Category Archives: the MisterG-laneous

ALTO SAX. A TRIBUTE.

John Lenwood McLean is known better as simply Jackie. A native New Yorker, Jackie McLean was left a musical heritage by his father, John Sr., who played guitar with Tiny Bradshaw. He died in 1939. The incentive to further the heritage was given him by his mother when she bought him his first saxophone. Jackie grew up in Harlem with bop already flowering around him. He played in a neighborhood band that included Sonny Rollins and Andy Kirk Jr. on saxophones and Kenny Drew on piano. After school hours he would jam and study with Bud Powell and although he names Charlie Parker, Rollins and Kirk as his favorite saxophonists, Jackie states that “Bud Powell is my inspiration.” In those afternoon sessions Bud taught him chord changes and imparted the important lesson of “time.” It was in 1951 that Jackie made his first recordings. These can be heard on Miles Davis’s Dig. Actually it wasn’t until 1955 that Jackie started playing jobs that brought his name before the public. With Paul Bley’s quartet and George Wallington’s quintet he started to fulfill the promise he had shown when Bud Powell unveiled him one night at Birdland some five years before. 1956 finds him with Charles Mingus’s quintet as another phase of his career opens….

I hope you want to dig in and learn more about a true musician’s musician.

The band will play at a secret location in the UK capital on Good Friday (April 14), with the audience being made up of competition winners on BBC Radio 1.

The full set will be broadcast in a special show ‘Radio 1 presents the Red Hot Chili Peppers Live‘ on Easter Monday (April 17) from 7pm.
Tickets for the gig will be given away on-air across Radio 1’s daytime and specialist shows from today (April 10).
‘Stadium Arcadium‘ is set to be released on May 8, and is preceded by the single ‘Dani California‘ on May 1.

Now that will be a contest that was truly a winner.

The Who are planning a limited edition release ahead of their long awaited full album this year.
The group’s surviving members Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey are currently working on their first studio record in 24 years, but have revealed plans for this extra release.
Recalling their 1969 rock opera ‘Tommy‘, guitarist Townshend confirmed the group have returned to the extended concept format.

Writing on Petetownshend.co.uk, Townshend said: “Roger and I have completed the condensed 11-minute mini-opera, played it to the folks at (record label) Polydor, and are all set to release – probably as a limited edition – in June, prior to the release of a conventional CD in September.”
A full album from The Who was delayed after the group’s drummer Zak Starkey committed himself to playing with the band Oasis last year, but with summer gigs and a headlining appearance at this year’s T In The Park confirmed, the band now look set to return to action.

the original who

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?

7/21/1924-2/24/2006

We are interested in hearing your memories about Don Knotts. Even if they seem too weird to mention.

My memory is something that is odd, we had a UPS truck driver that always delivered around my block as a kid. I sware it was Don Knotts. One day while waiting for the bus, all the kids gathered together and shouted, “Hey, you look like Don Knotts” as he drove bye. He actually made one of those classic Mr Furley type faces.

GREECE, N.Y. (AP) – Jason McElwain had done everything he was asked to do for the Greece Athena High School basketball team – keep the stats, run the clock, hand out water bottles. That all changed last week for the team manager in the final home game of the season. The 17-year-old senior, who is autistic and usually sits on the bench in a white shirt and black tie, put on a uniform and entered the game with his team way ahead. McElwain proceeded to hit six 3-point shots, finished with 20 points and was carried off the court on his teammates’ shoulders. McElwain, 5-foot-6, was considered too small to make the junior varsity, so he signed on as team manager. He took up the same role with the varsity, doing anything to stay near the sport he loves. Coach Jim Johnson was impressed with his dedication, and thought about suiting up McElwain for the home finale. His performance was jaw-dropping: 20 points in four minutes, making 6-of-10 3-point shots. The crowd went wild.

McElwain didn’t begin speaking until he was 5. He lacked social skills but things got easier as he got older. He found many friends and made his way through school in this Rochester suburb, although many of his classes were limited to a half-dozen students. And he found basketball. Even though McElwain was in uniform for the Feb. 15 game, there was no guarantee he would play – Athena was battling for a division title. The fans, however, came prepared. One section of students held up signs bearing his nickname “J-MAC” and cutouts of his face placed on Popsicle sticks. McElwain will soon be done with high school basketball, then enroll in business management this fall at Monroe Community College. “I’ll go on to college and I’ll try to hoop there,” he said. “I just love it, it’s one of the greatest sports in the world.”

