Song Ended Much Too Soon for KSCA Radio

Two-and-a-half years ago, I stumbled upon a new radio station, Glendale’s KSCA. One of the deejays was trying to explain the station’s philosophy--to play good music, whether it was rock, folk or--gasp--even a little bit country.

I remember thinking: 1) This is great and; 2) This won’t last.

Sadly, I was right on both counts. KSCA became great because it was exactly what other stations were not. KSCA played new artists, even if those artists were not climbing the charts, and its playlist was not set in stone. Listeners had no idea what song they might hear next.

But late last year, one corporation sold KSCA to an even bigger corporation. Thus, on Tuesday at midnight, KSCA signed off forever, its place on the dial taken by Spanish-language programming.

Much of the music KSCA played was about trying to find a place in the world amid so much conformity and, as Jackson Browne once sang, “the struggle for the legal tender.” The bottom line beat the music this time, which only makes the station’s message more powerful.

KSCA was at its very best at its very end, when each of its deejays told listeners what sharing the music meant to them. Nicole Sandler sobbed as she signed off her shift with Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road.”

A perfect choice. To loosely paraphrase a line from that song, in its short time with us, KSCA got that guitar and learned how to make it talk.