We're making moves and starting grooves before they knew we were gone

From somewhere in left-field one day came OMC. What is that: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Car? I actually asked that once on the air but I don't think anyone got it.

I suppose it doesn't matter at this point anymore. As I've said, it amazed me the sort of music we played at the undergrad station – most of it bordered generic near-top 40 pop, so I guess in retrospect, playing this song wasn’t really that bizarre. I think most popular radio stations across the country were playing it, maybe trying to "branch out" with some pseudo-world music beats. What was truly bizarre was how little anybody knew about the band going in. I mean, coming out of nowhere and no one thought to look toward New Zealand for an answer. Who was OMC? Pauly Fuemana was the guy you saw singing and dancing around in the video but another guy - Alan Jansson –co-wrote the music and produced the album. What was OMC? The Otara Millionaires Club, Otara being one of the poorest sections of Fuemana and Jansson's native Auckland.

I assume it entered up on our playlist because someone saw the video on the MTV and once we ended up with a copy we had to play it as well. True, it sort of fit our format – but barely. While not a bad song, and is somewhat catchy, I remember more than a few people (myself included) getting annoyed after about the second verse kicks in and you almost want to shut it off.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

How Bizarre
(Pauly Fuemana/Alan Jansson)
OMC
From the album How Bizarre
1997

Brother Pele's in the back, sweet Zina's in the front
Cruisin' down the freeway in the hot, hot sun
Suddenly red-blue lights flash us from behind
Loud voice booming, "Please step out onto the line"
Pele preaches words of comfort, Zina just hides her eyes
Policeman taps his shades, "Is that a Chevy '69?"

How bizarre
How bizarre, how bizarre

Destination unknown, as we pull in for some gas
Freshly pasted poster reveals a smile from the past
Elephants and acrobats, lions snakes monkey
Pele speaks "righteous," Sister Zina says "funky"

How bizarre
How bizarre, how bizarre

Ooh, baby (Ooh, baby)
It's making me crazy (It's making me crazy)
Everytime I look around
Everytime I look around (Everytime I look around)
Everytime I look around
It's in my face

Ring master steps out and says "the elephants left town"
People jump and jive, but the clowns have stuck around
TV news and camera, there's choppers in the sky
Marines, police, reporters ask where, for and why
Pele yells, "We're outta here," Zina says, "Right on"
We're making moves and starting grooves before they knew we were gone
Jumped into the Chevy and headed for big lights
Wanna know the rest? Hey, buy the rights...

How bizarre
How bizarre, how bizarre

Ooh, baby (Ooh, baby)
It's making me crazy (It's making me crazy)
Everytime I look around
Everytime I look around (Everytime I look around)
Everytime I look around
It's in my face

So anxious for your look of joy and delight

Christmas was usually a rather subdued celebration at both student-radio stations I worked at since, as you can well imagine, the students that operated the operations were off for the winter break. If we wanted to celebrate we had to have something in the works before Thanksgiving and then put it into action as soon as we got back. No one liked wrestling with last-minute programming ideas and focusing on passing final exams at the same time. I recall one year as an undergrad we were on the ball enough to switch out our regular liners and replace them with some holiday ones. I thought it was cool and made us sound like we were ahead of the trend, rather than usually following suite. Of course, we had to work overtime in January to get the normal liners reinstated. Along with starting another semester, the extra work wasn't worth it, especially when we couldn’t find some of the liners. Oh, well.

Musically we usually didn't change much, except for trying to enter some holiday-themed tunes into rotation, which, for the rock format could be trying. We didn't have much in the way of Christmas albums so we had to rely on Christmas editions of the weekly preview discs (or the even rarer gifts from record labels) and hope there was something we could find salvageable...because stuff like Seven Mary Three Wise Men, A Van Halen Holiday and Kiss Saves Christmas wasn't going to cut it.

So when we stumbled upon the Smashing Pumpkins and Billy Corgan's Christmastime we thought we in pretty good shape. I actually recall a number people commenting on it and enjoying it, noting that it was the sort of thing you'd expect the Pumpkins to sound like as well as having a Christmassy message attached.

And that was all that mattered.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Christmastime
(Billy Corgan)
The Smashing Pumpkins
From the album A Very Special Christmas, Vol. 3
1997

We watch the children playing
Beside the christmas tree
The presents are wrapped up
It's beautiful and secretly the gifts still hide
The fun awaits for you inside

Christmastime has come
There'll be toys for everyone
Cause christmastime has come for you

I remember dreaming
Wishing hoping praying for this day
Now i sit and watch them
The little ones i love so excited by the wait

Christmastime has come
There'll be toys for everyone
Cause christmastime has come for you

And now the word is given
It's time to peek inside
It's time to let the toys out
So anxious for your look of joy and delight
Waiting for just your surprise

Christmastime has come
There'll be toys for everyone
Cause christmastime has come for you

I don't even think your mirror understands your reflection but that's all right

Okay, so there was this chunky guy who called himself "Seedy" Jones who was a student at the undergraduate station with me. I dunno if the air name was self-applied or any back story – he was maybe five or more years older than most of the other kids hanging around, you know – the "normal" college-aged kids – and was sort of an opinionated smart ass. Yeah, he'd done his share of video production somewhere – maybe another college and he transferred in or something – and could talk his way around steadicams, SVHS, and non-linear editing, among other topics. I think it was the 1996-97 school year and "Seedy" was pulling one of the morning jazz shifts – music he had a feel for and could, you know, dig his fingernails into. Jazz was cool – I didn't know much more than some of the more familiar contemporary songs we played – and I appreciated the fact he'd come across as more than a casual listener and tried to add a little freshness to the mix. "Seedy" was one of the jack-of-all-formats we had, able to sit in on almost any format and pass himself off as someone who knew what he was talkin' about – you know the type, really was on point. Always good to have a few like that around – knew his way around a rock shift and could get you through three hours of classical if needed.

He didn't hold any of the student positions but "Seedy" checked into the Music Library often, hanging out with whoever was there to talk shop, grab some lunch and waste a bit of time in between classes. Talk...the guy wouldn't shut up sometimes, talking about this and that and all points in between; he'd try and be funny a lot and you had to be in the right mood to appreciate the humor. If not, chances are...well, he'd piss you off. Not the "talk down to you" type to your face, more the type who liked to belittle others piece by piece – would quote from The Deeper Meaning of Liff and give nicknames to station staff from words found in the book. Sort of tell you off but leave you smiling cause you didn’t know what skegness, baughurst, or pantperthog meant.

So I never knew or caught on with his Steve Vai shtick – you know, the guitarist – he was the "big thing" for a few weeks. It was supposed to be funny, sort of like that Weekend Update skit on Saturday Night Live about Frank Stallone: "Belgian doctors have accidentally cloned a human being. The human being? You guessed it – Frank Stallone." It'd run like this: a few guys, hanging out in the office listening to one of the weekly preview discs and "Seedy" would barge in. "Hey, I heard they came out with the best and worst album's of the year; he ["he" being whoever we were listening to] made the worst list; the best this year is...Steve Vai." Such was his way of mocking music, I suppose. Of course not everything was as funny as he thought it was. Sometimes he'd just walk in an' ask, "'Zat Steve Vai?" Hardly! – it'd be some pop tune or somethin' by Sheryl Crow or whoever – and we'd just sort of laugh at it. You had to be there. Or "we're goin' off to see that new Clancy movie – you in? "I dunno – hey, Vai do the soundtrack?" Not much of a punch line – Steve Vai! – but I guess it meant somethin' to him. I never could figure exactly what: I don’t think Vai appeared on any of the preview discs and even if he did, we never played it. Not our thing. Might have fit sonically but it wasn't one of the "names" some of the directors liked to play.

Looking back, I see guitar virtuoso Vai did release an album around this time – Fire Garden – but whether "Seedy" knew about it or not is beyond me. One thing's for sure: "Seedy" knew about Vai and his music. That was fine – but I still don't get the joke.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Little Alligator
(Steve Vai)
Steve Vai
From the album Fire Garden
1996

I could read your mind and all its freakish desires
A full on femme fatale with an elegant face of fire
Through the haze of your senses and your defenses
God only knows how long it is till you hit the bottom
but that's all right
I'll get you through paradise

Don't need your wings
For the Queen
Little alligator

From the fangs the poison is so sweetly injected
The words that fall from your tongue are so filthy
your mouth must be infected
Not a man but not quite a lady
Hopelessly androgenous
Hell only knows how hot it gets down south of the border
but that's all right
Your secret is safe tonight

There is no shame
Glory and fame
For little alligators

In the jungle it's comin' down
For those who live in the lost and found
Can't mistake your attitude so heavy
Now get over here

You can hang your image in a brand new dimention
Cause I don't even think your mirror understands your reflection
But that's all right as long as you're not uptight
And in your brain
It’s all the same

Little alligator

Since I don't believe a word u say, save it for another

I'm pretty sure Honky's Ladder was the only Afghan Whigs song ever featured on our undergraduate station. In fact, the only reason I know we even bothered with the song was because the program director at the time – a fussy guy named Frankie, who would 1) be replaced by the end of the fall semester by Syd ("the Kid"); and 2) would be seen a year or so later driving UPS trucks – verbally told DJs not to ask over and over again "who Honky was" or "what was up with his ladder."

