Jennie Warren

Cecilia "CeCe" Valencia and David "Tattoo" Gonzalez, former hosts of KDAY's morning show

[Editor's note: Weekly scribe Jeff Weiss's column, "Bizarre Ride," normally appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday. His archives are available here.]

"Remember KDAY?"

Tupac asked that question on "To Live & Die in LA," but the answer was obvious. Makaveli never even lived in Southern California during the first AM incarnation of KDAY, but the memory of America's first all-rap radio station was already a rallying cry by 1996.

See also: KDAY, the Gangsta Rap Oldies Station, Breaks New Ground by Playing Music From the Bad Old Days

So when its call letters were revived here in 2004, it was the next best thing to Tupac's resurrection. Eventually settling in as one of America's only classic hip-hop signals, KDAY's return was better than the announcement of new episodes of Arrested Development. The Bluth family will get older, but '90s G-Funk stays the same age. Then in 2008, KDAY closed again.

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Electronic music program Metropolis is returning to KCRW with its original host Jason Bentley, West Coast Sound can exclusively report. The dance music show, which Bentley created and hosted from 1992 to 2008, will air Saturdays from 10pm to midnight, starting this Saturday. Bentley will maintain his role as the host of Morning Becomes Eclectic.

"People tell me all the time that they loved it," Bentley, KCRW's music director, says of Metropolis. "A lot of people have commented over the years how much that show meant to them, and that stayed in my mind."

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Katie Bain

It's pledge drive time again at KCRW. Twice a year, the station -- one of the pre-eminent public radio stations in the country -- interrupts regular programming to ask for money. But this isn't your typical "send us five bucks and we'll mail you a bumper sticker" pledge event. No no, this one has Coachella tickets, trips to Kenya and the occasional Moby sighting.

And it's serious business; the station, which resides in the basement under the cafeteria at Santa Monica College, doesn't get much government funding these days. Thus, there are excel sheets, flow charts, lists and matrices coordinating the station's effort to raise their yearly operating budget. It is a well-oiled machine, complete with nearly 1000 volunteers on average, who answer phones, take pledges and dole out albums, restaurant gift certificates and the odd Macbook. This past Friday, the second day of the drive, we went! It went like this:

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flickr/goldberg

What's your favorite radio station? More specifically: What's your favorite radio station to listen to while you're pumping gas? Admittedly, it's a pretty stupid question, because, as L.A. folks are undoubtedly aware, you don't have a choice. If you're at one of 171 stations in the broader metro area, you're getting something called Gas Station Radio. It's a mix of commercials, weather, news, traffic and, oh, some music every now and then, although nothing we've ever heard of.

After being subjected to it for the umpteenth time recently we got to wondering: What is Gas Station Radio? Does it have DJs? How do they pick their music? And where do they get off calling themselves a radio station?

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