Messages

1321

KFOG's 10@10 / Re: 9 April 2013: it's... 1997

« on: April 09, 2013, 10:54:07 PM »

Once again, a '90s set, a period where I will not have been over-exposed to the tunes,
most of which will be new to me and, in the end, forgettable.

I like the Meredith Brooks song, don't mind the swing revival of BBVD, and... that's about it.
Most of the rest was pleasant but didn't have much impact on me.  Oh, except for Angel.  It's
a pretty song, but it reminds of the Wings of Desire remake, City Of Angels, with Nicolas Cage
and Meg Ryan.  I haven't seen the Wim Wenders original, but the I find the premise of CoA
dumb.  To use christian terminology, if you're an angel living in the grace of God in eternal ecstasy,
there's NFW that you would want to incarnate as a material mortal, even for a babe like Meg.

1322

Stream of Consciousness / Re: Funny Stuff on the Internet

« on: April 09, 2013, 10:42:16 PM »

this is pretty hilarious, and adds to the "only twits Tweet" meme. The hashtag #nowthatchersdead" --- Now Thatcher's Dead  -- yesterday was misread as "now that Cher's dead" by hundreds of verklempt Cher fans.

http://blog.sfgate.com/dailydish/2013/04/09/cher-fans-panic-over-death-news-mix-up/

Along the same lines, here are the worst company URLs.  I haven't looked to see how many
are still active.

----------
The top 10 unintentionally worst company URLs

1. A site called "Who Represents" where you can find the name of the agent that represents
a celebrity. Their domain name -- wait for -- is:

www.whorepresents.com

2. Experts Exchange, a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at:

www.expertsexchange.com

3. Looking for a pen?  Look no further than Pen Island at:

www.penisland.net

4. Need a therapist?  Try the Therapist Finder at:

www.therapistfinder.com

5. Then, of course, there's the Italian Power Generator company:

www.powergenitalia.com

6. And now, we have the Mole Station Native Nursery, based in New South Wales:

www.molestationnursery.com

7. If you're looking for computer software, there's always:

www.ipanywhere.com

8. Welcome to the First Cumming Methodist Church.  Their website is:

www.cummingfirst.com

9. Then, of course, there's these brainless art designers, and their whacky website:

www.speedofart.com

10. Want to holiday in Lake Tahoe?  Try their brochure website at:

www.gotahoe.com

1323

Stream of Consciousness / Re: clips on 10@10

« on: April 09, 2013, 10:37:58 PM »

As one example, consider my notes for the
Friday Night Champagne Remix of "Time Has Come Today" from 11-Jun-04:

4. Chambers Brothers - Time Has Come Today
(Friday Night Champagne Remix:  over-dubbed with:  LBJ will not seek the
nomination; Robert F. Kennedy campaign speech; Senator Kennedy shot and
killed; Edward Kennedy RFK eulogy; Democratic National Convention and the
Chicago demonstrations; Humphrey convention speech; Spiro Agnew nominating
Richard Nixon; Nixon chooses Maryland Governor Agnew as running mate;
Humphrey campaign speech; Nixon wins presidential election)

Whew!

Easily one of the greatest single things ever heard in 10@10 history.  To which I would add the various "mega-mixes" he did, usually for either "Hits From Hell" or "Turkeys" sets (Cher, Barry Manilow, Ray Stevens)  or just because (the amazing Jesus Christ Superstar and Hair medleys and the "Desiderata"/"Deteriorata" mash-up).

I can cite three or four more examples of where Dave created news
montages and overdubbed them in the middle or at the end of songs, which
suggests he did this with some regularity.  And many of his inter-song
clips were montages.  Just recently I was listening to one of his
mystery sets, and as he did so often, there was a collection of incorrect
guesses in the middle.  And then it struck me -- he fielded the phone
calls from listeners, recorded them, edited them into a montage, and
played it less than halfway through the set, all while he was spinning
the songs.  It gave me new appreciation for his skill.  Can you imagine
the current host being able to do that?

I would guess that one reason we aren't getting any mystery sets these
days is that it would require playing a lot more obscure tracks, and as
we've seen, 10@10 has become in large part "all the hits, all the time."

1324

In Memoriam, Happy Birthday / Re: RIP Andy Johns, engineer/producer

« on: April 09, 2013, 10:34:05 PM »

A comphrensive list of his work at:

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/andy-johns-mn0000754078/credits

It includes Jethro Tull's Stand Up, the Stones' Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street,
most of Led Zeppelin's albums, Traffic's John Barleycorn Must Die, Stephen Stills' eponymous
first album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, Blind Faith, and many, many others.