Evidently over the summer, these less-than-brilliant questions and other similar comments had been used so much that it wasn't funny anymore. If there were people commenting about Honky and his Amazing Technicolor Ladder, I would not be surprised. As much talent as the station had, there were always a handful of people who couldn't think of anything to say about a particular song or artist and therefore come up with some seemingly funny one-liner (also see And I'm dying at 90). If it worked okay the first time, they would usually reuse it each shift the song appeared. And if an influential and popular DJ said it first, other people would try it out on their shifts. Sometimes the joke worked with the person who thought it up – their style of delivery or attitude could pass it off as amusing – but it usually didn't work when DJs blandly recited with little understanding.

From the way Frankie talked about it in the occasional staff meetings, someone who wasn't there over the summer could get the impression that the song might have gotten a bit overplayed, too. Between over-saturation and sub-par efforts at show prep (see Boy, you can't play me that way) this might have been why the song was eventually taken out of rotation. I wonder now if the song was going to be added back into rotation as some point and Frankie either forgot or was fired first and the track became ancient history. While you would think – or hope – something else by the Wigs could have been entered to take its place, I distinctly recall Honky's Ladder being on a weekly preview disc and therefore probably the only track by the Wigs.

For the record, the Wigs broke up in 2001 after one other album in 1998.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Honky's Ladder
(Greg Dulli)
The Afghan Whigs
From the album Black Love
1996

Got u where I want u
Motherfucker
I got 5ive up on your dime
And if u wanna peep on something
Peep what I got stuck between
Your eyes
And since I don't believe
A word u say
Save it for another, baby brother
Swallow time 2 pay

Up on the ladder they sing
How high?
Does a brother have to climb
2 touch the light

But wait 'till I get done
With u
If u tell me
"Don't get mixed up with the Devil"
That's exactly
What I'm gonna do

Caught u while u waited
For your boy 2 come
And fix u up again
Come a little closer, baby
I only wanna try 2
Be your friend
Since I ain't got nothing
Left 2 lose
Got u where I want u
Motherfucker
Don't u try 2 move

Up on the ladder they sing
How high?
Does a brother have 2 climb
2 touch the light
Won't u take me up there
With u? U said u would
No one ever could shake
That ladder like I could

So I wait

The masquerade is played and neighbor folks make jokes

Oh, what fun the wind could be. For years at my undergraduate station, giving the weather "forecast" was simply calling the local weather office and getting scant information about that day's highs and lows and maybe a current temperature. We were told to call every hour but people got wise fast and usually called during the first hour of their three-hour shift; some DJs wrote the "forecast" on a paper on the back of the studio door and it was used by everyone else throughout the day – though you still had to call to get a current temperature.

Or, for current temperatures you could use the weather station in the studio, which was one of the biggest jokes in the studio, in my opinion (aside from occasional DJs). I never knew it to work. It looked antiquated, with its faux-wood paneling and red LCD lights across three faces – a thermometer, a barometer and a circular display to show wind speed and direction. Supposedly it was connected to something on the roof and supposedly if you waited long enough the readout on the device would be decipherable – somewhere in its use it had lost the ability to show complete numbers. So what might have been an 8 appeared as a 3 (picture this is some "digital" numeral font) and, in the end, hardly reliable.

The fun part was the red line indicating wind direction that crept around the circular display – it always seemed to be on the move and something else to question the device's reliability. But we shouldn't have cared – right? We never gave the wind speed in our "forecasts," we just worried about the basics. True, but (as you can guess) there were always a few people every semester who thought they were being helpful in giving wind information and muddled through some pretty funny moments. Most of the time, the people reading wind speed would read it live – meaning they would correct themselves as the display changed. "Southwest at 5, no wait, that's southeast at...I think 10 or is it 15, it's hard to read...." However the one I remember most was the guy – a rather large guy named Todd who tried to find humor in everything - who would read all three displays, adding the wind information was "from our windometer."

Yes, he would quote and give credit to our "windometer." I think that was about the time we told people to just ignore the weather station.

People, I think, loved quoting wind information. Periodically the telephoned forecast would indicate something about "wind advisories on area lakes" and people would go on and recite it on the air, oblivious I'm sure to what it meant and that there really were not major "area lakes" in our area to worry about wind or no wind. Oh, what fun it was when it was windy.

Speaking of Windy, that was the title of a 1967 single by the California-based group, the Association, a song I had heard numerous times and one I still enjoy. Being of somewhat broad musical tastes, I was surprised one day at the undergraduate station to find myself listening to a song I knew was by the Association in the middle of our nightly rock shifts. The few times I was on the air I would acknowledge that the Bloodhound Gang's version of Along Comes Mary was a cover of an old Association tune from the 1960s, but I seriously doubted anyone listening knew or even cared. I'm sure its inclusion on the Half Baked soundtrack stemmed from the lyrics supposed reference to marijuana but that really doesn't matter to me.

And anyway, the wind blows.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Along Comes Mary
(Tandyn Almer)
The Bloodhound Gang
From the original motion picture soundtrack Half Baked
1998

Every time I think that I'm the only one who's lonely
Someone calls on me
And every now and then I spend my time in rhyme and verse
And curse those faults in me

And then along comes Mary
Then along comes Mary
And does she want to give me kicks , and be my steady chick
And give me pick of memories
Or maybe rather gather tales of all the fails and tribulations
No one ever sees

When we met I was sure out to lunch
Now my empty cup tastes as sweet as the punch
Sweet as the punch

When vague desire is the fire in the eyes of chicks
Whose sickness is the games they play
And when the masquerade is played and neighbor folks make jokes
As who is most to blame today

And then along comes Mary
Then along comes Mary
And does she want to set them free, and let them see reality
From where she got her name
And will they struggle much when told that such a tender touch as hers
Will make them not the same

When we met I was sure out to lunch
Now my empty cup tastes as sweet as the punch
Sweet as the punch

And when the morning of the warning's passed, the gassed
And flaccid kids are flung across the stars
The psychodramas and the traumas gone
The songs are left unsung and hung upon the scars

And then along comes Mary
Then along comes Mary
And does she want to see the stains, the dead remains of all the pains
She left the night before
Or will their waking eyes reflect the lies, and make them
Realize their urgent cry for sight no more

When we met I was sure out to lunch
Now my empty cup tastes as sweet as the punch
Sweet as the punch

My mindless, waveless thoughts - they carry on

I Am an Elastic Firecracker featured some jelly-covered doughnut guy on its cover and I remember more than a few people asking who he was and why he was so prominently featured. I dunno – I always thought it was someone who liked the smell of napalm.

Anyway, one of three core songs we played off the album was Trip Along, although I should confess it was one we only tried to play. To begin, we actually had a copy of the full album in the control room, a rarity for us, and I believe we had owned it for quite a while. It may have even been one of the promotional copies sent before the album arrived on the scene. The only bad thing was that since we had the disc for so long, it had gotten used – and misused. Somewhere along the way it had gotten scratched up pretty bad and not every track was as radio-friendly as we would have wanted it.

I've mentioned our Wednesday night program of new music and regional musicians (see I think it's worth it for you to stay awake); one night in October of a now-forgotten year (probably 1997), I was on the air Friday night from 9 to midnight and not by my hand. I forget why, since this was not my regular shift by any stretch – someone had either made arrangements to be off that night or, more likely, forgot to. At some point in the second half of the 10:00 hour the music director stopped by and, one thing led to another, we decided to essentially kick-off "What's New Wednesday" on a Friday. Why not ( see So much for the days...tribal life)?

We laughed and thought it was funny, the two of us working tag-team for the next hour and endlessly finding a way at every stopset, or break, to point out that this was, indeed, "What's New Wednesday – on a Friday."

One of the instances of where I had a "sonic boom" – our name for some sort of on-air gaffe – arrived about midway through the hour when I decided to play the Tripping Daisies and, more so, play something I knew hadn't been played recently. So I played Trip Along – rather the first 0:40 seconds or so, before it morphed into this twitchy, stuttering echo-tinged sound that reminded me of the reason why we didn't play this song. The disc was scratched, stupid.

Calmly popping on the air, I faded out the song, noting the aforementioned music was a rare Tripping Daisy-esque song entitled "Skip Along," and, with the music director laughing in the background, I managed to get some other music on the air. The two of us managed to get through the remainder of the hour without incident that night.

Did I mention it was a Friday?

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Trip Along
(Tim DeLaughte/Tripping Daisy)
Tripping Daisy
From the album I Am an Elastic Firecracker
1995

Sitting on a curved back couch
My mind it rolls
Reminds me it was so easy
Staring at the christmas lights in a box
That were once hanging on my tree
Proving once again that seasons change
So do we - it's nothing new
Similar to the love you find while kissing
Your first kiss, the world was blind
Trip along my mindless waveless
thoughts they carry on......
Trip along my mindless waveless
thoughts they carry on......
The magic potion within my brain
Painted pictures of everything
The cat that barks the dog that meows
The bird that flies all around
Trip along my mindless waveless
thoughts they carry on
Sitting on a curved back couch
My mind it rolls
Reminds me it was so easy

Pass the gravy, pass the buck

Between the years I first heard Secrets and Lies at the undergraduate radio station and when I finally found a copy of the song, I always remembered it as a Thanksgiving song. Yes, gravy can do that sort of thing to a person.

The song appeared on one of our weekly preview discs and was played a few times before it probably got lost in the on-going shuffle of music choices. Regulated only to the first three hours (the Triple-A vs. pop fare) of our nine hours of modern rock music, looking back I sort of wish I caught it and included it on our weekend morning folk program where it would have been book-ended by similar-sounding music. Perhaps if our entire broadcast day was given over to this format of music – rather than splintered between classical, modern rock, jazz, hip-hop and so on – the song might have had a better chance and been more memorable. It may not have been that memorable to others during the rock format, hence why it was probably all but forgotten, but I distinctly recall taking immediate notice – there was something catchy and hook-laden about that chorus. At the time I didn't pay close enough attention. It wasn't until I had graduated and thinking of songs that the strange holiday-themed lyric pestered me. What was it? Finally, years later the truth was revealed: Jonatha Brooke.

