've been hoping for?

Maybe if you're located in western Chippewa County or Prince Township, Ontario, but from Sault Ste. Marie, I can't pull it on FM using normal equipment. A couple of stations technically based out of Newberry in Luce County (most notably Oldies 93) pick up here, but WMJT is not as powerful and is 15 minutes west of Newberry, and I recall not having luck in pulling WMJT here back when The Eagle was only on 96.7. If you try to scan 96.7 in Sault Ste. Marie now, you will likely instead pick up Kalkaska rock station KLT, which simulcasts at WRGZ 96.7 out of Rogers City for the Alpena market. When tuning into 96.7, I thought I had picked up Flash FM until I heard KLT bumpers, which was mildly surprising given that KLT's Boyne City affiliate (93.5 FM) picks up better here from past experience. Without travelling west, you'll likely need higher end equipment and/or a large directional antenna to pick up WMJT, especially given that WRGZ is nearby.

Barring that, you can always hear the live-stream on 96.7 Flash FM's mobile application and/or on Live365 (when it's on air), and it's interesting to hear their rock rotation along with sometimes familiar but mostly unique commercials! When I tuned into Flash FM, I heard songs by Matchbox Twenty, Chevelle, Europe ("Superstitious", believe it or not), The White Stripes, and Modest Mouse, among others, but I'll let you decide how their rotation compares to Rock 101, KLT, or any other stations. Flash FM truly is meant to serve the central U.P. but it's great to see another rock radio option up here, and hopefully Travis continues finding success with WMJT! See above for more details on 96.7 FM in McMillan, and stay tuned for more news and notes soon! Thanks everyone!

Tarnished News & Updates From Late Last Month!!

For a second straight day, here's a single-band post from the E.U.P., as Sault Michigan classic metal/hard rock band Tarnished have been very busy in the past two weeks+, so what have they been up to as of late? Just two days after they were interviewed on Rock 101, the guys got another local FM radio interview on June 14th, this time on Bridge FM, the local classic hits station that was rebranded from Eagle Radio 95.1 in April. WUPN isn't a full rock station, but they have featured Tarnished on the Rise N' Shine Morning Show in the past, and that's where they were interviewed that day by host and station owner Tim Ellis that morning at 9:30 AM. It took over a week, but they posted a "Reel" of them covering Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It" unplugged in studio on June 23rd! Note that we're staring at the back of Parker Talentino's head throughout, but I assume space concerns are to blame there.

Alas, the video itself is horizontal, but rather than upload it as a normal embeddable video, they opted to pillarbox it as a "Reel", so while nothing's cropped as a result, the video is now tiny. Definitely not ideal, but this glam metal classic is effectively acousticized, and I hope that the interview proper went well! The following day, Tarnished hit the road for Gould City (90 minutes southwest of the Soo) to perform again at the outdoor stage at Byce's Michihistrigan Bar & Grill, and photos from that night were shared to Facebook! Since Josh Fair opted to give up drumming in favour of guitar, we never quite know what form Tarnished will take for live gigs unless they specify in advance, but for this show, they called in Rhythm & Brews/ex-Highway 63 drummer Ron Suchey to guest with them again, though he did not drum on every song. Josh returned to the kit (perhaps reluctantly?) on at least two songs, while frontman Alex Traynor drummed while singing on at least one.

At least in what was posted, Parker played bass (no sign of Chris Leask). Three videos from that night were uploaded from June 19th-20th as "Reels", so while I can't embed these short vertical videos here, they include covers of The Beastie Boys' "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)" and The Surfaris' "Wipe Out", while the other one has Alex shredding Van Halen's "Eruption". At least on the latter, the vertical framing isn't a problem! Ron drums on the Beastie Boys cover, while Josh drums on "Wipe Out" with mid-song assistance from Ron. Josh is also behind the kit on "Eruption", albeit adding drum hits that weren't there on the original solo. Each "Reel" sounds heavy and lively while they last, and it looks like a good time was had by all! In their next "Reel" on June 22nd, Tarnished uploaded a "throwback to 2012". If you were expecting a throwback to Alex's then-local band Banned, you may be disappointed though!

This is actually a short cover of Anna Kendrick's "Cups" from the 2012 movie Pitch Perfect, which Alex sings while "playing" a plastic lemonade cup. Cute video, and Alex does get some good percussion out of it! On the 25th, Alex was back (in "Reel" form!) to thank their fans for giving their new single "Lightswitch" 1,000 streams on Spotify, and in the fastest time yet for one of their original songs, which is definitely encouraging news! There's much more from Tarnished to come, specifically from the past week, but let's close with a video that I can embed, namely a reaction video to "Lightswitch" by Leigh Spencer of the British YouTube channel Iridium Rock & Metal Reviews from that same day! After some initial confusion as to which band member is the lead singer based on the available credits (it's Alex), it is nice to see that Leigh's first words after he first took his headphones off were "I really liked it!"

