Our Top 10 Favorite NPR Series: Catch The Moth

Greetings to our blog readers in Germany, Greece and Ukraine........hopefully, those of you in Greece are recouping from the economic fiasco as well as one can.

Here are our ten favorite National Public Radio (NPR) shows, some of which we tune in on out of town public radio stations since they don't air here in Virginia.

The images are in reference 1) a moth is for The Moth Radio Hour, Rachel Dratch of "Saturday Night" fame is on this week's show; 2) the '80s Journey record is for "Sound Opinions,"  a show in which Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis decide which new records are worth listening to (they both happen to loath Journey; we don't); 3) Serbian food, which we are not using for "The Splendid Table," but rather "The Dinner Party Download," which ranks fourth in our top ten.

Here is the list:

1. The Moth Radio Hour

2. Sound Opinions

3. This American Life

4. The Dinner Party Download

5. Radiolab

6. Snap Judgment

7. Studio 360

8. The TED Radio Hour

9. On the Media

10. Only A Game

http://onlyagame.wbur.org/

http://themoth.org/radio

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/

http://www.soundopinions.org/

East Coast NPR stations:

http://www.wnyc.org (New York)

http://www.whyy.org (Philadeplphia)

http://www.wamu.org (Washington, DC)

http://www.ideastations.org  (Richmond, Va.)

http://www.wfae.org (Charlotte, NC)

 http://www.wfpl.org (Louisville, Ky.)

From the Record Collection (7 of 8) Blondie "Eat to the Beat"

Today, we profile the punk band Blondie's fourth studio album "Eat to the Beat" (1979) which I found for a mere four bucks at a flea market in Greensboro, NC. The record had huge expectations as it followed the band's breakthrough smash "Parallel Lines" (1978), an album that included Blondie's arguably most-famous song "Heart of Glass."

"Eat to the Beat" had three singles of its own, including "Dreaming," "Union City Blue" and (my personal favorite Blondie tune) "Atomic," which was covered by the band Sleeper for the soundtrack of "Trainspotting." Subsequently, it has also been covered by Party Animals.

The video for "Atomic," featured the famous fashion model Gia Carangi, who died from AIDS at age 26. That troubled icon who was also a heroin addict was played by Angelina Jolie in the HBO film "Gia" (1998).

The fact that Blondie's lead singer Debroah Harry, who was also a regular at Studio 54 in New York and who has acted in many films, had blonde hair created mass confusion as many thought Blondie and Harry were one in the same. In order to clarify this, the band came up with a "Blondie is a group" campaign.

Harry founded the band with her lover Chris Stein, a guitarist.

A fourth single "Slow Motion" was meant to be released but the band was a victim of its own success as "Call Me," the theme from the Richard Gere movie "American Gigolo" recorded by Blondie became a number-one smash hit.

Harry was recently interview by the NPR-show "Sound Opinions."