By the time I heard of Brooke, she'd been touring the music world for at least a decade, first as part of the duo the Stories and then heading out on her own. Her most recent album was released in 2004.

Gravy. Go figure.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Secrets and Lies
(Brooke)
Jonatha Brooke
From the album 10 Cent Wings
1997

Every twenty seconds someone's pounding someone down
Every thirty more a liar's born
Every half an hour I get up and look around
And once or twice a day I ask for more

On a really good day there's something in the mail
Once a week I get a treat
Other times a month goes by
But I still mever miss a beat

Get it on the table, pass the gravy, pass the buck
Get it on the table, secrets and lies
Silence, faith, and luck

Once a year the holidays come swinging at your head
Feast until you're full of pain again
It tightens in your chest and now it's written in your face
You're staring at your lover or your friend

Get it on the table, pass the gravy, pass the buck
Get it on the table, secrets and lies
Silence, faith, and luck

Cuz it's hand to mouth, door to door, cradle to the grave
Asking for more, asking for more
Cuz it's hand to mouth, door to door, cradle to the grave
Asking for more, asking for more, I'm asking for more

Maybe if you're lucky you will have your sunny day
Once in a lifetime maybe twice
But even when you're dying you're still hungry for the choice
Was chance the only certainty in life?

Get it on the table, pass the gravy, pass the buck
Get it on the table, secrets and lies
Silence, faith, and luck
Get it on the table, pass the gravy, pass the buck
Get it on the table, secrets and lies
Silence, faith, and luck

I'm gonna count up all my widgets and digits and all my stuff

At the undergraduate station I worked at, during our weekday rock shifts there was an attempt to play "modern rock" from a few eras – namely the 1990s but there were "flashbacks" to the 1980s that got air as well. Some were novelty throwaways – like Peter Schilling's Major Tom Coming Home or Dexy's Midnight Runners – while others were songs by artists that had a 1990s output (strong or otherwise) that somehow fit snuggly up against what else was playing. I arrived on the scene already a fan of Wall of Voodoo's Mexican Radio and Call of the West, both known for their warped Western and boggled-bandito sounds, and Mexican Radio was certainly a standout track during the aforementioned flashbacks. Actually, one of the more memorable times I played this song was not so much during a music shift but during our coverage of basketball.

For a few years, the college station was the radio flagship of the university men's basketball team, meaning our play-by-play team went over to the coliseum for home games or, for other games, headed away to parts unknown and hoped fans back at home were listening. For most of our remotes, the broadcast team would setup a mobile transmitter unit whose output fed into our audio console and fed out over the airwaves. It was a fairly simple process with little chance of error, although since it was also a transmitting device, sometimes it would send over static or noise.

Such was the night when the unit was sending about 90% of the game, with the remaining 10% shared between twinges of static and someone chatting fiercely away in Spanish. The first time it happened I didn't think much of it but it soon started happening more often, to the point that there was at least a three-to-five second pinch of noise that prompted the play-by-play team to actually apologize for the audio difficulties.

During one of the timeouts – and when I, back at the studio, began a 90-second PSA break, I jumped on the phone to talk with play-by-play announcers.

"What gives with that other radio station breaking in?" they asked. I didn’t have much of an answer for them, other than saying that most of their game was coming across strong and that I didn't think there was much we could do about the static unless they signed the mobile unit off briefly. Somewhat happy to hear their performance wasn't sounding all that bad, one of the announcers made the off-the-cuff remark before going back into the game that they could hear that other DJ talking but "we thought it was you - but we can't understand just what he says."

In a flash I knew what to do. Pulling the necessary CD down from its shelf, when the last of the PSAs finished and the announcers' cue to continue aired, I began the opening bars of Mexican Radio. Neither made the connection the first time, but about the third or fourth time we returned from a break one of them chuckled mildly at all the "Mexican Radio I've been hearing tonight." A subtle joke, yes, but one I thought was justly deserved.

Wall of Voodoo's main player was Stan Ridgway, a name I immediately recognized a few years later as a graduate assistant at the other radio station I worked at. Ridgway's Partyball was stuffed into our massive walk-in closest that served as music storage – floor to ceiling shelves of CDs, LPs and cassettes – and appeared to have never played. Borrowing the disc for a weekend, I quickly found I Wanna Be a Boss one of the funnier and catchier tunes and thought others would appreciate the song as well. Installing the disc back into the control room, I know the song got a slight ripple of playtime and praise. Stupidly, I didn't make a copy of the song and it was years before I was able to find a copy – by that time, I was working in an office setting and seeing first hand the types of bosses that Stan probably had in mind for his song.

Ridgway has continued to record since wanting to be a boss, both albums of his own music, as a member of the group, Drywall, and with his wife Pietra Wexstun.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

I Wanna Be a Boss
(Stan Ridgway)
Stan Ridgway
From the album Partyball
1991

Well, I've been doodling on this notepad
And I been taking telephone calls
I can tell this job's at the end of the line
And I'm ready for the fall
But I been watchin' the boss carefully
And he always seems to be havin' a ball
And then I scratch my head and wonder
Why I'm down here and he's up the hall

Now, all of my paychecks aren't worth
The paper they're printed on
I get 'em Friday
But Monday they're all gone
There must be some way to change my situation
It's time that I took up a brand new vocation

I wanna take a two-week vacation
Twenty-six times a year, add 'em up
When I fly to exotic places
My jet will be a Lear
I'll need several secretaries
Just to jot down notes
I'll wear Gucci loafers
And expensive shirts
And blue, executive, exotic coats

Chorus:
'Cause I, I said I wanna be a boss
(I wanna be, I wanna be)
I, I said I wanna be a boss
And I'll have people workin' under me
And this lousy job I'll toss
I, I said I wanna be a boss

Well, I'll drive in fancy cars
Well, no, maybe I'll just cruise
With a limo––and a chauffeur,
TV, telephone, and booze
Tinted windows so the common folk
Can't see me here inside
Maybe every now and then for fun
I'll give some old coot a ride

Then maybe I'll slip him
A thousand dollar bill
Then he'll smile and shake my hand
And I'll put him in my will
I'm gonna count up all my widgets
And digits, and all my stuff
I'll make millions in a day
But it'll never be enough
Nope––not enough!

Chorus:
'Cause I, I said I wanna be a boss
And I just wanna take a four-hour lunch
And eat a steak with A1 Sauce
I, I said I wanna be a boss
And I'll buy up every stock there is
From ITT to Doctor Ross
I, I said I wanna be a boss
(I wanna be, I wanna be)

Now if I find a product I like
I'll buy up the whole company
Shave my face, and grin and smile
And then I'll sell it on TV
And everyone will know me
I'll be more famous than Howard Hughes
I'll grow a long beard and watch
Ice Station Zebra in the nude

And grow my nails like Fu-Manchu
Keep a row of specimen jars
Get other people to work for me––well
Maybe I'll buy the planet Mars, and
Build an amusement park up there
Better than old Walt's place
You'll have to be a millionaire to go
We'll smoke cigars and lounge in lace
Talk the talk of businessmen
And bosses that we are
So here's to me––the drinks are free––
'Cause I just bought this bar

Yeah––yeah, I wanna be a boss
I wanna be a boss, boss, boss!
Some kinda intergalactic boss!

I Can Feel It In My Heart Something's Wrong

For reasons never really made clear, the first faculty advisor at my undergraduate radio station (good ol' Dr. Propel) had a signed, promotional picture (the usual black-and-white 8x10 glossy) of Troy "Big Shot" Peoples - the self-proclaimed Son of Funkenstein - hanging prominently in his office. By "hanging" I mean it was stuck to the wall with yellowish tape and by "prominently" I mean it was a oddly shaped wall near the corner of the building so there wasn't much room for anything else there anyway. The picture was a full-length shot of Troy standing next to his keyboard and dressed like he was trick-or-treating as George Clinton. It was autographed, thanking Propel for giving his disc a spin, a four-track single of his song I Dropped Da Bomb on You featuring the same song in various tempos subtitled "Slow Bomb," "Funk Bomb," and "Disco Bomb."

But was his CD ever played on our station? I don't know. I can't imagine what format it would have fit under - funk? R&B? While the song is a jam, I never remember seeing it in the control room. But that's the funny thing about this: we found the CD everywhere.

It started when the new faculty advisor arrived. A fairly easy-going guy named Martin Manning, he kept "Big Shot" on the wall and had a copy of the CD single in his office. Then we found another copy hidden away in the music library. Then we found another in the television station's equipment closet. Then another copy appeared in the faculty advisor's office. But was this one of the already discovered copies or a different disc altogether? Who knows - but it matched the CD later found in one of the radio production room. Then we thought we got rid of most copies by giving them away during the purging of the music library. Not so fast - someone found another copy and I think by then we knew either 1) it was a cursed disc, doomed to forever haunt the radio station; or 2) "Big Shot" had sent our station at least two-dozen copies of his CD. By this time someone was fed up with the whole thing and when the next disc surfaced – which you know it did - it was immediately broken in two. Ouch!

