The last time the Philadelphia Eagles were contending for the NFL championship a Clear Channel employee was in my living room talking about a new radio format, Alternative Gold.
At the time, Indie 103.1 was on the air and using no disc jockeys, just playing a mix of punk and alternative rock that was rarely played on commercial airwaves. It appealed to me if for no other reason than I felt like I heard the Clash every time I got in the car.
He believed it was also going to be a business model for the future that allowed the radio behemoths to skirt around FCC limits on station ownership. Clear Channel, which is at its limit in the L.A. market, was contracted to sell the advertising for the station, a deal that the feds ultimately deemed non-kosher.   
From the time it launched until it went off the air this afternoon, Indie 103.1 was the only English-language station in the Entravision cabal. By enlisting Clear Channel, which knew which doors to knock on, the company reduced the learning curve when it came to selling advertising. Apparently, Toyota of Huntington Beach was the only advertiser that seemed to believe in the station and its audience.
But as good as Indie 103.1 was in its varied playlists, it never was able to sell that "alternative gold" concept, which was initially designed to be split down the middle between new stuff and the classics. It wound up sending a mixed message -- are they historical or current, edgy or mainstream? They did play a lot of good music made by people with guitars and distinguished voices.
They found a brilliant host in the Sex Pistols' Steve Jones to handle midday with interviews and a truly random playlist, not to mention the tremendous Jukebox Jury in which people looking to pitch an event or movie were brought in to rate records as either "mustard" or "pants." It was aways engaging.
So, too, were shows hosted by Henry Rollins and Chris Morris, but specialty shows -- unless they are devoted to the Beatles or entire sides of popular albums -- are a tough sell here. Or so a radio programmer told me recently when we were discussing Indie's recent elimination of its shows dedicated to either an individual's taste or a specific style of music.
The way radio is set up to operate in the conglomerate world practically meant Indie was doomed to failure. They resisted going the standard "goofball in the morning" route and then slightly caved by hiring Dicky Barrett of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones to bring some levity to early drive time. The show worked as entertainment, but Indie pulled the plug and gave the time slot to Joe Escalante, who hosts a fabulous legal advice show but is hardly drive time material.
Radio, in this day and age, has to look at a collection of niche audiences and create a format that galvanizes several of them. No matter what the type of music, it requires a certain amount of repetition, an identifiable sound and personalities that blend in with the station's sound. L.A.'s latest experiment is "the Sound" at 100.3, which is trying to figure out how to position itself somewhere between Jack-FM and Indie; there are times when the mix is fresh and invigorating and other times when it is yet another tired classic rock rehash.
Indie took a festival approach to music, that by offering a hundred different songs by almost a hundred different artists, a crowd would form and stay tuned in even if not all the music was immediately appreciated. They were a much-needed alternative to the unlistenable KROQ, a wasteland of overly aggressive rock in which each tune is indistinguishable from the next. Indie attempted to connect the dots between reggae, the Clash and Vampire Weekend, position Tegan and Sara asvital as the Pretenders and use U2, Nirvana and the Ramones as a hook for listeners unfamiliar with the current landscape. It worked as a listening experience and an education.
It's a bit saddening that their closing statement on their website would take shots at Britney and Puffy. That's not really the enemy. It's the novelty tunes, the "I Kissed a Girl" and Pussycat Dolls tracks that are the real enemy, the love songs to jewelry and the oides about tryign to get laid at the club. Indie believed in its artists and that a list of artists would be enough to get people engaged. It clearly doesn't work that way anymore.
One personal thrill: Being in the studio with Jonesy the day after the Pistols received notice they would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was neither thrilled nor displeased, just much more interested in reading the liner notes on a Wayne Cochran compilation.