Sock Hop Radio — Twisting Through the Classics

The Feature — In Vic's Own Words

“Where Do We Go for This Now?”

The Sunday Sockhop signed off 98Cool-FM on December 31, 2025, after twenty-four years. The listeners had one question. This station is the answer.

By Vic Dubois Saskatoon, Sask.

Illustration of a 1950s sock hop: teenagers dancing on a gymnasium floor in saddle shoes and swing skirts, a band on the stage behind them, streamers overhead. — The kind of night this music was made for — a gymnasium floor, a band on the risers, and nobody sitting down. The heart of the station's sound is original rock & roll and doo-wop, mid-fifties to mid-sixties. Station illustration · Printed in one color of ink

I have spent more than fifty years of my life in radio. I started out as a DJ in British Columbia, moved on to Alberta, and finally landed in Saskatoon, where I spent my last twenty-four years as General Manager of the Saskatoon Media Group — two FM stations and one AM. That is a lot of years of signing other people's shows on and off the air.

For twenty-four of those years I kept one appointment of my own. Every week on 98Cool-FM I hosted The Sunday Sockhop — four hours of the music I grew up with. Four hours of the records that made me fall for this business in the first place.

On December 31, 2025, the Sockhop signed off for the last time.

The Question

What happened next is the reason you are reading this page. The letters and calls that came in after that final show nearly all asked the same thing: where do we go for this now? Not for oldies in general — you can find those anywhere. For this. The real thing, played by somebody who was there for it.

I didn't have a good answer. So I built one.

“If it sounds good, it goes on the air.”

The Answer

Sock Hop Radio plays the music of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, and the heart of it is original rock & roll and doo-wop from the mid-fifties to the mid-sixties. Every record is pulled by hand from my own collection. There is no committee and no consultant. My rule is the only rule: if it sounds good, it goes on the air.

We are on the air twenty-four hours a day, and new songs, jingles, and bits drop in daily — so the station you hear on Tuesday is not quite the station you heard on Sunday.

If you were one of the people who asked the question, this page is my letter back. Drop the needle and see. And if something sounds off, or sounds just right, write me at vic@sockhopradio.com. No bots, no auto-replies — I read every one.

Continued on the air — twenty-four hours a day, in the advertisement on this page.