This news makes me happy. Steve Dahl is back on “regular” radio. WLS A.M. afternoons. I don’t have much more to add about it, just that this pleases me.
I don’t begrudge Steve Dahl or his fans that he is back on the air. But I’m bummed that it had to be at the cost of Roe Conn. I liked him a lot better than Dahl.
I thought the shows with Roe and Steve guesting were the best of both worlds, but as Steve noted today, WLS couldn’t afford that as a permanent arrangement.
I listened to Steve in the afternoons in the early 2000s, then switched to Roe for several years. With Roe, I felt I was listening to someone who was really smart, even if the show did get a little heavy and serious when Bill Leff or Roeper weren’t there. But today I was reminded how utterly frivolous Steve is; the whole show was entirely self-referential. Even the interview with Wallenda was instead made to be about Brandon’s incompetence.
I feel like my smoked gouda has been replaced with whipped cream.
This is fresh and happy news to me. I loved when I found Steve on 105.3 when I moved here. And I loved that Garry was on with Roe. They both gave me a lot of enjoyment during those times of intolerable traffic. Roe with Garry was great and the bits Roe did with Steve were great. I’m glad that Steve will be back full-blast, and I hope that Roe and Garry are involved in drive-time, even if they’re all competing. And I hope that Bill Leff(?), Buzz, and Wendy are around also.
Bill and Wendy are on WGN in the late morning or early afternoon.
That was how I felt. He had an obvious interest and mind for things like local politics that made him worth listening to even if I didn’t 100% agree and didn’t pander for a political audience.
That was, of course, when he was being serious. He was also plenty amusing the rest of the time.
Liked him with all of his co-hosts, really. But the last year or so the show itself became damn near impossible to listen to with the constant interruptions for traffic, weather, news and commercials. There was barely any show there and my time was better spent listening to music than waiting for the five minute snippets of content.
I always thought that Dahl’s best days were more than two decades ago. He was pretty awesome with Gary way back when but absolutely couldn’t stand him on WCKG when he was there. Too much self referencing, long pregnant pauses, pointlessly calling and arguing with Janet, needlessly fighting with radio management, obvious calls from fans who would plug his merchandise, and the endless badmouthing of his peers and former friends left me without any desire to listen to him.
I always thought that Johnny B, Kev, and Steve & Gary was the best lineup on the radio. I still think it’s the best radio ever had to offer and I know time marches on.
Happy news. Last I heard Steve was doing a pay-per-listen podcast/Internet show. The 1980/90s pairing of Steve and Garry was some of the best radio ever. I still have their cassettes “A Decade of Service” and occasionally break into “Oh Wally, I called and you gave me some pantyhose.”