Musical ramblings from the manager
Not the end of the world. This FTV will be about a band coming to the end of its run. I am sorry, if the title sounds a little too ‘apocalyptic’ sounding, but in some ways, the end of a band is a bit jarring. I was dumped twice by the same girlfriend in […]
The first official broadcast of the WOAS radio station started at 8:00 AM on Friday, December 15, 1978. The station installed in two study rooms of the Ontonagon Area Schools library and the first manager was OAHS librarian, Thomas Graham Lee. At the time, the station featured two reel-to-reel players and two vinyl record […]
“No one wants to see a drunken bluesman anymore”. Pretty profound words from Deak Harp who was just that and as a result, he was considered a five time loser (as in ‘failed rehab five times’), messed up, unreliable, and black balled by just about all the blues clubs in New York and Chicago. “They […]
Kids, don’t try this at home. I am pretty sure that the tale I am about to relate would be considered an act of terrorism today but in the early 1970s, it could still be dismissed as ‘youthful hijinks’. It was still dumb, but by today’s standards, ‘dumb’ would not be a good enough excuse […]
When I was first learning the craft of rock and roll drumming, I absorbed as much as I could by playing along with records. I also made it a point to see as many live bands as I could. There were times when I would watch other drummers and think, “Yeah, I can do […]
Quick: Who was the first guitar player in The James Gang? If you said Joe Walsh, join me at the back of the class because we were both wrong. In fact, The James Gang wasn’t even Joe Walsh’s band – it was formed in 1966 by drummer Jim Fox. The band predated Walsh by a […]
Spoiler alert: I am a Mark Farner fan and like Homer Simpson professes in the Homerpalooza episode, I have a special spot in my heart for the, “Wild, shirtless lyrics of Mark Farner” and his body of work with Grand Funk Railroad. I watched some interview clips with Farner recently where he mentioned the […]
John Lennon loved ELO. In 1974, he proclaimed that they were the “natural heirs to the Fab Four” which more or less fulfilled Jeff Lynne’s teenage fantasies generated as a Beatles fan during his formative years in Birmingham. America also loved ELO. England? Not so much. Sharon Osbourne? More on her later. Even Phil Lynne, […]
We were playing Euchre after dinner one evening when I told everyone my tale of the ‘giant sandhill crane’ that I briefly thought might carry me off like a pterodactyl swooping down on a hapless animal. It turned out to be an illusion caused by two birds flying side by side behind a spruce tree. […]
Near the end of our unusually mild February of 2016, our old NASA buddy Ralph emailed from southern Wisconsin that he and his daughter had seen some sandhill cranes. We went back and forth a bit on the topic of sandhill cranes and the conversation transported me back to my introduction to them back in […]