GC SF Sp WH BV YL BT CP SA CB CC Back to puzzle

YesterdayLand

Coast to Coaster

by Martin Reinfried
Answer: DISCO

How to Solve

The flavor reads as follows:

Welcome to the Coast to Coaster, the rollercoaster that hosts Penny Park’s very own radio station, WPUZ. Our show today is being picked up on both sides of the country, and if you’re listening to us from another city or town, enjoy the musical selections!

Following are 18 audio files in order that are snippets of somewhat obscure songs. You’ll notice that there is a bleep over one part of each song. Those turn out to bleep out one word of the lyrics, as follows:

  1. COCKFIGHT
  2. SWAGGERED
  3. INTERTWINE
  4. LIKELY
  5. JACKASS
  6. TWANGY
  7. SHOCKWAVE
  8. BLOWGUN
  9. BOOKSHOPS
  10. TRACKSUIT
  11. WHITEOUT
  12. PICKLOCKS
  13. SNOWSTORM
  14. TUMBLEWEED
  15. WAXY
  16. SKYROCKETS
  17. BANDWAGON
  18. STOWABLE

The solver may notice that these words all contain the call letters of a single existing US radio station, as shown above. The flavor may clue you to look at the cities where the radio stations are licensed:

  1. FRESNO
  2. BIRMINGHAM
  3. BROOKFIELD
  4. ELY
  5. CASPER
  6. BILOXI
  7. MONTEREY
  8. VALDOSTA
  9. LEBANON
  10. IOWA CITY
  11. MADISON
  12. TURLOCK
  13. OWENSBORO
  14. ROCKY MOUNT
  15. SOUTH MIAMI
  16. TROY
  17. SNOW HILL
  18. AMITE

Taking the “east” letters of the cities hosting radio stations beginning with W and the “west” letters of the cities hosting those beginning with K (bolded above), you get

FM DECIMAL INTO TITLE

There are 5 stations that are FM: 106.9 KASS, 96.9 KWAV, 91.7 KSUI, 96.1 WSTO, and 88.7 WAGO. Indexing the number after the decimal point into the title of the song that gave those call letters gives you:

  • SHAKE YOU DONKEY UP
  • CALIFORNIA
  • MADNESS
  • CHILL FACTOR
  • HANDBOOK FOR THE SELLOUT

Therefore, the solution is DISCO

Background and Credits

This puzzle came out pretty much fully baked and changed much less than my other puzzles. The idea was always to bleep out words containing radio station call letters, and to take letters from the “east” or “west” depending on the location of the station (starting with W or K), and once I got the answer word, Disco, I came up with the two-tiered extraction and found the songs.

Thank you to Linda Holman for the idea for the art. Ironically, her idea of a roller coaster with a radio tower led to my naming it Coast to Coaster, which turned out to be the working name for one of her puzzles, which she graciously ceded to me. Even more coincidentally, her puzzle used the same extraction of using letters from the left and right side. Sorry, Linda!