Radio On: A KEXP National Radio Week Video Roundup

If not for radio, punk and new wave would never have spread across the country the way it did. Thanks to groundbreaking DJs from the 1970s like Rodney Bingenheimer at Los Angeles station KROQ and Vin Scelsa at New York's WNEW, bands were able to reach an audience their crappy tour vans may never have taken them to.

Musicians valued the power of the FM dial. The Phil Spector-produced track "Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?" paid tribute to the artists The Ramones grew up listening to, shouting out DJs like Murray the K and Alan Freed. Elvis Costello's "Radio Radio" started out as a loving tribute to the medium -- his father was a vocalist for a radio dance band -- but the song became more biting as he came up against commercial stations, hence lyrics like "but they don't give you any choice 'cause they think that it's treason." Even the dour Ian Curtis of Joy Division implored listeners to "dance dance dance dance dance to the radio."Thankfully, some stations do have the power of choice, and KEXP is celebrating these airwave-breakers all week long -- from Monday, August 14th through Friday, August 18th. We're kicking things off with odes to the dial from the musicians themselves; scroll down through this Video Roundup and listen along all week as we salute some great stations.

KEXP is celebrating National Radio Day all week long both online and on the air; click here to see all our coverage on the KEXP Blog.