I remember when the ZOO came out when I was in high school.
I still have some of the old bumper stickers, I dug around and found one of
my old 'Strummin' With The Zoo' guitar pamphlets!Keep up the good work.
Gary..Garland,Tx September 18,2008
I have a tape of a Rusty Wier show recorded for the Homegrown show in 1977. I skipped school and was in the studio very early one morning with a friend that worked for Buddy magazine. There was about 6 of us there and they had us yell and scream and clap and then doubled it several times so it would sound like more people there. I had a tape from the studio but it broke years ago............ Philip..Ft. Worth
oh my gosh!! you have no idea how many memories this brings back, to so many people!! thats all i remember about living in Dallas years ago...Labella and Rodie in the morning, Dr Demento...and i met John Wells - been trying to find him again ever since; he was like meeting a part of my family i hadnt known about, but we had a blast riding around in that big ol' caddie of his...last i remember of him is that he was establishing a recording studio in his basement, but dangit, lost his phone number and i have kicked my own butt ever since!! if you ever hear from him again, tell him Fay from Daingerfield says hello!!
Fay
At traffic time I used to hear on the zoo a little song that went Damn, this traffic jam; how I hate to be late;hurts my motor to go so slow;supper be cold by the time get home on and on....
An avid Zoo fan until it died.
May 30, 2008 Anything I can do to help you I will, I would love to be a part of this. I loved the zoo. LaBellas death really bummed me out. It was such a great station. I AM IN CANTON, 60 MI FROM DALLAS. I WOULD REALLY LOVE TO HELP AND BE A PART OF THIS GREAT SITE. THANK YOU FOR GETTING IT GOING AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!! KEVIN
Hell yes!! The Zoo was THE BEST station ever! I heard side 2 of Meddle for the first time on the Zoo when I was in jr. high. What other station would do that?? Nobody! From that day forward I was a loyal Zoo Freak!....... Ricardo
Grew up in Dallas listening to the Zoo.......Plumbrella
Thanks for forwarding the emails, Eye! They reminded me of a couple of long forgotten incidents. Like when sales manager Jim Stansell wanted to know why I didn’t think we should run “douche” commercials if we were going to play “Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night”!
Or when Mark Christopher during a crossover asked me how was it at the pool up on the roof. So many listeners wanted to know if there really was a rooftop pool. Ah, the imagination when fueled by radio. Loretta-Afternoon drive 1976
Thanks for doing this site. Especially for the January Sound "do you feel like we do" I remember that session well...I have it on reel to
reel somewhere..If you have "lines on my face" from the same show it would be cool to have on your site..thanks again
Derek
I remember the days of the Zoo fondly. I was but a kid, but the music was rockin and the Djs - what can you even say about the Djs that would do the personalities justice. I have a distict memory of listening one Sunday morning, must have been circa 1976 or so, and hearing a commercial aired for a hydroponics system so you could "Grow your tomatoes in your closet" in order to "keep the crows away." The day they ran Chrismas music was a sad day. Matthew H.
Big John
Hey , we found this halter top when cleaning out, not many of these around ! .Thought you might want a picture.Great web site !
Thanks! Bruce Elledge
Tyler was just outside of the Zoo's broadcast signal, so my friends and I all installed FM signal boosters in our car stereos and drove to the nearest hilltop to pick up a clear KZEW signal. It was on those hilltops where the Zoo introduced us to artists we would have never heard on our crappy local stations. I've often wondered what happened to the recordings from the Zoo's January Sound Studios? Many great bands recorded sessions there. I recall one of the most requested January Sound recordings on the Zoo was a pure and perfect extended version of "Do You Feel Like We Do" that Peter Frampton did with that crazy guitar/voice machine of his. I wish XM Radio could buy the January Sound recordings and give it a time slot on their Deep Tracks channel, just like they're doing now with the old King Biscuit Flower Hour sessions.
T. Lee - Houston
Cassette Case
Click Here
This website brings back so many wonderful memories of Dallas in the 70's and 80's. There is nothing like it today and what made the Zoo was not only the music but all the incredible DJ's they had back then. LaBella and Rody, Randy Davis, Charles Mixon and on and on. I got to meet many of these legends and they were all very wonderful people, you just felt close to them all as you grew up listening to them day and night. Thank you for keeping the memory alive. I still have a bunch of stickers and tee shirts from back then. FLY THE ZOO PROUDLY...
