Category: Radio

Itching for Ichiban

Tom Hanks is out of his Colonel Tom Parker persona, and he’s returning to the DJ mic at Boss Radio 66, Saturday at noon ET. You may have heard that Hanks is a typewriter enthusiast and collector. Here’s a typed note he sent to Boss Radio 66 before it declared its independence.

I don’t know what the dispute was at WFMU that led to Rock ‘n’ Soul Ichiban leaving the station, but I used to work in the radio biz, so I know how it goes. Whatever the trouble was, Hanks is no longer just a fan of the Ichiban Sound, he’s part of it.

Rewinding PRX Remix

PRX Remix is a program from the Public Radio Exchange that collects audio stories from various sources. I’ll embed a couple of worthwhile segments that have been featured on PRX Remix.

https://exchange.prx.org/group_accounts/98822-remix

As with the start of the Revolutionary War, our Constitutional government began with an event here in Massachusetts. Shays’ Rebellion.

The fascinating, and dangerous, lives of real-life Skywalkers.

On the Road and in the Sky

There was quite a mix of hit songs in 1968, that year of great musical transition, as FM radio began to rival AM. There were soft singles like “Love is Blue” by Paul Mauriat, and “This Guy’s in Love With You” by Herb Alpert. But there was also “Hush” by Deep Purple and this one by Canned Heat.

Normal Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” hit the charts a couple of years later. I heard something of “On the Road Again” in it, and whenever I hear one of those records I always think of the other.

An Animated Radio Guy

In the Sixties, Filmation was one of the cartoon studios that began competing with Hanna-Barbera for Saturday morning TV network time. Comic book artist Curt Swan is mentioned in this featurette, and I’ll say more about him in my next post.

Filmation later produced a well-regarded Star Trek TV cartoon that featured writing worthy of the original series.

As stated in the featurette, Filmation co-founder Norm Prescott was originally a radio announcer. In the 50’s he had a stint here in Boston on WBZ-AM 1030, as heard in this aircheck.

Somebody who was interested in both radio and cartoons? Sorry, can’t relate. 😉

Beeby Baby

I have been listening to BBC radio stations since they first became available online. Before that, NPR began carrying selected hours of the BBC World Service.

This is the complete list of BBC radio stations.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/stations

Whether it’s the widely heard Radio 2 in London, or local station Radio York, announcers are actively engaged with their listeners in a way that’s nothing like American talk shows. (Which reminds me to say that when I renewed my SiriusXM subscription, I stepped down to the level that doesn’t include Howard Stern. Never have and never will listen to him.)

A favorite BBC station of mine is the sister of spoken word station Radio 4. Radio 4 Extra is where radio plays and features of all sorts from the archives can be heard.

The Beeb is under the same sorts of partisan attacks that NPR gets, with calls to change the funding model. The New Yorker has this to say.

Between 2010 and 2019, the BBC’s budget fell by thirty per cent in real terms. Punishing negotiations with the government have forced the corporation to find savings of up to a billion pounds a year.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/04/18/can-the-bbc-survive-the-british-government

I am sufficiently interested in, and devoted to the BBC, that I have ordered the Kindle edition of the new book that’s cited in the article.