Monthly Archives: March 2006

Once merely a household name, Cobain will become a household item this June when National Entertainment Collectibles Association (NECA) unleashes the very first KC action figure. This charming piece of plastic resin captures the late Nirvana frontman mid-power chord, donning the very get-up he made famous in the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video. Dude even comes with a chunk of high-school-gym-floor as a base; skanked-out cheerleaders sold separately. And if that isn’t enough to make you cry, ugly rumors are swirling about of late, rumors that Cobain’s widow Courtney Love is attempting to sell a 25% stake in Nirvana‘s catalog for $100,000,000 to…drumroll please…a “private equity firm” partnered with U2‘s Bono! Please let that not be true. Please, lord, please. -Matthew Solarski

…Well, I think that music, being an expression of the human heart, or of the human being itself, does express just what is happening. I feel it expresses the whole thing..the whole human experience at the particular time that is being expressed.

I think that sums it up for me when planning and spontaneously shifting the show to meet the listeners needs and balance how I am feelin’ as well.

I can’t wait until the day I can shout,”Hooray for the Little guys”. Like George Mason in the Sweet Sixteen, I am rooting for my airplay for the littlle lables, the up-and-comers. Here is what is happenin’. Check it out.

The American Association Of Independent Music (or A2IM), a collection of indie record labels that formed last summer to promote fair rights for independent labels, sent a letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin to assess the “unfair advantage” major labels have in getting radio play, and to pursue allegations of payola.
Acting President of A2IM Don Rose said that, “…the FCC is conducting a thorough investigation of alleged payola-like practices in the commercial radio industry.” The FCC will also be determining exactly how these practices have unfairly tipped the scales for the major labels. This process started in July 2005 when New York Attorney General Elliott Spitzer brought to light documents from Sony BMG (one of the four remaining majors) that showed many different forms of “payola” (or payola-related) activities, often indirect in the form of presents. Though they were small gifts, like electronics and concert tickets, to specific DJs (small enough to fly under the radar) they could easily add up to millions of dollars worth of gifts.
These practices, A2IM states, “made it virtually impossible for songs released by independent labels to be considered for airplay within existing formats.” The radio airplay for artists on independent labels, subsequently, was at roughly 10% last summer, even though the Nielson SoundScan ratings showed album sales for indies around 27% of market sales for 2004-05. Despite all this evidence for the strength of the independent music market, “Somehow,” Rose states, “music released by independents is virtually absent from the commercial airwaves.”
Members of A2IM include a long list of independent labels such as GSL, Epitaph, Beggars Group, Matador, Lookout, Roadrunner, TVT, Touch & Go, and Sub Pop. They undertake the burden of securing a future in the music industry where artists are given fair chances to succeed against those on larger and more well-financed labels.

Learn more about it at www.a2im.org

Well, you be the judge. Is this a mere case of outstanding razzin’ in the modern age or is this just plain mean?

When USC guard Gabe Pruitt went up to take his first free throws during the game, he was greeted by the Cal fans with a rousing chorus of “Vic-tor-ia! Vic-tor-ia!” and a phone number. Pruitt went on to miss both free throws. Now, you might be asking, who is Victoria and why would the Cal fans chant out her name? Well, it turns out that days before, members of the Cal Rally Committee IM’ed Pruitt and pretended to be a UCLA co-ed named Victoria. They even sent fake pictures of “Victoria.” After going back and forth, the Cal students hooked, lined, and sinkered Gabe into thinking he was going to get the hook up after the game and so he gave “Victoria” his phone number and, well, that’s how he found his phone number not only chanted back at him, but held up on signs during the game.
Pruitt went onto go only 3 for 13 the whole night and Cal went onto win by eleven. While it’s hard to say whether or not Pruitt was fazed by all of this, if Cal fans want to go ahead and think they had a hand in it, they certainly have every right to. Cal’s team is currently considered to be a “bubble” team and unsure what the Tourney Gods have for them. While Cal’s RPI ranking might be not so hot, this stunt should give them a much higher FPO (Fans Punking Opponents) ranking. And if that’s not good enough, they should be let in only to see what they could cook up for J.J. Redick.

I think I am just plain impressed.

