The bain of commercial music radio nowadays is the limited number songs forced in repetiton ad nauseum. No finesse. No sense of season. No poetry in programming. To borrow a phrase, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or a PH.d in music) to understand that music is created with a certain mindset--in a certain time, space, intent and emotion. Its the reason we play Christmas carols in December--not August.

Going from the unofficial start of summer with Memorial Day... we time travel full tilt into Summer with The 4th!

Back when life was simpler and Mom was able to cook, I remember a holiday feast of barbecued spare ribs she prepared with onions/garlic/tomato sauce in the kitchen before I grilled them in the back yard.

Grandson of a Kentucky Governor. US Air Force Vet. Manufacturer of LSD. Pioneering Audio Engineer. Those are four titles that belong to Owsley “Bear” Stanley. Music history remembers him best for that fourth description. And it was this weekend–24 years ago–that he recorded Janis Joplin at the Carousel Ballroom--only recently released. In an age when concert sound was by and large lo-hi, Bear had radical approaches to changing the abysmal sonic scene.

As is the custom in Croudeland, I celebrate Mom’s Day & Dad’s Day on the show with a special CD giveaway (sonic not financial).

In addition to the June airwaves being colored by special vinyl – a special tribute to my own Dad who is no longer with us. He provided me wiith my first seedplanting-guitar-love in 1960. Tony Mottola is still a shredder in my book--no one does the Neopolitan Tarentella like he does--so that track is in honor of Dad.