College Radio's Role in '90s SF Music Scene

College radio stations are often inextricably linked the music scenes of their surrounding communities. It's pretty cool to see that acknowledged in a San Francisco Bay Guardian article from 2003. It just got on my radar today, as the blog Squirrel Antics posted a quote from that piece about the SF music scene centered around the Mission District. In the article, author Josh Wilson (as mentioned below, a KUSF DJ) gives credit to San Francisco Bay Area college radio stations for their role in supporting indie music. The Bay Guardian piece states:

"Though the '90s-era Mission was home to a thriving community, it did not occur in a vacuum. Tangential happenings and institutions flourished, part of a confluence of and infrastructure for homegrown, urban, do-it-yourself creativity. KFJC, KALX, KZSU, and KUSF (where this writer DJs) delivered the emerging soundtrack of the era to Bay Area listeners starved for adventurous music. Burning Man was still a lawless punk-pyro and machine-art utopia, and San Francisco Art Institute superheroine Warrior Girl's 24-Hour Community Spacewalk orchestrated a colossal, simultaneous display of interactive, round-the-clock art, music, and performance on dozens of street corners in the Mission and South of Market for two years running. Nowhere, however, were things as concentrated as in the Mission."

For any of you who lived in San Francisco in the 1990s, the Bay Guardian article is a nice bit of nostalgia; with its mentions of seminal bands and classic clubs. I certainly have fond memories of shows at Komotion, Kilowatt, and the Chameleon and a sense of pride for the amazing bands coming out of SF at the time.