The Loop Files: An Oral History of the Most Outrageous Radio Station Ever

by Rick Kaempfer

People loved the music, but it was the personalities that really clicked the most. Steve & Garry would do a live Breakfast Club. I went to almost every one of them at the Allerton Hotel, in the Tip Top Tap. It later moved to the Carnegie Theatre. I can remember one day at the Carnegie, they went into a commercial break, so I just walked outside. And John Belushi was standing out on the sidewalk.

Garry Meier The moment I knew we had really started clicking was when we started that anti disco thing. We had a membership card you had to get to become an official member of the anti-disco army. I’ll never forget this. One day sacks and sacks and sacks of mail were brought into this conference room. Every card or letter was asking to become a member of the anti-disco army. It was akin to that scene in Miracle on 34th Street where they brought sacks of mail in for Kris Kringle. That’s what it reminded me of. We had tapped into something there with the kids of Chicago.

Mitch Michaels The

station was getting a lot of buzz and you could see it as much as you could feel it. As the cool weather gave way and people started ditching their coats, I saw more and more black Loop shirts walking around. The T-shirts became their own phenomenon; they were everywhere! It was like a band’s concert-shirt, only we were the band. Actually, we did have a band, kind of. Dahl later fronted a group called Teenage Radiation and they played shows all over Chicago. He also had this thing he was doing on the air, this vindictive and vitriolic bit where he would start to play a disco record and then a few seconds in he’d drag the needle across it making that irritating scratching sound. Then he’d play a sounder of an explosion and “blow it up real good.” It all stemmed from his being let go from WDAI-FM when they decided to flip from rock to a disco format. Steve Dahl (in 1979) The disco culture represents the surreal, insidious, weird oppression because you have to look good, you know, tuck your shirt in, perfect this, perfect that. It is all real intimidating. Besides the heavy sociological significance, it is just fun to be a pain in the ass to a bunch of creeps. Mitch Michaels It’s funny, everyone points to Comiskey Park as “Disco Demolition,” but few people are aware that was actually the second time Steve did that. He did it for the first time in June at this old club called Pointe East in Lynwood. Now Pointe East was huge. I mean, when you think of a south side rock club, Po...

Jeff Schwartz There wouldn’t have been a Disco Demolition if Steve wasn’t blowing up disco records on the air at the time. That’s where the idea starts. I was having dinner with Mike Veeck, and at the time the White Sox were drawing nobody – maybe five, six thousand a night. Mike said “We’re dying here. Do you have any ideas?” They had just put in the exploding scoreboard, and I suggested that we do the promotion with Steve blowing up the records. Mike Veeck We did (“Disco Night’’ at Comiskey in 1977) and we all went to Millers Pub that night and about 4 o’clock in the morning Schwartz says to me: ‘We drew all those people for disco, it’d be really fun to see what we could draw for a night just for rock and roll. That’s where the idea was planted. I never forgot that, and then when I heard they had a guy that blew up disco records... I told the old man (Mike’s father, Sox owner Bill Veeck) ‘’We’re going to blow up some disco records.’’ He said: ‘What’s disco?’’ I said ‘Just think about Louis Satchmo on steroids. That’s it. You’ll like it.’ He didn’t have a clue.

wasn’t part of the original planning of any of this and I’m not taking credit for anything. I do, however, remember being in Les’ office when they started to talk about it. Schwartz, Les Elias, Jessie Bullett, Mike Veeck, and I were in there and they started planning Disco Demolition night for a between game promotion on July 12th. Each one of us wrote a number on the blackboard of how many people we thought it would draw. Comiskey held about 42,000 people. I don’t remember who guessed what, but I do remember nobody guessed higher than 28,000. So that’s what we went with: 28,000 and that turned out to be part of the problem. None of us knew how big this was going to be. Even we didn’t know how big our fanbase had become or how rock and roll crazy they were, but that night was going to teach us all in a hurry. It was 98 cents plus a disco record to get into the stadium that night. Fans would come in, drop their disco record in a bin, then get in for the games. Mike Veeck Look at what we were averaging that year. Look at the club that year. I would’ve set my father and myself on fire if it had drawn people. We were desperate. Let’s face it. Everyone was like ‘Why did you do it?’ Because we were going out of business, which we basically did the following year. Jeff Schwartz After that, it was a bunch of people working together to make it happen. Mike Veeck never said no to a crazy idea, I never said no to a crazy idea, but Steve was worried about attendance, and thought that ...

