Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Adventures in video blogging
Because blogs are always more interesting when there's video, here's the first installment of blogging my wedding day via video documentary. Weddings are stressful, but they're fun too. Hopefully this reflects that.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Justin Bieber's monkey
Here's the latest on the Justin Bieber pet monkey drama.
With the Bieb keeping up the grand tradition of losing his mind, like many pop singers before him have done, it makes me think of ....
Nope, not Michael Jackson, who famously had a pet monkey called Bubbles ...
It's this so-bad-it's-good hit from 1988. Oh Justin, why can't you do it?/why can't you set your monkey free? LOL Talk about a double meaning.
With the Bieb keeping up the grand tradition of losing his mind, like many pop singers before him have done, it makes me think of ....
Nope, not Michael Jackson, who famously had a pet monkey called Bubbles ...
It's this so-bad-it's-good hit from 1988. Oh Justin, why can't you do it?/why can't you set your monkey free? LOL Talk about a double meaning.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Have you seen what's going on at New Hope Winery?
"We're more than just a winery" is what they like to say at the New Hope Winery. In fact, they're a bona fide concert venue, with some really compelling shows. Cy Cumrin of The Fixx played a solo show recently, and some upcoming highlights include a solo show by John Ford Coley -- as in the easy-breezy '70s sounds of England Dan (Seals) & John Ford Coley -- Jeffrey Gaines, Tom Chapin, Led Zeppelin tribute group Kashmir, Fleetwood Mac tribute Tusk and Rolling Stones tribute The Glimmer Twins.
Anne and I went to see Fountains of Wayne, whom I famously wrote about in The Reporter in 2003, there. The band is touring behind a new album, "Sky Full of Holes," which is actually available as a vinyl LP. They brought their power pop A-game, including "Stacy's Mom."
In a pure happenstance stroke of luck, we blundered into the band's backstage party, which involves the ritual of breaking a red dragon pinata filled with gum, Tootsie Pops, liquor, condoms, "personal lubricant" -- and somewhere in there -- a Post-It Flag Pen and a baggie of shredded currency from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Here's what we snagged from the pinata breaking:
HOW COOL WERE WE THAT NIGHT?
Now we get the significance behind the FOW song "Red Dragon Tattoo."
Fountains of Wayne -- although the store in North Jersey that bears your name has closed, and we had some "interesting" observations about guitarist Jody Porter-- we are one!
Oh, and I didn't even say anything about the wine! Should probably save that for another post.
Anne and I went to see Fountains of Wayne, whom I famously wrote about in The Reporter in 2003, there. The band is touring behind a new album, "Sky Full of Holes," which is actually available as a vinyl LP. They brought their power pop A-game, including "Stacy's Mom."
In a pure happenstance stroke of luck, we blundered into the band's backstage party, which involves the ritual of breaking a red dragon pinata filled with gum, Tootsie Pops, liquor, condoms, "personal lubricant" -- and somewhere in there -- a Post-It Flag Pen and a baggie of shredded currency from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Here's what we snagged from the pinata breaking:
HOW COOL WERE WE THAT NIGHT?
Now we get the significance behind the FOW song "Red Dragon Tattoo."
Fountains of Wayne -- although the store in North Jersey that bears your name has closed, and we had some "interesting" observations about guitarist Jody Porter-- we are one!
Oh, and I didn't even say anything about the wine! Should probably save that for another post.
Friday, March 8, 2013
Am I really that old?
It was a culture shock for we teenagers in 1987 when Hot Hits WCAU in Philadelphia flipped formats to Oldies 98 and the hits from the '50s and '60s.
Flash forward more than 25 years and WOGL-FM is now the greatest hits of the '60s, '70s and ... wait for it ... the '80s. With the Gen-Xers coming to terms with reaching mid-life, imagine my jaw dropping one Saturday afternoon when I caught this series of songs on 98.1:
*Van Halen - Jump
*Rick James - Superfreak
*The Bee Gees - How Deep is Your Love
*The Supremes - You Keep Me Hangin' On
And ... wait for it ... The Police - Don't Stand So Close to Me
Oy, that song is an oldie now? Well, yes and no.
The contemporary, correct term is "classic hits," and WOGL music director and Philly radio veteran Tommy McCarthy -- who's been with the station nearly 23 years -- noted in a phone interview that formats/stations that survive in the dog-eat-dog world of the Philadelphia radio market are the ones that grow and evolve. For example, he said, short-sighted thinking killed off the beloved hit music station WFIL, which remained stuck on the AM band as music on commercial radio migrated to FM.
WOGL dropped the "Oldies" from its name somewhere between 2002 and 2004 because, said McCarthy, the term "made (listeners) feel like they were fuddy-duddies." It was done subtly, without fanfare, as was the gradual playlist additions of hit songs from the '70s and then 1980-1982.
