The last great rock radio show

Here's an article from the LA Times about one of the best things on the radio. If you click the link below you can listen online.

Anarchy at 103
The Sex Pistols' Steve Jones is on the air.

Indie radio, indeed. The voice of Steve "Jonesy" Jones is not what you would call a classic FM-radio baritone. His cockney ramble is as graceful as a freight truck with balky gears, and every weekday he helms a two-hour radio show that staggers, mutters and misfires like a boozy sailor tossing darts in a West London dive.

"I don't know if we're giving anything away," he told his listeners on a recent show. "I couldn't give a toss, to be honest with you. Let's play another song, another pox Christmas song ... take it away, me old son."

Jones nods to his producer, Mark Sovel, who cues up a 1980 punk-rock mauling of "Silent Night" by the Yobs. With his mike off, Jones swallows, lets out a small belch and curses the influenza that has his eyelids hooded and his gut churning. Jones eyes the visitor sitting in his cramped studio at the Wilshire Boulevard offices of Indie 103.1. "I'm sick and I'm in an 'orrible mood, mate, I'm sorry."

Like his phonetic kin Ozzy Osbourne, Jones is a verifiable rock-star survivor: He was the guitarist for the Sex Pistols and, by his own modest description, the man who invented punk. That was in the 1970s, when he was a moneyed junkie and before he wandered Los Angeles "homeless, in the toilet and broke." And now? "I do this."

He waves his hand at the microphone, headset (with Union Jack sticker affixed across the top) and unruly stack of CDs that are just about all he needs for his spectacularly primitive radio show, "Jonesy's Jukebox."

From noon to 2 p.m. at the station (broadcasting as KDLD/KDLE-FM), Jones sits opposite Sovel and peers down through the reading glasses perched on his nose to pick the next song, which may be old Pistols rivals the Clash, Frank Sinatra, some obscure glam band or a forgotten British pop star from the 1950s.

In this calculated, corporate and computerized age of big-time Los Angeles radio, this approach is roughly the equivalent of a commercial airline stripping the landing gear from its entire fleet.

The result? "Jonesy's Jukebox" has become a prized underground brand name, and is turning heads nationwide in the rock scene. Rolling Stone, Blender and Esquire magazines have each pegged the station — which this month celebrated its one-year anniversary — as the country's single strongest sign of a resurgence of indie-style rock.

The station doesn't come close to matching the ratings or signal strength of longtime alt-rock powerhouse KROQ-FM (106.7), but industry insiders credit the upstart station with pressuring KROQ to be more adventurous in recent months to protect its flank. "I used to like KROQ in the 1980s, but now it's dreadful," growls Jones. "Absolutely 'orrible. It's McDonald's."

One of Indie 103.1's tactics has been to draft DJs from its playlist instead of getting polished pros — Jones, Courtney Love, Henry Rollins and the members of Crystal Method are among those who have been given stints behind the mike.

"Jonesy is the one who gives us credibility and definition; he's the quarterback of the station," said Michael Steele, the program director of Indie 103.1. Steele was not too long ago in the same post at KIIS-FM, the Top 40 titan that is about as loose and gritty as a Nordstrom.

That's not to say Indie doesn't have corporate ties — it's owned by Entravision, the Spanish-language radio giant, and Clear Channel, the industry's largest company, sells its ad time on a contract basis. At the station's offices, it's the only studio tenant broadcasting in English, and it's clear that language is not the only gulf separating Indie's pierced and tattooed staff from their wide-eyed neighbors.

To that staff, Steele may be the man who calls the shots, but Jonesy is the resident spirit. He shared the stage with Johnny Rotten, outlived Sid Vicious and takes pride in the fact that his snarling crew is the most influential rock band that manages to be ignored year in and year out by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, even as room is found for the Brenda Lees and the Lovin' Spoonfuls.

During a commercial break, he scoffs at the annual snub. "I couldn't care less. I don't care about getting into the Hall of Fame.... But, uhhh, I wish I could go to the bathroom. I wish I could puke."

The daily dose of on-air Jonesy (and its rebroadcast, weekdays from 5 to 7 p.m.) is not much more refined than that. But it is also deliciously candid. He chides unsuspecting guests who come in to plug their products but overlook the fact that, hey, this is the same guy who used to play "Anarchy in the U.K." on stage.

When the radio pitchmen who do the "Real Men of Genius" ads for Bud Light praised the brand recently, Jonesy hammered away at them to admit that, deep down, they must agree that all American beers taste of urine. The squirming was nearly audible over the air. "You don't drink this stuff, do you?" the DJ pokes. Later, off air, he chuckles. "They're so showbiz they never expected someone to do that on the air. But that beer can't be good."

Jones must have been making the taste appraisal from distant memory. In years past, his body might have been racked by heroin, vodka or whatever, but on this day, at age 49 and sober for more than two decades, Jones is pumping his body full of Chinese herbs and bottled water. The temptations haunt him still. He recently demurred from joining a station staff excursion to Las Vegas. "He told me he's still a world-class addict and that he can't go near that town," Steele said.

The addictions Jones feeds these days are his video game habit ("I like mostly the sniper/spy/shooting games; I'm deadly at those") and, of course, music. "Turn it up, Mr. Shovel," Jonesy intones, using the familiar mispronunciation of his producer's name. Sovel turns up the volume and the sound of the Damned, part of the Pistol's peerage in the old days, fills the studio. "That's good. I'm feeling better."

The Pistols got together two years ago to play, ironically, a KROQ show that pulled in the Damned, the Buzzcocks and others names that have adorned tattered T-shirts for years. "It was a good show, a good night. We got along OK that night."

The Pistols had all of one album, and the venom they tossed in every song often hit each other in the eye. Of the 1996 reunion tour, Jonesy says, "We got together again for the money. It was just for the money."

Back on the air, he plays a song by Public Image Ltd., the outfit that John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten, fronted after the Pistols retired the side. "He's got a great voice, he always has. His voice is original and a lot of guys did it after him." Jonesy closes his eyes either for the flu or to appreciate the caterwaul of an old sometime-friend.

The guitar hero whistles these days on the air — if listeners can identify the song they win a prize — but he's thinking of bringing in a guitar soon. His trademark was the white Fender, but he doesn't own one anymore. "I sold it. I have a problem holding on to things. I sold it for $10,000." Items change hands in life, especially in Jonesy's biography.

He was raised in the Shepherds Bush area of London and describes his level of poverty by pointing out that the family had to share the same tub water. His mother taught him to shoplift; his stepfather had a habit of cracking him across the skull.

When the Pistols formed in the summer of 1975, they used equipment that had been stolen by Jones. "I took David Bowie's stuff once ... microphones and gear."

Jones has Mr. Shovel cue up Bowie's version of "Waterloo Sunset" ("a song he stole from the Kinks") and the Smiths' "Shoplifters of the World Unite."

Where most radio stations are run by market research, "Jonesy's Jukebox" is programmed by the memory and the moment. He's almost through with his two-hour workday.

"I'm feeling better," he says with new cheer as he takes off his headset. "It's amazing how playing music makes you feel better. Like drinking — I don't miss it at all because I'm a mess when I drink. Listening to music can make you feel good, y'know?"

Mr. Shovel is counting down for the next song. Jones picks up a Sex Pistols CD.

"You want to hear this one?"

He rubs his eyes and looks a bit ill again.

"Nah. I really don't want to. Let's find something else."