Global Courant
Dusty Street, a DJ familiar to Southern Californians as one of the seminal personalities in the early days of KROQ, and one of the pioneering female voices in rock radio, period, died Saturday at age 77 in Eugene, Oregon.
With her sultry voice and deep knowledge of the music she played, Street was not just an essential personality in LA rock radio history. She began her career in San Francisco, DJing at freeform KMPX beginning in 1967 before moving on to KSAN in 1969, where she held court for a decade. She moved on to KROQ in 1979, as the new wave movement was cresting and making that station feel like a clubhouse for a new generation. Her other stints in LA radio included stops at KWST and KLOS. Street eventually moved to Las Vegas and then Cleveland, from where she did her SiriusXM show on the Deep Tracks channel over the last two decades. She settled back in Oregon in 2022 as she battled health problems.
Street was heavily featured in this year’s MGM+ documentary “San Francisco Sounds: A Place In Time.” She was also inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame this year.
Many former colleagues took to social media to memorialize Street. Freddy Snakeskin, a fellow KROQ alumnus, called her “one of my life’s all-time favorite people” in a post. “Shattered,” wrote Tami Heide, one of the women who later followed in her wake at the station, saying “thank you for all you did for KROQ, and women radio hosts.”
Geno Michellini broke the news on Facebook. “I have been in Eugene the last two days at Dusty Street’s bedside,” he wrote late Saturday night. “The numerous afflictions that she has been so indomitably fighting these last years finally caught up to her. I am writing with a broken heart to say that Dusty left us tonight. She died peacefully, quietly and surrounded by love in a beautifully serene location overlooking the most beautiful lake you could ever want. Nor befitting the queen that she was. Tonight I lost one of the best friends I ever had and the world lost a radio and music legend as befitting her starring role in the ‘San Francisco Sounds’ documentary movie that just came out recently. She was all that and so much more. There will never be another Dusty Street. The queen is gone, but she’ll never be forgotten.”
Fellow KROQ DJ Richard Blade wrote, “Time is a cruel mistress. … It was Dusty who trained me to run the board at KROQ, and trying to emulate her expertise was a tough job. She brought so much of her love of music — particularly Dark Wave like Siouxsie, Bauhaus, and so many others, to the airwaves. In today’s barren terrestrial radio market, there is no one like her. I’ll so miss her voice, her laugh, her caring for animals, our trips to Hawaii together, and our visits when I’d do a gig in Cleveland – where she did her show on SiriusXM and made her home for the past decade . Your talents will not be forgotten. Fly low and avoid the radar, Dusty.”
Heide quoted a favorite line of Street’s, which she had said in an interview she once said to her ex-husband: “A good segue is better than sex.”
Wrote DJ April Whitney, “To a truly amazing woman who has been my friend for the last forty-some years and I already miss her like crazy. She took me in to her heart when she had every excuse not to go back in the ’80s and we’ve been tight ever since. I love you to pieces, Street. She could have just as easily chewed me up and spit me out but instead we grew to respect each other and became life long friends. How lucky am I that life brought our roads to cross. How cool that we’ve been friends all these years. You touched my life in some unimaginable ways — thank you Street. I know that we will see each other again my friend. Until then, avoid the radar and enjoy those beautiful wings.”