Classic hits is about living in the present, as opposed to the escapist nostalgia of what the '50s and '60s oldies format was when it first hit the airwaves around the country.
"We talk about Lady Gaga. We know what's going on in the world. It's not the oldie oldies station," McCarthy said of the WOGL DJs, several of whom used to be on the old Solid Gold 102 (now Q-102).
WOGL's bread-and-butter demographic of adults 35-64 (leaning slightly toward a female audience) includes both Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers. McCarthy's daunting task is to find upbeat songs that you'll like whether you're 35 or 55 -- songs that will get people dancing at a wedding reception:
*Donna Summer - Last Dance
*Barry White - You're the First, the Last, My Everything
*Lipps Inc. - Funkytown
Ballads that go on WOGL need to have "a rhythmic Philly feel," McCarthy said
He also has to schedule the songs in such a way that won't sound -- as DJs like to say -- like a "train wreck." An example he gave was a '60s song followed by Madonna.
"You can't go out to a nightclub (without someone requesting) 'Build Me Up Buttercup' (by The Foundations). They'll forget when it came out," he said of a seemingly timeless hit that has cross-generational appeal. The song came out in 1968, by the way.
A Cherry Hill, NJ native, McCarthy -- with a lot of help from a company that conducts auditorium research on people's dispositions toward certain songs -- also has to use his instincts to pick songs that particularly resonate with people that grew up in the Philadelphia area or South Jersey: Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, Teddy Pendergrass, The Spinners, The O'Jays...
"Once you get out of college, you lose a bit of a passion for music as you get your career started. You get into your kids' music as you age ... (until finally) you know that next generation's music as well as yours," said McCarthy. The station consistently ranks in the ratings top five among the coveted 25-54 demographic, he said.
Still, says McCarthy, ultimately it comes down to playing a good song -- songs that you associate with a first love, a "toga party your sophomore year in college," songs you devotedly listened to in your bedroom throughout high school and college before career and family took a higher priority.
"As long as they come here (to WOGL) to feel good, that's my job," McCarthy said.
So what does the future hold for the classic hits format? "Stick with the hits and good-sounding music. There may come a day -- maybe not in the next three years -- we may drop the '60s, and it'll be the greatest hits of the '70s, '80s and '90s," McCarthy said.
Time marches on, I guess.
Flash forward more than 25 years and WOGL-FM is now the greatest hits of the '60s, '70s and ... wait for it ... the '80s. With the Gen-Xers coming to terms with reaching mid-life, imagine my jaw dropping one Saturday afternoon when I caught this series of songs on 98.1:
*Van Halen - Jump
*Rick James - Superfreak
*The Bee Gees - How Deep is Your Love
*The Supremes - You Keep Me Hangin' On
And ... wait for it ... The Police - Don't Stand So Close to Me
Oy, that song is an oldie now? Well, yes and no.
The contemporary, correct term is "classic hits," and WOGL music director and Philly radio veteran Tommy McCarthy -- who's been with the station nearly 23 years -- noted in a phone interview that formats/stations that survive in the dog-eat-dog world of the Philadelphia radio market are the ones that grow and evolve. For example, he said, short-sighted thinking killed off the beloved hit music station WFIL, which remained stuck on the AM band as music on commercial radio migrated to FM.
WOGL dropped the "Oldies" from its name somewhere between 2002 and 2004 because, said McCarthy, the term "made (listeners) feel like they were fuddy-duddies." It was done subtly, without fanfare, as was the gradual playlist additions of hit songs from the '70s and then 1980-1982.
Classic hits is about living in the present, as opposed to the escapist nostalgia of what the '50s and '60s oldies format was when it first hit the airwaves around the country.
"We talk about Lady Gaga. We know what's going on in the world. It's not the oldie oldies station," McCarthy said of the WOGL DJs, several of whom used to be on the old Solid Gold 102 (now Q-102).
WOGL's bread-and-butter demographic of adults 35-64 (leaning slightly toward a female audience) includes both Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers. McCarthy's daunting task is to find upbeat songs that you'll like whether you're 35 or 55 -- songs that will get people dancing at a wedding reception:
*Donna Summer - Last Dance
*Barry White - You're the First, the Last, My Everything
*Lipps Inc. - Funkytown
Ballads that go on WOGL need to have "a rhythmic Philly feel," McCarthy said
He also has to schedule the songs in such a way that won't sound -- as DJs like to say -- like a "train wreck." An example he gave was a '60s song followed by Madonna.
"You can't go out to a nightclub (without someone requesting) 'Build Me Up Buttercup' (by The Foundations). They'll forget when it came out," he said of a seemingly timeless hit that has cross-generational appeal. The song came out in 1968, by the way.