1325

In Memoriam, Happy Birthday / Re: RIP Annette Funicello, 70

« on: April 09, 2013, 10:33:06 PM »

From Albert Brooks' Twitter feed: "Annette did not get her due today because of Margaret T. I don't need to tell you who was more important to a 12 year old boy."

Same thing happened to Farrah Fawcett (and Sky Saxon) both of whom had the misfortune to die the same day as Michael Jackson.  (Although Michael was not nearly as vile as Maggie was.)

Princess Diana and Mother Theresa is another prominent example of colliding obituaries.

1326

KFOG's 10@10 / Re: 8 Apr 2013: it's... 1971

« on: April 09, 2013, 10:30:25 PM »

And the bustout?  T.Rex's Bang A Gong!  The Power Station cover has appeared
multiple times, but this is a first for the original, at least on a 10@10 set.

Dave played it once -- way back on August 23, 2001 (according to the Shraytabase).

Ah yes, you are correct.  I was relying on my own files, which only go
back to early 2002.  I wrote a little program to convert CSV output from
the spreadsheet into a canonical text format, but I haven't finished the
work of integrating that data into my own.  The spreadsheet data is very
spotty in the early years, and there are only just over twenty entries
from 2001.

1327

KFOG's 10@10 / Re: 8 Apr 2013: it's... 1971

« on: April 09, 2013, 10:29:20 PM »

4. John Prine - Hello In There

Uh, "Illegal Smile"...

That was my mistake -- I was just copying/pasting what was being listed on KFOG's tunegenie player before actually hearing what actually played.  I corrected it, though, thanks to RGMike. 

It was my attempt at subtly suggesting that the set list be corrected for the sake of posterity.

1328

KFOG's 10@10 / Re: 8 Apr 2013: it's... 1971

« on: April 08, 2013, 10:45:36 PM »

4. John Prine - Hello In There

Uh, "Illegal Smile"...

1329

KFOG's 10@10 / Re: 8 Apr 2013: it's... 1971

« on: April 08, 2013, 10:43:30 PM »

There was a bustout in this set, and I'm a little surprised no one caught
it.  I'll reveal it at the end of my post.

I think that 1971 is the best year ever, separated from second place 1970
by only a smidgen (or epsilon, for you calculus buffs).  While I know that
Renee possesses the ability to mess up even this stellar year, she avoided
that today and I would rate this set as good+.

The PharmChem drug report and the Harold and Maude excerpts were DM frequent
flyers, and while it was nice to hear them yet again, it's further evidence
that rather than find new material, the archives are being raided for clips.

As noted, the Traffic song has made two previous appearances in the DM era,
and yes, Annalisa played Illegal Smile once.  I liked hearing both of them.
I wonder how many young'uns understood the reference when he sang about a
dream where he went to court, and the judge's name was Hoffman?

Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll has also seen only two spins on 10@10.  Everything
else has been played at least four times, with the Lee Michaels hit seeing
the most repeats.

And the bustout?  T.Rex's Bang A Gong!  The Power Station cover has appeared
multiple times, but this is a first for the original, at least on a 10@10 set.
But I won't argue with giving it a LN designation, given it gets played at
least eleventy gazillion times a year on "classic" rock radio, plus there
is so much good material from 1971.  You could program a couple of month's
worth of 1971 10@10s without ever repeating a single track.

1330

KFOG's 10@10 / Re: 5 April 2013: it's...1980

« on: April 05, 2013, 11:05:08 PM »

A couple of times in the '80s I heard someone say "you'll always find
me in the kitchen at parties" in a sing-song voice, and I assumed it was
from a song.  And lo, twenty-five years later, here it is, busting out
on 10@10.  But it's a pretty weak New Wave tune.

The Seger song is also a bustout, and was nice to hear.

Otherwise it was the usual collection of over-played "hits" that have all
seen multiple appearances on 10@10, including The Kings thing, which is
also a frequent flyer on KFOG's Weekend Salute at 5pm on Fridays.

Just another pedestrian effort.  Blah.  Sadly, with sets like this, I am not
very sorry that the Saturday morning marathon was eliminated.  Listening
to five in a row like this would be a marathon, and not in a good way.

Lately I've been listening to the Saturday morning Beatles (yeah!) on 103.7.