Even with that harsh punishment I still managed to graduate with a copy of the disc, which I have to this day. The disc notes the song is from the "soon to be released" album Da New Testament of Funk but I was never able to successfully find anything about an album by this name, especially from the early-mid 1990s. Notes with the CD single mention Calvin Yarbrough and Alisa Peoples produced the song, names best remembered for their 1981 smash hit Don't Stop the Music. I'm guessing music ran in the Peoples family.

Still, I have to wonder whatever happened to "Big Shot"?

- - - - - - - - - - - -

I Dropped the Bomb on You
(Troy "Big Shot" Peoples)
Troy "Big Shot" Peoples
From the CD single I Dropped the Bomb on You
1994

[Lyrics unknown]

We got one-way tickets on a one-way track

Country music was never my thing. I went to college knowing a little bit about modern rock and next to nothing about country music, though I knew some of what I had heard sounded like twangy pop-rock with more hootin' and hollerin' added into the mix. I later did an internship at one of those fly-by-night country stations that tended to pop up like disease during the 1990s and got to hear more than I wanted. To be fair, not all of it is bad – 5% of it serves a musical purpose; the other 95% is not.

Flashback to college: the primary competition of my undergraduate radio station was a country station and therefore a format we didn't play. I've noted there was an always an interest to experiment on college-run stations but seeing how country stations had over saturated the airwaves, both university-owned stations I worked at saw little reason to compete and made a point of programming something different. Really out there. Like funk music. More on that later.

Whilst an undergrad, my first (and best) roommate found my choice of major interesting and said he might listen in the morning when he went to the gym to workout. His attitude promptly changed when he found out the campus station did not play country music. I pointed out – foolishly – that if he wanted that sort of thing to listen somewhere else. This, then, was my first bit of radio promotions and ended with an undesired response. His thing was country music and when he left for the weekends to travel an hour to his hometown, I eyed his CD collection on the shelf. Here were names and notes and songs and songwriters that I had vaguely heard of either in the newspaper, on CMT or TNN, or those times I found my roommate listening to that "other" station.

One of the names was Kathy Mattea, who I really didn't think fit into that other 95%, as I really came to liking the song, Nobody's Gonna Rain on Our Parade, partly for the sing-song chorus and partly from seeing repeat showing of the video – where, sort of like that Coolio video (see Slide, slide slippity slide, I do what I do just to survive), people are packed like sardines into small places (this time, I think, it was a steamer trunk).

This song, and a few others, made me aware of country music circa 1995 but it didn't pull me to convert me to a fan of the format.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Nobody's Gonna Rain on Our Parade
(Brad Parker/Will Rambeaux)
Kathy Mattea
From the album Walking Away A Winner
1993

Well there's a blue moon hangin' in a small town sky
Nobody's listenin' to the band tonight
Nobody feels like dancin' in this sad cafe
Oh, but you and me baby we got somethin' to live for
One more step and we'll be out that door
I don't know where we're goin' but we're already on our way
The train is leavin' and it won't come back
We got one-way tickets on a one-way track
Nobody's gonna get their hands on the plans we made
And nobody's gonna rain on our parade
Well there's a red light blinking on an empty street
Church bells ringing in the dog day heat
The more we try to change things, the more they stay the same
But there ain't no tellin' just what we'll find
Out past the city limit sign
There's a voice out there and I heard it callin' our name
The train is leavin' and it won't come back
We got one-way tickets on a one-way track
Nobody's gonna get their hands on the plans we made
And nobody's gonna rain on our parade
Well there ain't nobody
Don't need nobody
Couldn't be nobody
Don't see nobody
Nobody's gonna rain on our parade
The train is leavin' and it won't come back
We got one-way tickets on a one-way track
Nobody's gonna get their hands on the plans we made
And nobody's gonna rain on our parade
The train is leavin' and it won't come back
One-way ticket on a one-way track...
Nobody's gonna rain on our parade...

Loveless dying, for a chance just to touch a hand

During those long summers away from college, the sounds of a college radio station, and in the midst of some silly summer job, I would pretend to catch up to the latest in popular music trends and listened to a contemporary hit station. CHR was still somewhat rock-orientated and the stations would feature a few of the "popular" songs we played during the 3-6pm daypart of my undergraduate radio station, mixed alongside other popular songs that we would never play – mainly what might be considered dance tracks.

I never understood why it was called "dance" music, partly because I never went to a club to see the people sway, churn, grind, and bellow on a dance floor all while a laser show whizzed overhead. That wasn't me. Therefore, up-tempo "dance" music never really appealed to me either. I'm sure I'll get chided for it but every track melted into another, with ridiculous pulsating beats that sent the meek and stupid into convulsions, and featuring some woman singing the easily-identifiable chorus while some guy popped in once or twice during the five-minute track to half-mumble, half-ass-rap some silly lyrics.

One of these dance tracks – that coincidently could be described by my above description – always bothered me because I could never fathom what was being said: Culture Beat's Mr. Vain. To me this was an unnecessary song, coupled with my confusion as to who Mr. Rader was. Who was he and why should we say what he wants is wrong and then call him insane? I actually knew a Mr. James Rader. Yeah, he was a little off his rocker and made some flippant decisions and might be (in the loosest sense of the word) insane – but I doubt this has anything to do with anything. Back then, and even to this day, I can't get his image out my mind when I hear this song.

As for Culture Beat, I don't know much about their insanity either. They are originally from Germany, which is news to me. Evidentially Mr. Vain was the biggest selling single across Europe in 1993, before it trickled across the ocean, crashed into the American subconscious, and then burned out of existence. Surprisingly, Culture Beat is still going strong in Europe, continuing to release music well into 2003; not surprisingly is that the people associated with the song (vocalist Tania Evans, rapper Jay Supreme, Torsten Fenslau and Peter Zweler) have moved on while other musicians have kept the Culture Beat name going strong.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Mr. Vain
(Juergen "Nosie" Katzmann/Steven Levis/Jay Supreme)
Culture Beat
From the album Serenity
1994

Call him Mr Raider call him Mr Wrong
Call him Mr Vain
Call him Mr Raider call him Mr wrong
Call him insane
He'd say, I know what I want
And I want it now
I want you 'cause I'm Mr Vain
I know what I want and I want it now
I want you 'cause I'm Mr Vain

Call me Raider call me Wrong
Call me insane call me Mr Vain
Call me what ya like
As long as you call me time and again
Feel the presence of the aura of the man
None to compare
Loveless dying
For a chance just to touch a hand
Or a moment to share
Can't deny the urge that makes them
Want to lose themselves to the debonair one
Hold me back the simple fact is
That I'm all that and I'm always near
One sexy can't perplex me now
You know who'raw
As if you didn't know before
I know what I want and I want it now
I want you then I want a little more

Call him Mr Raider call him Mr Wrong
Call him Mr Vain
Call him Mr Raider call him Mr wrong
Call him insane
He'd say, I know what I want
And I want it now
I want you 'cause I'm Mr Vain
I know what I want and I want it now
I want you 'cause I'm Mr Vain
Mr Wrong, Mr Wrong, Mr Raider, Wrong

Girls are all over the world
They hope and pray and die for men
Like me cause I'm the one
Begotten son that breaks the mould
Get a look at male epitome
Style has never seen
That makes you want to grab and hold
And squeeze real tight
Whose gonna be the one to save
You from yourself
When you wanna take a bite
Please oh baby please
You beg you want you say
You got to get some caught
Up in the charm that I laid on thick
And now there's nowhere
To run on the hook of my line
Yeah I keep many females
Longing for a chance to win my heart
Whit s.e.x and plenty

Call him Mr Raider call him Mr Wrong
Call him Mr Vain
Call him Mr Raider call him Mr wrong
Call him insane
He'd say, I know what I want
And I want it now
I want you 'cause I'm Mr Vain
I know what I want and I want it now
I want you 'cause I'm Mr Vain
Call him Mr Raider call him Mr Wrong
Call him Mr Vain
Call him Mr Raider call him Mr wrong
Call him insane
He'd say, I know what I want
And I want it now
I want you 'cause I'm Mr Vain
I know what I want and I want it now
I want you 'cause I'm Mr Vain
Call him Mr Raider call him Mr Wrong
Call him Mr Vain
Call him Mr Raider call him Mr wrong
Call him insane
He'd say, I know what I want
And I want it now
I want you 'cause I'm Mr Vain
I know what I want and I want it now
I want you 'cause I'm Mr Vain
I know what I want and I want it now
I want you 'cause I'm Mr Vain
I know what I want and I want it now
I want you 'cause I'm Mr Vain

For We Both Know I'm Not What You Need

Where were you when Whitney Houston first sang the "I" part in the title of her song, I Will Always Love You? Where you still in that identical position when she got to the "you" part of the title? Point is, I remember this being one of the many jokes about this song, Houston's soaring interpretation of the chorus and the song's longevity.

At the time, I had no idea it was originally a Dolly Parton song. I suppose that tells you everything you need to about my classic country background. But knowing that really didn't help you out: Parton's version is more twangy and relaxed in a country-format way, while Houston really makes it her own soulful ballad.

However I think it's own popularity prompted many of the jokes I heard. During the 1992 holiday season you couldn't escape it – popular radio played the song, you heard it during commercials for The Bodyguard, and based its charting success you knew you'd hear it once or twice at an award show. This massive overplay – and the aforementioned jab at how drawn out the chorus is sung – made for a bit of humor from some people I knew. Most of the jests came in the form of someone singing a variant of, "This Song Will Always Go On," or asking, "Does she ever shut up?" Of course, these so-called jokes always came from people who weren't in the Whitney fan camp and were almost always enjoyed by similar people.

