WNRN in Harrisonburg
Brent Finnegan -- August 6th, 2006
Here’s an older story that passed me by, since I gave up looking for decent modern music on the radio in the Valley a long time ago: WNRN has been on the airwaves over Hburg for at least a month. They recently added a translator in our area.
If you spend much time in Charlottesville, chances are you’re already familiar with NRN. It’s a listener-supported, non-commercial FM modern rock station. They play an eclectic mix of mainstream modern rock, indie, prog, classic rock, urban, bluegrass, electronic, and/or punk, depending on the show. According to a slightly pretentious sounding statement on their website, NRN “offers cutting-edge modern rock programming to intelligent, educated, upscale listeners from 18 to 49.” They’ve been on the air in C’ville since 1996.
So far today, I’ve heard Sonic Youth, Placebo, Modest Mouse, G Love, Thom Yorke, Nirvana, System of a Down, and Morningwood, as well as dozens of other bands I didn’t recognize.
If you’re the kind of person who never listens to local radio, or if your FM reciever never goes higher than 91.1 (XJM, MRA and EMC), you might want to check it out. NRN can be found at 95.1 on the FM dial. You can also listen to it online.
-finnegan
On trips to Staunton/C’ville, I would usually tune to 88.1 as soon as I hit Bridgewater. Can’t wait to add the new freq to my presets! NRN is hit and miss with their music (I like the indie-rock, can’t stand the screamy, SOAD/Korn-style alt-rock) and I could do with a little more personality from the DJs but it’s still my favorite station in the area. Gotta love the Pop Quiz too.
Yeah, I’m not a fan of the “mainstreamy” hard music, either. I do enjoy a little black metal every now and then, but I think WXJM still has the monopoly on that.
I would say the number one thing XJM still has over NRN (besides the fact that XJM doesn’t play much mainstream music) is that it’s more local. XJM’s signal barely travels into Rockingham County, so they’re more likely to be playing local underground bands, and talking about Harrisonburg issues on the talk shows, instead of Charlottesville/Albemarle stuff.
Also, I probably should have mentioned that NRN put up translators in the Richmond area, too. They’re definitely branching out.
I’ll deal with the not-so-great songs mixed in with the good music if it means having a decent radio station. I’m also all about listener supported. You know that if NRN is still on the air that there are people around who care about good music and are taking an active role in making sure we have an alternative to the status quo, which is a lot of classic rock mixed with the occasional Nickel Back and Lighthouse “rockers.”