Praise was also given to the melodies, smooth vocals and driving beat, and Leigh continued to boast about the song when it completely ended. "Lightswitch" made its way across the Atlantic via a viewer suggestion, and it's always neat to see local music find a receptive audience in a far flung locale like this, so hopefully Leigh helped expose Tarnished to even more fans in the UK and elsewhere! Check out the full reaction video below, and stay tuned for more from Tarnished on the site soon! Thanks everyone!

WLSO 90.1 FM: A Look Back In The Wayback Machine, Part 7 (2014-Today)

After six prior installments stretching across 17 years of backups on The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, our retrospective series on Lake Superior State University's long-time FM radio station ends today by looking at the last three years of WLSO's operations at 90.1 FM, plus what happened in the 2016-2017 school year as it rebranded, went dark on the FM band, and moved to internet radio permanently, where it quietly lives today. Due to their website ceasing updates after 2013, much of the information below comes from the station's inactive Facebook page, and of course, listen to their modern day internet station while reading to set the mood.

With the spring 2014 semester beginning, WLSO aired such programs as Sweaters with Joshua Passino (Tuesdays at 9:00 PM), the continuing Soo Sports Talk, and two debuting shows with surviving Facebook pages. One was the freeform program The Borderline Boyz, which ran through the fall of 2014 with co-hosts Chris Cortell, Anthony, and Boots, which you could hear on Fridays & Saturdays at 7:00 PM. The other was Collin's Cinema Show, a movie review/opinion series that aired on Fridays at 4:00 PM that semester, not visibly continuing into the next school year. While short-lived, their Facebook page features a bunch of episode synopses, and even a few polls on what Collin should look at are still up! The station also kicked off daily artist spotlight hours at 12:00 & 6:00 PM that February to look at new bands on rotation there, which definitely pointed to the station's increasing focus on adult album alternative music in it's last years on the FM dial.

In time for the beginning of the 2014-15 school year, Erica Smith was promoted to station manager, while Joshua Passino succeeded her as music director, among the latest wave of staff changes and hirings. Most updates that fall related to campus events, staff searches, and station maintenance (including 2 weeks off the air that September due to technical difficulties), though WLSO did kick off a song of the week series via YouTube video shares on Facebook, again in the adult alternative/indie rock vein, that ran until the end of the next semester. WLSO also launched an Instagram page in December, which mostly covered on-campus events they DJed at. One notable program to debut that fall was COP DOCs, which was hosted by LSSU criminal justice professors Aaron Westrick & Frank Tridico on Wednesdays at 7:00 PM, as they explored modern issues in criminal and social justice. This show aired as late as the spring 2016 semester, and from what I've found, is the newest WLSO program with a surviving Facebook page.

Updates in the spring 2015 semester were less about the FM airplay and more about on-campus events that they sponsored and provided DJ services at. One striking note from this period was the increased WLSO merchandise that was distributed, including official station megaphones, and even official WLSO toques with the call-sign on them, and toque giveaways were prominently advertised for a time.  By the fall 2015 semester, WLSO had launched a Mixcloud page featuring episodes of COP DOCs and another contemporary show, The Faculty Room, providing one of the few outlets to hear 90.1 FM programs in full. Unfortunately, the 2015-2016 school year saw very little updates to actual on-air content, presaging the heavy changes ahead. In March 2016, WLSO announced a listener contest to find a name for "the new online station" debuting that fall, with The 46th Parallel announced as the winner in April, and the station relaunched as such in September, but aside from some August events that they DJed at, nothing followed online.

Things may have been less ambiguous if you were an active student or faculty member, but The 46th Parallel renaming meant more than just updating their online stream, as had been done numerous times in the past. Nothing was ever announced on social media, but 2017 was the end of WLSO 90.1 FM, with the station going dark on terrestrial radio by the end of the spring semester, as per my own recollections. Their Facebook page hasn't been updated since 2016, their website (which had sat idle since 2013) was taken down permanently after March 2017, the Twitter page was deleted outright, and their Instagram page sat unused for over three years. LSSU's then-president Peter Mitchell officially filed with the FCC to relinquish the school's FM license that November, which is beyond definitive as to 90.1 FM's fate. Henceforth, LSSU's campus radio station has been an internet station only, quietly airing to this day, but even their name has been ambiguous. The 46th Parallel name & logo is used for live DJing and on LSSU's website page for the current station, which does validate the 2016 contest.

