By Dana Jang
When December arrives in the Bay Area, its cool air always brings back the memory of a night that changed the soundscape of radio—and our lives—forever. December 8, 1980: the night John Lennon was shot outside the Dakota in New York City. For anyone who loves old radios and the stories they carry, that night is unforgettable—a time when every broadcast seemed raw and resonant.
I was living in Campbell then, serving as Music Director and morning DJ at KOME, one of the era’s most influential rock stations in the Bay Area. That evening, like many radio fans, I was tuned into Monday Night Football—Dolphins vs. Patriots on ABC, a familiar source of sports and community. I waited for my friend and fellow DJ, Gary Torresani, to swing by so we could head up to Old Waldorf in San Francisco to catch The Inmates, a British band who had just landed on U.S. playlists with their version of the Standells’ “Dirty Water”—a genuine garage-rock touchstone for Bay Area listeners.
Then, the moment we’ll never forget: Howard Cosell’s steady voice interrupted the game, announcing that John Lennon had been shot. Our living rooms were filled with disbelief and sorrow—echoes of which still linger through the tubes of our antique radios. When Gary arrived, he was distracted by weekend events—a KOME-sponsored Three Stooges festival hosted by our irrepressible night jock, Dennis Erectus, had ended on a strange note after a minor scuffle in the crowd. Gary shared his worry about having to tell our Program Director, Mikel Hunter, about the incident during our drive through the city’s twinkling streets.
Old Waldorf felt quieter than usual—many radio colleagues were across the bay for a historic concert in Oakland featuring Stevie Wonder, Gil Scott-Heron, and Carlos Santana. Even for a Monday, the venue’s atmosphere was tense and subdued. As The Inmates played, news about Lennon was still sinking in—casting a shadow across everyone present. When the lead singer dedicated the encore “to the late John Lennon,” the silence in the room spoke volumes, a shared moment for all who cared about music and radio.
Driving home afterward, the air felt heavy with loss and reflection. The next morning, before my on-air shift, I asked Mikel Hunter if I could fill my entire show with Beatles songs. It was the heartfelt tribute that felt right—not just as a DJ, but as a lifelong fan. Decades later, a listener told me he still remembered tuning in and hearing that marathon. “You sounded the way I felt that day,” he said, and those words remain special to me.
Forty-five years have passed since that December night, but for those of us who restore radios and celebrate Bay Area’s broadcast history, these memories are always close by. One voice, one broadcast, one song—they all reverberate in our collections and in our hearts.
Let’s keep sharing these stories and the magic of radio, so those echoes never fade.
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