1331

KFOG's 10@10 / Re: 4 April 2013: it's... 1994

« on: April 04, 2013, 11:12:15 PM »

BTW, I will also defend The Shawshank Redemption as a very good movie and a successful
adaptation of a great King story.  Like any good movie, it shouldn't be viewed in eight-minute
segments interrupted by commercials.

I didn't see the movie until '96, when I was working as a contractor at a large, well-known
tech company in Santa Clara.  I've done a lot of work on IT contracts, and this place treated
us (and all their other many, many contractors) the worst of any place I've been.  It sucked.
I was looking for another position but I wasn't having a lot of luck and it was taking a while.
So I really related to being imprisoned in a hellish situation and sl-o-o-o-w-l-y chipping away
to make an escape.

1332

KFOG's 10@10 / Re: 4 April 2013: it's... 1994

« on: April 04, 2013, 10:59:40 PM »

So I'm listening to the replay and Hallelujah is winding down, when at about 10:48 it is abruptly
cut off by a Neil Young song.  No back-sell...  This has happened two or three times in recent months.

Anyway, by the '90s I've stopped listening to a lot of radio or paying much attention to popular music,
so a lot of the stuff is actually new to me.  I like the STP song a lot, but I only hear it occasionally so
I don't consider it over-played, although it probably has been.  I also like the Des'ree tune, but it
seems to me I've heard it a lot in recent years -- perhaps on store muzak systems.  All the rest of
today's set was inoffensive and ultimately forgettable.

1333

KFOG's 10@10 / Re: 3 April 2013: it's... 1976

« on: April 03, 2013, 06:08:50 PM »

Ugh.  That was awful.  I had to listen to a bit of a DM 1971 set that
was handy in order to cleanse myself.  (BOS to Santana for me as well.)

Yes, I recently said that 1976 was one of the worst years for pop/rock,
and here was a set that aptly illustrates that.  The sad thing is, you
could probably chose a "deeper" track that is as good or perhaps better
than what was played from most of the albums represented today and it
would have been a much more interesting set.

What saves 1976 from being the worst year -- that ignominy goes to 1978
-- is that some of the best albums ever recorded were released that
year.  And it's not just that these gems stand out among the other
pedestrian efforts, although of course they do.  For me, they have truly
stood the test of time.  I could listen to any one of these today, in
their entirety, twice in a row -- and enjoy the experience.  BTW, AL
played tracks from two of them.  (I'm sure not everyone will agree about
Joni, but the other two are superlative.)

Hejira - Joni Mitchell
801 Live - Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera, et. al.
Go! - Stomu Yamashta, Al Dimeola, Klaus Schulze, Michael Shrieve, Steve Winwood

1334

KFOG's 10@10 / Re: 2 April 2013: it's... 1988

« on: April 03, 2013, 12:12:24 AM »

McFerrin gets BOS according to Renee.

I suspect some bias in the results here. At the time she announced the BOS winner, there were no votes for DWBH on the FB page (although a couple of folks were griping about it), but it still won BOS. Hmmmm.

It seems reasonable to assume that the BOS voting is conducted with the same care and
consideration that Renee demonstrates in other aspects of 10@10.

A blah set for me.  McFerrin was certainly the flavor of the moment.  His hit song is emblematic
for that year, but not in good way.

1335

Stream of Consciousness / Re: vertical tasting / chartbusters

« on: March 30, 2013, 05:45:37 PM »

But I agree on the wrong year stuff -- there's no wiggle room there.  Pick a standard (US Release date sounds about right and effing stick to it). 

We need some music nerds up in the KFOG, yo!    Renée comes off like a so many people in the digital age who half-assedly try some randowm activity -- juggling, ghost riding the whip, mentos and Diet Coke, deejaying a radio show in a major market, whatever -- and claim they have expertise in it because it was captured on film/tape and uploaded to YouTube.

My recollection is that Dave used both the date of release or the date(s) a
song was on the chart as he saw fit, with the result that some songs did get
played in two different years.  But this was a rare occurrence.  I don't know
what charts were used or how this might effect deep album tracks that never
charted.  My opinion is to give a little leeway on this point, particularly
as I have taken it for some of my own 10@10 set creations.

WRT the comments about half-assing it, I would put it this way.

Dave lived this music history and knows it cold.

AL lived some of the music history and knows it well, studied the rest and
was a very good student.

Renee looks up stuff on the Internet and tries to pass that off as
expertise.