Dahl Steve - Disco Demolition: the night disco died

CURBSIDE SPLENDOR PUBLISHING

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of short passages quoted in reviews.

Published by Curbside Splendor Publishing, Inc., Chicago, Illinois in 2016.

First Edition

Copyright 2016 by Steve Dahl, Dave Hoekstra, Paul Natkin

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015948128

ISBN 978-1-945883-00-2

Cover photo used with permission by Paul Natkin

Design by Alban Fischer

www.curbsidesplendor.com

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Steve Dahl

M.C. ANTIL, gofer for Bill Veeck

THAD BOSLEY, 1979 White Sox player who later played for the Cubs, also a soul-gospel musician

ROGER BOSSARD, legendary third-generation groundskeeper at Comiskey Park/U.S. Cellular Field

JOE BRYL, Chicago DJ and cultural historian

MICHAEL CARTOLANO, president of Melrose Pyrotechnics, orchestrated the demolition, has worked with the White Sox since 1959

HARRY WAYNE CASEY, frontman of KC and the Sunshine Band (often credited as the godfathers of disco)

BOB CHICOINE & DAVE GABOREK, Comiskey Park vendors who worked Disco Demolition

JANET DAHL, Steve Dahls longtime wife and partner

STEVE DAHL, legendary Chicago radio DJ

DENNIS DEYOUNG, co-founder of the popular rock band Styx

TOM DREESEN, comic and fan of Faces, the citys best known disco

DJ LADY D (DARLENE JACKSON), international house music DJ, producer, owner of the Dlectable Music label

ED FARMER, 1979 White Sox player, current team announcer

NANCY FAUST, White Sox organist

TONY FITZPATRICK, Chicago artist, author, and former WLUP radio host

TOM GORSUCH, owner of The Original Mothers, the longest running dance club in America (with Chris Ryan)

KEVIN HICKEY, Chicago restaurateur, fifth-generation Bridgeport resident

JOHN ILTIS, Chicago publicist for WLUP and Disco Demolition

CHAKA KHAN, ten-time Grammy Award winner, R&B and jazz singer from Chicago

KEN KRAVEC, 1979 Chicago White Sox pitcher

TONY LA RUSSA, 1979 White Sox manager

RICHARD LEWIS, comedian

LES GROBSTEIN, reported on the game for the Associated Press, became Steve and Garrys sports reporter

LORELEI SHARK, the iconic rock girl of The Loop who was at Dahls side and threw out the first pitch of the double-header

DAVE LOGAN, promotions director at WLUP for Disco Demolition

GARRY MEIER, Chicago rock DJ and co-host of the Steve and Garry Show

MITCH MICHAELS, Chicago rock DJ since 1971

JERRY MICKELSON, co-founder of Jam Productions

PAUL NATKIN, Chicago rock n roll photographer

RICK NIELSEN, guitarist of Cheap Trick

JIM PETERIK, founder of the band Survivor and vocalist for the band Ides of March

JIM RITTENBERG, general manager at Faces

NILE RODGERS, lead guitarist and co-founder of the band Chic and ten-time nominee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

ROMAN J. SAWCZAK, member of Dahls backup band and producer of the Steve and Garry Show

JACK SCHALLER, owner of Schallers Pump in Bridgeport

JEFF SCHWARTZ, 1979 WLUP general sales manager and co-creator of Disco Demolition

JOE SHANAHAN, owner of Metro/Smart Bar

ANNE SORKIN, anti-disco crusader and niece of Chicago singer-songwriter John Prine

BOB SIROTT, Chicago radio and television personality

PAUL SULLIVAN,Chicago Tribune baseball writer

STEVE TROUT, 1979 White Sox player who later played for the Cubs

MIKE VEECK, organizer and son of late Hall of Famer Bill Veeck

OMAR VIZQUEL, former White Sox shortstop

RICK WOJCIK, South Side native and owner of Dusty Groove record store in Ukrainian Village

Steve Dahl on the field during Disco Demolition

DAVE HOEKSTRA

M uch gratitude to Janet and Steve Dahl for giving the freedom and latitude to share this story. No confines. Plenty of room to dance. And thanks to photographer Paul Natkin for his generosity of spirit.

My father died while I was working on this book. I thought of him a lot. He took me to my first baseball game, 1965, White Sox-Yankees at Comiskey Park. We sat in the right field upper deck and the players seemed so small.

It was a different world...

Steve Dahl addresses the crowd at Disco Demolition

DISCO DEMOLITION, BY BOB ODENKIRK

Fireworks. clouds of smoke, teenagers.

Beers in hand and the smell of beers a-wafting.

Levis, mullets, baseball jerseys,

disdain, grievance, and a hint of ultraviolence.

A dream fueled by Italian beef,

steak fries, sliders

unsettling, with a weird joy coursing through it all.

So sorry they had to cancel game twooops.

That is my poem about Disco Demolition. I hope you liked it. Nobody asks you to write poetry once you get out of grade school, because it tends to be annoying, but I thought Id take a hack at it because I am moved by the memory of Disco Demolition Night. Also, I like to make fun of poetry.

MY INTRODUCTION

D isco Demolition was a hoot. It may have been intended as a lark but at some point, a point that no one saw coming, it snowballed into a hoot. From another point of view, it was most certainly a debacle.

Not for me, though. I was and am a big Steve Dahl fan. I lived in Naperville, a quiet and pleasant burb. Too quiet and too pleasant, actually. I wanted to rebel against the general ease of it all. Growing up in the Catholic family with the alcoholic dad (yawn), I loved anyone who was saying, This garbage you see all around you? You got it right, its all garbage. When youre a teenager, the bullshit detector is fresh out of the box and the batteries are charged full. Steve laughed at pop culture, and his favorite people were my favorite people: John Belushi, Bill Murray, Joe Walsh, funny people with one eyebrow raised at the world. Steve Dahl was anarchy in my UK.

When people ask me why so many funny people come from Chicago, I tell them its got to do with this chip-on-your-shoulder, eyes-on-the-ground-in-front-of-you, no-smoke-blowing-allowed, rotten attitude. I love it still. (Steve is from California, so I dont know where he came to own his scoffing gaze, and I dont care.) He was the voice inside us, and he did things we wished we could do, like the breakfast club, the parody songs, the prank calls. And he laughed, a lot. Listening to him was fun as hell.