Last Ten Songs We Listened To on 106.1-SteveFM in Roanoke, Va.: For God's Sake, Why Play Whitesnake?

Greetings to our esteemed blog readers in Finland, Uruguay and Australia..........

Yes, we can't understand why oldies radio station that play 'our music' from the 1980s play hair metal bands like Whitesnake, Twisted Sister and Cinderella either. We are the 'I Want My MTV" Generation X'ers who purchased records and tapes from these bands, and we did see them perform in concert (True confession: I saw Whitesnake in concert, but they were opening for Heart), but now we aren't that interested in these bands (oh, I forgot to mention Ratt and Poison too), but young folks seem to be. So, we will be tortured by these songs we made famous until we are old enough to play shuffleboard at a nursing home in Pensacola, Florida. Perhaps, this is what we deserve for the mistakes of our youth.............

Now that we've had our little rant, here are the last ten songs we listened to 106.1-SteveFM in Roanoke, Va.:

1) Best Day of My Life. American Authors. 2013

2) Let's Go All the Way. Sly Fox. 1985.

3) Don't Go Breaking My Heart." Elton John (pict. bottom) and Kiki Dee. 1976.

4) 'Livin' on a Prayer.' Bon Jovi (pict. center). 1986

5) I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles). The Proclaimers. 1988/93 (song was made famous by Johnny Depp film "Benny and Joon")

6) "West End Girls." Pet Shop Boys. 1984/2001

7) "Old Time Rock and Roll." Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. 1979. (song was a hit when released, but became popular again in 1983 thanks to the early Tom Cruise film "Risky Business")

8) "Holiday." Madonna (pict. top) 1983

9) "Demons" Imagine Dragons. 2013.

10) "Here I Go Again." Whitesnake. 1982/87.

http://www.1061stevefm.com

http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

http://www.madonna.com
 
http://www.bonjovi.com

http://www.eltonjohn.com

http://www.whitesanke.com

Last Ten Songs We've Heard on Simon-FM: Disco and the Hair Bands

Greetings to all of our fans in Norway, Slovenia, Moldova and Iraq and Iran.:).....I guess now thanks to modern technology you can listen to 98.7 (Simon-FM, Greensboro, NC) in those parts of the world just as well as you can from High Point, NC!

From the noon hour on Friday, we jotted down the ten songs they were playing; the stations features an eclectic mix of songs from the '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s, but while they proclaim to 'play everything' we have yet to hear them play a song from Turkish pop star Tarkan (I guess one can call their hotline and asked for his popular song "Dudu" if they so choose, it can't hurt........well, I suppose!)......


Here are the ten songs they played during that hour in reverse order:

1) You Dropped a Bomb on Me. Gap Band. 1982.

2) Black Water. The Doobie Brothers. 1974.

3) Your Love. Outfield. 1986.

4) What It's Like. Everlast. 1998.

5) Good Vibrations. Marky Mark and the Funky Buns. 1991.

6)  Rock and Roll All Nite. Kiss. 1975 (pict. bottom)

7) Sister Christian. Night Ranger. 1984 (pict. center)

8) I'm Your Boogie Man. KC and the Sunshine Band. 1977.

9) We're Not Gonna Take It. Twisted Sister. 1984 (pict. top)

10) Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye). Steam. 1969.

Whew! We almost typed 1069 for that last song's release year. Now, we can't get the imagine of Vikings singing "Na Na Hey Hey" out of our skull!

http://www.987simon.com

http://www.visitgreensboronc.com

http://www.visitwinstonsalem.com

http://www.twistedsister.com

http://www.nightranger.com

http://www.tarkan.com

This Weekend at the Cinema: "The Congress" is NOT About Washington, DC

Greetings to our blog readers in Iceland, Japan and planet Mars!

Girl Power! Today, we feature three films starring women, which are either opening or are still showing at various theatres, cinemas and drive-ins in our mid-Atlantic portion of the United States.

We start off with the lovely Star Lite Drive-In in Christiansburg, Va (near Blacksburg) where they are screening "Lucy" at 8:45 pm and 10:30 pm this weekend; Scarlett Johansson once again delivers.

In Washington, DC, an indy film called "The Congress" is opening at the West End Cinema, but the film about an aging actress who decides to maintain her beauty by capturing herself digitally has nothing to with the U.S. Congress. Robin Wright who is in the Netflix series "House of Cards," which is actually about the U.S. Congress, stars in the film.

