NIGHT ROCK: A Brief History Lesson

Once upon a time, a unique rock ‘n’ roll program came to the air waves of 103.9FM, then known as WFLM-104FM. It happened in the mid-‘70s…1976 to be exact.

The program was created, funded and produced by “Hegewisch Joe” Sotiros, the founder and owner of the then mighty Hegewisch Records retail chain.

At first, the show was split into two halves. Bobby Skafish was the host of “Spin Dizzy Radio” from 10pm to midnight. Chris Eric Stevens went on the air with “FM Rock As It Should Be” from 12 midnight to 5:30am. Don Nelson was the relief/ fill in jock, which covered two nights a week and also when Chris was off.

Bobby soon left WFLM for WXRT-93FM in Chicago. Chris’s show then expanded from 10pm to 5:30am, and more time was delegated to Nelson and a new jock named, Tom Wilson.

Stevens left WFLM after another year or so, allowing Nelson to take over control of the show. Since Stevens had owned the rights to the name, "FM Rock As It Should Be," a search began for a new name to this unique “deep cuts” program.

Of the numerous suggestions, most with names that you couldn’t print or fit on letterhead, let alone a bumper sticker or T-shirt, the name NIGHT ROCK was unanimously voted on. It was short, sweet, easy to remember and to-the-point.

Thus, the three original jocks at NIGHT ROCK were: Don Nelson (10pm-2am); Tom Wilson (2am-5:30am) and Ted Semper on weekends. Like Skafish before him, Wilson left for the greener pastures of WXRT after just a short time on the show.

The Night Rock program endured as other jocks were brought on board. And at about this same time, "Hegewisch Joe" Sotiros decided to expand his dream into the print medium.

A “sister entity” spun off of the radio show -- "NIGHT ROCK NEWS" -- was a companion newspaper published monthly. A few months after it began publishing, Tom Lounges came on board as a feature writer and soon took over the reigns of the fledgling entertainment newspaper as its editor.

Though just 20 when he came on board, Lounges had already spent two years as a radio engineer at Lansing's WLNR-106FM prior to joining the NIGHT ROCK team. Radio was in his blood and he was determined to find a place for himself on the radio show in addition to running the newspaper.

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