Q-104’s Ken Dashow: Keeping It Real After All These Years

Steve Van Zandt & Ken Dashow Photo courtesy of Ken Dashow

Growing up in a music-loving household in Sheepshead Bay helped set the stage for Ken Dashow’s future as one of New York radio’s most enduring and popular deejays. Dashow, who has been doing the weekday afternoon drive shift (2-7 p.m.) on New York’s Q104.3 for the last fifteen years says, “My folks loved music. Top 40 radio was always playing,” he tells Brooklyn Roads. He says he can’t be sure about the first song he ever listened to”but it had to be I Want to Hold Your Hand by… some band from Northern England. I forget their name,” he quips.

Dashow calls the late 1960s and early ‘70s “a golden age of commercial art. Every album by all major artists was better than the one before.” Bringing these artists into the Dashow home were some of the most fondly remembered rock radio stations. In the ‘60s, “I was a Good Guy,” he tells us, referring the nickname for WMCA’s jocks and smiley-face-sweatshirted listeners. He later “grew” into WNEW-FM and progressive rock, which sealed the deal for him. “I always knew that was what I would do for my life’s work.” While he doesn’t single out any one radio personality as a role model, collectively they inspired him.

“All of the WMCA Good Guys, and later the [deejays at] ‘NEW-FM were just real –they were themselves .That was what was most enticing to me. I loved them all, but Scott Muni was THE legend: funny, inspiring and an honor to work with”. Dashow brought that “real” to WNEW-FM in 1982 where he was a mainstay for 17 years until a change to an all-talk format spurred him to move up the dial to Q-104.3.

Helping him keep it real all these years is his having roots planted firmly in Kings County soil. “Growing up in Brooklyn (East 21st St near Ave U, to be precise) helped shape my view of life. The joy and fun of the neighborhood and friends on the block and in school – I had a sense of how special it all was.” He also looks back fondly on local eateries. “Between Brennan & Carr, Senior’s, Michael’s, Lundy’s, and The Foursome Diner… we had awesome food choices.”

Ken Dashow Pitches at MCU Park, the home of The Brooklyn Cyclones Photo courtesy of Ken Dashow

He cites a neighborhood band playing at a block party as his first Brooklyn concert experience, noting that, “Later I would go to shows at Brooklyn College, L’Amour — it was THE rock capital of Brooklyn — and Marty Markowitz’s great shows in Coney Island.”

Dashow also tells us that he was “absolutely amazed” when Barclays Center opened on Atlantic Avenue and delighted that it hosted the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony this past April. “The arena is gorgeous,” he says. “The area that was considered so dangerous is now a true destination, easy to get to. Sports and music are alive and well on Flatbush Avenue!”

Of course, Brooklyn has long been “alive and well” as a source of music talent in part because, Dashow tells us, “Different areas have had high creativity at different times. I think it happens geographically because we all live so close, we heard what everyone was doing. The ‘60s gave us Neil Diamond, Neil Sedaka, Barbara, and my fellow alumni from P.S. 206 on Gravesend Avenue– Carole King. There was also Little Anthony, who grew-up in the same projects that brought us Jay Z… and don’t forget Living Colour.”

Not surprisingly, most of these names pop up on Dashow’s top five songs from Brooklyn based artists: Sweet Caroline (Diamond), You’ve Got A Friend (King), The Way We Were (Streisand), Hurts So Bad (Little Anthony) and Cult Of Personality (Living Colour).

His message to emerging music artists is that Brooklyn is the place to play and to create. “Brooklyn has amazing venues for performing, from the Barclay’s Center to BAM to The Brooklyn Bowl – my fave. And if you want to really learn how to write, live in any neighborhood in Brooklyn for a few years. You’ll see the difference in writing honest stories about real people with dreams.”

Ken Dashow is one of those real people from our borough who, we’re happy to say, is living his dream , and sharing it with us, every afternoon, Monday through Friday.