However, LSSU's own website page also calls the station Laker Radio, but the current online stream for the modern-day station calls it Superior Radio. Regardless of name, the new station is part of the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System's Student Radio Network, via Backbone Radio, and you can see recently played songs at this link. Despite the cookie-cutter appearance (the news page hasn't been updated since 2013), Superior Radio airs a distinct 24/7 playlist and isn't fed from a non-local server, but any time I have listened, I have never heard local DJs. Honestly, scheduled DJ breaks have even stopped the feed for me in the past. The modern day playlist is extremely freeform, to the point where the metal band Wild Throne was directly followed by country star Jason Aldean during playback while writing this post. However, most played artists are underground & rising acts, so the station's a great portal to discover new music, and to my surprise, their Instagram page has actually been updated in the 2019-2020 school year!

The Instagram page notes that they still host campus events (including a studio tour for station alumni in October), and promisingly, they did plug wanting to find new student DJs in February, which is presumably on hold due to the school's COVID-19 lockdown. LSSU's radio station has seen heavy changes since the mid-2010s, but I hope things can grow and progress to old activity levels in the 2020s, now that the internet transition is done, and I hope you guys liked this look back into WLSO's tenure on traditional radio and beyond over the last few weeks! Continue to support Laker Radio at above, and stay tuned for more news on the site soon! Thanks everyone!

WLSO 90.1 FM: A Look Back In The Wayback Machine, Part 6 (2011-2013)

Here is the sixth and penultimate entry in our retrospective mini-series on WLSO 90.1 FM, Lake Superior State University's long-time campus radio station, as told through the eyes of The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, now with a big assist from Facebook! We're now into the home stretch for WLSO's run on terrestrial radio, but there is a lot to say, even here! Remember, give LSSU's current internet radio stream a listen while reading and exploring the links below to effectively set the mood.

Following the gradual disuse of their 2008-2011 website layout, WLSO launched their final version of their http://wlso.lssu.edu homepage in December 2011, but predating this was the station's official Facebook page in September, which saw more frequent usage when both were regularly maintained. A Twitter page and a few different video streams were also launched around this time, though these have since been deleted. On Facebook, WLSO advertised the September 2011 debut of their American Top 40 Music Countdown show (hosted by Kevin Palmer & Aaron) on Sundays at 12:00 PM, while Aaron also hosted the Saturday Night Rock Show that semester at 6:00 PM, and the station starting increasing their coverage of LSSU sports teams. That fall, the station also launched a recording studio, and continued sponsoring on-campus events. The new website linked above wouldn't see substantial backups until 2012, but seven diverse albums are listed as being in heavy rotation as of that autumn.

In the spring 2012 semester, WLSO welcomed the rock/oldies program The Jimmy Bones Show (with Facebook page) on weekdays at 6:00 PM, who notably gave away tickets for the My Darkest Days concert at Kewadin Casino that April, and even interviewed the band on-air the day of the concert! Various other shows were advertised on Facebook and their website's schedule then, such as the 2011-debuting Mad Mix, though genre descriptions haven't survived on either source, and the website schedule did not list everything plugged on Facebook, such as the rock/rap Mid-Morning Wake Up on weekdays at 10:00 AM. Along with changing albums in rotation (viewable at this link), WLSO's website in the spring 2012 semester saw a poll on genres you'd like to see more of that year, plus details on their latest staff searches, and the top 10 albums of 2011 by then-station manager Mark Other and music director Baby G, both of whom leaned towards indie and pop music.

WLSO took one last stab at message boards starting in late 2011 on their website, this time entirely hosted through their website, and now geared towards specific shows like Endless Summer and Serious Biz, though only Hot Probz saw any real fan usage, with it's last archived posting in May 2012. By that fall, 90.1 FM resumed active non-autoplay operations, with Citizen Gage added as music director, though most Facebook updates that semester referenced the station's live broadcasting and coverage of LSSU sporting events. While absent from Facebook advertising at that time, music-related shows like the returning The Attic, The Basement, And Beyond (Mondays at 8:00 PM), Hole In The Sky (Thursdays at 9:00 PM), and Good Vibes (Fridays at 7:00 PM) aired in the fall 2012 semester. As well, the station went fully digital with new professional equipment during upgrades in the 2012-2013 winter season, as per their website's last "About" page and Facebook postings.

The station's official website saw it's last substantive updates in 2013, primarily to the front page, including a listener request for mp3 files to add to their library, teasers of "the new WLSO" coming soon with staff, music, and sports coverage upgrades, and an end-of-2012 batch of top ten lists of music the world can't live without, courtesy of then-DJs (Ted the PD's will appeal most to metalheads). The last post there was to post their (unarchived) fall 2013 schedule, and though wlso.lssu.edu remained online until 2017, it was no longer actively used after 2013, leaving their Facebook page as their de facto website for the station's final years at 90.1 FM. Updates on Facebook in the spring & summer of 2013 mostly revolved around campus events and staff hires, with John Orttenburger then serving as WLSO's station manager. That September, the station openly asked for local alternative & indie bands to send in material for their rotation, and they also upgraded their DJ booth that fall, as revealed in this Facebook video that John uploaded.