Me? By this time, I wasn't in the Whitney fan camp, having quickly escaped after I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me), which brings up a more distressing question: why that song?

At any rate, 1992 became a big year for Houston: besides this hit single, she married Bobby Brown. A few more hit singles appeared in the decade – some from more soundtracks – with her most recent album appearing ten years after her marriage. Which, at this writing, is supposedly nearing an end.

So much for always?

- - - - - - - - - - - -

I Will Always Love You
(Dolly Parton)
Whitney Houston
From the album The Bodyguard Original Soundtrack
1992

If Should Stay
I Would Only Get In Your Way
So I'll Go
But I Know
I'll Think Of You Every Step Of The Way

And I Will Always Love You
I Will Always Love You
My Darling Mmmmmmm
Bittersweet Memories
That Is All I'm Taking With Me
So Goodbye
Please Don't Cry
For We Both Know
I'm Not What You Need
An I Will Always Love You
I Will Always Love You

I Hope Life Treats You Kind
And I Hope You Have All You Dreamed Of
And I Wish You Joy And Happiness
But Above All This I Wish You Love

And I Will Always Love You
I Will Always Love You
I Will Always Love You
I Will Always Love You
I Will Always Love You
I Will Always Love You

I realize that there's just no getting over you

Now is a good as time as any to admit to having listened to adult contemporary in the early 1990s. Why? Perhaps I was afraid of the new, alternative music – unsure what it was and how to enjoy it. Perhaps it sounded mildly familiar to the popular music I remembered from the late 1980s? I'd say both – combined with the fact that I don't recall being too adventurous with the radio. Perhaps an arrogant mistake on my part?

I later discovered that some of what I heard was not so much AC, but artists who were labeled CCM - Contemporary Christian Music, a sort of blend of soft pop-rock sounds with gospel/inspirational overtones. Perhaps I was too gruff to catch on but I never made the connection or considered it particularly stirring. For example, one such track that garnered airtime was the double-bubbly track, Baby Baby, by CCM mainstay Amy Grant. Her album, Heart in Motion, hit the pop charts and was wildly successful during this time period, but it was hardly a song that I think most youth of that day and age included in their playlists. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it wasn't geared more for "adults" – but I still remember it more from doctor visits and being in other people's CD collection.

Usually older people - like teachers at the high school, who listened to music during class. The high school chemistry teacher – who went my the rather generic name of Ms. Jones – was prime example, as I remember on more than one occasion spending the first ten minutes of class being lectured in preparation for a class lab session. Once that was over and we had to move from lab station to lab station, we would pass by her office in our search for chemical purities, and see that she had retreated from the students to sit and eat and listen to music. And there was Baby Baby, blaring in all its glory.

As for Grant, she's stayed the course and has been making music since, maybe not as popular and as well known as her 1991 album, but I don't think that's stopped her. As for CCM, I would come in contact with it again during my tenure with my graduate school-era radio station.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Baby Baby
(Amy Grant/Keith Thomas)
Amy Grant
From the album Heart in Motion
1991

Baby, baby
I'm taken with the notion
To love you with the sweetest of devotion

Baby, baby
My tender love will flow from
The bluest sky to the deepest ocean

Stop for a minute
Baby, I'm so glad you're mine...yeah
You're mine

Baby, baby
The stars are shining for you
And, just like me, I'm sure that they adore you

Baby, baby
Go walkin' through the forest
The birds above a-singin' you a chorus

Stop for a minute
Baby, they're so glad you're mine...oh, yeah
And, ever since the day
You put my heart in motion
Baby, I realize
That there's just no getting over you

Baby, baby
In any kind of weather
I'm here for you always and forever

Baby, baby
No muscle man could sever
My love for you is true, and it will never

Stop for a minute
Baby, I'm so glad you're mine...oh, yeah
And, ever since the day
You put my heart in motion
Baby, I realize
There's no getting over you

And, ever since the day
You put my heart in motion
Baby, I realize
That there's just no getting over you
Over you

Baby, baby
Always and forever
Baby, I'm so glad
Here for you, baby
I'm so glad you're mine
Baby, I'm so glad

When I think about you, it makes me smile
Baby, baby, be mine
Baby, I'm so glad
Don't stop giving love
Don't stop, no
Baby, I'm so glad that you're mine
Baby, I'm so glad
Baby, I'm so glad

This is a hell of a concept: we make it hype and you want to step with this

Before I worked in radio, I listened to the radio. And I look back with buzzing ears at some of what I heard. For instance, there was once an entity known as "Vanilla Ice" that performed cute, rhythmic "hip-pop" tunes about throwin' down nines, rollin' eight ball and the cuisine of the street that he was brought up in. What does this mean? Ask Robert Van Winkle, who ran around town, upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown.

While I was one of those people in the early 1990s that jumped on the bandwagon and will freely admit to listening to this, attempting to dissect just what he was saying and how to translate into something I understood (which didn't work), it was a bit after the "Ice" trend had melted. I seem to be fairly good at the sort of thing, getting in on something after its popularity has faded and therefore my copy of a copy of a copy of audiocassette was still getting unjust attention long after everyone else gve their copy away.

Ice pretty much became the proverbial punch line at this point, focusing on movies (Cool as Ice and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and the occasional album that would never seem to top his debut sales. I had all but forgotten him by the time I hit the radio station and his name seldom came up, though I wished we had a copy just to use as an intermittent gag. At one point we had a series of liners that announced "thirty minutes of today's music" that segued into about fifteen seconds of a song that was popular for all the wrong reasons and Vanilla's foray into the mainstream would have been more than a worthy candidate.

Actually there was one instance of Ice, Ice Baby that I do recall from my college days that was a bit disturbing. One of the last broadcasting classes seniors took was a pseudo-graduate level-like seminar where we discussed broadcasting topics of the day (like the forthcoming HDTV revolution) and into this one spring day I walked to hear a rather faithful acapella version of Ice, Ice Baby. Class had not yet started and two or three people were providing the Queen-esqe rhythm line, while others were trying in vain to sing along – wanting to sing but not wanting to prove the lyrics were on the tip of their tongues. I look back at this and laugh, having been a freshman and watching Coolio videos (see Slide, slide slippity slide, I do what I do just to survive) and being witness to an impromptu Vanilla Ice sing-a-long as a senior. I guess the rest of the classes in between weren't that exciting.

By the time I got to graduate school Vanilla Ice had made the bold move into some sort of rock/rap fusion thing with a wannabe thrash attitude and should-be trashed album called Hard to Swallow. I don't know what the kids at this other radio station were into, but I distinctly remember a number of people saying it "wasn't bad," and the album being in the control room. Nothing about the album stands out today, except I know I held it at least once, if only for the satisfaction of being able to say, 'I touched a Vanilla Ice album." Really now, who all can honestly say this? Also, I believe it was at some point at this time in his storied career that Vanilla began performing Ice, Ice Baby as this up-temp rock number, perhaps known as fans as the "hard" version. Maybe it was popular before this time – I don't know, I wasn't up on such things then, much less now – but it was hard to swallow for me. Does that make me an Ice purist?

My final comment about Vanilla occurred a year after I left graduate school and my role as station manager: he was in town for a concert. It must have been a sight to see: small backwoods town enthralled by big-name entertainer vs. surprised superstar depressed at the thought of how this gig is going to go over. From what little I read of the event, nobody in attendance gave him much chance with "new" material. What do you expect when you perform to college kids in a redneck bar? Drunken chants of "Ice, Ice, Baby, too cold, too cold" and people storming the stage – which must of ticked off ol' Rob.

So what have we learned in the fifteen-plus years since we went To the Extreme? Let me know.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Ice Ice Baby
( Earthquake/Smooth, M./Vanilla Ice)
Vanilla Ice
From the album To the Extreme
1990

Yo, VIP, Let's kick it!

Ice Ice Baby, Ice Ice Baby
All right stop, Collaborate and listen
Ice is back with my brand new invention
Something grabs a hold of me tightly
Then I flow like a harpoon daily and nightly
Will it ever stop? Yo -- I don't know
Turn off the lights and I'll glow
To the extreme I rock a mic like a vandal
Light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle.

Dance, Bum rush the speaker that booms
I'm killing your brain like a poisonous mushroom
Deadly, when I play a dope melody
Anything less than the best is a felony
Love it or leave it, You better gain way
You better hit bull's eye, The kid don't play
If there was a problem, Yo, I'll solve it
Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it

Ice Ice Baby Vanilla, Ice Ice Baby Vanilla
Ice Ice Baby Vanilla, Ice Ice Baby Vanilla

Now that the party is jumping
With the bass kicked in, the Vegas are pumpin'
Quick to the point, to the point no faking
I'm cooking MCs like a pound of bacon
Burning them if they're not quick and nimble
I go crazy when I hear a cymbal
And a hi hat with a souped up tempo
I'm on a roll and it's time to go solo
Rollin' in my 5.0
With my ragtop down so my hair can blow
The girlies on standby, Waving just to say Hi
Did you stop? No -- I just drove by
Kept on pursuing to the next stop
I busted a left and I'm heading to the next block
That block was dead

Yo -- so I continued to A1A Beachfront Ave.
Girls were hot wearing less than bikinis
Rockman lovers driving Lamborghinis
Jealous 'cause I'm out geting mine
Shay with a gauge and Vanilla with a nine
Reading for the chumps on the wall
The chumps acting ill because they're so full of "Eight Ball"
Gunshots ranged out like a bell
I grabbed my nine -- All I heard were shells
Falling on the concrete real fast
Jumped in my car, slammed on the gas
Bumper to bumper the avenue's packed
I'm trying to get away before the jackers jack
Police on the scene, You know what I mean
They passed me up, confronted all the dope fiends
If there was a problem, You, I'll solve it
Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it

Ice Ice Baby Vanilla, Ice Ice Baby Vanilla
Ice Ice Baby Vanilla, Ice Ice Baby Vanilla

Take heed, 'cause I'm a lyrical poet
Miami's on the scene just in case you didn't know it
My town, that created all the bass sound
Enough to shake and kick holes in the ground
'Cause my style's like a chemical spill
Feasible rhymes that you can vision and feel
Conducted and formed, This is a hell of a concept
We make it hype and you want to step with this
Shay plays on the fade, slice like a ninja
Cut like a razor blade so fast, Other DJs say, "damn"
If my rhyme was a drug, I'd sell it by the gram
Keep my composure when it's time to get loose
Magnetized by the mic while I kick my juice
If there was a problem, Yo -- I'll solve it!
Check out the hook while Deshay revolves it.

