The end of an era...

So, imagine my surprise today when I signed into facebook, looked over the 'groups' page and saw that 99X had been taken off the air. Immediately, I was brought back to high school, to the countless hours 99X had been the go to radio station in my car, how I woke up to it every morning, how it introduced me to bands I probably never would've listened to, Morning X with Barnes, Leslie and Jimmy, Live X, Organic X, the Pleasure Dome... Every visit home from the left coast, I would be happy to turn the dial to the familiar 99.7 and finally listen to some real music. KROQ in LA could never match the playlists and originality of my favorite home station.

When Eric and I left Atlanta in 2002, we departed very early in the morning, and tried our best to call the station - the Morning X - to try and get a song played. We were unsuccessful, but it was more that it seemed the appropriate thing to do. Like it was a way to say symbolically, "Hey, Atlanta, we're going to miss you." Arriving back in Atlanta with all our worldly possessions close to 5 years later, we called again, no luck, but it just seemed like the right thing to do, to announce to the city that we had returned.

Even here in Dubai, I would sometimes go to the home page and listen to the live broadcast - just for a slice of home.

Now, while the radio channel exists in cyberspace, it's not the same. What will the generation growing up in Atlanta listen to now?

In memoriam, 99X.