WAY TO GO JASON

Henry Rollins has been getting a lot of attention these days from the Australian media — after all, it’s not every day that some American punk icon calls Australia’s prime minister a “sissy.” Prime Minister John Howard caught Hank‘s wrath during the rocker’s most recent trip to Australia. On the flight from New Zealand, Rollins said he was reading a copy of Wall Street Journal correspondent Ahmed Rashid‘s book “Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia.” The man sitting next to him took objection to the book and reported Rollins to the Australian government. Now, here comes the part where you say to yourself that stupidity isn’t ONLY running amuck in our government.
“The guy phoned me in to their, like, anti-terrorist board, and they found me — they looked me up,” he said. “They looked up the flight and found out who was sitting in seat 10A and they got to me. And they said, ‘OK, you’re now a person of interest. The man next to you does not agree with your politics and he didn’t like the book you were reading.’ This kind of provocation, I don’t respond very well to. I was furious. And so I wrote back, ‘You can tell everyone at your office, including your boss, to go f— themselves. This book has been read by a ton of people — I am not a threat to your state or any state or any republic.’ ” In the actual text of his online response, Rollins added: “Baghdad‘s safer than my hometown, and your PM is a sissy.”

–note to self, only read comic books on airliners

SAN FRANCISCO–In 1970, 20-year-old student Bill Sagan had his first real brush with rock and roll history at an early Led Zeppelin concert at Chicago’s fabled Aragon Ballroom.

Now the entrepreneur owns one of rock’s biggest treasure troves of recorded shows by Zeppelin and other history-making bands, and he’s beginning to share it freely online. Since 2002, Sagan has owned the full archives of legendary promoter Bill Graham, whose concerts featuring performers such as the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix and others helped define the late 1960s and early ’70s. Late last week, Sagan began putting excerpts from these concerts, many of which have never been released, online by way of a free Internet radio station on his company’s Wolfgang’s Vault site.
Sagan is a businessman, on the surface very different from the bushy-bearded, long-haired artists depicted in the black-and-white photographs lining the walls of his warehouse office. But Graham was a businessman too, with a reputation for being hard-nosed about making money as he promoted the peace-and-love generation’s soundtrack.
The warehouse itself is a rock history buff’s dream. Three floors are lined with shelves, which are stacked full of boxes of posters, pristine tickets for the Fillmore West and Fillmore East shows, postcards, T-shirts and original photographic negatives. Sagan estimates there are more than 20 million individual pieces here. In the basement of the warehouse is the room that holds close to 5,000 hours of videotaped concerts, and a comparable quantity of audio. Nobody’s quite sure what Graham had intended to do with all the footage, Sagan says. The vast majority of it is unseen and unheard, with the exception of occasional bootlegs of the same shows. http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/

We all know that you and you are waiting to know which pooch won the Westminster Kennel Club highest honor of America’s top dog. A colored bull terrier called Rufus used his head Tuesday night at the Madison Square Garden Arena. Rufus’ selling point? His head – perfectly shaped like an egg. Rufus was the first dog in his breed to win at the nation’s most prestigious show. Handler Kathy Kirk said she was “ready to pass out” from the pressure, but her nearly 6-year-old dog that she playfully calls “Puppyhead” seemed to take it all in stride.
At a show that drew 2,622 entries in 165 breeds and varieties, Rufus really earned this victory. He beat out a favorite Norfolk terrier named Coco and a Dandie Dinmont co-owned by Bill Cosby just to reach the final ring. When it got down to Best in Show, Rufus was picked over a popular golden retriever, a Rottweiler handled by a former Florida State linebacker, a prize pug and a spirited Dalmatian.

Rufus left the Garden around midnight. He’ll certainly be dog tired by Wednesday night.

“I was supposed to tell someone?”

“WHY?”

From the Wednesday 2-5am time slot, where sleep and awake crossed and just waved. Then we held down the Wednesday5-7am with much laughter and cobwebs. NOW, we are going to be in the best time slot out there. Saturday Mornings from 9am until 12 Noon. Greenarrowradio will have 3, yes THREE hours of the airwaves to fill up your thirsty earholes.

So bring your working gloves, your back braces and a bottle or two of elbow grease cuz……

And I must admit, change is a good thing for us creatures of habit. I doubt I will FORGET and wake up before the sun on any Wednesday morning and proceed to the station. HIGHLY DOUBTFUL.
Really. What would you prefer? Waking up at 0′ dark 30 or getting an extra hour of programming time for a saturday gig that doesn’t take away the afternoon or evening?
Either way, GreenArrowRadio looks to bring its random music for the thirst earhole…and we realize that everyone does hear with the same ears, soooo we tend to highly ADHD when programming. We always conjure up some new music to keep the listening ears learning and fresh. We blend in something for the crowd of ears that like it a little loud and raucus. Bluegrass…Every now and again, there is even a reminder of where many of our tunes originated….and a dabbling of world music to remind us how far we have made it…at least musically.
Something I feel is very important is hearing from artists first hand, therefore, I spend a large amount of time trying to interview people I feel have something to say and people I have always wanted to talk to. I am interested to hear of an artist that you have always wished of speaking to.

We cater to all kinds of thirsty ears…tune and and you’ll hear for yourself.

Saturday Mornings 9-Noon. WHUS 91.7FM Radio for the People.

a friend, a teammate, someone I hope to be.