It first set the airwaves afire in 1928: 100,000 megawatts of raw, unregulated flamethrower power from south of the Rio Grande. Founded by a quack surgeon, it endured assaults by the Mexican army, launched the careers of evangelists and movie stars, and helped a cultural menace called rock'n'roll seduce the teenagers of North America. But in the summer of 1985, XAMO 1530 AM radio is a ramshackle, low-voltage shadow of its "border blaster" heyday. That is, until an enigmatic runaway variously dubbing himself Mark Knopfler, Charlie Sexton, "Strummer," and Asher Rede arrives in Anapra, Mexico, with clandestine plans for righting an old wrong, and falls for an XAMO disc jockey whose own haunted past is about to collide memorably--and musically--with the present.