This Fourth of July weekend, KDGE "The Edge" (first at 94.5, now 102.1) celebrates its 20th anniversary. Alex Luke and George Gimarc, two of the Edge&rsquo;s earliest and most important DJs (and both eventual music directors), weigh in on the station&rsquo;s history, its influence and the big 2-0: </p><p><strong>How/when did you guys get started at the Edge?</strong></p><p><strong>George: </strong>I was the first official hire by the station, sometime in April/May of 1989. The owner was coming in from Phoenix and already had the frequency and the intent to do something different. The scramble was on to build a station from scratch. That&rsquo;s something that doesn&rsquo;t happen very often anymore.</p><p><strong>Alex:</strong> I started doing weekend overnights as a DJ the very first weekend the station was on the air. Within a couple months I had made my case to put <em>The</em><em>Adventure Club </em>on the air, and began hosting <em>Edge Club</em> as well. I used to drive up from Texas A&M on Friday afternoons, do Friday overnight, Saturday overnight, <em>The Adventure Club</em>, and then drive back to school Sunday at midnight. When I graduated in May of 1990, they gave me full-time overnights.</p><p><strong>Talk about the importance of the Edge&rsquo;s early days.</strong></p><p><strong>George:</strong> The Edge was the only place to hear what we think of today as pretty normal bands. In 1989, there was no station around here playing groups like R.E.M., the Cure, Depeche Mode, B-52s, and even hearing U2 was pretty rare. We plunked down right in the middle of all that &mdash; and stretched out to the bounds. We also jumped into the vibrant local music scene, playing unsigned bands just as if they were national acts. </p><p><strong>How has the Edge changed over the years?</strong></p><p><strong>Alex:</strong> [Early on] I&rsquo;d speculate we probably supported local music more than any commercial station in the country. You could see the effects of it from 1990 to &rsquo;94, when we had dozens of Dallas artists with major-label deals, like the Toadies, Tripping Daisy, Reverend Horton Heat, Deep Blue Something and Funland. In the last year or two I was there, Joel Folger joined the station as program director, and it evolved into a much more rhythmic and pop-leaning station. I think that alienated some of the station&rsquo;s original fans but brought a much larger audience to the station. Even though the tone of the station changed dramatically, the basic principals of stepping out on something unknown, with something familiar alongside, is still there.</p><p><strong>The Edge has taken flack for not putting independent artists in regular rotation anymore.</strong></p><p><strong>Alex:</strong> As alternative music went "overground," a lot of that was just backlash from a core audience that had been into alternative music for years. We had the highest ratings at the Edge when it was the most mainstream, repetitive and pop-leaning, but we were still [playing] completely unknown artists, albeit less of them. </p><p><strong>Why has the Edge survived 20 years? It&rsquo;s one of the very few stations in DFW to do so.</strong></p><p><strong>George:</strong> When it comes to this type of music, they are the only game in town. We&rsquo;ve got a weird market here: It&rsquo;s huge, with no college radio station acting as other typical college stations do &mdash; that is, playing alternative music. If that were the case, they might have pushed the Edge to be more eclectic or pushed them off the air. But then there&rsquo;s heritage, too. After a few years, you just become the destination. </p><p><hr class="infobox-hr-separator" /> <div class="infobox"> 94.5 The Edge 20th Anniversary Reunion With June Halo, Deep Blue Something, Pop Poppins, others</p><p>6 p.m. Friday </p><p>Lakewood Theater, Dallas</p><p><a href="http://www.945reunion.com/Tickets.html">www.945reunion.com/Tickets.html</a></p><p></div>