One notable new program to air on WLSO in the fall of 2013 was Classic Rock Nights, hosted by Gerard Guysky, which ran on Tuesdays at 8:00 PM through the spring 2014 semester. A few episode themes survive on that show's Facebook page, and even a couple of episode playlists, so this is definitely worth checking out for old listeners and genre fans. The other show from this period with a surviving Facebook page is Soo Sports Talk, which aired on Wednesdays at 1:00 PM from the fall of 2012 through the spring of 2014, as hosted by Adam Bishop & Eddie Maxon. The show was devoted to LSSU, Detroit professional, and Division 1 NCAA Michigan sports teams. Other shows that aired in the fall of 2013 included The Canadian Invasion (Mondays & Fridays at 11:00 AM), Drop Beats Not Bombs with DJ Calyso (Mondays at 2:00 PM), Rock Around the Block with Mariah Erard (Wednesdays at 4:00 PM), and Reinert Rock (Wednesdays at 9:00 PM), among various others.

A December 2013 update hinted that then-music director Erica Smith was adding even more music to target genres and playlists as their new senior staff got more experience, with "a BIG event" expected for the spring 2014 semester, while the station had begun more of a merchandise push that fall with t-shirt and window cling giveaways, and there was more where that came from, but we'll focus on that next time. I am currently forecasting that the next installment of this series will be the last, as we look at WLSO from 2014 until the present internet radio era, so look for that in the coming days, and for more news and notes on the site soon! Thanks everyone!

WLSO 90.1 FM: A Look Back In The Wayback Machine, Part 5 (2008-2011)

Here's the fifth part of our WLSO 90.1 FM retrospective, as we now dive into the late 2000s and beginning of the 2010s at Lake Superior State University's former campus FM radio station, by way of The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. This was the period when I started attending LSSU as a history student, so I have fond memories of listening at this time, and it was fun looking back at what I remembered and missed out on then! Remember, listen to LSSU's current internet radio stream to set the mood while reading this post and exploring the content below.

After over a year without an actively updated website, http://wlso.lssu.edu was relaunched under a new server in December 2008, with this basic layout remaining intact for the better part of 3 years. Website archives from this era can be visited at this link, At the time of the WLSO website's reboot, mid-2000s metal DJ Kevin Kainula had been promoted to station manager, with Adam Fischhaber as the head music director. By the next fall, Adam took over as station manager, with Zach Greening becoming the new head music director, and Kevin moving into a new role as "metal manager." As of early 2011, business manager Brian Springett had became the new station manager, though music director posts were not listed. Unlike in prior incarnations of the website, front page posts here were less devoted to staff and technical details, with 2009 postings including the latest relaunch of their online stream, and their automation genre blocks during the summer semester.

During that semester, alternative rock aired for 3 hours at 4:00 PM, followed by a 3 hour classic rock block at 7:00 PM, and metal & hard rock aired for four hours overnight at 2:00 AM. In April 2010, the station announced that they would be playing more top 40 music than ever, with that summer also featuring just autoplayed music. An update that November indicated that WLSO was undergoing behind-the-scenes changes to make the station more secure & reliable, complete with a rebuilt music database and "a new outlook", and would continue in random automation with no hosted programs until February 2011, though no front page updates followed before the website was overhauled again that fall. Intriguingly, polls were also ran on their website from 2008-2011 to gauge listener feedback, though the results were not backed up. Unfortunately, this version of WLSO's website was very plain compared to the mid-2000s, with major updates not coming often, partly due to their 2010 upgrades.

Some schedule data from 2009 has survived on the Wayback Machine (as backed up that January and December, and it's this era of the station where Facebook pages started turning up to promote certain WLSO programs. Kevin Kainula's Classic Rock Show continued into early 2009, now on Mondays at 5:00 PM, while the metal/classic rock show The Delta Dial (hosted by Kyle "DJ Twitchypants" Stockdale) aired on Tuesday nights at 11:00 PM. This is the WLSO program with the oldest surviving Facebook page, indicating that the show didn't visibly survive into the spring 2010 semester, though little was written there about it. That fall also saw the debut of Music Through The Years, a freeform/historical music program hosted by Steve Dishman on Saturdays at 3:00 PM through the spring of 2012. It also has a Facebook page, which has actually continued to be updated to this day with his personal music picks, so old listeners should definitely check that out!.

