Gary Monte signs off

7/1/2026

In the late 1990s, I discovered the late-night talk show “Coast to Coast,” hosted by Art Bell. It was more personal than watching television because it felt like it was just me and the host. He was filling me in on what was going on around the country in the world of paranormal and extraterrestrial life on this planet.

Then, in the 2010s, I began listening to KCRW out of Los Angeles via its internet stream, with Henry Rollins playing his punk and funk playlists on Sunday afternoons. My days of pursuing music projects were behind me, as filmmaking had become my full-time career. However, radio was still calling.

In 2018, Gary Monte, the station manager at KFMG, convinced owner Ron Sorenson to greenlight “Iowa Basement Tapes,” a show that was slightly off-book compared with the station’s normal programming.

Monte was born in Chicago and spent part of his childhood in Carbondale, Illinois, before his family moved to Postville in northeast Iowa and, eventually, Fairfield. Growing up during the 1970s, he witnessed Fairfield’s transformation as Maharishi University and the transcendental meditation movement arrived in town, bringing both cultural excitement and tension between longtime residents and newcomers. As a teenager, he became fascinated with music and late-night radio, discovering emerging rock acts through stations such as KFMH and developing a lifelong passion for independent music. That passion led him to study radio and television broadcasting at Grand View College in Des Moines. He is one of the few broadcasters of his generation to earn a formal degree in the field.

“KFMH was one of the reasons I got into broadcasting. I listened to programs like ‘The Late Show,’ but it was Mary of the Heartland’s ‘Off the Beaten Track’ that really opened my eyes to Iowa’s underground music scene. Through that show, I discovered bands like House of Large Sizes and realized there was all this incredible music being made right here in Iowa. I remember listening and thinking, ‘This is really cool. I’d like to do this.’ ”

After college, Monte landed his first professional radio job before eventually joining KFMH in Muscatine, the station that inspired him as a young listener. There, he immersed himself in both music programming and journalism, working alongside award-winning broadcasters while helping champion independent artists from across Iowa. His career later took him through news radio, a brief stint in Hawaii and, ultimately, to KFMG in Des Moines, where he became one of the station’s most recognizable voices and a tireless advocate for Iowa music and community broadcasting.

“Once I got into the journalism portion, I fell in love with it,” Monte said. “Our news director (at KFMH) taught me the ins and outs of broadcasting and journalism. She won more awards than anybody I’d ever seen, and she taught me things I wasn’t aware of. That’s where I got my love of journalism. When something happens in a community, radio can switch gears immediately and tell people what’s happening in real time. That’s something that’s difficult for a lot of other media to do.”

By the early 2000s, Monte had stepped away from broadcasting. After spending time in Hawaii, where he worked on film productions including “Windtalkers” and “Baywatch Nights,” he returned to Iowa and took a job at a local video store. Radio appeared to be behind him until a customer mentioned that KFMG had been revived as a nonprofit community station in Des Moines and was looking for volunteers. Intrigued, Monte stopped by the station and signed up for a shift. What began as a volunteer position in a makeshift broom closet studio atop the Hotel Fort Des Moines soon evolved into his final job in radio as KFMG’s station manager.

“Somebody came into the video store where I was working and said, ‘You should go down there and check them out. You’ve got radio experience.’ I went down to volunteer, and that’s how I started here,” he said.

Over the years, Monte hosted several programs, including “The Morning Show,” “The Overnight” and “Sitting with the Blues.” He co-hosted “Iowa Basement Tapes” with me when I conducted in-studio interviews with bands and often chimed in with 2 cents of commentary.

Now, at the end of June 2026, Gary Monte is retiring from radio and moving to Florida. It is not something I was ready for, even though I knew it was coming. His words to me were: “I never thought I’d get this old, dude. I’m going to retire.”

Rumors are circulating that Monte might continue his long-running blues show, “Sitting with the Blues,” by recording in a remote studio at his new Florida home, but nothing has been confirmed.

Radio has a way of making strangers feel like friends, and Gary Monte mastered that better than almost anyone I have known. He gave Iowa musicians a voice, listeners a companion and me the opportunity to build something I never imagined. Some voices fade when the microphone goes silent. Gary Monte’s will not. n

 

Kristian Day is a filmmaker and writer based in Des Moines. He also hosts the syndicated Iowa Basement Tapes radio program on 98.9 FM KFMG. Instagram: @kristianday | Twitter: @kristianmday