At the same venue, "Life of Crime" based on the Elmore Leonard novel "Switch" begins its run; the film features Jennifer Anniston and Tim Robbins. Curiously enough, it is also showing at the Tower Theatre out west in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The historic Byrd Theatre in downtown Richmond, Va., which usually shows second-run features is showing "Maleficent" with Angelina Jolie (is she the one married to Brad Pitt? Just kidding!). The cinema is also showing "Tammy" and "How to Train Your Dragon 2."

The Grandin Theatre in Roanoke, Va., is showing "Life After Beth" which just one screening at 9:15 p.m. throughout the week; the same venue is opening "Calvary," an Irish film about a Catholic priest, this weekend, a film that is also showing at many arthouses, including the Carolina Theatre in Durham, NC, and a/perture in Winston-Salem, Va., which is also screening "Alive Inside," a documentary explaining how music can dwelve into our souls and transmit healing powers. We suspect that the new age group of yesteryear Tangerine Dream is better able to perform this task than the speed metal band of yesteryear Anthrax???!!!!

http://www.starlitedrive.info

http://www.byrdtheatre.com

http://www.aperture.com

http://www.westendcinema.com

http://www.grandintheatre.com

Bonus Road Trip- Cincy to Boulder (5 of 10)

Today, we look at the distance between the settings of two iconic late '70s sitcoms as we survey the distance between Boulder, Colo., the setting of "Mork and Mindy," and "WKRP in Cincinnati," which was, of course, set in Cincinnati, Ohio.

For this, we chose the addresses of WKRQ (101.9-FM) in Cincinnati and The West End Tavern in Boulder, Colo. If anyone travels to Cincy, we highly recommend the American Sign Museum, which is ever the fascinating place.

Is the answer:

A) 18 hours

B) 19 hours

C) 20 hours

D) 21 hours

SIDEBAR: Back in January, we posted an entry on either this blog or my other one (we don't have archivists) about the heavy metal band GWAR. Alas, Cory Smoot aka "Flattus Maximus" of the band died on Nov. 3. But, the band went on with its scheduled performance in Tempe, Az., earlier in the week and paid tribute tribute to their fallen guitarist by dousing the crowd with blood. Hmmm.....

Status Update_ Life Might Be Turning Back to Normal

Status Update for June 27, 2011:

"Life is apparently somewhat back to normal. Can I get back to Franz Liszt now?"

Ahh...I did not forget the silent 'z.' I may be one of the very few people who listens to both "Performance Today," a show dedicated to classical music on PRI/NPR (It airs nightly at 8:00 p.m. in my area), and the WKNC show Chainsaw Rock with Hammerhead on 88.1-FM (Raleigh), which is the student-run radio station for North Carolina State University.

Thanks to both shows, I now know more about Hungarian composers and Greek speed metal. What would I do without them?!

The music of Liszt will actually be on today's edition of "Performance Today." My original choice for the Status Update was actually Gustav Mahler.

Quote of the Week- Luciano Pavorotti

Today, since Italy is celebrating its 150th anniversary as a republic, we are going to quote famous Italians during the month of June.

Perhaps, the Motorhead and Slipknot fans who come through have no idea who Luciano Pavorotti (1935-2007) was and conversely those who listen to opera are probably not really into speed metal, which is a true shame really.

But, we're going to make it quick and just quip the great tenor:

"Am I afraid of high notes? Of course I am. What sane man is not?

SIDEBAR: Whew! It is really hot in the area near Greensboro, NC, today as the current outdoor temperature is 80 degrees. One may think it might be cooler in Montana, but the state's largest city of Billings is actually three degrees hotter at 83. Hmmmm.....yep, like Alcatraz in its heyday, it looks like there is no escape!

Quote of the Week- Herman Melville

The web site zazzle.com is actually offering "Moby Dick" ties, and we thought we'd dedicate some blog entries as part of our series to famous novelists today to famous writers known for writing 'doorstop books." Today's writer is Herman Melville (1819-1891), his famous book inspired the mega coffee chain Starabucks as there is a character called Starbuck, who is a shipmate of Captain Ahab's, in the novel.

At 822 pages, Melville's 1851 classic might make the perfect companion for anyone who has to go to a business conference in Topeka, Kansas, or if you have taken after "the Facebook Burglar" and robbed a home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, gotten caught, and now facing the prospect of going to the big house.

We do love this quote by the way, and it seems very timely:

"Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."

SIDEBAR: We want to give a shout out to our friends in Norway, which is perhaps my favorite country that I've never been to. According to mentalfloss.com, today is Norwegian Constitution Day. The site had a tribute to Norwegian black metal bands for the occasion. "Until the Light Takes Us," a documentary about these headbangers airs on The Sundance Channel on May 31 at 1:45 p.m., New York time.

SIDEBAR: Earlier tonight we asked Google why Donald Duck was a trending topic on Twitter today. We didn't get a response!