Other 2009-era programs on 90.1 FM included Tuesday Metal Mayhem that fall at 1:00 PM, plus such intriguingly named programs as Searcy's Slammin Show, Rev. Fischaber's Rowdy Hour of Power, and Sounds of Sargacia, while such DJs as The Dentist, Draco, Moose, and Armando could also be heard on air. At least two other programs to debut during this website's lifespan have surviving Facebook pages, one being Laker Vibe, a house/electronica show that aired on Wednesdays at 7:00 PM from the fall of 2010 through the fall of 2011, as co-hosted by Kaitlyn Fitzpatrick, Brant Coulter and Hannah Morse. The other early 2010s show on Facebook is The Mad Mix, a freeform/by-request program hosted by Audrey Fradette that aired on Monday nights at 9:00 PM from early 2011-late 2013. Facebook writings aren't plentiful for either show, but more exists on them than The Delta Dial!

As for WLSO's website, it was taken down again in the fall of 2011 and relaunched for the final time by that December, with an official Facebook page to match, but that's a story for next time. Also, for full disclosure, Kevin Kainula once sent me metal song charts for inclusion on the SMS around 2010, as site content, late in his station tenure, which was very generous of him! We'll explore LSSU's 2011-present run and online archived content in the final installments of this series in the coming days, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site soon! Thanks everyone!

WLSO 90.1 FM: A Look Back In The Wayback Machine, Part 4 (2004-2007)

It's now time for our fourth installment of our retrospective mini-series about WLSO 90.1 FM, Lake Superior State University's long-time campus radio station, thanks to The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine! We left off in this series in the fall of 2004, around the time of their website receiving some overdue updates, and while we touched on this era's station history page in part 3, all of the then-new and current materials from the mid-2000s are in this post. Remember, to set the mood, listen to LSSU's modern day internet radio station while exploring the content below.

In October 2004, WLSO updated their website into the layout it would maintain for the next 2+ years, harbouring some of the best and most substantive surviving information from the station's FM run, though highlighting text is absolutely essential to read the black-on-black writing. Various versions of the main website (past the logo splash page) can be viewed at this link. The news crawl on the main site mostly relates to staff information, personnel & DJ searches, and website updates, though in 2004, they did promote the Planet Smashers concert in Sault Ontario that October, and also hinted at plans to offer downloadable music through the website. 2005 updates there included a number of live events that the station sponsored (often College Nights at The Back Door), plus a contest for tickets for that fall's Hootie & The Blowfish concert at Kewadin Casino. The big 2006 story there was WLSO's headquarters moving from Brady Hall to the Cisler Center, with updates ceasing in October.

The contact page lists many of the station's key staff members in 2006, including then-station manager Ben Momber and alternative genre manager Lam Nguyen, though as of that May, the metal & punk genre director posts were vacant. Unfortunately, a January 2005 playlog file was not archived, but a treasure trove of the station's CD archives in 2006 can be read there still, listing dozens of albums in their then-current rotation, and most albums I checked still go to their sub-page, with their record label, genre, and track listing, and if songs were safe to be played on-air. Metal is a heavy component here, though local musicians were not represented. In the fall of 2004, a music reviews page existed at this link, though posted reviews were brief at best. Lam recommended metal albums from Diecast & Jet Motor Crash, and punk albums from The Reason and Big D & The Kids Table, among other genres, while Paul Bartunek positively reviewed the Big D & The Kids Table album in a separate post.

The first substantial WLSO on-air schedule data on The Wayback Machine since 2001 can be found via six backups viewable at this link. The late 2004 schedule was mostly on automation mode, but you may have listened to Erik & Jason's metal/alternative block on Monday nights at 10:00 PM or KP's Kickin' Country Hour on Thursdays at 3:00 PM. By the spring of 2005, WLSO was openly experimenting with genre-specific blocks when no DJs were present, with metal & punk usually at night. At this time, likely metal/punk shows like Punking It Up (Mondays & Wednesdays at 2:00 PM), Renegades of Rock (Thursdays at 10:00 PM), The Power Hour (Fridays at 8:00 PM), The Heavy Hits (weekends at 3:00 PM), and Balls to the Wall (Sundays at 5:00) were on the air. The latter continued into that fall, with new shows including the punk show Zero Signal (Mondays & Wednesdays at 3:00 PM), plus Rockin' Out With The Punkmaster on Fridays at 7:00 PM.

DJ Easy Mac & Dirty Blonde's classic rock-featured M.E. Show aired on Monday & Wednesday nights at this time too, while Lam featured alt-rock and rap on Audio Alchemy on Thursdays at 7:00 PM. By the fall of 2006, Zero Signal, The M.E. Show, and Audio Alchemy were all still on, now joined by Kevin "The Mighty" Kainula's Monday Metal Meltdown (12:00 PM) and Classic Rock Show (Tuesdays at 6:00 PM), among other programs. WLSO also aired a Laker Hockey Replay show at this time, plus What To Do In The Soo with Sally Childs on Wednesdays at 4:00 PM. As of December 2006, the Monday Metal Meltdown became the Morning Metal Meltdown airing Mondays-Thursdays at 8:00 AM, while DJ Alan O hosted the metal show Error Mechanica on Mondays at 8:00 PM & Thursdays at 3:00 PM. A few shows continued from prior semesters, but automation was becoming increasingly common, and the March 2007 backup saw no schedule updates.

