Yep, I'm going all the way back to the British Invasion era, the mid nineteen sixities to steal this title. It is from a band that's still around today, if you don't know who I'm referring to, then you're wasting your time reading this rant. The Rolling Stones penned this classic when Brian Jones was still a member and certainly wasn't dead. It's a timeless song and the sentiment is also without proportional boundaries.
I'm a slim guy. I like the way I look with my hair long. Long hair is not in style these days. I don't particularly care. But I don't want to be lumped in with the Dead-Head, pony-tailed baldies who never remove their baseball caps, even when they take a shower. So once a year I go through the effort to get my locks trimmed. I like hair hanging down in my face, I have no idea why. Every time I get my tresses pruned, I give the scissor-master the same instructions, I'd like it collar length in the back, clean around the ears, LEAVE THE FRONT LONG! If I don't get what I want, I will not return to that establishment. I am now running out of places to go. For some reason, LONG to a barber means, "cut it an inch above the eyebrows". Nobody has ever asked me how long I want it. There have been times I've instructed the person doing the clipping to leave it the length it was when I walked in the door. Yet they still bob it about an inch long in the front. Does Rosetta Stone make a disc to instruct one on how to speak hair-stylist? I cannot get through to these people. It is the end of October. I last got my hair bobbed in January. That's ten months to let it grow out and some fat chick whacked it off again, leaving me to wait another year to get it the length I like, before starting all over again. I'v gone to all of the local haircutting establishments and I'm expanding my range ever-outward, and have yet to come across a snipper who'll give me what I ask for. The next title I'll have to borrow when addressing this issue is, "Give The People What They Want" by The Kinks, another British Invasion mainstay. As my range of experimentation expands outward, my musical choices are receding backwards. There must be some sort of mathematical equation to explain this, because logic certainly doesn't apply.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Another One Bites The Dust
Once again, I've helped-myself to thesong title of a song that I strongly dislike. The early stuff that Queen put out was really energy filled, but they settled into a slump of dull songs that leave me feeling frustrated. I've grown to dislike the Queen songs that are played on the radio, mostly because they are overplayed, and have been for way too long. This is a song that I NEVER liked, so I can't blame the radio overplaying it for that. But Queen is not what I'm bitching about this time, it's RADIO. There a re lots of good Radio songs I could have chosen, Joe Jacksons' "On The Radio", Elvis Costellos' "Radio Radio", R.E.Ms' " Radio Silence" are all good choices, but I'm afraid that I have already used them at one time or another. So it goes.
I know that I mentioned that I once worked in radio and have an unhealthy love for the media that is rapidly sinking to microscopic proportions. For a while my station of choice was WRXP F.M. They had the most eclectic mix of contemporary music going for any commerical station in the Tri-State area. In mid-July of 2011 I went on vacation. When I returned, WRXP was a different station and no longer used those call letters. They can still be streamed on a computer or smartphone, but I'm odd. I like using my phone for...get this...phone calls. Now New York is almost devoid of any commercial rock and roll influences that aren't 'easy listening', 'lite' or 'classic". There are now three stations I have on my presets. WFUV F.M, WBAB F.M. and WAXQ F.M.
The problem with WRXP is that they seemed to not know what to play, so they tried a whole slew of combinations and never got a set audience. There was only one D.J who I actually found entertaining, informative and creative. The morning team I found to be truly obnoxious and incompetent in many ways. These two doofi ( the plural of doofuses) ended up switching with the guy I considered to be their star player, Steve Craig. It was too little too late. Apparently their ratings sucked and they were cast aside like the rest of the trash.
I then began exclusively lsitening to WAXQ simply by default. They aren't playing any new 'Classic Rock', because in their moronic opinion, there isn't any new classic rock. A supergroup featuring former members of Van Halen, Montrose, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and a solo guitarist of some esteem has put out their third album, none of which I have heard on the New York stations. Who makes these decisions? I like the mid morning D.J. Maria Milito. She's got a pleasant voice and demeanor so despite the fact that I'm hearing the same old stuff day in and day out, it doesn't sound so muddy. It takes skill to do that. Her afternoon replacement is a twerp of mythic proportions. Ken Dashow is a sports nurd. Most of what he says I find irritating, annoying and uninteresting. If I wanted to hear a moron talk about sports, I'd listen to Imus. As far as morons go, he far surpasses Dashow. I tune out when he's on with one exception. He does a feature called " The Three At Three" where he plays three songs in a row and you have to figure out what the common factor is. In most cases it's sports related, which makes it all just as annoying as he is. In some cases it is a news story that I haven't heard since I still get my news from TV and at three p.m. I'm still at work. Now when I tune in to WAXQ, it's simply for the songs. Once the ones I like are over, I begin pressing the buttons again.
In late spring of this year...2011, I happened to see a write-up in the local newspaper about one of my favorite power-pop bands, The Smithereens playing at a venue close to where I live. I never got to see them when I worked in radio, so I took the plunge. The auditorium was smaller than my grade school theater and the sound was awful, but they put on a great show, which happened to be sponsored by WFUV F.M.the station of Fordham University. I began listening to them to see what they had to offer. The best thing is that they're listener sponsored, so my ears are not assaulted by dreadful Geico and Rosetta Stone commercials. They play a bit too much folky stuff for my tastes, but familiarity lessens the ho-hum quality of much of what they play. I could do without many of the bands that they're high on like Fleet Foxes, Coldplay, The Black Keys, Bon Iver and Phoenix, but've been exposed to a bunch of bands I would never have heard if I hadn't begun listening. They also feature two of the D.J.s I listened to in my youth, Dennis Elsas and Vin Scelsa, the second of whom is one of my all-time faves. Vin is a real hero of rock and roll, beause he has the ear to put it all out there and let his listeners decide what they like. I have been exposed to a lot of very interesting music, but I still need my testosterone loaded hard rock and heavy metal, which I'm not going to get at WFUV. This brings up my third choice...