A Cherry Hill, NJ native, McCarthy -- with a lot of help from a company that conducts auditorium research on people's dispositions toward certain songs -- also has to use his instincts to pick songs that particularly resonate with people that grew up in the Philadelphia area or South Jersey: Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, Teddy Pendergrass, The Spinners, The O'Jays...
"Once you get out of college, you lose a bit of a passion for music as you get your career started. You get into your kids' music as you age ... (until finally) you know that next generation's music as well as yours," said McCarthy. The station consistently ranks in the ratings top five among the coveted 25-54 demographic, he said.
Still, says McCarthy, ultimately it comes down to playing a good song -- songs that you associate with a first love, a "toga party your sophomore year in college," songs you devotedly listened to in your bedroom throughout high school and college before career and family took a higher priority.
"As long as they come here (to WOGL) to feel good, that's my job," McCarthy said.
So what does the future hold for the classic hits format? "Stick with the hits and good-sounding music. There may come a day -- maybe not in the next three years -- we may drop the '60s, and it'll be the greatest hits of the '70s, '80s and '90s," McCarthy said.
Time marches on, I guess.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Kurt Cobain, we hardly knew ye
Why is Kurt Cobain trending on Twitter this 20th day of February?
Ah, it would've been his 46th birthday.
Naturally, the far-too-many snarky losers in the Twittersphere had ignorant things to say, such as the nimrods that tweeted pictures of Billy Ray Cyrus. Uhhhhh, is that supposed to be a joke, or are you just really that dumb?
The best Cobain-related tweet came from @JohnFugelsang, who shared a hand-written list of Cobain's favorite albums.
Some are no surprise -- David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World," which Nirvana famously covered on MTV Unplugged ... The Pixies ... Iggy & The Stooges' "Raw Power," with its savage and loud guitars. Read a review I wrote for the reissue of "Raw Power" here.
Several are BIG surprises, however. To wit: The Knack "Get the Knack"
Aerosmith "Rocks"
REM "Green" (I would've guessed an earlier album.)
The Clash "Combat Rock" (when the seminal British punks hit their commercial peak)
The Beatles "Meet the Beatles" (He strikes me as a White Album kind of guy.)
Public Enemy "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back"
and Leadbelly "Final Sessions Vol. 1."
Ah, it would've been his 46th birthday.
Naturally, the far-too-many snarky losers in the Twittersphere had ignorant things to say, such as the nimrods that tweeted pictures of Billy Ray Cyrus. Uhhhhh, is that supposed to be a joke, or are you just really that dumb?
The best Cobain-related tweet came from @JohnFugelsang, who shared a hand-written list of Cobain's favorite albums.
Some are no surprise -- David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World," which Nirvana famously covered on MTV Unplugged ... The Pixies ... Iggy & The Stooges' "Raw Power," with its savage and loud guitars. Read a review I wrote for the reissue of "Raw Power" here.
Several are BIG surprises, however. To wit: The Knack "Get the Knack"
Aerosmith "Rocks"
REM "Green" (I would've guessed an earlier album.)
The Clash "Combat Rock" (when the seminal British punks hit their commercial peak)
The Beatles "Meet the Beatles" (He strikes me as a White Album kind of guy.)
Public Enemy "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back"
and Leadbelly "Final Sessions Vol. 1."
Sunday, December 23, 2012
A Dickens of a Christmas
Gerald Charles Dickens, the great-great grandson of revered British author and social reform advocate Charles Dickens, was recently back at Byers Choice in New Britain for an 11th consecutive year of giving a remarkable one-man performance of "A Christmas Carol" smack dab in the middle of the workshop where the highly-sought-after collectible Caroler and Kindle figurines are made.
Warming up the large crowds that came to see Dickens was the select choir from C.B. West High School:
G.C. Dickens' 2012 U.S. tour comes during a watermark year, the bicentennial of Charles Dickens birth. The Cake Boss himself even made a Dickens tribute cake for the occasion that's on display in the Byers Choice Christmas Museum.
Besides delighting audiences with acting out all of the distinct "Christmas Carol" characters himself, the shows have also partly been a fundraiser on behalf of the Dickens family to get a statue of the "Oliver Twist," "Great Expectations," "A Tale of Two Cities" and "David Copperfield" author erected in Portsmouth, England. Go figure -- there's a Dickens statue in Clark Park in Philadelphia, but no such tribute in his home country.
The reason, said G.C. Dickens, is that his great-great grandfather specified in his Will that a grandiose memorial was not to be erected in his name because Charles Dickens, a champion of the poor and underprivileged, did not feel it was appropriate. Dickens and Byers Choice president Bob Byers Jr. explained that the bronze statue, which depicts Dickens holding a book and rising from a chair, is a far cry from the Baroque monuments of the 19th century, which went against what Charles Dickens believed in. Check out the latest on the Dickens statue in England here.