Copies of the events page with listings were archived twice in 2005, listing a number of LSSU-hosted & WLSO-sponsored events, plus select major concerts, such as that year's David Lee Roth & Quiet Riot shows at Kewadin Casino. A new streamlined message board was hosted through Simple Machines from the fall of 2005 through at least March 2007, and while some sub-forums actually have Wayback Machine archives, it saw less usage, and all posts after 2005 are the work of spambots. The best surviving thread is Zero Signal host DJ Darren's list of his top 100 albums of 2005, with Jack's Mannequin in first place. At some point between April & September 2007, WLSO's mid-2000s website was taken down and replaced with a "Coming Soon" page, with staff confirming the following winter that the website was under construction while they migrated to a new server, only returning with a major redesign in December 2008.

We'll dive into WLSO in the late 2000s next, and with social media becoming more of a going concern at this time, I hope to spotlight programs with Facebook pages in future installments, not to mention, WLSO's own Facebook page, but that's for next time and/or beyond. That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site soon! Thanks everyone!

WLSO 90.1 FM: A Look Back In The Wayback Machine, Part 3 (2003-2004)

Here is the third installment of our WLSO 90.1 FM retrospective series, which is relatively thin, but that's for good reason, as their website from 2004-2007 has the most substantive updates and longevity yet, so I want to give that ample time and attention in part 4. This installment looks at another interesting year for Lake Superior State University's college radio station, and while surviving info from The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine then isn't plentiful, we have enough material to touch on before things ramp up! Remember, to set the mood, tune in to LSSU's modern day internet station.

By October 2003, WLSO moved over to their best known and final URL, http://wlso.lssu.edu, though their initial variant with high & low bandwidth versions has not survived on The Wayback Machine. The earliest surviving (text-only) backup here comes from December 27th, 2003, though postings there indicate that it was still clearly a work in progress, and many updates were obviously geared toward station staff. The only schedule data here relates to three blocks credited solely to the DJ's names, though they apparently sponsored a post-game show by juggler Mad Chad Taylor on December 13th. Lorin Kozlowski's 2001-era rock show Fireball Music was still on by this point, and the guests page indicates that he interviewed Failure frontman and veteran producer/engineer Ken Andrews on December 4th. In any event, the version of the website ended updates after January 2004.

That same month, WLSO launched an official message board created through phpBB, and under it's original layout, copies of the forum were archived from March-July 2004, though none of the sub-forums or threads got the same.  That August, the message board received a heavy redesign with largely the same sub-forums, though logo/slogan contests launched that spring appear to have been cancelled, and a recently played music section was added, plus one for country music. The last surviving backup of the forum is from February 2005, and it was relaunched under a new host that fall. Unfortunately, no sub-forums in either layout have been backed up, but as of February 2005, there were 43 registered users and 545 postings, mainly in the miscellaneous section. Sub-forums existed for upcoming concerts, song requests, the website, and even a marketplace, while Vicious and Pauliophonic were the board's primary administrators.

On March 16th, 2004, wlso.lssu.edu was relaunched with another new layout, but highlighting the text is essential to read the black text on the black background. This era of the website was backed up numerous times through that fall, so click here to navigate the website during this year-long stretch, though not much is different. The front page updates mainly reflect website maintenance and DJ searches & training, but June 29th saw a bunch of short hard rock album reviews posted by staffer zero, with those CDs soon to be added to the rotation. Updates here did slow down over time, with no front page updates with this layout past September, and the schedule (again only listing DJ names) gradually shrunk as 2004 progressed. WLSO did maintain a chat room at this time that The Wayback Machine did try to archive (unsurprisingly, 0 people are in in the chat room right now.) This layout was tweaked and built upon for in time in October 2004, and would be regularly updated until early 2007.

I wanted to close by jumping to the aforementioned October 2004 updates, as one fascinating addition to WLSO's website then was a page outlining the station's history from it's first 13 years in operation, though it was not updated beyond that month. A lot of it is technical details related to station equipment and licensing, but there is a lot of key information for old listeners. For one, the WLKR call sign was unofficial and was only used in their AM carrier current run, with the switch to WLSO necessitated due to an Ohio adult contemporary station already using WLKR. Plans were made to jump to FM as early as the fall of 1991, and they credit the spring 1998 purchase of a mobile DJ system as "where WLSO comes alive." The 2001-2002 school year saw the station boost their staff promotions and begin their original online stream, with official t-shirts and their first computer database beginning the next year. A paragraph about future aspirations was also included, and those mostly seemed to come true, if not beyond 2017.

