Say Goodbye to NU107, part 1 of 2

Yes, you read that correctly.  NU107, the Home of New Rock, that shining bastion of modern rock on Manila FM radio, is signing off for good on November 7, 2010.

Quite a shock, right?  I thought they’d last forever too, considering I remember listening to NU107 as far back as high school (in the late ’80’s).  Ah the awesome days of new wave.  Got a collection of new wave songs thanks to stations like XB102, BM105, 99.5RT, and hellz yeah, NU107.

Some of my fondest memories of high school includes those afternoons I hunkered down by our old cassette deck, ready to record those hard-to-find new wave songs on tape.  You couldn’t find most of those songs at the local record bars– The Sound’s “Total Recall”, “State of Art” by Friends Again, or “When Lightning Strikes” by Positive Noise.  At least the OPM gem “Golden Boy” by Ethnic Faces was included in a locally available compilation.

NU107 was one of the two stations I regularly listen to back in the day.  The other one was was 99.5RT (of which I had the privilege to work for from ’94 to ’96).  And even when I was boarding for RT, I still get to listen to NU– I’d dig those songs that NU would play that RT wouldn’t (though I’d noticed we had copies of those same songs anyway).  Off the top of my head, there was “I Got a Girl” by Tripping Daisy, Soul Asylum’s “Misery” and Cake’s “Rock & Roll Lifestyle”.

I got so nostalgic, I cued up a couple hundred songs on my player– songs which remind me so much of NU107, of me and my friends singing along to all those awesome rock & new wave songs, of me and my guitar strumming along, and even those memorable station promos they had.  Remember the promos for Zach and Joey in the morning sung to the tune of “Jesus Christ Superstar”?  Classic.

I swear that was Ron T.’s voice on that Malayan Insurance commercial that aired on TV just as I was wrapping up this blog post.  I’d recognize his voice anywhere.

Another post on NU107 coming up later on.  In the meantime, check out these insightful posts from our other radio friends elsewhere on the web:

• “Of Rock Music and Queen Bees”, by Claire Miranda, former station manager of NU107.
• “Biting The Bullet”, by Pinky Aseron, faculty member of the University of the Philippines, and former station manager of CityLite 88.3.
• Joyce Burton-Titular has a couple of posts on her blog, Adventures of a Beauty Queen: check them out here, and here.

Cheers, everyone!