Driving.
Yesterday.

Tuned into WDRV, Chicago's "Classic Rock" station. They happened to be playing some Led Zeppelin (of course), and I happened to be in a Led Zep mood, so I kept it on.

The DJ came on after the song and read through the set:
"That was 'Hey Hey What Can I Say?' by Led Zeppelin. Before that you heard the Moody Blues with 'Knights In White Satin', which followed Big Star, doing their song 'Thirteen' from their 1972 debut, the appropritely titled Number One Record."

The DJ then went on to mention how Big Star was Alex Chilton's band and that there had been some concern for him after Katrina. Still... I can't fucking believe that they actually played "Thirteen" on a corporate-owned station in a major market. Very cool.

I'll have to drop them a note of thanks for that and see if we can encourage the playing of more left-field classics like that.

EDIT: I could almost understand if they played "In the Street", with the whole That 70's Show connection, but "Thirteen"?

It has been featured prominently on the show. It seems to play whenever Eric and Donna are breaking up or separating or something. But I guess I'd still be surprised to hear it on a station usually playing Zep et al.

If I ever heard a Big Star song on a classic rock station here, I might die of a heart attack. I almost did when one of them played a Traffic song about a year and a half ago.

Oh, the classic rock stations play Traffic all the time, here.
They generally play great music, but just the SAME great music, over and over.

Well PopTodd my friend, you have some good classic rock stations. The ones around here are terribly generic and uncreative. Then again, most of them are owned by Clear Channel, which explains most of it.

Most of my classic rock knowledge comes from 94.7 in DC and that station would swing from bad to good and back over the years. But there was always quite a few Traffic songs to be heard, and never any Big Star to be heard.

Talking Heads and the Clash get played all the time here

Only Clash songs that get played here are Should I Stay or Should I Go and occasionally Train in Vain.

Only Talking Heads song that I ever hear anymore is Once in a Lifetime

"That 70's Show" has also used "I'm In Love With A Girl" from time to time, but I too would be shocked to hear ANY Big Star song on commercial radio. I monitored stations all over the US for 6 years & never heard 'em. Not once.

not even "I Fought The Law"?

I think it's safe to say that I've NEVER heard that song on the radio before. But they do sometimes also play "Rock the Casbah"

I have heard Red Hot Chili Peppers on the classic rock stations many times. That should give you an idea of what kind of stations we have around me.

Where do you live? Between Boston and DC, I've heard tons of different Clash, Talking Heads, and Traffic songs on the radio. However, I can't differentiate between which I heard on classic rock and which on modern rock stations. For example, I've heard "Spanish Bombs", but it may have only been on a modern rock station.

I live inbetween NYC and Philly, and I can count the times I've heard Traffic songs on the radio on one hand. They used to play a lot of Clash and Talking Heads, but about four years ago they started to move away from that. At least thats what it seemed like to me. I hear a lot of Tom Petty, Rolling Stones, and Led Zepplin.