Station history aside, we'll dive into the meat of WLSO's busy and well updated mid-2000s website in part 4 coming in the near future, so keep watch for that, plus more news on the site soon! Thanks everyone!

WLSO 90.1 FM: A Look Back In The Wayback Machine, Part 2 (2001-2003)

It's now time for the second installment of our WLSO 90.1 FM retrospective posts, which kicked off this past Tuesday by looking at the station's Internet Archive remnants from the earliest possible date in 1997 through the year 2000. Today, we dive into the early 2000s in their last years before moving to their most familiar URL, and there's a lot of interesting surviving material from this era to look back on! Again, to set the mood, listen to Lake Superior State University's modern-day internet station Superior Radio while reading and exploring the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine links below.

We'll pick things back up with WLSO in 2001, with The Internet Archive logging six copies of the website that year, which you can check out at this link. The big front page news that year related to the station broadcasting live at Lake State's end of the year luau and that summer's Soo Locks Festival. While still managed by Bill Dawson, the station's genre directors had heavily changed compared to 2000, including new hires like Erik Isele (loud rock), Josh Palotti (punk/ska), and Lorin Kozlowski (alternative). Schedules for the spring, summer, and fall semesters that year are viewable at this link, carrying on the same layout as they had in late 2000. A lot of holes were present in terms of these archived schedules, but listeners that spring could hear Lorin host Fireball Music on Wednesdays at 4:00 PM, while Nick (no given last name) and Simon Moon hosted their own midnight punk blocks on Fridays and Saturdays each.

The previous year's metal show Brothers From Other Mothers returned over the summer semester, now hosted by Rustang & DJ Be Seedy, on Sundays at 8:00 PM. That fall, WLSO listeners could hear Erik Isele & Andy host a loud rock block on Fridays at 3:00 PM, while Andy & Robb co-hosted a punk/alt-rock block on Saturdays at 6:00 PM, and Josh Palotti manned a ska punk block on Sundays at 8:00 PM. Among non-heavy/punk shows, 90.1 FM fans could hear such DJs as B-X Rocket, Captain Moon Unit, DJ Spicy Chef, Kon Phusion, and The Tonemyster, while such creatively named shows as Stealthy Chicken Showcase, the possibly metal-focused Shredder's Eve, the returning Homemade Erratic Bear Bones, and What? (which aired "anything but Britney") also made the airwaves. As well, Frank Blissett's long-running Country Roads and Frank's Gay 90s Revue continued into this time period.

This article on WLSO's 2001-era site notes their then-criteria for prospective DJs, including how to sign up for a summer show, their 18+ age limit, priority selection for then-students, and even the dues on-air talent were expected to pay to maintain the station headquarters and events ($5 per semester with a show, though they were briefly $10.) As well, this link noted how you could air public service announcements on WLSO, as part of their FCC licensing. The 2001-era website is the only one to feature surviving photos of WLSO's Brady Hall station headquarters via this link, and while not all work, you do get a decent look at the offices for DJs at the time. Unfortunately, archives of WLSO's 1999-2002 website layout indicate that it didn't receive nearly the same amount of updates and and attention by 2002, with schedule archives not showing any listings, and no affiliated events listed after that February.

Circa November 2002 (and as first archived that December), LSSU's website received a heavy overhaul that only survived until around September 2003, though time has not been kind to it, as the barren white front page would indicate. In the 2002-2003 school year, the station's manager was Hollie Arman, while Kate Andary took over as the punk/ska genre manager. One major disappointment of WLSO's website that year was the station's schedule, which only listed blocks by the DJ's first name (Frank Blissett's programs aside), so hopefully listeners knew who was airing what! The most interesting website additions at this time were their automation charts (viewable here below "Music Department"), which list the most played songs on WLSO during three weeks in the fall of 2002, and which were not visibly updated in 2003. The charts are only listed by title with some exceptions, but if you look them up, you can see that such diverse acts as D.O.A., The Charlie Parker Trio, and Avril Lavigne got heavy airplay then!

Updates were few and far between on WLSO's website from 2002-2003, despite the layout overhaul, but things would tick upward for the station's internet presence when they received their permanent and final URL, http://wlso.lssu.edu, but that's a story for next time. I hope you guys liked this second installment of our WLSO retrospective series, and this will return at some point soon when we start looking at WLSO in the mid-2000s, but stay tuned for more a new news post next! Thanks everyone!

