A movie about late, lamented rock station KLOL?
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This past week Houston filmmaker and blogger Mike McGuff released a trailer for his upcoming film about the late, great radio station Rock 101 KLOL-FM, and it’s getting Houstonians of a certain vintage very excited for the finished product.
The story of the raunchy Houston radio phenomenon will be told in McGuff’s first documentary, with appearances from the likes of Outlaw Dave (one of the Texican’s creative mentors), Lanny Griffith, Colonel St. James, Pat Fant, David Sadof and even the late Jim Pruett of morning duo Stevens and Pruett in footage shot before he passed away in 2016.
To help with this long-gestating rock doc, McGuff, a former newsman, has turned to crowdsourcing platform IndieGoGo to bankroll some final nips and tucks for the promotional side of things. He’s hoping for a wide release in 2020, just in time for the station’s 50th anniversary. KLOL, formerly KTRH-FM, was born in 1970 as a progressive-rock station, evolved into a more structured albumoriented-rock and then classicrock station before owner Clear Channel flipped it to Spanishlanguage in 2004.
As McGuff says, it has been a long journey to get this film in the can. When it comes to labors of love, sometimes time is the best ingredient.
“This project w supposed to take a couple o years; at least, that iswhatIt old my very patient wife back in 2010,” McGuff says. “The years kept piling on as I kept chasing people for interviews, conducted a bunch of research and waited for people's photos and video to be found.”
Are there any voices in the documentary that McGuff wasn’t able to capture? “The biggest interview I could not get is with Mark Stevens of Stevens and Pruett. He died within the first few months of me starting production. His wife, Melissa Stevens, graciously granted me an interview in his place,” McGuff says.
Fortunately, his early start did net him some of the last oncamera interviews about the station with Pruett, “Crash” Collins, Bill Moffett and other players behind the scenes.
A native Houstonian, McGuff remembers discovering KLOL’s many subversive voices and hardrock playlist at a very impressionable time in his life: his freshman year in high school.
“That was an eye-opening experience, and I would try to listen to the station whenever I could. KLOL was always a topic of conversation among my friends,” McGuff says. “People have to remember before the internet, a station like KLOL could expose you to music you would never hear anywhere else and inform you about what was happening in pop culture.”
McGuff is hoping to raise $25,000 to help with post-production costs for the film. The IndieGoGo campaign has perks for donors, including bumper stickers, digital downloads and seats at the eventual physical premiere.
Now, on to reader questions.
Is it a worthwhile endeavor to pursue the chef of a closed restaurant for the recipes of your favorites dishes? I was thinking of writing Chef Bryan Caswell at his restaurant Reef for a few of the recipes that I loved from El Real. The Chorizo Queso Flameado, The San Antonio Puffy Tacos. Their salsa. I have never had flameado better than theirs. It is heavenly. Cody in Houston
I am among the many Houstonians still smarting over the closure of Montrose Tex-Mex mainstay El Real. As a neighborhood resident, the weekly Montrose Monday promotion kept me fat and happy with its deep discount
for Montrose residents. The restaurant was a venue for numerous special events in my life, from birthdays to celebrating successful surgeries.
Fear not, Cody Stoots from ESPN 97.5 and SportsMap (sorry — I had to out you!), Chef Bryan has you covered when it comes to those delectable Tex-Mex dishes. He’s long been a fan of sending out some of his recipes to fans of El Real who want to try to replicate the restaurant’s dishes in their own home. He can be contacted via email at the Reef website.
I already asked Caswell if the ZZ Top memorabilia that dotted El Real had found a good home, and he let me know that it has been absorbed back into his private treasure trove. Caswell told the Texican he is proud of the tenure that El Real had in Montrose and in the lives of its residents.
“Witnessing the Westheimer Arts Festival at the age of 12 was what caused me to first fall in love with Montrose,” Caswell says. “I never had the privilege of seeing a Westheimer Arts Festival at El Real, but it was those type of events that will stick with me forever.”
For a period, El Real was in the thick of the Montrose experience.
“We were fortunate enough to witness five Pride parades, which were my favorite, as well as the Halloween Montrose crawls and the 2017 World Series win,” he adds.
These days, without his own Tex-Mex joint to haunt, he gets his cravings sorted at Goode Co. Taqueria and the various El Tiempo locations. Houston foodies likely haven’t tasted the last of those famous El Real dishes, which were loving interpretations of dishes served at some of the best Tex-Mex eateries in Texas.
“We are already working on having some of them as lunch specials at Reef, so stay tuned,” he says.
Wait, seriously, you eat your holiday tamales with ketchup? Were you dropped on your head as a child? How many Whippits did you actually do in high school? Matt in Houston
Every year on social media I catch hell for my love of chowing down on traditional holiday tamales with fancy ketchup on the side for dipping. Growing up, I had no clue that wasn’t normal until I spoke up in a Houston Chronicle story-planning meeting (yes, they do have those) about my favorite holiday treat.
Apparently, it makes me a bad person to wolf down a dozen tamales with a big puddle of Spicy Whataburger ketchup. The pearl clutchers in this city demonize me for it; family members ponder how I am one of their own. If you Google “ketchup and tamales,” you will find that
I am not alone.
According to some Hispanic friends, I am a heathen for this and should be stripped of my Texican heritage. Anglo peeps tell me that it’s grounds for committal and that I am making them all look bad.
“I love you, Craig, but this ketchup on tamales jazz is making every güero in the city look like a real
chiflado,” wrote local gadfly Cort McMurray.
Texas Monthly’s Texanist has gone on record decrying the practice, but what do a bunch of Austin scolds know about good food? Blame my childhood spent with one foot in Hispanic culture and the other in suburban bliss.
Daniel Hinojosa, El Queso Grande behind the long-running Tamale Festival Houston on the city’s East End, had to weigh in as he is the closest thing to a tamale expert in my life.
“Blasphemy! Resist the urge to put ketchup on your tamales,” Hinojosa says. “Tamaleros and tamaleras spend countless hours, if not days, to prepare handmade tamales rich in flavor and tradition.”
He says the ketchup is actually dulling the flavors that loving tamale makers strive to create.
“Drowning them in ketchup is frowned upon around me, but folks are free to do what they please with their meals. An accompanying salsa prepared to complement the tamales usually is nearby to accent the flavors,” he says.
Anyone who wants to experience true tamale paradise should attend the ninth annual Tamale Festival Houston on Dec. 7 at the Navigation Esplanade. Tickets are available online while they last. Bring a bib.