The last few months have been eventful for Dallas’ most offbeat independent radio station, KNON-FM. On Oct. 20, the station went off-air as storms and tornadoes tore through parts of North Dallas. KNON’s building on North Central Expressway was severely damaged. A volunteer army of DJs started moving radio and office equipment out of the building the very next day, and got KNON back on the air within 36 hours by setting up a makeshift studio next to the station’s Cedar Hill antenna tower, roughly 25 miles away. (The damaged building was demolished on Monday.)
For a month, DJs broadcast from a tiny metal room at the base of the antenna, which rises from a kind of no-man’s-land off Belt Line Road that is home to towers of communications equipment and little else. On the air, DJs described the scene and — taking note of pesticide in the studio — mused that there might be scorpions around. In fact, there were. KNON station manager Dave “Chaos” Walkington stomped on one the first day he broadcast from the shack. Inspired by the encounter, he cued up a song by the rock band Scorpions and put it on air.
On Nov. 21, KNON began broadcasting from a new space in a leased office building on Coit Road just north of I-635. The station still needs a broadcast console, the centerpiece of any manned radio setup, but one is on loan for now from Lee Russell, a KNON DJ who has worked sound at local music venues.
In an era when most radio stations operate unmanned for at least part of their daily airtime, the station, staffed by live DJs 24/7, is a glorious anomaly for listeners. And in the wake of the tornado, its reliance on pure manpower is also what enabled a speedy recovery.
“It’s a tale of resilience,” says Walkington, sitting in his new office. The building is still a work in progress — interior renovations are ongoing — but the space is comparable to the one last October’s weather forced them to flee, only slightly smaller. He sums up their new home with, “It’s all right, man.” Then he points to an Iggy Pop poster on the wall. “I lost a lot that was on the walls,” he explains. “The tornado pulled the frame off this and scratched it in a couple places, but it survived.” Everything in his last office ended up on the floor, including much of the ceiling.
Although the crew never appeared shaken by the ordeal, Walkington admits the tornado could have knocked KNON off the air for good. The ballpark figure of $60,000 he threw out the day after the storms, when asked how much the move would cost, has been spot-on, KNON board chairman Paul Kollock says. (The station has raised $45,000 so far through pledge drives, donors and benefit events.)
Now Walkington says KNON will move again in two or three years, around which time the station plans to buy a building.
“We were working on the funding when the [old] building got hit,” he says. “So we’re going to regroup here."
The reason he gives for yet another planned move is surprising: KNON wants to add more programming. That’s surprising, given the remarkably diverse lineup the station already offers, courtesy of DJs who’ve been perfecting their shows, many of them niche, for decades.
“The vision we have is a KNON media building that would encompass a new stream-only station, podcast studios, a live music space and offices for other nonprofits,” Walkington says. “And we’d like to create a broadcast row with windows so people can walk by and see what’s going on in all the studios.”
Maintaining a nonstop programming schedule in the wake of a natural disaster is an impressive feat, but he has his eye on producing even more content by creating a community media center.
“There’s a lot of people that come to me and want to do radio programs that I can’t put on,” he says. “Some of them have worthwhile ideas that might have an audience and I’d like to give them a chance to broadcast in a real studio environment. I want to update the station so it is using every opportunity to provide content. But right now I’m really grateful to be here.”
UPDATED, Jan. 17, 2019 at 12:00 p.m.: This story has been updated with the news that KNON’s original building space, which was damaged in the tornado, has now been demolished.