Three Rochester radio stations are making your ears dance with local music. Stations 98.9 The Buzz, 94.1 The Zone, and 90.5 WBER each offer Rochester music every Sunday night with local-only programs that hearken back to radio's freeform glory days - local Rochester DJs playing local Rochester bands.

Oddly, the shows overlap, with each program airing Sundays at 8 p.m. Whichever show you decide to tune in to, here's what you can expect on the other end of the transmitter.

"Sunday Night Shakedown"

Frank De Blase, "Shakedown" host and music editor at City Newspaper, traces his radio roots back to longtime Rochester DJ "Uncle" Roger McCall, whose WCMF local show was a fixture of late late Sunday nights until McCall's murder in 2003.

"[Uncle Roger] was a big proponent and supporter of the Rochester music scene," says De Blase. "And he wasn't being token about it. He played really good bands, and he supported good bands"

McCall's death left a void, says De Blase, who after some work managed to land a local show of his own at WBZA The Buzz (FM 98.9) in 2004.

"The Shakedown" has gone through some changes since its inception, namely the addition of producer Ferris about six months ago as a sideman.

"When Ferris joined, that's when it took off," says De Blase. "Ferris is a radio genius, he knows the radio ins and outs and we have a really great rapport. We bounce off each other."

The show itself is like a variety hour - each week several local bands with a show, album, or name to promote will stop by for a chat or a song; past guests have included the reunited classic rock band Cheater and garage-rockers The Demos. "The Shakedown" digs into Rochester bands present and past, and its hosts aren't afraid to take requests and send out dedications, even if the callers sound a bit familiar.

"If you've got the balls to call up and request your own music, I'll play it. I'll call you out on it, but there's nothing wrong with wanting to hear your stuff. I hope bands are playing stuff that they want to hear," says De Blase.

Rochester, De Blase says, is ready to assert itself as a real "music city" - with a little help.

"I think in order for a city to become a good music city, you can't just have good musicians," says De Blase. "There's got to be good press coverage. Rochester's got as good [a crop] of bands or as bad [a crop] of bands as anyplace else.

"We're not playing opportunity night," he continues. "I'm playing good stuff that I will defend."

In addition to its Sunday 8-11 p.m. slot, the "Sunday Night Shakedown" team also hosts a Thursday morning segment on The Buzz called "Unsigned Talent."

De Blase says that being local is nothing to be ashamed of. "People use ‘local' as sort of a backhanded compliment," he says. "Look, motherf**ker: Aerosmith is local in Boston. I mean, everyone's gotta live somewhere. My other favorite comparison is, ‘It's hard to make it in your hometown.' I mean, Jesus couldn't make it in his hometown. They hung him up on a cross."

"ZoneGrown"

"ZoneGrown" on WZNE The Zone (FM 94.1) is a relative newcomer to the local music showcase, having launched in February 2005. The idea for the show, explains co-host Danni (Zone DJs prefer to go by first name only), came out of the station's Ugly Idol competition - a battle of the bands held every year, the winner of which lands an opening slot at the annual Ten Ugly Men Festival.

"The past couple of years, after [Ugly Idol] was done, I'd still have people e-mail me and call me up saying, ‘Is there anyway you can support local music a little bit more? We would love The Zone to play local bands,'" says Danni. "So I'm like, why not?"

Airing Sundays 8-9 p.m., the show features studio guests at least once a month, recently bringing in area pop-rock band The Hoodies. Though it's relatively young, the show is getting its music library quickly in shape, reaching out to local bands through resources like MySpace.

"We've been going on websites trying to make people aware that if they send us their CDs, we'll get it on the air. It's been rather difficult, but it's also been really fun," says co-host Stacy. "We actually have about 50 or 60 bands in our rotation now."

The hosts' personal tastes lean toward heavy rock, meaning the show regularly spins - but isn't limited to - local hard rock bands like A Thousand Shades of Cold and The Cold Heart Method. Stacy, who graduated from SUNY Buffalo, says that part of the show's fun is figuring out what sets Rochester apart.

"The Buffalo local scene is a lot different, and it's fun to see the contrast," she says, offering one observation about Rochester: "There's not as much thrash metal."