David
Thanks for the good times then and bringing back the Zoo memories now. Can't wait to hear the Frampton concert from his JS broadcast--I still remember when it aired live!
Big AL
Click Here
Hi,
I enjoyed the stroll down KZEW memory lane via thezoofile.com soooooooo much that I made this little wallpaper for Zooin' up my computer.. and happened to think that in case someone else might like to use it also, I'd share.
Cheers,
Lauri
Wow, brings back a lot of memories growing up in Dallas. Loved listening to KZEW on the way to the Texas Jam as well. I would go back and forth between the Zoo and Q102.
--
Cheers,
Brent Bradley
Podshow Radio
podshowradio.com
em
ail@podshowradio.com
BTW- I did a interview recently with Redbeard from Q102 and he talks a lot about Dallas radio and the rivalry between Q102 and KZEW.
If your interested in listening to it here is a direct link to the interview - http://www.podshowradio.com
Three Chairs
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So great to find you! ....I will always be a ZOO FREAK!..........
10/11/08
I remember when the Zoo would play 5 or 6 albums back to back on the weekend.....
Now... all we get are the corporately picked "Hits"... and that's all.... Which is of course.... not enough, for any Music Lover....
AH
Irving
Thanks Scott. I really enjoyed browsing through the website. The Zoo was a big part of my teen years and it's nice to see that others were too. I remember those Kraco systems - sold only at KMart right? When I was 17 (and dumb) I actually bought a lemon of a car (a '73 Gran Torino Sport) primarily for the 8 track stereo system that it had in it - a Panasonic "Quadrophonic" tape deck. When you played the special "Quadrophonic" tapes in it (which cost an extra $2 bucks), you could adjust the fade & balance from one speaker to the next and hear just the drums and bass guitar, then at the next speaker - just the vocals, the next speaker - the background vocals/keyboard, and the last one - the guitars. It would be kinda gimmicky and annoying now, but when you are 17 and wasted, it was way cool and made you feel like an audio engineer operating a sound mixing board in a recording studio. The tape deck was stolen from my car after about a year and I just went back to listening to the Zoo full time after that.
I have XM Radio now and they have a channel called "Deep Tracks", which is the closest thing to the Zoo I have found in recent years. Like the Zoo, they play the non-megahit cuts off of 70's albums that aren't the ones you get sick of hearing played over and over on "classic rock" stations. It takes me back to those days of riding around on the blacktop country roads trying to keep the Zoo signal.
Tom
I love your web site and I loved the "Zoo", Labella and Rody, Chaz Mixon, Jon Dillon, Beverly Beesley, Randy Davis...they just don't have stations like that anymore. "HUNT JAMES", "WALTER FROM WACO"...Classic stuff. I still have a tee shirt and several of the old stickers. I'll pass along our website as soon as my webmaster gets us up on line. After 26 years we found ourselves back in contact with Metallica who asked for all the show info from that 1st tour for thier website and after looking at all the info I had I thought it would be time to tell our story too. Yea I was a die hard KZEW listener back then!! I miss those days, I'll have to dig further into your site and enjoy the memories.
David Haig
Zigler Productions
Man what a great site! 2-17-09
I remember going to Fair Park to see Black Oak Arkansas,Wishbone Ash, Pure
Prairie League, and Head East in 76 with my big brother (I love you Ian!)
it was my first beer.
My brothers van was an old telephone repair van painted olive drab with a
great, big, Zoo Cruiser sticker. We got pulled over all the time, but
never got busted... At least not me.
I used to listen to LaBella and Rody every morning while I was getting ready for school. They always played “Whenever I See Your Smiling Face” by James Taylor and “The Circle Is Small” by Gordon Lightfoot. Those songs still take me back to my senior year in high school. Thanks for the memories…
Brenda
Man, I miss when we had "zooworld" am glad I came across this site, I still have a collection of kzew stickers from the early eighties!!!
E. Whitten
I found your site this morning and was instantly flooded with memories and images of growing up in North Texas where KZEW, Zoo-Freaks and rock and roll where all part of our lives. I was born in Dallas but later moved to east Texas about 100 miles east of DFW. I missed my big city life and the Zoo was the way I kept in touch with all the music, concerts and events that where going on there. Many nights we would all gather in someone's field, away from our parents and the police, build a big bonfire and turn on several of our car radios to the Zoo and rock the night away.