Strange, but True Things We Learned This Week

We will get to why we are using an image of Ozzy Osbourne, who is going to be performing in Tampere, Finland, on June 9th, later in this entry, but first here are four surreal things we found out this week. We have four more strange, but true items on our other blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time." Here are the things that will likely surprise you:

1) Osama bin Laden (1957-2011) was the subject of a UCLA geography department study that sounds a bit like a more formal take on "Where's Waldo?" in which geographer Thomas Gillespie and his colleague John Agnew along with undergraduate students from UCLA tried to predict where the ruthless terrrorist leader was hiding. Through sturdy research, they concluded that with an 88.9 % likelihood that bin Laden was in Abbottabad, Pakistan, which proved to be correct. (I actually thought he was in Karachi or Islamabad myself, but I had never heard of Abbottabad until late Sunday night). I heard this story through the BBC last night, and it was also reported in "Science" magazine.

2) What is the busiest McDonald's in the world? Well, the answer is ironically the historic McDonald's located at Pushkin Square in Moscow, Russia. It serves 30,000 customers per day!

3) Do you think it costs too much to go to the movies these days? Well, as we reported on our sister blog yesterday, the historic Castro Theatre in San Francisco is selling tickets for $20-40 for tonight's special 30th anniversary screening of "Mommie Dearest,"for Mother's Day, which will be presented by a local transvestite celebrity named Pecahes Christ. The cinema is also showing a Faye Dunaway double-header (she stars as Joan Crawford in "Mommie Dearest" and the film is apparently her least favorite) on May 11, including a screening of "The Eyes of Laura Mars." Personally, I would prefer going to the May 11 event, but San Fran is a long way from the east coast!

4) I read another great article/column by "The Atlantic" magazine's media writer James Parker about how heavy metal has 'saved our souls.' The article reminded me of how I heard the music of Ozzy Osbourne (yes, now we are now getting to him) in Bursa, Turkey, which is a fairly conservative city with a large number of fundamentalist Muslims. Interestingly enough, Turkey has a 'heavy metal scene" with domestic bands like Labrient, founded by Serhat Kocak and Yavuz Selim Sarici. But, sadly, we also learned a few months back from WKNC (88.1-FM/Raleigh) the student-run station at North Carolina State that the Turkish scene is not quite as globally recognized as the Greek heavy metal scene, which includes the likes of Acid Death and Nightfall. But, perhaps music associated with demons and warlocks can perhaps bring the two feuding countries together once and for all. And, I'm sure that would delight Ozzy Osbourne and his compatriots!

Beers of the World (#45)- Chang Beer from Thailand

Today, we are featuring world beers that we learned about through a Beer Geography Quiz that we took on mentalfloss.com on both of our blogs; I got a 100 on the quiz---when I took for a second time!

Chang Beer (chang is the Thai word for elephnat) is a relatively new beer from Thailand which has quickly displaced rival beer Singha, the oldest beer in the country, as the popular brand domestically. Chang Beer not only maintains 60 percent of the Thai market, it has also been available in the USA since 2007.

SIDEBAR: We want to congratulate WKNC (88.1 FM-Raleigh), the student-run college radio station for North Carolina State University for qualifying for the top 10 in the MTVu College Radio Woodie Awards contest, which are given to the best college radio stations in the country. The station has a real cool speed metal show on Friday nights between 10 p.m.-midnight, which has helped introduce me to bands like Slipknot, which are admitedly not going to be on any NPR station I regularly listen to anytime soon!

Quote from The Composers- Frederich Chopin

Frederich Chopin (1810-1849) is yet another iconic symbol who died all too young at age 39, which means as a 40-year-old I've already outlived him. But, despite his very short life, he left behind classic works like "The Revolutionary Etude," "The Minute Waltz" and "The Funeral March."

The cause of Chopin's death has been a source of controversy. At the time, it was believed to be tuberculosis, which Chopin believed he was dying from, but more recent research suggests it may have been cystic fibrosis which took him to an all too early grave.

Chopin was also a great master of Romantic music, and since he had parents who were Polish and French, both Poland and France claim him as one of their own.

Here is his quote, which we initially forgot to put in for the first draft of this entry:

"Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art."

SIDEBAR: As for some radically different kind of music, we reported on our other blog that we were actually contemplating going to a concert from the heavy metal band GWAR while we were in Washington, DC, at the fabled 9:30 Club in late December. As it turns out, the band will be performing at The Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh, NC, which is closer to home, on Feb. 17, but alas, I have to work that night. And, I'm not sure my soon-to-be-41-year-old ears could handle the noise!