Ice Ice Baby Vanilla, Ice Ice Baby Vanilla
Ice Ice Baby Vanilla, Ice Ice Baby Vanilla

Yo man -- Let's get out of here! Word to your mother!

Ice Ice Baby Too cold, Ice Ice Baby Too cold Too cold
Ice Ice Baby Too cold Too cold, Ice Ice Baby Too cold Too cold

Slide, slide slippity slide, I do what I do just to survive

As an undergraduate, the first Radio-Television-Film class I took was a fairly simple one entitled "Introduction to Broadcasting," where we were unofficially initiated into the department by the dry humour of Dr. Propel. He was really big into pop quizzes, dramatically asking us to "take out...TWO...sheets of...papah!", and making sure we knew not only the proper names of various production equipment but how to spell the names as well.

I remember two moments in this class that surely took place on the same day and had to do with characteristics of video production. The first lesson dealt specifically with shot setup and how a camera tilts, pans, zooms, trucks and so on. Somehow Dr. Propel managed to associate these words with the video for Coolio's Fantastic Voyage. Here I am, a freshman, and foolishly thinking that this is what we do in broadcasting classes: watch videos. I was briefly familiar with the song at the time and sat watching for the first time something that I gathered was old news to most of the rest of the class. What did it prove? There is a strong feeling that Dr. Propel wanted us to see how the director of the video managed to include various camera angles and movements, as well as camera tricks, into the short film to convey the entertaining festivities shown. Propel loved the scene where Coolio opened the trunk of his car and an entire zip code worth of people, who we were led to believe had been locked inside, stand up, stretch, and then walk nonchalantly onto the beach.

The other moment I recall involved another video, this time a snippet of the 1993 Sylvester Stallone vehicle, Cliffhanger. Propel wanted us to understand the important role sounds and music play in television and film, and had us watch an early scene in which Stallone, on the side of a cliff, successfully tries to reach a rope attached to a rescue helicopter. He is pulled to safety but the woman with him misses and falls, presumably, to her death. Our first viewing of the scene was played normally. The second viewing was more or less the same five minutes as before, only this time Propel had edited the chorus of Tom Petty's Free Fallin' over the scene with the woman falling, giving the picture a slightly different (read: comical) mood.

Years later and working at the radio station, when Coolio's hit single popped up on playlists I couldn't help but smile and shake my head. Am I the only person to think of people falling off cliffs when I hear "slide, slide slippity slide, gonna wanna write her name in the sky?"

Yes, probably.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Fantastic Voyage
(Alexander, Beavers, Craig, Dobbs, Ivey, McCain, Shelby, Shockley, Stokes, Wood)
Coolio
From the album It Takes a Thief
1994

Come on y'all let's take a ride
Don't ya say shit just get inside
It's time to take your ass on another kind of trip
Grab you gat with the extra clip
And close your eyes and hit the switch
We're going to a place where everybody kick it, kick it, kick it
Yea that's the ticket
Ain't no bloodin
ain't no crippin
ain't no fools in the part set trippin'
Everybody got a stack and it ain't no crack
And it really don't matter if you're white or black
I wanna take you there like the Staple Singers
Put something in the tank, and I know that I can bring ya
If ya can't take the heat get ya ass out the kitchen
We on a mission

Come along and ride on a fantastic voyage
Slide, slide slippity slide
I'm hittin switches on the block in a 65
Come along and ride on fantastic voyage
Slide slide hoo ride, ain't no valley low enough or mountain high

I'm tryin to find a place where I can live my life and
Maybe eat some steak with my beans and rice
A place where my kids can play outside without livin in fear of a drive by
And even if I get away from them drive by suckers
I still gotta worry about them snitch ass brothers
I keep on searchin and I keep on lookin
But fools are the same from Watts to Brooklyn
I try to keep my faith in my people
But sometimes my people be actin like they evil
You don't understand about runnin with a gang
Cause you don't bang
And you don't have to stand on the corner and slang
Cause you got your own thang
You can't help me if you can't help yourself
You better make a left

Come along and ride on a fantastic voyage
Slide, slide slippity slide
I do what I do just to survive
Come along and ride on a fantastic voyage
Slide slide hoo ride, that's why I pack my 45

Life is like a trip and then you die
Still trying to get a piece of that apple pie
Every game ain't the same cause the game still remain
Don't it seem kinda strange ain't a damn thing changed
If you don't work then you don't eat
And only down ass brothers can ride with me
Hip hop hop your 5 quickly down the block
Stay sucker free and shake the busters of your jock
You gotta have heart son if you wanna go
Watch this sweet chariot swing low
Ain't nobody crying ain't nobody dyin
Ain't nobody worryin everybody's tryin
Nothing from nothin leaves nothin
If you wanna have somethin you better stop frontin
What you gonna do when the 5 rolls by
You better be ready so you can ride

Come along and ride on a fantastic voyage
Slide slide slippity slide if you're living in the city it's do or die
Come along and ride on a fantastic voyage
Slide slide hoo ride you better be ready for the 5 rolls by

Just roll along (that's what you do)
Just roll along (that's right)
Just roll along (that's what you do)
Just roll along (that's right)

Do you want to ride with me
(REPEAT 9 TIMES)

Escher Sketch (A Tale of Two Rhythms)

Only I associate Eric Sevareid with jazz.

As graduate assistant/station manager, I was the one to lead but not be as hands-on as I had been just a semester before. I think I adjusted to this role fairly well, though I still liked to have a little fun from time to time. Case in point: promotions. My undergraduate radio station never had a strong operations section – promotions, traffic, and so – as those tasks would be divvyed up among student management and seldom carried out to their fullest potential. The other station, where I was in graduate school, was the opposite, where regular meetings were held about the subject organized by a group of interested students and led by the station manager: me.

The year I was there it was decided that we would make some 8½ x 11 flyers to advertise some of the music formats and news and sports broadcasts; students were to come up with drawings or designs during the next two-to-three weeks and then come together to share, pick their favorites and then get my approval. After that I had to walk them across the street to the student center and get them permitted by the Department of Student Activities. All they did was date-stamp an approval on the paper, which meant we could make copies on fluorescent-colored paper and hang them on designated kiosks on campus without danger of them being removed until the end of the semester.

Long story short: I forget the flyers other people came up with. I, on the other hand, wanted in on the fun and found, with my creative juices flowing, a stack of ancient Broadcasting magazines stuffed into a corner of the basement. Deep in the bowels of the building was a maze of doors, some leading to generators and power supplies, while others led to offices for graduate assistants and the easily-forgettable adjunct faculty. Here is where I raided the dusty periodicals and cut out random pictures to go with some strange concepts:

• Joe Isuzu noting the best two things that ever happened in his life were Whitesnake's David Coverdale and the rock music played on our station.
• The top half of a bald man's head, with the phrase "Ad-libbing is talking off the top of our head," for a flyer promoting our live sports talk show.
• A full-page advertisement for something about Daniel Boone. I replaced the actual ad copy with the phrase, "If there was radio when he was around, he'd listen, too."

Without a doubt, the oddest flyer I made was of the aforementioned Sevareid, in his later years and seated at a desk; I added a speech balloon that said something like, "I digs the jazz. I like being able to listen to it wherever I go. From what I hear, you can too."

And what jazz was this station playing? A better selection than my undergraduate station had, that's for sure. This station didn't sign-on until 10am and featured six hours of music, much of which I wasn't too familiar with. Michael Brecker however was a familiar name and sound to me and I remember seeing his album, Now You See It...Now You Don't, in the studio on various occasion, memorable for its M.C. Escher cover and associated title track.

As expected, everybody found the Leisure flyer funny; also expected was that none of the students of this communication department would recognize Sevareid. And why would they? David Coverdale jokes are funnier. Jazzier, even.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Escher Sketch (A Tale of Two Rhythms)
(Brecker)
Michael Brecker
From the album Now You See It...Now You Don't
1990

(Instrumental)

Curve's the words, spin's the verbs

"Sandman" was the name of a student – I think a freshman – that ended up as DJ for one of our Saturday night hip-hop programs. Freshmen did not get first choice of air shifts, as it was the upper-level courses that required upperclassmen putting in hours at the station. On rare occasions, usually if we were short staffed or needed some short-term fill in hosts, the Introduction to Broadcasting instructor would refer one or two students our way and we'd go from there. No diggity, no doubt.

