Holly Erlander was a struggling musician trying to catch a break with her band Siren. The New York City music scene, much like its counterpart in Los Angeles, had a lot of bands trying to get noticed so her story isn’t exactly unique for the late 1970s. Holly had a knack for getting to […]
There are bands that simply play music. While some engage with their audiences, others are what are referred to as ‘shoegazers’. ‘SGs’ are bands that don’t make eye contact or go out of their way to make small talk with their fans – they just play. Rick Wakeman is a peg that does not […]
On June 3, 1964, The Beatles had a full schedule ahead of them. They were to spend the morning posing for a photographer from The Saturday Evening Post before they did an afternoon and evening recording session at EMI Studios. The next day, they would fly off to begin their first ever world tour […]
Back in May of 2023, we covered the origins of Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band (5-3-23) a month before I had the opportunity to see the current version of the band in Eugene, Oregon. This FTV article explained how a thirty-year old promoter named David Fishof proposed an idea to Ringo. In 1989, Fishof asked […]
The disclaimer: I like music. I will listen to any type of music but there are some genres I can take or leave. I have listened to enough Punk rock, Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, and hard core metal bands like Slipknot to know they aren’t my cup of tea. I understand why legions of […]
As my 70th birthday crept up on me in the fall of 2023, I started thinking about how time passes between the end of one school year and the beginning of the next. My 60 years spent as an student in public school (K-12), college (5 years including grad school) and teaching (43 years in […]
First, let me apologize in advance for how many times we are going to say ‘Thank You’ in this FTV. There are only so many words that can fit what happened to WOAS-FM 88.5 in the past five months but the most important two are ‘Thank You’. We would be remiss to not thank […]
Dick Clark may have left this mortal coil in 2012, but it is a fair bet if one hears the phrase, ‘America’s oldest living teen-ager’, his smiling face will come to mind. Born on November 11, 1929, he was perfectly positioned to transition from the golden age of radio into that new fangled home […]
On July 14, 2008, a random music fan shot a video of Rick K and the Allnighters performing at an amusement park in Pennsylvania. Two years later, someone else posted it to YouTube under the heading ‘This Drummer is At the Wrong Gig!’ and it promptly went viral. The singer introduces the ZZ Top tune […]
When recently asked to present ‘something about how things have changed around here’ for the Ontonagon County Historical Society, I said, “Let me think about it before I say ‘yes’ or ‘no’.” There are already many volumes available about the history of the area (see: Knox Jamison, Earl Doyle, and Bruce Johanson for starters), […]