Isaac Hayes has quit “South Park,” where he voices Chef, saying he can no longer stomach its take on religion. Hayes, who has played the ladies’ man/school cook in the animated Comedy Central satire since 1997, said in a statement Monday that he feels a line has been crossed. NO, Lines being crossed on South Park. Now, that is news to me. NOT
There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins,” the 63-year-old soul singer and outspoken Scientologist said. I think we have just learned a little more about Mr. Hayes.
“Religious beliefs are sacred to people, and at all times should be respected and honored,” he continued. “As a civil rights activist of the past 40 years, I cannot support a show that disrespects those beliefs and practices.”
“South Park” co-creator Matt Stone responded sharply in an interview with The Associated Press Monday, saying, “This is 100 percent having to do with his faith of Scientology… He has no problem — and he’s cashed plenty of checks — with our show making fun of Christians.”

Maybe we should check with John Travolta on these matters?

MINNEAPOLIS Mar 7, 2006 (AP)— Kirby Puckett, the bubbly, barrel-shaped Hall of Famer who carried the Minnesota Twins to two World Series titles before his career was cut short by glaucoma, died Monday after a stroke. He was 45.

All-Star in 1986-95
Led League in ba 89
Led League in hits 1987-89, 1992
Led League in RBIs 1994
Gold Glove in 1986-89, 1991-92
Hall of Fame 2001

Games Average HR RBI
1783 .318 207 1085 Career
10 .311 3 7 League CS
14 .308 2 7 World Series

A ballplayer who was a hero for the average guy. Thanks Kirby, for all the good “play it the way it was meant to be played” baseball.

Finally, after a LONG two but really three weeks of being on vacation from the airways, I will be back on this Saturday from 9am until 12 noon. Phew, it feels like an eternity. I have had the musical skeleton of this show completed for two almost three weeks now.

Farewell to free form funk-a-fied filth, but the sounds will be similiar.

Call us at 860-429-WHUS to donate some of your $$ to keep the US in WHUS.

Stay tuned coming up is RADIOTHON. Your chance to give back a little something something to the station for the wonderful public affairs programs many live for. For the countless hours, at all hours the staff spends preparing, recording, providing interviews with artists.and the list goes on. And your donation will not go unrewarded. Not only do you get all the aforementioned programming, and might I add it is not commercialized music, this is music programmed as far away from the commercial scene as possible…We also will have great gifts in return for your contribution. Cd’s, gift certificates for local establishments, and all sorts of unique premiums for your choice.

Stay tuned and dig into those pockets, your thirsty ears will thank you.

autograph working manuscript of some of Brahms’ “Deutsche Volkslieder.”

NEW YORK (CNN) — A donor has given Juilliard his collection of 139 handwritten manuscripts, including works by Mozart, Debussy, Beethoven, Brahms, Copland, Schubert and Sibelius. Nearly 140 manuscripts date as far back as late 17th century. The gift was made by the school’s board chairman, Bruce Kovner, who had purchased autograph and working manuscripts, sketches, engravers’ proofs and other artifacts over the past 10 years.
They include the lost manuscript of a transposed continuo part for J.S. Bach‘s “Cantata BWV 176,” an autograph sketchbook for Stravinsky‘s “Petrushka,” and one of the earliest surviving manuscripts of Purcell‘s “Dido and Aeneas.”

“I truly feel like I’m in the presence of divinity,” said Joseph Polisi, president of Juilliard, at a news conference announcing the gift Tuesday. “No other conservatory has a collection like this.” Described as a “priceless collection,” many of the manuscripts contain corrections and notations made by the composers’ own hands, clearly demonstrating the creative process they went through to produce a masterpiece.

“It has been great fun to find these manuscripts and pull them together into this collection,” Kovner said. “I trust that what we are doing at the school will make it possible for Juilliard students and scholars to delve into the compositional processes of these great composers and share them with the rest of the world.” Kovner acquired many of the manuscripts anonymously at auction houses in New York, London and Paris. “I thought it would be a pleasure to own some of the great icons,” he said.

Scholars and performers will have to wait until 2009 to access the collection, which will be housed in the newly built Scholar’s Reading Room, as part of Juilliard’s expansion and renovation project.

Someone has popped a spring down at baseball’s spring training. Barry Bonds, I mean to say: The loveable Barry Bonds is making headlines again. No, not for more steroid talk or more knee surgery, today it was Bonds dressed in drag portraying Paula Abdul on American Idol, Giants left fielder Barry Bonds participates in a rookie hazing parody of the hit FOX show. Pitcher Jeff Fassero (left) is playing Simon Cowell, and second baseman Ray Durham is playing Randy Jackson on Tuesday in Scottsdale, Ariz. I think the heat has gotten to them.

OK Ok, these baseball hazing rituals or strange. And from what I noticed, it seems to me that Bonds hasn’t been a rookie in a long long time. So, maybe he just enjoys it. What do you think?