WBAB F.M. I used to hate this station because their program director and morning man was a total dipshit. He's gone now and I believe one of my old co-workers is their program director. I'm not positive about this, but WBLAB ( that's not a typo) is stuck in the same rut as WAXQ. The same ol', same ol' is basically what they play. If Paul McCartney came out with new music, that would get exposure but anything else that's untested would have to sell a shitload of music before they'd add them to their playlist. I'd listen to them more, but they're more geared to the Suffolk County listeners, so I have a hard time picking them up, and often get crosstalk with a Spanish speaking station.
As Bob Dylan Zimmerman said, " The times, they are a changin'" and I suppose if I'm going to keep up on the state of rock and roll, I'll have to change with them. I wish that all the MP3/F.M. players I've thrown my money away on, had batteries that lasted for more than four hours so I'd have a fighting chance! I'd hate to have to rely on my phone to get my streaming music, the one time I actually would get a call, my batteries would probably not be able to handle it!
I know that I mentioned that I once worked in radio and have an unhealthy love for the media that is rapidly sinking to microscopic proportions. For a while my station of choice was WRXP F.M. They had the most eclectic mix of contemporary music going for any commerical station in the Tri-State area. In mid-July of 2011 I went on vacation. When I returned, WRXP was a different station and no longer used those call letters. They can still be streamed on a computer or smartphone, but I'm odd. I like using my phone for...get this...phone calls. Now New York is almost devoid of any commercial rock and roll influences that aren't 'easy listening', 'lite' or 'classic". There are now three stations I have on my presets. WFUV F.M, WBAB F.M. and WAXQ F.M.
The problem with WRXP is that they seemed to not know what to play, so they tried a whole slew of combinations and never got a set audience. There was only one D.J who I actually found entertaining, informative and creative. The morning team I found to be truly obnoxious and incompetent in many ways. These two doofi ( the plural of doofuses) ended up switching with the guy I considered to be their star player, Steve Craig. It was too little too late. Apparently their ratings sucked and they were cast aside like the rest of the trash.
I then began exclusively lsitening to WAXQ simply by default. They aren't playing any new 'Classic Rock', because in their moronic opinion, there isn't any new classic rock. A supergroup featuring former members of Van Halen, Montrose, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and a solo guitarist of some esteem has put out their third album, none of which I have heard on the New York stations. Who makes these decisions? I like the mid morning D.J. Maria Milito. She's got a pleasant voice and demeanor so despite the fact that I'm hearing the same old stuff day in and day out, it doesn't sound so muddy. It takes skill to do that. Her afternoon replacement is a twerp of mythic proportions. Ken Dashow is a sports nurd. Most of what he says I find irritating, annoying and uninteresting. If I wanted to hear a moron talk about sports, I'd listen to Imus. As far as morons go, he far surpasses Dashow. I tune out when he's on with one exception. He does a feature called " The Three At Three" where he plays three songs in a row and you have to figure out what the common factor is. In most cases it's sports related, which makes it all just as annoying as he is. In some cases it is a news story that I haven't heard since I still get my news from TV and at three p.m. I'm still at work. Now when I tune in to WAXQ, it's simply for the songs. Once the ones I like are over, I begin pressing the buttons again.
In late spring of this year...2011, I happened to see a write-up in the local newspaper about one of my favorite power-pop bands, The Smithereens playing at a venue close to where I live. I never got to see them when I worked in radio, so I took the plunge. The auditorium was smaller than my grade school theater and the sound was awful, but they put on a great show, which happened to be sponsored by WFUV F.M.the station of Fordham University. I began listening to them to see what they had to offer. The best thing is that they're listener sponsored, so my ears are not assaulted by dreadful Geico and Rosetta Stone commercials. They play a bit too much folky stuff for my tastes, but familiarity lessens the ho-hum quality of much of what they play. I could do without many of the bands that they're high on like Fleet Foxes, Coldplay, The Black Keys, Bon Iver and Phoenix, but've been exposed to a bunch of bands I would never have heard if I hadn't begun listening. They also feature two of the D.J.s I listened to in my youth, Dennis Elsas and Vin Scelsa, the second of whom is one of my all-time faves. Vin is a real hero of rock and roll, beause he has the ear to put it all out there and let his listeners decide what they like. I have been exposed to a lot of very interesting music, but I still need my testosterone loaded hard rock and heavy metal, which I'm not going to get at WFUV. This brings up my third choice...
WBAB F.M. I used to hate this station because their program director and morning man was a total dipshit. He's gone now and I believe one of my old co-workers is their program director. I'm not positive about this, but WBLAB ( that's not a typo) is stuck in the same rut as WAXQ. The same ol', same ol' is basically what they play. If Paul McCartney came out with new music, that would get exposure but anything else that's untested would have to sell a shitload of music before they'd add them to their playlist. I'd listen to them more, but they're more geared to the Suffolk County listeners, so I have a hard time picking them up, and often get crosstalk with a Spanish speaking station.
As Bob Dylan Zimmerman said, " The times, they are a changin'" and I suppose if I'm going to keep up on the state of rock and roll, I'll have to change with them. I wish that all the MP3/F.M. players I've thrown my money away on, had batteries that lasted for more than four hours so I'd have a fighting chance! I'd hate to have to rely on my phone to get my streaming music, the one time I actually would get a call, my batteries would probably not be able to handle it!
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