Michael Halloran
Michael Halloran is a radio personality and disc jockey based in southern California.
Halloran has programmed many radio stations in southern California including 91X, 92/5, 92/1 and KUPR.
He has also worked as a music director and on-air personality on such legendary radio stations as KROQ-FM Los Angeles Y107 Los Angeles and K-ROCK New York.
Halloran was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to an American Father and an English Mother. Then the Halloran family relocated to Detroit Michigan. It was there in the Motor City that Halloran was first influenced by the music that surrounded the household.
Motown and The Beatles were always on the various hi-fi systems in the Halloran domicile.
Halloran's parents agreed to let him go to school in his mother's native England at the age of 11. He spent 6 years overseas getting an education not only in school but on the streets as the Punk Rock Scene was just starting to flourish. He formed several bands with his fellow schoolmates and eventually left England and moved back to Detroit.
Halloran started working for various film companies in Detroit and slaved as a runner and sound-man. To make his musical career possible he continued to work in the film business while taking broadcasting classes and playing bass in the legendary Detroit power punk band "The Plugs".
When drugs tore the band apart, he managed to scrape together enough money to press the only 7-inch the band released. "I Like My Dad" penned by Halloran had a limited pressing of only 1000 copies and has since been bootlegged many times.
Ben Blackwell, one of the members of "The Dirtbombs" and Co-Worker of Jack White (white stripes) at Third Man Records has been quoted as saying the original pressing is worth well over a thousand dollars.
Weird, considering the original pressing only cost the band $500 dollars for all 1000 copies.
While driving the "rushes" for the film companies all over Detroit, Halloran was constantly listening to the radio stations in the city, and was annoyed at the fact that not one of them would even acknowledge the true Detroit origins of punk rock, The MC5 and Iggy and The Stooges.
In 1977 Halloran changed all that by launching "Radios in Motion" on WDET-FM.
"Radios in Motion" ran until 1986 on various station in Detroit and launched the careers of such artists as U2, REM, THE POLICE, THE BEASTIE BOYS, RUN-DMC and a plethora of others.
Kid Rock claims to have heard Hip Hop for the first time on Halloran's program at WDET while under the covers, wearing headphones in the bunk-bed he shared with his older brother.
In 1986 Halloran was fired from WDTX in Detroit for setting off a fire extinguisher in the studio, a charge he vehemently denies to this day.
He relocated to San Diego, California and worked on a Mexican "border blaster" called 91X.
Halloran had to drive into Tijuana every evening to work.
It was in San Diego that Halloran really found his stride.
He started as the Evening disc jockey and worked his way up to music director and eventually, program director within a few years.
At 91X he discovered a young singer songwriter who was living in her van and gave the young woman her first airplay well before she had anything recorded.
Jewel Kilcher went on to sell more than 15 million copies of her debut CD. Halloran told Atlantic records about her talent and 8 months later they finally offered her a record deal.
Halloran also helped to launched the careers of blink-182 and Jason Mraz.
Tom DeLonge of blink-182 says that Halloran is "the glue that attaches unknown artists to the first part of success".
Mraz said: "It was Mike's belief in Me from seeing the shows that he put it on the radio that industry folks started to come down then to see...'well who's this unsigned guy on the radio?, well, let's go see his shows,'...and it was only a few months later that i got signed."
91X was taken over by Jacor/Clear Channel communications in 1996. Halloran could see the writing on the wall and left to program 4 other radio stations in southern California before returning to 91X in 2011, an almost sixteen year absence from the legendary station.
Halloran also launched a pirate radio station in London for the band THE CURE. He has played onstage with BUZZCOCKS and MIKE WATT and has interviewed countless scores of artists including ROBERT PLANT, U2, BRIAN WILSON and TRENT REZNOR.
He owned the coffee shop in La Jolla, California where Jeff Buckley played his first show in California.
He has been thanked on many albums released in the last 30 years and still considered an iconoclast in the world of radio.
He was the first to hire the struggling artist Shepard Fairey to design album covers for THE SPECIALS and the logos of almost every radio station He has worked at since 91X.
