I Wonder Who?

As always, I try to start my rants with a song title...a ROCK AND ROLL song title! I was torn between two tunes this time. The first was "Question", the landmark tune from The Mooody Blues. The second is a blues number by the late, great "Irish Clapton" Rory Gallagher. I live in the suburbs of New York City, one of the greatest cities on the planet, and yet there is an extremely limited selection of rock and roll radio to listen to. I touched on this in an earlier post, but it seems to grieve me more and more. Having dumped six years of my life intoa toilet bowl radio station on Long Island, so I know that radio is a business and if it doesn't make money, no matter how hip they are, they cannot and will not survive. But to be bombarded with the same treacle day in and day out is making me nutso. I like Billy Joel, he's a brilliant song wrtiter and musician, but I don't want to hear "Miami 2017" every day for the rest of my life. Radio overplays everything they play. I think I may have mentioned that I was in college when Meatloaf released his landmark album, "Bat Out Of Hell". I liked and wanted to buy it, but never got around to it. Now I thank heavens every time I heart "Paradise By The Dashboard Light", that I didn't throw away good money on it. Radio stations pounded it into the dirt. It was radio wallpaper, I heard it enough to last a lifetime. The smae goes with other crap from that era, "The Sultans Of Swing" was another victim of gross overplay. I cring when I hear the opening bars from any Dire Straits tunes. So the "Question" is: " I Wonder Who " decides what is considered "Calssic Rock" and how it is determined?

The Moody Blues were a landmark band in the progeressive era, and yet they cannot buy their way into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, but Madonna can, and she never rocked a day in her life. What determines what is Rock And Roll and what is Pop Music? There are so many bands and songs that I recall being all over the radio dial, that have drifted into obscurity. Much of the Moody Blues vast collection of rock has been filed away in the dust bin.

I was in college when the Jefferson Starship released the album Red Dragon, and the song "Miracles" was a mega hit, but where is it now? I rarely hear any Jeff Airplane/Starship on the blab box these days. The Airplane/Starship were one of the innovative bands of the sixties and up through the early eighties. Are they in the R&R Hall Of Fame? I'm not sure, without looking it up.

There are lots of bands that have a lot more leeway than others, The ones you'd expect...Beatles, Stones, Who, Zep, Floydd, Cream, The Doors, and I don't have a problem with those choices. As much as I detest Spruce Stringbean's music, I can understand why he gets stomped into ourt eardrums, but I'm not so sure about Tom Petty. I like his stuff, but he is NOT in the same category as the first list of players, and he's gotten to the point where i'm on the verge of hating him because I hear it so much, not only that, but it's always the same small pack of songs. He's got a vast collection, ...spread the maure around, rather than dumping it all in one big stinking heap!

I consider Emerson, Lake and Palmer a supergroup. I saw them when they did their "Works" tour with a seventy piece orchestra. They had a song called, "Pirates" that was one of the most memorable songs of the summer that the movie, "The Deep" came out. I always associate the song with the movie, so when The "Pirates Of The Carribean" movies series became collossal blockbusters, I figued that it was a given that some D.J. would dig up and revive the interest in that wonderful piece of music...boy, was I ever wrong! "Karnevel #9" is about all I hear from those innovators.

So who is calling the shots? It certainly isn't the listeners,. There is a small minority that want more, but the average schlubb is satisfied hearing the same old drech day in and day out. I pity the poor D.J.s that are stuck with this routine as their job, it does force them to get creative and expand the boundaries, even if it's only by millimeteres rather than miles. I listen to Maria Malito on WAXQ F.M. She's got an appealing voice and does a respectable job of not sounding bored by the lack of variety. She's followed by a twerp named Ken Dashow, he has the annoying habit of expressing his view on subjects that don't amount to a fart in a hurricane. If I wanted to hear an idiot talk about sports, I'd listen to Imus. I tune him into hear special he does called,
" The Three At Three", where at three o'clcok in the afternoon he plays three songs and the listeners have to guess the common bond. In most cases it is so easy it is impossible not to know the link, in others it is something that is completely out in left field, on rare occaisions it is truly challenging . I listen to that feature, then bail out because he is the king of inane chatter.

Down the radio dial is a station that makes the bogus claim, "The only radio station polaying new music in New York". Too bad the new music is packaged like the other pop culkture we're force fed. For a while they were playing all kinds of innovative artists, but that seems to have come to a screeching halt. I cannot hear bands like, The Duke Spirit, The Kaiser Chiefs, Ben Harper, Lilly Allen, Regina Spektor, Ray LaMontaigne, Pete Yorn, they've all been swpet aside for Pearl Jam, The Foo Fighters, Green Day, Nirvana...all bands I like but the bands I dislike are truly irritating. The Black Keys, Cold Play, Smashing Pumpkins, Phoenix, all fall into the Choice B category. They used to have a morning show that two abrasive clods. A female sidekick/newsperson who always botched up peoples names and pronunciations of common words and her coworker, who I respect because he's a rock and roll encyclopedia is another blank slate as far as his personailty goes. Sometimes he tries to talk tough which is the only funny thing that ever comes out of his mouth, he reminds me of Dr. Lovelace from the old TV series, "The Wild Wild West", he's the size of a peanut and about as intimidating as peanut butter. Iam happy to see that the opne Jock I like, Steve Craig got the morning slot. He does a few things to break up the monotony much better than the other beanbags who work there. I generally don't listen as much as I'd like because he's still playing songs that make me automatically hit the "dump" button.

Not long ago I saw a concert by one of the country's best songwriting bands, The Smithereens and it was sponsored by a college station. I began listening because two of the D.J.s were favorites of mine from an innovative station that no longer exists. They play too much folky stuff for my liking but it is more tolerable than haveing wax stuffed INTO my ears, rather than cleared from them.

So, here in the suburbs of the Hippest City on Earth, I have to play Radio Roulette to find music that I can get excited about, and I'm still not satisfied...should I have titled this blog, "Satisfaction"?

Just an aisde, a band called Bloodwynn Pig did a song called, " I Wonder Who" as well as Ray Charles. I know that the Pig song isn't the same as the Rory Gallagher blues number, I'll have to see what Ray Charles did, it's got to be better than what I'm being force fed.