by *Before the Internet
August 5, 1986, I dumped my belongings in the apartment at Wrightwood and headed to Ranalli’s on Lincoln.
The pizzeria’s brick outdoor patio was lively and on this humid Tuesday late afternoon, I had officially become a Chicago resident as of about two hours earlier. I ordered a beer and waited for my older sister, who lived nearby on Lincoln and was commuting back from her workday at a downtown agency.
The drive up from Evansville had been adrenaline-fueled. Now I was here. Northside Chicago and the hum, the pace, was all around. Somewhere in the background, WXRT was playing a track from the Steve Winwood “Back in the High Life” LP.
FM Radio in a Major Market
Value/relevance in present: A reminder of what radio was before algorithms and streaming playlists, when stations had personalities, DJs had voices you not only recognized, but you needed — and your dial “position” said something about you.
Description: Chicago radio in the mid-80s meant choice and competition that made every station sharper. We had WXRT (93.1), the album-oriented rock station that played deep album cuts, alternaweird stuff from edgy units like Bauhaus and plenty of college rock (but I repeat myself).
There was WCKG (105.9), the classic-rock powerhouse that would on occasion play an entire deepcut LP, such as Physical Graffiti, uninterrupted. To me this was unheard of, as you couldn’t access any of this music, up to this moment unless you already owned the vinyl or knew someone that did.
And we had WLUP “The Loop” (97.9), which combined morning talk (the top-rated morning program in town, Jonathan Brandmeier) before shifting midday into a mix of metal and classic hits (U2 yes, REM – some, but not as much).
A fond memory: weekdays during afternoon drive, The Loop delivered a one-two punch, “Traffic Jam” (5–6 p.m.) followed by “Mood Elevation Hour” (6–7 p.m.) — two hours of mostly commercial-free rock to ease the rush hour grind. Bob Skafish (aka “Rob S”) would kick off the show with a killer, traffic-themed montage intro that included snippets from “Crosstown Traffic” by Hendrix, “Expressway to Your Heart” by the Soul Survivors, “Damn This Traffic Jam” by James Taylor.
Sixty minutes of deep cuts (“New World Man” or “Waiting for the Bus/Jesus Just Left Chicago”) and blistering riffs (“Whole Lotta Rosie”) followed, before sliding into the slightly mellower vibe of the Elevation hour (“Lunatic Fringe” or “Feeling That Way”), classic-rock goodness for anybody crawling along the Kennedy or the Dan Ryan.
Each station had a distinct identity and if you were driving somewhere or running on the lakefront or walking anywhere or just hangin’ in your apartment, you chose one as your primary. And that choice mattered.
WXRT was mine from the moment I first heard it. It was DJ-friendly, artist-friendly, and consciously chose to remain outside the corporate-programmed template. The station played album tracks that sounded like they’d been selected by someone who actually listened to music and not by a consultant in some boardroom.
What it imparted (benefits, lessons, etc.):
Radio stations in that era were tastemakers and constant companions —something that’s sorely missed today. They were the arbiters of what got heard, introducing you to bands and track you’d never encounter otherwise. They made you feel plugged into your city and gave you built-in conversation starters: “Did you hear what Frank E. Lee said yesterday?” or “XRT just played three Talking Heads songs in a row this morning, is that even legal?”
Downsides: Tastemaking bonuses aside you were still at the mercy of someone else’s playlist. If the DJ was off that day, or the format shifted to some featured artist who was too random or just not your thing, you noticed. And if you missed a particular song, it was gone, no rewind, until some unknown Next Time. (So, you kept coming back… Not a negative.)
Winwood and the soundtrack of my arrival
I can’t separate Steve Winwood’s Back in the High Life from my first days in Chicago. The album was released that July and WXRT was all over it by the time I arrived.
It’s a record that captured the ’80s well, with Winwood’s clean production and distinctive keyboards, the fact that he played most of the instruments himself, plus Joe Walsh as a guest. The songs were upbeat without being mindless. This was an album you would not hear on Top 40 radio, or even on the programmed “cool” FM stations that seemed to pop up everywhere, even in markets the size of Evansville (120,000).
To me, the album marks my arrival and ‘commitment’ to XRT (weirdly enough: along with Traffic’s “Empty Pages,” the one song I would choose if I were forced to define WXRT in a single track.)
I still think of those first days when I hear it… Walking around Clark/Diversey/Fullerton, riding the 151 with a gorgeous view of Lake Michigan out one window and a bitter cold workday morning on the other, or jogging over Cannon (in the park) onto the lakefront paths, taking in the insane people-watching there 365 days a year.
The main DJ voice for me was that of Frank E. Lee, on XRT air weekdays from 2 to 6 p.m. Lee knew his shit, was dry as a bone humor-wise and let the music do the talking. He was clever in his grouping of songs, often to make a point or comment on current events by their titles or by which artists he paired together. That FM jock+humor restraint plus his confidence in the listener to get the reference were what made the difference.
That restraint marked a crucial difference between radio then and what came later. The best DJs in my opinion were caretakers who knew how to insert themselves just the right amount and then remain out of the way. The focus remained outward, on the music and the listener.
Contrast that with what emerged in later years, personalities who made everything about themselves. The Instagram/social media era only accelerated that shift — suddenly every platform became a stage for self-promotion. Most (not all!) jocks on XRT, The Loop and WCKG understood the primary mission was serving the listener first. Building the DJ’s personal brand arrived later and the better ones stayed in their lane.
Chicago radio worked because stations had to fight for your ear. WCKG playing entire album sides was a huge move to differentiate. WLUP leaning into Brandmeier’s morning-show energy got you through many a winter’s brutal, ever-dark workday mornings. XRT staying off-center and independent (without a trace of the pretentiousness that makes NPR suck) was about authenticity / being an original.
In smaller markets such as my hometown, you got one “rock” station playing the same stuff over and over. In Chicago, you got numerous distinct FM rock flavors, each trying hard to out-program the other.
Competition made them sharper… The successful ones worked harder to be great. And if you got bored or wanted variety — or the Now Playing choice was lame, you just turned the dial. We were spoiled by so many solid choices.
I listened to WXRT in my Jeep, on the bus, walking around with a Walkman, at home in the apartment on my stereo. The station was a constant… Reliable. It was a big part of my identity. And still is.
Before the Internet, before streaming, before Spotify handed you “every song ever recorded,” radio was how you had to discover new music. It was how you got your news.
And crucially, it was shared. Today, we all have subscription-based streamers giving us access to more music than we could listen to in ten lifetimes. We can call up any song, any album, any artist. It’s miraculous, really.
But it’s also isolating.
My Spotify playlist is mine, “curated” (oh, what an eye-rolling jargon word this is… unless you’re an actual museum curator arranging Renaissance nudes) by an algorithm that knows my listening history better than I do.
Problem is, there’s no real shared moment here as with radio. There are far fewer surprise deepcut “shooting star” moments that make me pull over and Shazam it asap, because I have no idea what I’m hearing, but I must know.
I still tune into WXRT online, especially “Saturday Morning Flashback” show, which takes listeners back to a specific year in rock history. It’s a stellar reminder of what radio was and, in rare pockets like this, still is.
Still not quite the same as sitting on that humid summer brick patio at Ranalli’s hearing “Higher Love” drift out of the bar, thinking, “Not bad.”
Stuart Wade 