When the Chicago Tribune arrived at our door every morning, I usually would go right to the comics section because it was carrying the short-lived Star Wars strip by Russ Manning. Sometimes I would actually read the reviews by Gene Siskel thanks to the recognition he was receiving from the PBS show Sneak Previews. However, a headline caught my eye one morning. It was about some DJ being fired over a riot breaking out at Comiskey Park (where the White Sox used to play). My father explained the gist of it but he was a Cubs fan so I doubt he expressed much sympathy over the ChiSox having to forfeit the second game of a double header.
Years later I heard different accounts of what really happened through my friend/roommate Paul, other Chicagoans, anniversary specials, Wikipedia, etc.
At first it seemed like a goofy promotion gone awry but I think it was really Steve Dahl’s personal vendetta manifesting into something he lost control over, like his huge ego.
Earlier in his career, Dahl was a DJ at some station before WLUP and he was fired due to a change in format, a standard procedure. He took it more personally because the owners went to an all Disco format which was the flavor of the month. Nowadays Disco isn’t seen with such revulsion by people under 30 but in the late Seventies, people like Dahl felt threatened. It was the gay marriage equivalent of its time. Why? Only Dahl can say. I have my theory though: he was always a fat, uncoordinated jackass who couldn’t dance, had no sense of rhythm and was distraught over Led Zeppelin starting to break up. Many others, predominantly white males, shared Dahl’s sentiment (today, their descendants are Ron Paul’s base) and they showed up to vent their frustration when they destroyed the baseball diamond: Rod Stewart’s recent hit “Do Ya’ Think I’m Sexy,” the Stones having a dominant four-on-the-floor in “Miss You,” and “Made for Lovin’ You” by Kiss probably added fuel to the fires of rage.
This riot only propelled Dahl and his partner Meier to greater success in Chicago when another station (I think WLS) hired them. They went on to be the Midwest’s equivalent of Howard Stern through the Eighties and Nineties: boring, self-indulgent egomaniacs with a rabid following. To be fair, when Paul played his Steve & Garry greatest hits tape, it was amusing and occasionally funny. It worked for Paul because he already knew their inside jokes while I was confused due to my ignorance of Chicago politics, sports and celebrities. Plus, the tape only contained the hits which would be the few gems plucked from the avalanche of crap the show was on a daily basis. It’s a formula which continues today: blather long enough and something memorable and/or funny will happen. I think the monkeys with typewriters have better odds of producing a Twilight novel (crappy but legible and technically a book).
When I was teenager, I was on the anti-Disco bandwagon to a smaller extent, probably to cover up the shame of owning a Village People t-shirt…after learning that gay didn’t mean happy with those guys. Yet I gradually had a personal reconciliation with the more genuine artists of the genre starting in college. Their influences can be heard in Erasure, Goldfrapp, Depeche Mode, Garbage, Teddy Bears, Duran Duran and Van She. Even the most diehard, mullet-headed Zeppelin fan respects the musical talents of Nile Rodgers or Giorgio Moroder today. I didn’t care for the comeback in the Nineties; this was younger kids looking for kitsch, not a long-term appreciation.
Recently, the two windbags of Chicago gave a thoughtful analysis or defense of Disco. It really made me think about musical genres too. Branding something as Disco is rather pointless and I share the same sentiment over the Alternative label.