Working With Steve Dahl...

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: Working With Steve Dahl... : By Gene Mueller : Story Created: Dec 6, 2008 : As is the case in radio of late, hardly a day goes by where a big name talent isn't being shown the door, especially if he/she makes a lot of money. : The latest to walk the plank: Chicago icon Steve Dahl. : Dahl was doing mornings at a music-intensive FM station with a format not unlike Milwaukee's new Lake FM. It wasn't a good fit and the ratings seemed to confirm that, especially when the method of measuring the audience changed from the traditional diary to the high-tech people-meter. CBS owns the station and has Dahl under contract for two more years, yet decided this week that they're better off paying him to stay at home. : Such is the state of modern radio. : It wasn't that way in 1981 as I was driving my yellow Chevy Chevette (packed with all my worldly possessions which fit, with ease, into the hatch of the emasculating vehicle) down Highway 41, having left the relative radio security of Stevens Point for whatever awaited me at Milwaukee's WQFM. "The Q" needed a new news director, I was eager for the big city and so it was that program director Brent Alberts brought me to town. QFM and WLPX were in the throes of a battle to the death for the ears of Milwaukee's album rock audience--men, ages 18 to 34. QFM had been the legendary alternative FM station with a relatively small budget while LPX was the polished, corporate newcomer fueled with slick ads, cool marketing and the wisdom of national consultants. It was Brent's job win the battle with limited resources. : And, Steve Dahl. : Dahl was at the peak of his radio ascension, having become a force at Chicago's WLUP. He and Garry Meier owned the same Windy City audience we at QFM coveted, and Dahl was willing to loan his skills to other markets. Dahl was nothing if not a savvy businessman, and was among the first to syndicate his morning show to both Detroit and Milwaukee. QFM had Steve and Garry until 10 a.m., and tunes the rest of the day. : So, where did the snot-nosed cub reporter from Central Wisconsin figure in? : One of my jobs as QFM's news director was to anchor morning newscasts between Dahl and Meier's schtick. Our news commitment, as one would expect, wasn't huge: QFM's mission was music, 'tude and street presence, not "reality checks" as Brent called newscasts. And, my news department consisted of a typewriter, an AP wire machine and...me. I was a one man band, but looked at QFM as a great opportunity to expand my skills, expose myself to a big market and perhaps pave my runway for something bigger down the road. : My first days at QFM coincided with Ronald Reagan's inauguration and the release of the Iranian hostages--in fact, I started the day after those two big events played out. I took the elevator up to the 21st floor of the Tower Building downtown, nervous about how I'd gather news in a city I knew OF but didn't really know ABOUT. Where would I come up with two minutes of stuff? Would I sound okay? Would I fit in? : Dahl and his co-horts were disembodied voices in my headset--his show coming from his studio in Chicago, piped into the QFM control room before it was sent out over our airwaves from our tower on Capitol Drive. I heard his stuff as I wrote, made my beat calls, wrote my scripts, then waited for his breaks where I'd read what I'd gathered, making sure I didn't go too long or short so we could rejoin his feeds on time. There was no interaction. I filled my two minutes, Chicago provided the other 58 each hour. : Soon, the unfamiliar became the routine, and all seemed well with the world. Dahl's show was making Milwaukee inroads. QFM was getting traction. Brent seemed to like what his newly hired news director was doing. In fact, there was even talk of Dahl doing a remote broadcast from Milwaukee some morning soon--hell, I could finally meet my morning show co-hort face-to-face. Maybe I could make an impression--write a newscast hip and clever enough to catch his ear and, wow, boy, golly gee, maybe Dahl would find me so damn irresistible and talented that he'd just HAVE to add me to his Chicago ensemble. Dare I dream of going BIG TIME?!? : The dream died about a month after I got to QFM, as his Chicago station, WLUP, abruptly fired Dahl for "repeated violations of community standards". : The syndicate died. So did my dream of riding shotgun with Steve and Garry. Our "on-air" time together amounted to about four weeks. : Of course, Dahl's firing immediately got me to wondering about my QFM future--Brent needed a new morning show to fill the void, and I was afraid I'd be blown out as he brought in a whole new crew. Brent assured me that I had a job, that I'd be part of the station's future, and that he'd have a new live host in the studio soon. : Enter Steve Stevens. : Steve was a long-time veteran of Milwaukee's top 40 wars having served several stints at WOKY. He was buddies with QFM General Manager Ralph Barnes who'd been his boss when Barnes called the shots at the Mighty 92. Barnes told Brent to hire Steve, and so our shotgun radio relationship began. : Steve was older than I--me at 24, he somewhere in his mid 30's, I'm guessing. He'd been around the radio block. He knew where the bodies were buried. He knew everyone. He'd done everything. : But, he'd never done album-rock morning radio. In fact, neither had I, save the four weeks I did Dahl's newscasts. I didn't know if he'd want me as his news guy, much less part of his show. Steve wanted both, and we had a lot of fun together cobbling together a gig. We had a blast, on the air and off. When the show ended at ten, Steve would literally grab me by the collar and drag me to his favorite bar--Snug's, in the Prospect Hotel on the east side. Never mind that it was 10:30 a.m. and the fact that the joint wasn't even open yet (each of our "post show meetings" started with us pulling our stools off the bar). Steve could drink before the place opened because he was fairly tight with the owners--the Balestrieri's. Yep, Joe, John and dad. It was common for us to bend elbows with one or both of the brothers with me sitting in slack-jawed silence while Steve and the boys told stories. Imagine my surprise years later when I found out that the feds had an interest in how the boys did business outside the bar. I'm sure that more than one of my trips to the hotel bathroom ended up on a government surveillance tape somewhere. : Steve and I lasted a few months. Brent wasn't getting the numbers he needed, and he eventually talked Ralph into pulling the plug. For whatever reason, Steve took the blow. I was spared, promised by Brett that a new partner was on the way who would be someone that met HIS criteria for a host, not Ralph's. : So began the age of Jim Rodio, and "Morning Sickness". Our numbers grew, and we had a brief but successful run before Dallas Cole lured me to KTI in September of 1982. : Good things would follow. : No, I never got to meet Dahl. I wasn't able to get him to dazzle him with what I could do, to toss that career Hail Mary. I was young and dumb and arrogant enough to think I actually had a chance. I was beyond lucky that things worked out the way they did. : I don't know what happened to Steve Stevens, and Rodio's whereabouts remain a mystery. Brent is alive and well and still doing radio--he has a great website that I've written about in the past. It's a must for anyone who wants to relieve the "Rock On, Milwaukee" days of the legendary 93QFM. : I DO know what happened to Dahl--his '81 dismissal was a mere speed bump in a colorful career that would continue for decades at any number of Chicago area stations. But his salary grew as his numbers started to shrink, and radio's economic gods decided this week that he's expendable. So much for happy endings. His wife, Janet, has a blog about it. : There aren't many of us in this business who get to orchestrate our own endings. Gordon Hinkley got to leave on his own terms after years as host of WTMJ's morning show, and my former partner Bob Reitman had 12 months to say goodbye before he retired. I told him on the air that final day that I couldn't be sad about his departure for that very reason--he was leaving on his own terms, at a time of his own choosing which just...doesn't...happen in this business. I've seen too many co-workers become abrupt former colleagues after a boss said, "Can I see you in my office after the show?" It's happened all too frequently this past year our very own building as the industry contracts and jobs go away. It's always been a part of what we do. Now, it's just happening way too often. : Even to the likes of Steve Dahl.

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