He comes to mind for the simple fact that another student did not come to work the first Saturday night shift. Weekend evenings were always a chore to fill since most college kids wanted out of any sort of work commitments. I was Program Director and knew going into the weekend that we really weren't sure if the 9pm DJ would show. Knowing this, on the Thursday or Friday before I asked the 6pm DJ if he'd like to gain some extra experience in the event this other person never showed. Guess who got the extra experience? Who indeed: we were both there, as I had to be there to show him how to sign-off the transmitter at midnight. No diggity, no doubt.

I was told the next week to expect someone at 9pm. And although he was told to be there about 8:45, to pull your music and as a courtesy to the DJ on his or her way home, Sandman didn't make an appearance until 9pm. Training this short, whiny, cocky white kid with the accent – maybe Welsh, maybe South African – I soon realized two things. The first was I think that by "DJ" he thought this would be like a club – mixing and shoutouts and a lot of the stuff we didn't do. Sandman dually noted many times that evening he worked at club back in the town he was from, but I picked up on this early on when he went off in search of the other turntable. I also determined he really didn't want me around, pointing out playlists and public service announcements; I picked up on this fairly early, too, and I never was convinced he knew I was the program director. No diggity, no doubt.

In conclusion, Sandman made the cut and actually fleshed out the rest of the semester nicely. His only other memorable moment was his second or third week on the air when I caught him going off about his air name. Surely by now you know "Sandman" wasn’t his given name – and I don't remember what it was. Scott? Bruce? Whatever. Anyway, Sandman was apologizing to "all his fans" that he had used the name Sandman the prior week, not knowing another student was already using that name. So here was Sandman #2 giving shoutouts and "much love" to Sandman #1 (who I never knew) and tellin' stories 'bout his playin' and mixin' at tha club. I called him on the "magic phone" and told him to knock it off. No diggity, no doubt.

And in case you're not sure where this is going, or you're asking what's with all the "no diggities" and "no doubts," Sandman was a BLACKstreet fan and oft quoted the chorus of No Diggity. Likewise, he made a point of playing it at least once a shift, even when we knew it was not turning up on the weekly playlist. BLACKstreet consisted of Teddy Riley, Chauncey Hannibal, Eric Williams, and Terrell Philips who had a few minor hits in the early 1990s but garnered big attention with this popular track featuring Dr. Dre. While the group fell apart in the late 1990's, I have no clue about Sandman and if he stuck around at the radio station after I graduated.

For his sake, I hope he bagged up some radio experience (bag it up).

- - - - - - - - - - - -

No Diggity
( Dre/Hannibal/Riley/Stewart/Walters)
BLACKstreet
From the album Another Level
1996

You know what
I like the playettes
No diggity, no doubt
Play on playette
Play on playette
Yo Dre, drop the verse

[Dr. Dre]
It's going down, fade to Blackstreet
The homies got RB, collab' creations
Bump like Acne, no doubt
I put it down, never slouch
As long as my credit can vouch
A dog couldn't catch me ass out
Tell me who can stop when Dre making moves
Attracting honeys like a magnet
Giving em eargasms with my mellow accent
Still moving this flavour
With the homies Blackstreet and Teddy
The original rump shakers

Shorty in down, good Lord
Baby got em up open all over town
Strictly biz, she don't play around
Cover much ground, got game by the pound
Getting paid is a forte
Each and every day, true player way
I can't get her out of my mind
(what)
I think about the girl all the time

East side to the west side
Pushing phat rides, it's no surprise
She got tricks in the stash
Stacking up the cash
Fast when it comes to the gas
By no means average
As long as she's got to have it
Baby, you're a perfect ten, I wanna get in
Can I get down, so I can win

[1] - I like the way you work it
No diggity, I try to bag it up, bag it up
[Repeat 1 (3x)]

She's got class and style
She's managed by the town,
Baby never act wild
Very low key on the profile
Catching catichin' vilians is a no,
Let me tell you how it goes
Curve's the words, spin's the verbs
Lovers it curves so freak what you heard
Rolin' with the phatness
You don't even know what the half is
You gotta pay to play
Just for shorty, bang-bang, to look your way
I like the way you work it
Trumped tight, all day, every day
You're blowing my mind, maybe in time
Baby, I can get you in my ride

[Repeat 1 (4x)]

[2] - Hey yo, hey yo, hey yo, hey yo
Hey yo, that girl looks good
Hey yo, hey yo, hey yo, hey yo
Play on, play on playette
Hey yo, hey yo, hey yo, hey yo
You're my kind of girl, no diggity
Hey yo, hey yo, hey yo, hey yo
Hey

[Queen Pen]
Cause thats my peeps and we row G
Flying first class from New York City to Blackstreet
What you know about me, not a motherf.. thing
Cartier wooded frames sported by my shortie
As for me, icy gleaming pinky diamond ring
We be's the baddest clique up on the scene
Ain't you getting bored with these fake ass broads
I shows and proves, no doubt, I be takin you, so
Please excuse, if I come across rude
That's just me and that's how the playettes got to be
Stay kicking game with a capital G
Axe the peoples on my block, I'm as real as can be
Word is bond, faking jacks never been my flava
So, Teddy, pass the word to your nigga Chauncy
I be sitting in car, let's say around 3:30
Queen Pen and Blackstreet, it's no diggity
[Repeat 1 (4x)]

[Repeat 2]

Boy, you can't play me that way

Show-prep, as it was referred to at my undergraduate station, was research the DJ did before arriving for the three-hour shift and consisted of items that he or she could use to sound more interesting or knowledgeable during their stop sets. A lot of people were not the best at thinking off the top of their head and so we encouraged them to find something in the campus or local newspaper – or that fledging online vehicle called the Internet – to give them some sort of edge. We weren't asking for the DJ to talk twenty minutes on a subject - more like twenty seconds, a little chit-chat in between songs as opposed to the stodgy and bland, "I just played these songs, I will play these songs next, it's 8:20 and now here is a recorded public service announcement" type of breaks students tended to blanch their way through.

There was little celebration when the White Town song Your Woman showed up on a weekly preview disc one Tuesday afternoon. Nobody had heard of the group up to this point and the song probably snuck into our playlists because of our desire to add at least one track from each preview disc. No sooner did it waft over the transmitter did we realize that this was going to be one of those grandiose one-hit wonders. Why? Easy: not only did it come out of nowhere in the early months of 1997 but we never ever saw another track by White Town show up at the station. That is, another "new" track - at some point, the original track was supplemented by the less-interesting but not-as-annoying-sounding remix that appeared on a preview disc a month of so later. Oh, hooray: a remix.

It wasn't until years later I discovered that, besides fulfilling its destiny as a one-hit wonder as many on staff prognosticated, but White Town was a one-man band operation led by technophile Jyoti Mishra, a native of India living in England during the late 1990s. Also of interest is that the opening synthesized trumpet sounds are actually samples from the trumpet intro to the song My Woman by the popular British singer Al Bowlly. These tidbits would have been good candidates for any DJ in terms of show-prep. Don't I sound informative and like I know what I'm talking about...?

Boy, I'm finding out all these interesting facts about this song a decade later, when they are of no use to me. Also of no use to me is the fact Mishra released a follow-up album in 2000 and has been recording various singles since his late-90s chart debut.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Your Woman
(Jyoti Mishra)
White Town
From the album Women in Technology
1997

Just tell me what you've got to say to me
I've been waiting for so long to hear the truth
It comes as no surprise at all you see
So cut the crap and tell me that we're through

Now I know your heart, I know your mind
You don't even know you're bein' unkind
So much for all your highbrow Marxist ways
Just use me up and then you walk away
Boy, you can't play me that way

Well I guess what you say is true
I could never be the right kind of girl for you

CHORUS:

I could never be your woman
I could never be your woman
I could never be your woman
I could never be your woman

When I saw my best friend yesterday
She said she never liked you from the start
Well me, I wish that I could claim the same
But you always knew you held my heart

And you're such a charming, handsome man
Now I think I finally understand
Is it in your genes? I don't know
But I'll soon find out, that's for sure
Why did you play me this way

Well I guess what you say is true
I could never be the right kind of girl for you

(CHORUS)


Well I guess what they say is true
I could never spend my life with a man like you

(CHORUS)

Today I am a voyeur, I cannot let go

Our Saturday morning folk show (see Jesse James behind the wheel) was a hybrid of music, a juxtaposition of sounds that didn't always sound the best together but we made them work the best we could. One of the types of music featured was what might be considered contemporary folk music, a man or woman singing along with his or her stringed instrument and sometimes a backing band. I note "contemporary" because these songs were released recently, as opposed to "traditional folk" songs that were nearing three decades old. We originally had some traditional songs in rotation but they soon fell by the wayside.

One of the early highlights of the program was a quartet of women known as the Four Bitchin' Babes, consisting of founder Christine Lavin and a rotating roster of other women. By the time I was familiar with the group, the quartet consisted of Lavin, Debi Smith, Megon McDonough, and Sally Fingerett. It was on their third album that I heard the song I remember most: TV Talk. This was to be the song I used to grab the attention of fellow students who were weary about listening to a "folk show." You must realize that for years my undergraduate station apparently had little interest in branching out into other formats. And of all the formats to add, we decided upon something that I think many students didn't listen to and thought was nothing more than longhaired freaky people strumming guitars. However we quickly learned that what the students were missing out on was something the public loved. On weekends where I guest-hosted there would be calls for requests or questions about the albums. It was something I enjoyed being part of.

