PSoTD

When I was about 10 or 11, I had a 45 of Harry Nilsson's "The Rainmaker" which my brothers and I thought was just the greatest song. I can't find a Nilsson version of it on YouTube, but the song, in a speeded up tinny sounded version with some weird sounding instrumentation, is available in a version by Tom Northcott.

At some point, a friend of mine convinced me to trade him this 45 for a 45 he had. I really, really liked the band I trade for a lot more than Nilsson, but this song is one of my alltime least favorites, partly because I felt it was a bad trade pretty quickly and then we moved, and I couldn't get my record back.

Godzilla.

Do The Strand.

After talking to my daughter and niece on the way to the airport last week, it's become apparent to me that "rock music", however defined, is being seen by a good chunk of their generation as "uncool". Rap is cool. Rock is heading towards the Boone Family territory.

Is there any point for anyone trying to do something to change that, and if so, what would that "something" be?

In many ways, I can't blame their generation. I try to listen to radio - to the stations that play "classic rock", and for a great portion of that experience, I feel the overwhelming urge to change the station too. It sucks. How is it possible to convince a generation that rock music is great by playing the biggest hits of Journey and Boston? It can't be done.

No, there is something going on with "classic rock radio" - and that something is a generational suicide of the music format. Yes, there is a generation or two that will still listen to most of that big hit crap, that time travel back to their days of yore and are so mesmerized by their memories associated with the music that they aren't cognizant of the major suckitude of the actual music. But why should any child of 12 or 14 or young adult of 20 listen to a music style represented so often on radio with the warbling banalities of Steve Perry? Who believes they should still have to listen to "We Built This City" 20 years after it first attacked the airwaves?

I cannot blame the upcoming generations.

So... the first thing that should be done is - kill classic rock radio to save rock music. If you really love rock music, quit listening to it on the radio. Buy it, borrow it, whatever, but don't support the local schmucks that think that playing the same three Bon Jovi songs every day is the golden goose. Slay their goose, for it is actually a big fat flightless pigeon infected with avian flu and West Nile Virus. Run away. Go elsewhere. Save rock music for a generation that hasn't had it poisoned with broadcast mediocrity yet. There's still hope, but we won't find it on radio call letters.

Here's my favorite video of the song.

This is a catchy song.

Where work just keeps rolling in, and other items still needed to be done, and I couldn't wrap my head around blogging.

I've always been able to wrap my head around this tune by Nils Lofgren... Moon Tears.

I see where Mike has "borrowed" the idea of posting 9 album covers and letting visitors guess what the albums and artists are. He's posted a tough set - go play!

I'm taking suggestions for appropriate responses for the category of

Worst Primary Lead Singer Addition/Replacement in Rock and Roll History

It could be a required or optional change, but it has to occur to a band AFTER they have released their first album. There are so many candidates to choose from, but list the band AND the singer, since some bands have had more than one primary lead singer change in their history. For examples, write

Van Halen, with Sammy Hagar

not just Journey, or Mickey Thomas. Give band and singer of poor choice.

After about a week of comment suggestions I'll create the poll.

... boys do what they can!

It's Sunday, August 31st. I wish I could go, but my son's birthday has priority. What a great chance to see Jorge Ben, though.

by an old buddy of Tom Petty, his stablemate on Shelter Records: Dwight Twilley.