I recall so vividly the music of that time, 1974 thru 1979 and then beyond. How KZEW introduced us to Peter Frampton and his squalk box years before he recorded Frampton Live. There was some place called January Sound where Frampton made a recording of "Do You Feel Like I Do" and you could only hear it on the Zoo. To be honest this version was better than the live album. And who could forget all the other great music of that age which by today's standard was very innocent and so much different. I will never trade the music of our age with what's out there today. Yes, I know my parents thought the same things about Led Zeppelin, but just play "Ramble On" against some of the filth and hatred filled songs my step children listen to today. There is no comparison. That was music with a melody and lyrics, not what I hear today.
KZEW changed sometime in the mid 1980's then I lost track of them after that. By 1987 I was listening to Jazz on the Oasis and rock and roll was only a second choice. Then who would have guessed that before the year 2000, classic rock and roll would be called "classic". In my mind there will never be any kind of music that will replace it and KZEW was there when we were coming of age. The kids these days just don't know what they missed.
Frank Griffith
I still fly the Zoo colors whenever I can. On my '74 Javelin AMX and my beltbuckle. I miss The Zoo, Q102, and now 93.3 The Bone is gone. Thanks for the website of memories.
Darren.
Hey there Zoo Freaks,
I woke up on day about 2 years ago and couldn't stop thinking about the Zoo 98 FM Dallas-Ft Worth (actually it came to me in a dream) that I had so fondly listened to years ago. After looking on the internet that day and realizing that there were no websites heralding that great station, i decided to create one.I researched for hours on end for Zoo related info, but, found very little, I launced thezoofile.com around February 2007, soon after, I acquired John Rody's old site itsthezoo.com and , some time later, received lots of good material and help from John and Pam. My thanks to them!I also thank all the Zoo Freaks for the audio/aircheck's sent in for the enjoyment of all ZOO FREAKS. I have spent many hours on building this tribute site to The ZOO and have enjoyed every single minute of it. It has given me great pleasure! Even though another site sprung up some time later remembering the Zoo, and even though the creator of this site claims to have had the same idea at the same time as me, I don't mind, imitation/flattery?.It's all good as Rody would say. I just filled a void after John's site went down and hopefully have provided a place to remember, visit, and enjoy the old Zoo. BTW, the new Zoo Myspace site is just a backup to the other current site, so please visit often add me to your friends list and help spread the ZOO around!
The Zewkeeper
Dear ZooLoo,
LaBella RIP, Rody, Walter, Chaz, Dillon, Beverly, Whiner, Zipperhead, ZOOworld, Nitzinger, Free Black Oak for a can of food,
The Texas Jam, Frampton before Live, Damn that traffic Jam, ZOO Freaks, ZooLoo, King Biscuit, Doc Demento, Johnny Winter, Gettin the Led out, Jan Sound, KZEW presents Pat Benatar, ZZ-TOP Autographs, Letting your Freak Flag Fly, My First KISS concert in 1976, My first concert Tull/75, Rody's Sunday call-in talk show, ZABO!, ZOO Stickers, Concert T-Shirts, Cruisin Forest Lane with the Windows down and the ZOO UP!
Soooo many memories I can't even recall them all. You guy's were a major part of many a young persons life as we grew up in what was then small town USA, Lewisville Texas. Parking our cars at the Cove on Lewisville Lake with our SuperTuner's cranked full blast on the ZOO and playing Frizzbee in the hot Texas sun. You lulled us into Dallas/Ft Worth for Concerts and goodtimes and helped us to not to take growing up too seriously. We laughed until we cried with Lebella and Rody in the morning and then cried for real when the ZOO left us with nothing but Christmas music one sad December day. We thought you would always be there for us and I guess you always will be, "At the Zoo, at the Zoo...".
We miss you and appreciate you...... Pass the Zipperhead and LONG LIVE THE ZOO!
Stephan
Comments & Zoo artifacts
Comments & Zoo artifacts
James Dowdy : KZEW had a promotion for Led Zeppelin- In Through the Outdoor album. It was called the ZOO CRUISE. My dad provided the boat. Labella, Roadie, and about 25 others were there and we had a blast. There was another ZOO CRUISE for Fleetwood Mac, TUSK album...it was raining for it but still had a great time.
Sent in by Dale and James
