The beginning of the 90′s marked an era of change both for XRT and the city of Chicago. The 80′s had ended and grunge had taken off, and Lin Brehmer began his stint as morning DJ for XRT. Lin was merely a long-haired freshman in college with a passion for rock music when XRT first hit the airwaves in 1972, little did he know that just under twenty years later he would become one of the most influential voices on the music scene of Chicago.

In 1993, as part of XRT’s quarterly publication Xpress, Lin wrote an article entitled “93…From Every Angle” that pegged down 93 as the year that Chicago put itself on the map. 1993 was the year that Chicago’s own Smashing Pumpkins had their major label debut with “Siamese Dream” and the year that they were on the cover of Spins 100th issue. Unlike Seattle’s Grunge, Chicago was not pigeonholed into a specific sound, for Lin, what made Chicago special was its spectrum. Though ’93 was the year Chicago saw the retirement of both Jordan and Ditka, it was not a year to forgotten. It was a year that made Chicago what it is today. A city on the cutting edge.

Lin writes, with great air of pride, “When the supermodels hit the runways in overpriced Neil Young hand-me-downs, you knew grunge had come and gone. And Chicago? Discovered.” This was no outlandish claim either. Lin cites that even Billboard Magazine called Chicago “The new capital of the cutting edge”.

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