This weekend there will be a new installment of “Car Talk”, with Ray celebrating the life of his late brother Tommy.
Category: All Posts
Robert Douglas Hunter, the Master of Still Life
I am much too late in noting the passing of the superb Boston artist Robert Douglas Hunter. I suppose he may have had an equal somewhere in the genre of still life painting, but no one could have been better than Hunter, who complemented the solidity of his objects with a uniquely delicate sheen. Unlike others who specialize in still life paintings, Hunter’s arrangements, his perfect highlights in the otherwise subdued lighting, and that unmistakable patina, are instantly recognizable to anyone with even a casual familiarity with his work.
Inside the hallowed hall
The Atlantic covers Brian Kehew and Kevin Ryan, authors of “Recording the Beatles“, with former Beatles engineer Ken Scott, at the Abbey Road Studios.
Tina McFey
Tina Fey as Marty McFly from “Back to the Future”, at the Michael J. Fox Foundation Halloween party.
More Sunshine from Sandoval
I’m listening to episode #46 of Andrew Sandoval’s Come to the Sunshine podcast, from six years ago, and a song that really stands out is “It’s You” by The Millenium. It sounds like it’s Fleetwood Mac in 1977, but it’s from 1968.
Come to the Sunshine
Something that Denro and I talk about incessantly is how drastically music changed year-to-year in the 1960’s. The best place to go for a thorough and insightful exploration of Sixties popular music is Andrew Sandoval’s unique and outstanding online show, Come to the Sunshine.
After Pop gave way to the Psychedelic shake-up of 1967, 1968 was the year when underground FM stations started to take over the older teen market. The influence of FM on AM could be heard in records like this one, which became an unlikely top 20 hit.
What made underground, aka Hippie, radio possible in the Sixties? The same thing that was behind other 60’s happenings like NASA, the pre-Internet Arpanet, and the Vietnam War. The United States Government, that’s what.
To promote the adoption of FM stereo radio, on January 1, 1967 an FCC mandate went into effect that required radio broadcasters to no longer simulcast their AM signals over their FM stations. College-aged disc jockeys started to flood the airwaves in major cities, formats changed overnight, and instead of playing the latest singles they played album cuts.
The iconic Boston station, WBCN, had an overnight format change, but it didn’t happen because of the simulcast requirement. What made ‘BCN possible was the desperation of the owner of a failing all-Classical station. Former ‘BCN disc jockey Carter Alan, who is now on WZLX in Boston, has the story in his excellent book, “Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN.”