Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

55° - overcast at 11:26am

Good Morning from Okemos, Michigan USA.

Listening: Starting at 8am eastern this morning to Bob Stroud's Rock 'N Roll Roots on WDRV. Bob featuring The Who this morning, celebrating Pete Townshend's birthday. Stroud's stories behind the songs make almost everything he plays special.

Later: Steve Palec on WKLH. Steve with a good dose of Allman Brothers as I'm listening. Steve also a great storyteller with some great sound bites to setup the tunes.

WMMR/Philadelphia. Celebrating 40 years of rock. See the celebration on station's website here.

FMQB with a great historic photo spread on WMMR here.

Building Community. Good read this past week in Ad Week on marketing and "building community." Read here.

Related: Bob Lefsetz posts a letter from an artist who writes:

"It’s really not so much about the music anymore. It’s about how willing you are to market you band/product by putting the time and effort into it to it. Connecting with fans. Creating a community that will keep coming back because your constantly updating your content."

American Idol - Boston style: Fred Jacobs wrote about a dream gig and how it came together this past week. Hint: Boston has a new lead singer - and he's from Home Depot. Here.

Hmmm. WKLH/Milwaukee promoting "The Concert For Big Oil" on Memorial Day Weekend. Say what? See here.

Dolly and Howard. Jaye Albright comments here. Your take? I do note that this is the first I've heard about Howard in many months. See "Sensitive Times" below.

Sensitive Times. You've no doubt read in the past day or so the firing of WYSP/Philadelphia morning talent Kidd Chris and Program Director John Cook over the repeated airing of a "racist" song performed by an in-studio guest.

Me thinks an apology over a one-time live airing would have been fine - but repeated airings may have crossed that line. BTW: a visit to the WYSP website reveals another station running "The Harley Days of May" (that's 2 now).

Added Monday 5/19: Jerry Del Colliano in a post this morning gets it right:

"Radio audiences are increasingly over this type of content. Even Public Offender #1, Howard Stern, has changed the way he offends – albeit it on subscriber-based satellite radio."

"And if you’re wondering what the next generation thinks of these types of racist parodies, consider that Gen Y is a very social generation. They tend to work within the system and see things in one color instead of racially defined preexisting stereotypes from the past."

Have a great Sunday. There's a trip to the zoo know as Sam's Club in my plans today...