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...

Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

60° - clear at 11:52am

Good Morning from Mid-Michigan. Bike ride with my 9-year old this morning brought us down the road to Okemos High School (aka "The Taj Mahal" by locals; its very nice).

Listening. To my usual Sunday Morning lineup. Stroud on Chicago's WDRV featuring the music of Badfinger this morning. One of all-time fav bands; both the Apple and Warner years.

Bob Stroud also seeking votes for the next volume of his Rock 'N Roll Roots CD (it will be number 10). See here.

Post bike ride: Steve Palec on Milwaukee's WKLH. A good dose of Linda Ronstadt this morning as "The Root Salute". Ronstadt covering Tom Petty's "The Waiting" was wonderful! Thanks Steve.

The ROI. David Martin discusses the Radio 2020 initiative from the NAB, RAB and HD Radio Alliance...and calls for goals, scorecards and accountability.

This goes beyond simple "feel good" reaction (or otherwise) from inside the industry. Read here.

My take: Dave is right on. Unless there's measureable results, you'd never know if its time, effort and money well spent or otherwise wasted. And where to next. Promoting "radio" is best targeted at the ad community. For listeners, its all about brands and programming.

Think "users". Mark Ramsey points us to Inside Radio and the words of Bonneville New Media Director James Webb:

"radio needs to stop thinking of its cume as “listeners” and consider them to be “users.” He says “Listeners are engaged only when the radio is on. Radio users connect with you in other ways.”"

Mark adds additional comments here.

Records. Lee Arnold gives us the trailer of a forthcoming film on the death of the independent record store. Places where I spent much of my youth exploring. See here.

Amazingly, I was just told this past week that a "record store" just opened in nearby East Lansing.

Jaye Albright's open letter. To a Los Angeles broadcaster. Jay notes an air personality leaving this broadcaster's station to move to Huntsville, Alabama (apparently to make more money). Read here.

Jaye also points us to Detroit's WYCD...doing something radio does best. Here.

Would the RIAA do this? Author Seth Godin encourages readers to loan a copy of his book "The Dip" to others. "If I could double the number of people who read the book, it would be pretty cool."

Seth writes here.

Speaking of. Driving home Thursday afternoon I heard a song on MSU's student run and programmed radio station. And when I got home went online and bought the MP3 download. Isn't that the way its suppose to be? Radio remains the record industry's biggest promotional resource.

Howard Who? While the latest Arbitron satellite listening report shows him king of satellite radio, has the mainstream forgotten him?

Friday Night on Letterman - NPR's Ira Glass revealed that he was a major fan of Howard Stern. Said it twice. No studio audience reaction...no applause, nothing - although Ira (and Dave) appeared to be waiting for it. As if they didn't know the name anymore. Or cared. Just an observation.

Cindy Gatziolis. Don't know the name? Doesn't matter. Cindy share some great radio stories this week in Rick Kaempfer's Chicago Radio Spotlight. Think Larry Lujack. Jonathan Brandmeier. Read here.

Have a great Sunday.

Denny Somach Stirs It Up

With TV's "Mythbusters" on across the room - I had the laptop next to me tonight and took a quick glance at this site's visitor stats.

Looking at the "keywords" typed into Google and Yahoo that brought visitors here, I noticed a large number of queries for one-time WYSP/Philadelphia programmer Denny Somach. Denny has been mentioned here before - but why the big surge in interest?

Doing a fast web search - it turns out Mr. Somach was on the Howard Stern Show this morning to discuss - and give examples of alleged "blatant plagiarism" by the mighty Led Zeppelin. Lots of examples.

Read more on Led Zeppelin's "borrowing" as part of "The Cold Cases of Rock & Roll" on Denny's website here.

There's a lot of interest in this - given the search engine referrals.