Dickens said that he first became aware of his family heritage during a memorial service marking the 100th anniversary of Charles Dickens' death. He was 6 years old, and quite blown away to discover the Queen Mother sitting in the same pew as he was.
Bitten by the acting bug at age 9, when he was cast in a Nativity play, Dickens first started performing his solo "A Christmas Carol" in 1993 as request from a friend running a charity fundraiser.
Byers called G.C. Dickens' interpretation "The best version of 'A Christmas Carol' I've ever seen."
Warming up the large crowds that came to see Dickens was the select choir from C.B. West High School:
G.C. Dickens' 2012 U.S. tour comes during a watermark year, the bicentennial of Charles Dickens birth. The Cake Boss himself even made a Dickens tribute cake for the occasion that's on display in the Byers Choice Christmas Museum.
Besides delighting audiences with acting out all of the distinct "Christmas Carol" characters himself, the shows have also partly been a fundraiser on behalf of the Dickens family to get a statue of the "Oliver Twist," "Great Expectations," "A Tale of Two Cities" and "David Copperfield" author erected in Portsmouth, England. Go figure -- there's a Dickens statue in Clark Park in Philadelphia, but no such tribute in his home country.
Bitten by the acting bug at age 9, when he was cast in a Nativity play, Dickens first started performing his solo "A Christmas Carol" in 1993 as request from a friend running a charity fundraiser.
Byers called G.C. Dickens' interpretation "The best version of 'A Christmas Carol' I've ever seen."
 | ||||
| Bob Byers of Byers Choice gets a new Charles Dickens Caroler signed by Gerald Charles Dickens. |
 |
| G.C. Dickens, Talk About the Passion photographer Anne Monappella and yours truly. |
Monday, November 19, 2012
Music that puts Amanda in the mood
Reporter Community Engagement Editor Amanda Piccirilli is Talk About the Passion's first ever guest blogger. Post a comment or hit me up at bbingaman@thereporteronline.com if you have a great story about how music moves you. Take it away, Amanda!
Like millions of other Americans, and as the band LMFAO puts it, “I work out!”
When it comes to a work out, I can’t live without music … or that is at least what I thought.
Like millions of other Americans, and as the band LMFAO puts it, “I work out!”
When it comes to a work out, I can’t live without music … or that is at least what I thought.
During April of 2011 I came up with the crazy idea to run a
marathon. I’ve been an athlete all of my life; I head to the gym frequently and
I’m always doing some kind of activity (whether it be biking, running, walking
my pup or playing soccer.) So as a bucket list item I figured now is my time to
run a marathon before I get too old and will never be able to do it.
So here I was, starting a marathon training regimen that
would get me prepared for my first marathon which took place in January 2012 in
Walt Disney World.
Week after week, month after month, I hit the streets of
Lansdale, tackling everything from three-mile training runs to 20-mile training
runs.
With my shoes tied tight, iPod strapped on my arm and water
bottle in hand, it was time to run.
Run after run I was always coming up with a new playlist,
usually techno music that would give me a beat that would allow me to keep a
solid stride and mentally pick me up when the run started to get tough.
Listening to music was always a must because like other
runners, I’m a bit of a head case without it (Or maybe I am one all the
time … Brian can maybe answer that haha). When I can hear myself breathing I
mentally start to fumble a bit, questioning myself: “Amanda, are you going to be
able to make it the whole time?” or “Geez, your breathing is getting harder,
you should probably quit.”
I’m not the fasted runner in the world so I was often trying
to come up with hours worth of music to fill my iPod, which is a struggle in
itself. So here I was, a few nights before my marathon trying to make a
playlist that would allow me to kick Disney’s Marathon ASS. Techno, hard rock
and some old school classics were ready to buzz through my ears.
Here were a couple go-to songs:
The gun went off around 5:30 a.m. at the Disney Marathon, and
in all honesty, I can only remember listening to maybe 10 songs out of the
HUNDREDS I added to my iPod. The excitement and commotion that took place
during race day kept me so distracted that music wasn’t even in the forefront
of my mind.
The sounds of cheers and the overall noise as we ran through
all the Disney parks were enough to keep my mind filled and my breathing out of
sight.
So for all you runners out there who are worried about
filling up your iPod with music for race day, take it from me, the girl who
NEEDED music to run – you will survive without it. But just in case, fill that
puppy up because it’s gonna be a LONG run.
I’m Amanda Piccirilli, the Community Engagement Editor at
The Reporter. Please feel free to follow me on my blog, http://takeyourpicamanda.blogspot.com,
or on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/AmandaPiccirilliReporter.
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