Halloran has programmed many radio stations in southern California including 91X, 92/5, 92/1 and KUPR.
He has also worked as a music director and on-air personality on such legendary radio stations as KROQ-FM Los Angeles Y107 Los Angeles and K-ROCK New York.
Halloran was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to an American Father and an English Mother. Then the Halloran family relocated to Detroit Michigan. It was there in the Motor City that Halloran was first influenced by the music that surrounded the household.
Motown and The Beatles were always on the various hi-fi systems in the Halloran domicile.
Halloran's parents agreed to let him go to school in his mother's native England at the age of 11. He spent 6 years overseas getting an education not only in school but on the streets as the Punk Rock Scene was just starting to flourish. He formed several bands with his fellow schoolmates and eventually left England and moved back to Detroit.
Halloran started working for various film companies in Detroit and slaved as a runner and sound-man. To make his musical career possible he continued to work in the film business while taking broadcasting classes and playing bass in the legendary Detroit power punk band "The Plugs".
When drugs tore the band apart, he managed to scrape together enough money to press the only 7-inch the band released. "I Like My Dad" penned by Halloran had a limited pressing of only 1000 copies and has since been bootlegged many times.
Ben Blackwell, one of the members of "The Dirtbombs" and Co-Worker of Jack White (white stripes) at Third Man Records has been quoted as saying the original pressing is worth well over a thousand dollars.
Weird, considering the original pressing only cost the band $500 dollars for all 1000 copies.
While driving the "rushes" for the film companies all over Detroit, Halloran was constantly listening to the radio stations in the city, and was annoyed at the fact that not one of them would even acknowledge the true Detroit origins of punk rock, The MC5 and Iggy and The Stooges.
In 1977 Halloran changed all that by launching "Radios in Motion" on WDET-FM.
"Radios in Motion" ran until 1986 on various station in Detroit and launched the careers of such artists as U2, REM, THE POLICE, THE BEASTIE BOYS, RUN-DMC and a plethora of others.
Kid Rock claims to have heard Hip Hop for the first time on Halloran's program at WDET while under the covers, wearing headphones in the bunk-bed he shared with his older brother.
In 1986 Halloran was fired from WDTX in Detroit for setting off a fire extinguisher in the studio, a charge he vehemently denies to this day.
He relocated to San Diego, California and worked on a Mexican "border blaster" called 91X.
Halloran had to drive into Tijuana every evening to work.
It was in San Diego that Halloran really found his stride.
He started as the Evening disc jockey and worked his way up to music director and eventually, program director within a few years.
At 91X he discovered a young singer songwriter who was living in her van and gave the young woman her first airplay well before she had anything recorded.
Jewel Kilcher went on to sell more than 15 million copies of her debut CD. Halloran told Atlantic records about her talent and 8 months later they finally offered her a record deal.
Halloran also helped to launched the careers of blink-182 and Jason Mraz.
Tom DeLonge of blink-182 says that Halloran is "the glue that attaches unknown artists to the first part of success".
Mraz said: "It was Mike's belief in Me from seeing the shows that he put it on the radio that industry folks started to come down then to see...'well who's this unsigned guy on the radio?, well, let's go see his shows,'...and it was only a few months later that i got signed."
91X was taken over by Jacor/Clear Channel communications in 1996. Halloran could see the writing on the wall and left to program 4 other radio stations in southern California before returning to 91X in 2011, an almost sixteen year absence from the legendary station.
Halloran also launched a pirate radio station in London for the band THE CURE. He has played onstage with BUZZCOCKS and MIKE WATT and has interviewed countless scores of artists including ROBERT PLANT, U2, BRIAN WILSON and TRENT REZNOR.
He owned the coffee shop in La Jolla, California where Jeff Buckley played his first show in California.
He has been thanked on many albums released in the last 30 years and still considered an iconoclast in the world of radio.
He was the first to hire the struggling artist Shepard Fairey to design album covers for THE SPECIALS and the logos of almost every radio station He has worked at since 91X.