NIGHT ROCK: A Brief History Lesson

The NIGHT ROCK audience liked that they were given the opportunity to make “call in requests,” but the jock on duty always had the ultimate say on what was played. It’s the same on today’s new NIGHT ROCK program, which airs live every Sunday night from 6-9pm.

Unlike other radio shows, each DJ picked his own music for his shift. And there were no repeats of songs per night. Often songs would not be repeated for a full week or longer. Again, this is a policy in place on the new NIGHT ROCK show…

Don Nelson left the show in 1980. Van Pudlo took over the program's reigns for the next few years with the able help of Kevin Weber. Lounges left the NIGHT ROCK organization (radio and print) in 1981 to become the Club Director of 1,600-seat The Pointe East night club.

With Nelson and Lounges both gone, the core team that had made the NIGHT ROCK organization an entity to be reckoned with had fragmented. Ultimately, discontent brewed between the radio station's management and Hegewisch Records. “Hegewisch Joe”, who had long brokered the NIGHT ROCK show and likewise NIGHT ROCK NEWS, eventually pulled the plug on both.

By 1982, the once local media behemoth that NIGHT ROCK had become just a part of local rock history, soon to be followed by the Pointe East, Midway Ballroom and other bastions of the South Side/N.W. Indiana music scene. Times were changing.

In the early 1990s, others went on the air using the NIGHT ROCK name for a very short spell, but that show and that staff had no direct connection to the original NIGHT ROCK show that was owned and funded by Hegewisch Records. Though he bore no hard feelings for the staff of that "false" Night Rock, their use of the proud name was protested by Lounges who legally owns the NIGHT ROCK name, logo and trademark.

In mid-2003, a one time teenage NIGHT ROCK radio listener and NIGHT ROCK NEWS reader by the name of Scott Rosenberg called Tom Lounges out of the blue. Rosenberg had himself pursued a radio career and had recently become the Director of Programming for the current 103.9 airwaves, now a classic rock station called WXRD or X-ROCK.

He invited Lounges, who he remembered from long nights spent in his bedroom jamming out to the old NIGHT ROCK show, to do some “on air” voice work for X-ROCK.

The two rock fans and rock trivia buffs often talked about how cool it would be "to one day" resurrect the old NIGHT ROCK format on the same 103.9 frequency that was once home to the original program.

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