I also enjoyed trying to convince students to listen - like Sarah Smile. I forget the occasion but I recall being involved in some project with the campus television station a year or so later, with Sarah being one of the students who oversaw television programming. There was a project meeting one evening of the four or five students involved and afterwards, as we stood talking in the hall out front of the radio station, a promotional spot for the folk show was played. Unaware I was by this time the full-time host, Sarah made some sort of disparaging comment - not mean, but something along the lines that she couldn't imagine four hours of longhaired freaky people. I told her not to write off the music without listening and to give it a shot that coming weekend. She did. That Saturday after playing the Bitchin' Babes the phone rang. Her call was brief, but Sarah was hooked.

By the way, we lost the bitchin' privilege to use the word "bitch" on air about the same time Meredith Brooks became a dorm-and-household name (see I'm a little bit of everything all rolled into one) and I resorted to identify the four women by name or just calling them "the Babes" - which I thought then and still think is a bit silly. Fortunately, in my later years as program director and when other students were doing the folk shifts, these people didn't see anything wrong with saying, "bitch" and went ahead and did.

And I don't think anyone bitched about it.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

TV Talk
(Sally Fingerett)
The Four Bitchin' Babes
From the album Fax It! Charge It! Don't Ask Me What's For Dinner!
1995

I heard about this man, wanted a wife and some children
The problem with this man is he used to be a woman
Now he wants a family, someone to understand
There she is sitting with him, wants a husband and some children
The situation here is she's not a real woman
There they are together the man who was a woman
The woman who was a man
How do I know? I've seen it on the . . .

Talk, Talk, TV Talk, Talk Show
Talk, Talk, TV Talk, Talk Show

Then there was this woman, who had a quirky daughter
Forty times a day the kid sticks her hands in water
Doctors say the young girl is trying just to cleanse her soul
She's a prisoner in the bathroom,
Stuck inside the bathroom,
Compulsive in the bathroom,
They film her from the bathroom
Mom would like to use the bathroom now and then you know!
Where does she go? On the . . .

Talk, Talk, TV Talk, Talk Show
Talk, Talk, TV Talk, Talk Show

One day Oprah's heavy,
Next day Oprah's skinny,
Next day Oprah's heavy,
Next day Oprah's skinny,
Jenny Jones had big boobs,
Now Jenny's big boobs are gone
Where'd they go? (I don't know)
One day Oprah's heavy,
Next day Oprah's skinny,
Next day Oprah's heavy,
Next day Oprah's skinny,
I'm checking in with Donahue,
He's got a nice dress on.
What's going on? On the . . .

Talk, Talk, TV Talk, Talk Show
Talk, Talk, TV Talk, Talk Show

They've got mothers who are dating daughters' boyfriends
Mothers who are dating daughters' girlfriends
Mothers who are dating guys who like to dress like priests
There are ninety-year-old bikers
With the rings in their noses
Then there's the bulimic eating up the roses
The anorexic brought along her feeding hoses
Oh, the things they show.
On the . . .

Talk, Talk, TV Talk, Talk Show
Talk, Talk, TV Talk, Talk Show

I'm just a simple woman with simple complications
I can be lazy, lacking motivation
Today I am a voyeur,
I cannot let go
I view the TV for holistic meditation
Compared to some, my life, it is perfection
Does anybody understand our attraction to people who suffer so?
Hope I never know or you'll see me on the . . .

Talk, Talk, TV Talk, Talk Show
Talk, Talk, TV Talk, Talk Show

So much for the days...tribal life

One thing with this retrospective that I'm trying to do is not always dwell so much on those tried-and-true musicians that you'd expect to see as part of a list like this. I want there to be some lesser-known talent as well – stuff no one knows about except, apparently, for me.

With that in mind let's discuss Bitter Son. The only thing that comes to mind about this local band is that they were one of a few groups that came out of the woodwork when it was announced we were starting What's New Wednesday (WNW) at my undergraduate station (see I think it's worth it for you to stay awake).

Bitter Son stands out for two reasons, the first of which was that the band had given us a copy of either their album, or the "good" portion of it, on audio cassette. True, we had both analog and digital tape players in our midst and could have played it on the air more than we did – but that would have meant we would have had to listen to the song. There's the second reason, then: while the song wasn't terrible, the pops and clicks from the tape coupled with the lower-than-low-fi attempt of the musicians made it a waste of time to even bother to cue up and spin, so to speak, much less convert to some other format for easier playback.

The host of WNW, John Fletcher, was good to his word and played the song, but I think he was a bit dissatisfied with the tape as well; it soon found its way into the Music Library and probably would have been forgotten had it not been for an asinine idea of mine one Friday night the next year. I was Program Director then and had gotten stuck at the station for most of the day but called back that night when the 9pm host didn't show. I trudged back to the building, still mentally asleep and trying to awaken for something I hadn't planed to do. The Music Director stopped by about 10:30, surprised I was on the air and offered to stick around. Over the next twenty minutes, one thing led to another and we both decided to shed the 11pm playlist and do our own version of What's New Wednesday for no reason other than we could get by with it.

At the top of the hour, we ran the WNW intro and legal ID and started in on the music you normally heard on Wednesday. The two of us co-hosted the hour – dual shifts were frowned upon because they usual turned into mindless banter – but we made a point to not talk too much and played well off each other, each noting at every chance "you're listening to What's New Wednesday...on a Friday." The gimmick must have squeaked by all the right ears as no one called to point out it wasn't Wednesday and the faculty advisor didn't call to say we were breaking rules that we, as program and music director, had been known to call others out about.

The last thirty minutes of the hour I tried to get out of the same standard regional fare that usually got played, and remembering the Bitter Son tape, I ran into the office and recovered it from its certain doom. Neither the Music Director nor I had heard the song recently (if at all), something blatantly obvious over the air: the song opened with almost a minute of sparse drumbeats that we introduced the song over (we eventually faded out our clueless stuttering as the beats droned onward). It wasn't but a few seconds into the song we realized neither of us knew how it ended, either – just that we hoped soon. Minutes later, when the heavy guitar and shaky vocals came to a standstill, we got back on the microphone and started to explain what had just happened. Surprisingly we were caught off guard with even more faint drumbeats and bells that faded into obscurity. Did we care? No, we just cut 'em off.

That surely was the end of Bitter Son after that. And the tape, too.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Tribal Life
(unknown)
Bitter Son
From their independently self-released cassette
1997

Nervous children making millions: you owe it all to them

. . . little ditty 'bout Rachel and Brad
Two pretend kids in a story that's really sad
Rachel's gonna be a girl that's depressed
Brad's callin' round radio stations makin' requests . . . .

Sometime during my final year or so at my undergraduate station I found a copy of the Posies's Amazing Disgrace, featuring the Hüsker Dü tribute song, Grant Hart. I added the short two-and-half minute song back into rotation, occasionally playing it when I found myself substituting on the rock shifts. I think I may have added some other tracks as well but the song about the Minnesota trio always stuck out.

Fast forward a year or so to my stint as a graduate student serving as a manager of completely different college station. Much like my undergraduate station, they too played their fair share of modern rock-ish music, though there here there was a much wider selection of lesser known artists and full albums I had never seen. Just as before, rock was regulated to the evening hours, usually from 8pm until sign-off, which was 2am the next morning.

As station manager, it was my responsibility to train the staff, listen and critique the students and make sure operations ran smoothly. This meant listening to the radio, usually in an office on campus, in the car, or, more likely, at home. And it was at home where I had the most fun, many times calling up whoever was on the air, with me attempting to disguise my voice, to test them about station policies or guidelines. Usually I'd start off discussing something music related before switching gears and asking them what that weird chirping noise was that was heard once a week. If the DJ were paying attention, he or she would spout off some accrued knowledge that the noise was weekly Emergency Alert System test. I would then make sure they knew who was calling and ask them to run a test themselves. Grades could be – and were – affected by not knowing what to do.

One night I decided I wanted to hear the Poises and, not wanting to call and flat out request the song, I decided to have a little fun with the DJ, a not-too bright guy named Todd. I never knew much about the kid except he came across as slightly muddled in life, not really sure where he was or where he going. When Todd answered the phone, I began a long-winded ramble about how my name was Brad and my girlfriend, Rachel, and I were on the fritz and that if he could play "our song," it would mean a lot to us. Todd didn't immediately jump on the bandwagon – he was hesitant at first and tried the ol' "I'll see what I can do" response, something I felt I could worm my way out of if I kept him on the line long enough. In the end, he promised he'd play Grant Hart – which I have to admit is a pretty odd song to reunite a couple, even an imaginary one.

The thing that cracked me up, and that I still remember all these years later, was that when he did get a chance to play the song, he prefaced it with a ramble of his own. Hemming and hawing about the story he'd just heard, he said something along the lines that he'd "go ahead and break format" to play the song for the lovebirds. Break format? I never got that one. The Posies are rock, you're in the middle of a rock shift, the song is named for a member of one of the great American rock bands – what the hell do you mean, "break format?"

I don't think Todd really knew what was going on and since he seemed to fully believe the Brad/Rachel saga, I never bothered to reveal who they really were.

Oh, yeah. Life goes on.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Grant Hart
(Jon Auer/Ken Stringfellow)
The Posies
From the album Amazing Disgrace
1996

I can't cry, I can't apply a word to sum it up
Under stress I can't repress the moment it erupts
Hear the sound of paper drums and shredded paper voice
Got to turn up 'Keep Hanging On' as if I had a choice

Prairie fires and pitchfork choirs inspire as they create
Turn it up, It's too far down, until we can relate
Minnesota New Day Rising first day in the store
Take the couch at someone's house and wait around to score

Nervous children making millions: you owe it all to them
Power trios with big-ass deals: you opened for it then
I can see, I can see, I can see it all with my one good eye
For a start take two Grant Harts and call me when you die