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

by Rick Kaempfer

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.