Review: Doin' The Cruise: Memories From a Lifetime in Radio and Rock & Roll

Doin' The Cruise: Memories From a Lifetime in Radio and Rock & Roll by Ken Churilla
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Autobiography of the radio career of long-time Chicago DJ Mitch Michaels. As many DJs do, Michaels bounced around a lot of radio stations in his career, starting in Ohio, then moving in his 20s to Chicago for the rest of his career. He talks about the personal stuff, the marriages and divorces, the kids, the relatives. He talks about his being in the right place at the right time, like WLUP the Loop when it promoted the Disco Demolition at Comiskey Park, and when that station started. The Chicago stations Michaels worked included WXRT, WDAI, WKQX, WLUP and WCKG. He more recently worked stations in the Western Suburbs.

This was interesting to me on many levels. Growing up far from Chicago's FM reach, I didn't know these stations, but I'd heard a lot about them from Chicagoans at the University of Illinois. It was difficult to pass a day without seeing at least one Chicago station t-shirt. I ended up moving to Chicago and experiencing the tail end of the FM rock boom. Michaels described it well, and since I've always been interested in radio, this was very interesting.

Also interesting was that when Michaels wasn't living downtown or on the Michigan shore, he lived pretty close to where I lived in the Western suburbs, a couple miles away. I never knew that. He describes the area and the times well.

Michaels does come across as a bit pushy and a bit arrogant. He seems to fall back on threatening people a lot. Given his radio DJ career, I kinda expected this, so was not surprised, but he doesn't come across necessarily as a guy you want to be friends with. Funny thing is that it seems he doesn't realize he comes across negatively - he's kind of oblivious. He also is that way in some of the business stories he tells, like starting a clothing store in Michigan and quickly expanding, that watching it fall apart in months. I'm not sure how much of that is Michaels directly or how much came from his co-writer.

Overall I liked the book, a better than average DJ life story, with the added benefit for me that it covers local stations and the Chicago area.

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