Mitch Michaels When the station had those meetings with Mike Veeck a few months earlier that put Disco Demolition into place, they had also built another promotion as well called “A Day in The Park” which was a concert at Comiskey Park featuring Molly Hatchet, Thin Lizzy, Eddie Money, Journey, and Santana. All those bands for only $6.98 a ticket. The kicker? It was slated to take place exactly one month later on August 12th. We had been

Steve & Garry hosted a Christmas TV special shortly thereafter called “Not for Midgets Only” which featured clips from that Who show. It also featured a live performance of Steve’s parody song “Oh Wally” in which the Lady from Tinley Park (Steve) croons a song of love to the morning host from WGN Radio, Wally Phillips. Dahl was merciless in ripping the very uncool older audience. It was to the tune of the Barry Manilow hit “Mandy.” “Oh Wally, I just called, and you gave me some panty hose. With a co-o-o-otten panel.”

We booked the Amphitheatre for a two-day fest in February and all kinds of vendors signed on, everything from head shops that sold papers and pipes to motorcycle dealers to record stores. All the live music was going to be local bands but nothing but the best of the best. Bands like Off Broadway, The Boyzz from Illinois, the Pez Band, and M&R Rush would be some of the headliners. We had five or six bands each day and kept the ticket prices cheap, $3.98 or something. It was general admission so people could come and go.

Part of it was the situation and part of it was his style. It rubbed me that he didn’t know Chicago or The Loop or our listeners. Anyone who has ever worked in Chicago radio will tell you: Chicago is its own world. I don’t care how successful you are outside of Chicago; this town is its own animal.

Would I to some degree do everything else? No question. I went to New York and ran in my underwear in New York City because I lost a bet at the Packers and the Bears. Got pulled by a car on skis on Michigan Avenue in my underwear. Rode a bull into a China shop when Bloomingdales opened. I still would do it today. I’d do anything. When listeners say, he’s not just using us. He’s doing it too! He’s out here with us, he’s just as crazy as we are. I loved hearing it from their voices. When the listener was saying it, man that meant everything to me. That meant everything to me. Bob Stroud Oh my god. Jimmy “Bud” Wiser. I can still hear him in that barrel at the rodeo... “Johnny, I’m not kidding around here! This isn’t funny!” Jim Wiser Just having fun while it lasts, and when I’m old, I’ll have stories to tell my grandchildren about. “Can you believe your

We’re All Crazy in Chicago, a Brandmeier original, became an anthem for the city. It was a Top Ten hit in Chicago. His song “The Moo Moo Song” (based on a real news story of a man trying to make love to a cow at Lincoln Park Zoo) was also a big hit.

Chet Coppock I remember sitting in Poplar Creek when Johnny performed with the Leisure Suits in front of 20,000 people. 20,000 people. That’s a jock, I mean, that’s not the Rolling Stones. That’s not The Who. That’s not Beyonce. That’s Johnny Brandmeier through the strength of the brand he developed drawing 20,000 people, which to me to this day is incredible.

One time I was with Chet, and someone yelled out “Hey, Mark” so I waved to him. Chet goes – “Markie. No, no, no, no, never wave at a specific fan. You wave to the whole section. Eddie Vrdolyak taught me that.”

Jim Modelski Steve named the Coppock producers and interns “the Boyquarium” because he would watch us come and go through the studio glass as we prepared the show. The main cast of characters known as the boyquarium was Steve Anton, Tom Serritella, Mark Gentzkow, Craig Larson. And most people don’t remember this, but the current play by play voice of the Blackhawks on radio, John Weideman, was also a Chet Coppock intern.