{"id":5591,"date":"2023-11-29T13:22:08","date_gmt":"2023-11-29T18:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/?p=5591"},"modified":"2023-11-29T13:22:08","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T18:22:08","slug":"the-loop-files-takes-readers-behind-the-scenes-of-legendary-rock-stations-glory-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/?p=5591","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Loop Files\u2019 Takes Readers Behind The Scenes Of Legendary Rock Station\u2019s Glory Days"},"content":{"rendered":"
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SOURCE: blockclubchicago.org by \u00a0Gwen Ihnat<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From left: Jessie Bullett, Mitch Michaels, Gregg Allman, Lee Abrams, Sky Daniels and a record company rep at the Loop.\u00a0Credit:\u00a0The Loop Files\/Paul Natkin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a lot of frequent fluctuations on the radio dial, and if you grew up in Chicago, there\u2019s probably one long-lost station you can\u2019t believe is no longer on the air: WLUP (97.9 FM).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, a new volume by a former WLUP employee, \u201cThe Loop Files: An Oral History of the Most Outrageous Radio Station Ever,\u201d is letting readers revisit those unhinged days of radio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few decades back, the FM rock station wars of the \u201870s gave way to the over-the-top antics of larger-than-life disc jockeys in the \u201880s and \u201890s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And no station was more legendary than the Loop (as WLUP was commonly called), with iconic Chicago characters like Jonathan Brandmeier, Kevin Matthews, Lorelei and of course, Steve (Dahl) and Garry (Meier). Even if you never heard a single nanosecond of the Loop when it was on the air, you\u2019ve likely heard of \u201cDisco Demolition,\u201d Dahl\u2019s still-controversial anti-disco WLUP promo stunt at then-Comiskey Park in 1979, which started a riot and caused the White Sox to forfeit the second game of a double-header.<\/p>\n\n\n

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From the station\u2019s dawn in 1977 to its eventual demise in 2018, the Loop was the consummate Chicago station. Over the years, broadcasting from the John Hancock Tower at 875 N. Michigan Ave., its format swayed from rock to talk to various combinations of both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, the station was sold and WLUP became WCKL-FM, a Christian music station. The last song played on WLUP on March 9, 2018, was a Steve Dahl suggestion: AC\/DC\u2019s \u201cHighway to Hell.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many of WLUP\u2019s most notorious years, Rick Kaempfer was there. The suburban Chicago native was the producer for Steve and Garry, eventually getting his own on-air slot on the station as a disc jockey. He eventually moved on to writing and publishing: He\u2019s been a regular contributor to the Illinois Entertainer since 2013, interviewing various media personalities, and now runs his own publishing company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he told Block Club that The Loop always stuck with him. And now, he\u2019s compiled multitude of interviews and memories into the new volume, \u201cThe Loop Files: An Oral History of the Most Outrageous Radio Station Ever,\u201d released on his own Eckhartz Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been doing these interviews for, you know, 30 years, in some way, shape or form. So I had a big base of stuff to start with. And some of the people in the book are not even alive anymore. Having those interviews was special.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAbout a year or so ago, my co-publisher said to me, \u2018Hey, dummy, how is it that you worked there all these years, and this station has been gone now for so long and nobody has ever written about it. You literally know every single person that ever worked there. Why don\u2019t you write this book?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kaempfer wisely decided to do the volume in an oral history format, with over 100 individual interviews. \u201cSo I can tell the story of the Loop without me being the one telling the story. It\u2019s the people that were actually there telling the story. And I\u2019m just putting it into a narrative form.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That form is, frankly, fascinating, as Kaempfer\u2019s interviewees reveal stories from the unbridled days of FM radio, like an R-rated \u201cWKRP in Cincinnati.\u201d Then-famous names like Sky Daniels, Buzz Kilman and Bob Stroud reveal station rivalries with other RIP rock stations like WMET, recall seeing a young band named Van Halen at the Aragon and describe microphone effect pranks gone awry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was mayhem,\u201d Kaempfer remembers. \u201cJust walking the hallways during the day you might run into, you know, Milton Berle and Eddie Van Halen. You just never know what you\u2019d see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Due to most of the jocks\u2019 effervescent personas, WLUP eventually transitioned from a rock station to one that was more personality driven; its AM counterpart, WLUP-AM, went all talk. Most of the jocks even had their own bands so their fans could see them perform live, like Brandmeier\u2019s Johnny and the Leisure Suits and Kevin Matthews\u2019 Ed Zeppelin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even in a studio full of stars, none were bigger than Steve and Garry and their followers united under the moniker, \u201cInsane Coho Lips.