Musical ramblings from the manager
In the summer of 1974, Professor Pat Farrell was both my instructor and boss at Northern Michigan University’s Field Station just south of Melstrand, Michigan. All Geography majors were required to take a class called Field Studies to give us boots on the ground experience using tools of the mapping trade. My undergraduate advisor, […]
Warning: I like Styx. I have always liked Styx. What happened to make them fragment, reassemble, and separate again into two distinct ‘camps’ the way they did was never quite clear to me. The memory of where and when I first heard Lady on the radio, however, pops into my head everytime I hear […]
We left Part 1 of The Smothers Brothers just as they had their first album in the can. They landed in New York during the brutal winter of 1961 for their first club dates on the East Coast. It must have been quite a shock to their systems having spent the majority of their […]
In the world of entertainment, the list of stories about siblings working together is a long one. In the music end of the business, these tales often focus on the dysfunctional pairings like the Robinson brothers (The Black Crowes), The Everly Brothers (Phil and Don), and the Gallagher brothers (Oasis). Some concentrate on groups […]
Former WOAS-FM General Manager Mike ‘Zenith’ Bennett was much too young when he passed away a few years back. Mike was my radio mentor and he made it a point to stay in touch years after he had moved from Ontonagon to Bessemer and eventually to Marquette. When I was first getting involved in […]
At the time the first part of FTV: Wood Stories (published 3-11-20) was being written, we were in the process of having a large Silver Poplar tree removed from our side yard. When our house was originally built, the owner had planted three of these trees along with a couple of Spruce trees in […]
The Christmas Cards sent out this year included the usual ‘Season’s Greetings’ but an added sentiment there are no emojis for: ‘Here is to a brighter 2021.’ Peggy James seems to have an uncanny knack for writing music to fit my feelings – think ‘musical emoji on demand’. Gary Tanin at Daystorm Music sent […]
Try to remember the first time you saw The Rolling Stones on TV or an album cover. While reading Paul Trynka’s book Brian Jones: The Making of the Rolling Stones (Viking Press, 2014) I went back and found a YouTube video of their debut appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show from October of 1964. […]
The human body is a remarkable machine. Our built-in self-repair mechanisms are tested throughout one’s life and looking back, I can only wonder why humans are so determined to thoroughly test the limits of these systems. My father and mother both smoked when I was growing up. Thankfully, my mother quit cold turkey when […]
When searching for ideas for these written ramblings called ‘FTV’, I periodically feel the cosmic wheels spinning when inspiration pops an idea into my brain. The way my mind works, a tune, a fragment of a memory, a photograph, or a bit of stray conversation can plant the seed of a topic for consideration. […]