It's an ugly thing when a radio station dies. At midnight last Sunday, KKND 1490, "The End," faded into a hiss of static, only to be replaced instantly with a 24-hour sportstalk station. Tucson's first and only AM "alternative rock" station ended its all too brief nine-month cruise on the airwaves with a fury of rare, special gems from the modern music world and a lot of DJ buffoonery.

The station did not go quietly. During the last weekend the format completely dissolved, and everything from big-band music to ska to Jim Morrison (singing "The End") danced cheek-to-cheek with Bush and Smashing Pumpkins. DJs jumped in and out throughout the day, offering witty and bitter comments. Sunday afternoon they played REM's anthemic "End of the World as We Know It (I Feel Fine)" for two hours straight, with few commercial breaks. The last 10 minutes were the most tragic (and annoying): a three-person conference call chorus of "Take Me Out to the Ball game" and the sound of a flushing toilet brought the days of 1490 to the ultimate end.

I liked "The End." It was quirky, bizarre, and not beset by rumble-voiced beer commercials. The crackly AM reception made every band sound like indie punks with a split 7-inch single. They still had the guts to play old Cure songs, true lo-fi acts like Morphine (I swear I heard Gas Huffer one night) and lots and lots of local music. "Once Upon a Weekend," its Friday-night interview/live music show, was both funny and cool, often getting nicely out of control. And of course, Slab Bacon's Monday-night ska show was simply not to be missed - there's just nowhere else in Tucson to hear those kind of tunes.

Operations manager Allan Hammerell was one of the co-creators of 1490 and its format, and he expressed sadness at seeing it go, but wasn't that surprised. Though 1490 had a lock on the market when it debuted last June, many other alternative and modern rock stations have since crowded the airwaves, on the more popular FM band.

"Ownership, upper management made the decision €it was very self-evident, when you look at the existing market, that the future profitability (of the station) just wasn't there. If there wasn't a major FM competitor, 'The End' might have survived," Hammerell said.

Hammerell felt that "The End" was unique, a signature sound in Tucson. He was also consistently surprised and enthused by the quality of his staff and listening audience.

"The people who listened tended to be highly cerebral, interesting people, and so were the staffers - a high-caliber group overall," he said. "Many of the callers we had in the final weekend were intelligent, thoughtful and pretty disappointed."

Chris Paddock, a.k.a "Curly," was the other half of the team that created "The End," and shared a similar sense of mourning. He also felt 1490 occupied a unique space on the airwaves.

"Well I got to hear the Pixies on the radio, XTC on the radio, The The, stuff that hardly anyone ever played," Paddock said. "That was one of the kicks - it was like having your own little jukebox."

This being a college town, Hammerell and Paddock found Tucson a pretty eager audience for a modern rock station. "People were hungry for it," Paddock said. "Yet the sad part of 'alterative' is it is just flavor of the month. ... Will it be here in a year?"

When asked about the commercial market, he sighed and took a cynical turn. "Is there a market (for alternative radio) in Tucson? I question that," Paddock said. "College students are a transient market, yet you need a solid base to build a listening audience - students are the most unstable audience in the world. These are the kind of people who eat Cheetos for dinner, not religiously fill out ratings diaries."

His attitude was a mixture of nostalgia and bitterness, but Curly (now working at 100.3, "The Edge," in Phoenix) had fond memories of 1490. "We brought a full-time alternative station to Tucson," he said, "and that was great. ... I don't think anyone can take that away."

Supposedly there is an area in northwest Tucson where at one time you could hear "The End" and KMFA 92.1, as well as "The Edge" and 103.5 bounced from Phoenix, and at any given time there were good odds that at least two were playing Bush. This is crowded airspace, and it seems pretty obvious that some stations would not survive. Crackly, quirky, mono 1490 seemed an obvious fall guy. As my friend summed it up, "AM sucks."

Did I really need another outlet to hear Live and Alanis "Lungs" Morissette at any given hour of the day? The alterna-schlock that filled the majority of "The End"'s airtime was pretty damn uninteresting, like ore dragged from a mine. Yet buried in that bland pseudo-alternative mix were a few gems, new and old, presented by a few quirky, brilliantly talented DJs. I heard local bands I wouldn't have heard any other way, I learned more about ska than I ever needed to know, and I got to hear tracks from The Pixies' "Bossanova" over the gently hissing airwaves - I can almost forgive them for playing Smashing Pumpkins every hour on the hour.

Farewell, 1490 - we hardly knew ye. Welcome, my fellow Tucsonans, to an age of bland, factory-produced stations with top 20 playlists. Even Suzie Dunn can't save us from such a fate.