Mike McGuff

Runaway Radio

Once upon a time, before our lives went fully digital, radio entertained, informed and dictated what was cool through theater of the mind - and with that Houston's 101 KLOL played a big role in the lives of rock radio listeners. The forthcoming documentary "Runaway Radio" focuses on the legendary outfit - starting in 1970 as a progressive rock station, where DJs played whatever they wanted, to how it evolved into one of several wild Album Oriented Rock (AOR) stations across the country, where on-air personalities were sometimes bigger than the music itself. In the film acclaimed musicians such as Lyle Lovett, ZZ Top's Dusty Hill, Melissa Etheridge and Sammy Hagar along with top radio DJs from across the US reflect on how the medium changed their lives and the lives of devoted listeners. Yet in the end, changes and pressures from Washington, the music industry and Silicon Valley led to the station's, and much of the format's, demise in the 2000s.