I've Had It With Mix 99.9

When Francine and I first moved to Hamilton we started listening to a fun morning program on Mix 99.9 FM. It was the Rob Christie show, an often hilarious and fun to listen to program. We fondly looked forward to the Friday morning song (which was Todd Rundgrend's "Bang on the Drum" which went "I don't want to work, I just want to bang on the drum all day"), and of course, the Monday morning song, which was the closing song from Monty Python's Life of Brian -- "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"

Then, one day, Rob Christie was gone. A huge "first Batman movie" hype announcements were made about the upcoming new morning program, which turned out to be Carla Collins and Steve Anthony. That lasted like two weeks before it became Carla & Company. They didn't axe Mr. Anthony, just moved him to the afternoons.

Then, just when I was enjoying the daily rapport between Carla and her gang, they too disappeared. And another "first Batman movie" kind of hype occured that preceeded the Humble and Fred morning program.

I warmed up to Humble and Fred and their "we suck and that's why we're funny" approach. It seemed to be going well. Then Fred disappeared one day. Got canned (I since found his fun brand of humour via his website, which includes the often hilarious clips from his Mr. Goohead bit). The morning program turned in the Humble Howard morning show, with Judy Croon and Bingo Bob. I missed Fred but the program was pretty decent and fun. I loved the rapport between the three and looked forward to spending my mornings with them.

But alas, they're gone now too. Fired. All three of them in a "we sent our DJ's on vacation" stunt the station pulled. They were replaced by Mad Dog and Billie just this morning. We listened to the program (one of the blessed things about my new job is that I was listening to their morning program while having breakfast at home with Francine and Alexander, not alone in my car at 6:00 AM) Now, while the music was the same (every 6 months or so The Mix changes the rotation of songs, but it's basically a top forty plus another handful of top 40 songs from a few years ago -- a really short list of the same old same old, which grows old really fast -- in like about a week), the show was actually fun and amusing. Despite the fact that he stole my nickname (borrowed, of course from the wrestler Mad Dog Lefebvre) I'm sure we would get over the loss of Howard, Judy and Bob and grow to like it.

Of course, just to have the decision makers at the Mix yank them out too and recycle in some other morning crew.

But I'm getting sick of those "replace the morning crew" antics by the Mix. I mean, haven't Roger, Rick and Marlyn been the mornings hosts of CHUM for like 20 years now, and still going strong? Fran often tunes in to them and loves their stuff. So why can't the Mix executives be as loyal to their morning crew as they'd like their listeners to be to them?

I just know that I've pretty much had it with getting to love the morning show crew and then missing them when they get yanked off the air in the middle of the night without any warning.

And besides, I don't commute in to Toronto anymore, so why not listen to Hamilton's own Sunni and Hayes on K-Lite FM (they've been hosting for over 10 years now, and are quite fun to listen to -- I'm just not all that in to the light branded music they play) or to a station that plays more of my kind of rock, Y108. No, I don't know the personalities there that well, but I did listen to Y108 non-stop while working on the basement for 6 months and never got tired of the great music selection they played (yes, they even play Led Zepplin and The Who and Rush in their regular rotation - gotta love that)

So goodbye, Mix 99.9. You killed yet another morning show of people that I grew to love, so consider me a lost listener due to your fickle management of on air talent. Hello Hamilton radio stations. I'm home!