\u201d    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Kaempfer described working on that show, \u201cIt was a tightrope. Because even on the good days, there was tension. We didn\u2019t really plan out the show, past just bullet points and what we may be discussing. So every day, the show could go in a million different directions, and I just had to be prepared. And often when I wasn\u2019t prepared, 300,000 people would hear about it. So it was really good motivation to work hard, basically.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The careers of Steve and Garry had a few major milestones: one being the \u201cDisco Demolition,\u201d in which the pair (with Dahl leading the charge in military garb) invaded the field at Comiskey in between two games of a double-header to blow up disco records, in honor of their motto, \u201cDisco Sucks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a modern standpoint, the anti-disco movement is seen as racist and homophobic, since disco artists and audiences were primarily made up of gay people and people of color. But Kaempfer remembered that day differently, and also addresses the \u201cDisco Demolition\u201d controversy in the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was a teenager when it happened. And I considered myself an anti-disco person, and there was not a trace of racism or misogyny or being homophobic,\u201d he told Block Club. \u201cFor me, it was like, I love rock and roll. And these other music genres are not as cool as rock and roll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow, looking back on it, I can see why people think of it that way. And I\u2019ve watched all the specials that say it, but I know that that was not their motivation. And having been one of the anti-disco army people myself, I know that that was not our intention.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other explosive moment in the career of Steve and Garry was when the pair broke up in 1993, practically on air. Meier had gotten married and was off on his honeymoon; before he left, he insisted that his wedding not be discussed on the show. When Dahl went ahead and talked about the wedding on air regardless in Meier\u2019s absence, Meier broke up the partnership. Dahl did not show up for the ceremony when the pair was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2013, and Meier was not among the number of former jocks who revisited the station for the Loop\u2019s final broadcast day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kaempfer had already left the show by that time, but he was less surprised by the split than most. And his exploration of it is one of the most riveting segments in his book. He says Dahl discussing Meier\u2019s wedding \u201cwas kind of the final straw. And when you read it, I think I laid the groundwork for how it was already kind of deteriorating at that point. It was just the final nail in the coffin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Loop fans were devastated over the dissolving of the duo, a local version of the Beatles breakup. Because with Steve and Garry, Johnny B, Kevin Matthews and the rest, the city holds its local media figures in high regard, Kaempfer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBrandmeier was very generous with his time talking to me about this book. And the thing that I took away my time talking to him, is how much he appreciated the listeners, that the connection to the audience was much more important to him than the accolades and the media or whatever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a Chicago media thing. It\u2019s a major city, but it\u2019s very provincial. We consider our local celebrities our own. Even if Steve and Garry went nationwide, they were always gonna be Chicago.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then as now, there\u2019s one item of clothing that was unparalleled in coolness in Chicago: the black Loop T-shirt. Kaempfer recently was in search of the classic shirt ahead of an appearance on the WGN morning show, featuring anchor Robin Baumgarten, who used to do traffic on the Loop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, \u201cI just found one online,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re still out there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Loop Files: An Oral History of the Most Outrageous Radio Station Ever\u201d is available to order at eckhartzpress.com. Rick Kaempfer will appear at a launch party for the book 7-9 p.m. Thursday at Pippin\u2019s, 39 E. Chicago Ave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SOURCE: blockclubchicago.org by \u00a0Gwen Ihnat From left: Jessie Bullett, Mitch Michaels, Gregg Allman, Lee Abrams, Sky Daniels and a record company rep at the Loop.\u00a0Credit:\u00a0The Loop Files\/Paul Natkin There are a lot of frequent fluctuations on the radio dial, and if you grew up in Chicago, there\u2019s probably one long-lost station you can\u2019t believe is… Read More »\u2018The Loop Files\u2019 Takes Readers Behind The Scenes Of Legendary Rock Station\u2019s Glory Days<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5591"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5596,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5591\/revisions\/5596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}