"WBER Local Show"

Since its inception in 2001, the "Local Show" on WBER (FM 90.5) has been a staple of Rochester radio. Current host "SloanKristy" Jett started out like most of the station's volunteer DJ staff - as a fan.

"WBER constantly has had the local show on Sunday nights, and I would always listen," says Jett, who has been DJing the show since October 2005.

"When I first came to the station all I wanted to do was the local show," says Jett. "I went to a battle of the bands back in 2000 or 2001, and saw all these bands like Deltaforce 23 and Murdock and Act Your Age and Arms Length, and they just got me addicted. That's why I wanted to [do radio] in the first place."

WBER program director and station manager Joey Guisto says that on top of the local show, which airs Sunday 8-10 p.m., WBER plays between 25 and 30 local bands in regular rotation. He also sees a connection between media coverage and the success of Rochester's music scene.

"If every station in town was on board playing these bands, not just on a local show, I'm sure the local music scene would be a lot better," says Guisto. "I'm sure shows would be better attended, and bands would sell more merchandise."

"People will hear a band when they go out to a bar," says Jett. "But I think it's important for radio stations to have a local show to bring it more to the attention of people out there."

The reward, says Guisto, is when bands in turn recognize Rochester as a place that appreciates music. "The best thing to me is if we're playing a band, whether it's local or national, and the band recognizes the airplay from us and routes its tour to make sure it's going to come to Rochester," he says.

There's no shortage of eclectic, exciting local music to play on the two-hour show, Jett says, rattling off rock act The Noise on Vinyl, techno musician Alpha Centaur, hip-hop/pop group Thermal Atmos, and experimental cellist Zoe Keating as some of the program's favorites.

"It's ridiculous; every week I get at least five or six CDs in. There are so many diverse acts. And the listeners...like so many different types of stuff," Jett says. "You can never pigeonhole [them]."

SIDEBAR:  

"OnStage" puts local musicians on the tube

Payola is a good - for WXXI at least. The public television/radio station recently received a grant from the New York State Music Fund as part of last year's payola scandal settlement that, to recap, caught the four largest record labels (SONY-BMG, Universal, Warner, and EMI) paying radio stations (local affiliates included) for airplay. Among the broadcast companies cited were Entercom and CBS Radio, both conglomerates with massive footholds in the Rochester market.

The office of then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer directed the tens of millions of dollars in fines collected into a grant program that aims to foster music appreciation and awareness around New York State. It's kind of like those Phillip Morris ads that tell you not to smoke, except this time instead of not getting cancer, your ears are saved from enduring label mandated "hits" by robot musicians.

WXXI is using its share of the filthy corporate lucre to fund "OnStage," a series of concerts to air on radio and TV that will showcase local music talent. The program will feature the occasional national act as well, presenting six performances recorded at the Rochester International Jazz Festival's Kilbourn Hall series earlier this year.

"Our goal for the program is to bring the terrific array of musical talent we have in this community to a wider audience, and to foster an appreciation for contemporary music," says Elissa Orlando, vice president of television at WXXI.

Each hour-long program combines a live performance with interviews hosted by WXXI-FM personality and music director Julia Figueras.

The program's first season will feature 18 different acts, ranging from singer-songwriters to folk music to Latino music to jazz to surf music. "We are really trying to capture the variety of music in this community as much as we can," says Orlando.

The premiere episode, featuring Irish act The Dady Brothers, will air on WRUR 88.5 Thursday, September 13, at 6 p.m., and on WXXI-TV 21 Sunday, September 16, at 7 p.m. Other upcoming acts include Hypnotic Clambake, Kinloch Nelson, Sarahi, The White Devils, La Fama Sin Gafas, The Dig Project, The Hi-Risers, Connie Deming, Watkins & The Rapiers, and the Campbell Brothers, who just recorded a set on August 23 to a packed studio.

"We had someone in the audience tell us last night that he had gone to the ‘Austin City Limits' recently and that in terms of the audience experience - the intimacy, the feeling of being welcome in the studio -  we really blew ‘Austin City Limits' away, so we felt good about that," Orlando says.

The Music Fund grant provides "OnStage" with funding through at least season two. "We're going to continue all along to try and make this a sustainable series, so we can keep it going in the community," Orlando says.