WLSO 90.1 FM: A Look Back In The Wayback Machine, Part 1 (1991-2000)

To help fill some time on the SMS in a slow period, here's the start of a special mini-series looking back at WLSO 90.1 FM, which was Lake Superior State University's college radio station from 1993-2017, before quietly moving to a stripped-down online streaming model, called either The 46th Parallel Radio, Laker Radio, or Superior Radio depending on your source. Literature about WLSO is slim nowadays, so I thought it'd be interesting to look back at the station's history, programs, and interesting information using the best available source: The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, which features archives of LSSU's website dating back 23 years, and as such, many variants of the WLSO website have also been archived through there, allowing us a snapshot into how the station looked and sounded once upon a time. This isn't intended to be a blow-by-blow history of WLSO, just a research project by a former student, so there will be gaps in the timeline.

As a way of setting the mood, I recommend listening to Superior Radio's ongoing 24/7 stream at this link, which still airs much of the adult album alternative & freeform music content that aired on WLSO in it's later years on the FM dial, though even if they had local DJs and hosted programs still, the university campus' shutdown due to the ongoing pandemic would have ensured that it was automated right now. Today's first installment will look at WLSO from it's first decade on air, so let's take a trip back in time!

LSSU first launched their radio station as a low-power AM carrier current station for on-campus listening only in 1991, before getting an FCC license and moving to 90.1 FM in 1993, originally under the call sign WLKR. Online materials relating to station activity from the early-mid 1990s are slim to nil, given the internet's infancy, but The Internet Archive's earliest copy of Lake State's website with a page dedicated to WLSO is from January 31st, 1997. At the time, the station was based in the basement of Brady Hall, and was overtly described as a student life "club" to allow students to gain experience in radio broadcasting. They weren't even running 24/7 yet, aspiring to be on the air for 12 hours a day that year, and having went off air temporarily due to reorganization. At the time, Tony Alati was station manager, while WLSO actually had a dedicated heavy metal music director, Carlos Hempe. At that time, they did not have an advertised schedule.

By November 9th, 1998 (archived on December 6th), WLSO received a new website as part of a web development course project by student Chris Bellini. By this point, the website described their on-air content in more detail, including genres of music, numbers and e-mails for requests, and even noting that non-students could be DJs at that time. Now featuring Dan Kobes as station manager, a full schedule for the fall 1998 semester is listed here, though no shows are described beyond the title. J&C In The Morning was their weekday morning drive-time program, while The Insomniac Show also aired for an hour each weeknight at 12:00 AM. Among the more curious late 1998 show names are Anarchy In The Soo, Fishin' On Da Reef, Lucid Lullaby, Manufacturing Cement, and Screw The Soo, plus various others. Carlos was still one of WLSO's musical directors, so metal likely was still a presence.

That website remained online until mid-late 1999, when WLSO's official website received another URL and visual overhaul, as first archived on April 21st, 2000. By this point, Bill Dawson was the station manager, and they had added many genre-specific musical directors, like Jen Hosafros (punk/ska), Joe Miskiw (loud rock), and Seraig Hopgood (alternative). This era of WLSO has a lot of archived program schedules that you can read by following this link, though highlighted text is essential to read any white lettering. At this time, the station happily allowed DJs to use nicknames or just first names on-air, and the eclectic show titles also continued. In the 1999-2000 school year, you could listen to programs like The Awesome Elmo & Cookie Monster Show, Noise Funnel, Where's My Pelvis, and Wrong Trousers, while DJs like Master O'Boogie, Doctor & Spacemodulator, Kid Icarus, and No Bad Cool were among the on-air roster.

Two programs from that school year have surviving pages through the Wayback Machine, both hosted by long-time country music DJ Frank Blissett, namely Country Roads and the vintage/archival music program Frank's Gay 90s Revue. Also, WLSO was offering mobile DJ services, and hosted live DJing at Dano's Pizza on Friday nights at that time. By the summer & fall of 2000, the WLSO schedule was expanded on to include some genre descriptions, and as such, metalheads may have been listening to Bob host Wednesday Aggression at 7:00 PM, Erik & Oz's untitled hard rock/metal block on Tuesdays & Thursdays at 7:00 PM, or Slush Puppy's metal show Brothers From Other Mothers on Thursdays at 4:00 PM. At least in the fall of 2000, Monday was the destination for punk fans, courtesy of Angela's Raccoon Puppet Show at 6:00 PM and Spinach's Extra Butter at 9:00 PM. Also, don't forget about such bizarrely named shows as Subversion Is Sexy and Homemade Erratic Bear Bones, among others.

Our next installment in this WLSO spotlight series will focus on at least the early 2000s (starting from 2001), but I have not started writing it yet, so I don't know how much material is out there from that period, and whether or not I'll have to slow down the timeline or stretch things out. In any event, our next news post will be about current topics in the Twin Saults and area, so look for that tomorrow! Thanks everyone!