Columns
Media: December 2024 • Chicago “Hearts” Billy Gardell
Billy Gardell became a household name while co-starring with Melissa McCarthy in the (2010-2016) sitcom Mike & Molly, but he’s certainly not a one-hit-wonder. He followed that with another five-year sitcom hit, Bob (heart emoji) Abishola. If you’ve ever wondered how to pronounce that correctly, you’re not alone. “It’s not Bob loves,” Billy explains. […]
Media: November 2024 • Danny Mac’s Beloved Bears Book
Dan McNeil was one of Chicago’s most controversial sports talk show hosts for decades. After long stints at the Score (670 AM) and ESPN (AM 1000), along with a few other stops on the radio dial (the Drive, the Loop), Dan has turned his talents to the written word. He has a new book […]
Stage Buzz: Heavy Chicago Fest November 1, 2 and 3
By Kelley Simms Heavy Chicago returns to Avondale Music Hall in this weekend for a second consecutive year. Last year’s festival was considered a rousing success, and this year’s fest is already living up to its prestige. A fantastic lineup is scheduled for three sweat-inducing days beginning this Friday, Nov. 1, and ending on Sunday, […]
Media: October 2024 • Chicago’s Very Own Dean Richards
Dean Richards had an entire career before he started working at WGN-TV. He had been working in radio for nearly twenty years at stations like WFYR, WCFL, WIND, WCLR, WNUA, and WGN Radio. He had been a morning host, program director, and production director and held down nearly every day on the air. The […]
Media: September 2024 • Rewound Radio
Once again, Rewound Radio (rewoundradio.com) is spending the entire Labor Day Weekend featuring classic shows from WLS and WCFL from the 1960s and 1970s. Ted Gorden Smucker is the man behind the plan. “When I was a kid, I loved radio and TV,” Smucker explains, “and when I was probably around sixth, seventh grade or […]
Media: August 2024 • Catching up with 97.1FM The Drive’s Brian Sherman
You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more approachable morning radio show than the Drive’s (97.1FM) Sherman and Tingle. They don’t just talk to the listeners on the phone, they do it in person. How many radio shows regularly go out to the bars with their listeners? Sherman and Tingle do it every week for a […]
Media: July 2024 • 45th Anniversary of Disco Demolition: A Loop Insider’s Story
In the heyday of the late ’70s and early ’80s, Loop (WLUP, 97.9 FM) was owned by Congressman Cecil Heftel of Heftel Broadcasting. The president of Heftel Broadcasting was Tom Hoyt. A few photos of Hoyt appear in my book The Loop Files, as do a few stories told by him during his Heftel […]
Media: June 2024 • 100 Years Of The Big ’89
This year, WLS-AM 890 is celebrating its 100th anniversary as a radio station. It’s really been three radio stations during that time. From 1924 to 1960, WLS served the farmers of the Midwest. Since 1989, it’s been a conservative talk radio station. But for 29 glorious years (1960-1989), it was the biggest Top-40 station in […]
Studiophile: Remembering Steve Albini
Audio engineer, musician, and studio owner Steve Albini passed away unexpectedly on Tuesday night (May 7). His death is a terrible loss not only to his family, colleagues, and friends but also to so many studio engineers and music fans who loved his production and passion. His extensive recording resume included groundbreaking bands like Nirvana, […]
Media: May 2024 • WXRT’s New Afternoon Host Andy Chanley
It’s not like changes are made every day to the daytime lineup at WXRT. When disc jockeys come to work at the station, they stay a decade or five. New WXRT afternoon man Andy Chanley was well aware of this when he took the job. “That was my biggest worry going into all this,” Chanley […]
Media • April 2024 • Me-TV FM’s Deep Cuts
After a 20+ year stretch on the air in Chicago (WCKG, WLUP, and the Drive), most music fans know Phil Manicki as a disc jockey. But before he became known on the air, Phil had a vibrant background in programming, and that history is helping him in his new role as the program director of […]
Media • March 2024 : Tom Skilling’s Parting Words
You won’t be surprised to discover that retiring WGN-TV meteorologist Tom Skilling has loved the weather since he was young. “My parents couldn’t figure out where the heck this weather passion came from,” Skilling admits. “I had a psychic tell me one time that I was a ship captain in a previous life. It’s […]
Media • February 2024 • Remembering the Early Loop
One of the great advantages of writing an oral history like I recently wrote about WLUP Radio (The Loop Files) is the opportunity to hear the stories right from the horse’s mouth. I interviewed over a hundred of those horses (Loop employees). Since the book came out a few months ago, I’ve heard from […]
Media • January 2024 • Brent’s Food Destinations
Growing up in suburban Chicago, Brent Petersen never thought he would become one of the top foodie podcast hosts in the world. “My first career was in radio,” he explains about his stints in Champaign, Peoria, and Providence, Rhode Island. “I wanted to find a way to get back into that audio medium because I […]
Media – December 2023 • In Memoriam
Every December, I write a column dedicated to the great pros we lost in the media this year. This year was a particularly cruel one. We lost writers like Bill Zehme and Joe Goddard (Chicago Sun-Times), television stars like Jerry Springer, Richard Belzer, Suzanne Somers, Matthew Perry, and Richard Moll, recording and movie stars […]
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