Turn and face the strain

What in the fuck is going on?

We've all known for a long time that Howard is leaving the terrestrial airwaves, but when I heard David Lee Roth on Stern this morning... it fucking hit me. That's it. He's gone. I still plan on making the leap to Sirius, but money's tight. My folks give me some dough for Xmas each year, so I think I'll ask them for the radio hardware instead. I was still half asleep when DLR was on the show this morning, but what woke my ass up was a really bad promo where a fake Blink 182 is singing about Howard... and then some jackass named Rover interrupts them and tells us oh-so-lucky Chicagoans that he's our new morning guy. Rover? Gawddamn. I have some friends in Ohio ([sarcasm]a bastion of innovative radio[/sarcasm]), and am curious if they have even heard of him. He looks like fucking Mancow Junior. And speaking of Mancow, his fucking PR machine was in overdrive and was actually getting him press... but he got abolute-lay nothing in the deal. Fucking Rover got like 5 markets, and Mancow got jack shit. Let me predict now that the next air war will be Rover vs. Mancow... and no one will care. And check out the updated WCKG website. After Howard signs off, so do I. They lost my radio presets. In the face of the inevitable threat of satellite and internet radio, Infinity comes up with "Free FM"... a network of shitty talk programming from coast to coast. Out of all the Stern replacements, Adam Corolla could work... but the rest will fall. It's amazing enough that they need 3 radio teams to carve up Howard's empire... so why even try? Genius move, Hollander. I could work for half of what your execs are making, and I came up with better ideas while taking a shit tonight.

Anyway, I must acknowledge that the purpose of this blog has been fulfilled. Feder confirmed this morning that Brandmeier is back soon, and Byrd is taking his rightful place in the evenings... where he will Get the Led Out every fucking night! So even though I digress like crazy around here, I've gotta come up with another mission statement.

Here's the catch though, and something that's getting very little press... Steve Seaver is OUT. He's off the WLUP website already, even though they forgot to remove his name from Get the Led Out. He used to take a beating from me here, but dammit the big lug really grew on me. The man is a solid jock. And if that's not bad enough, the guy they didn't shitcan is that zookeeper wannabe Zakk Tyler (nice spelling, you dick). They continue to trust the afternoon drive to that jackoff. How can you counter a brilliant move like hiring Brandmeier with keeping Zakk on board? If the Loop had a full brain, they'd make it Brandmeier, Cara, Seaver, Byrd, and motherfucking Allan Stagg! There's a dream lineup there.

So come mid-December, what else will there be to listen to? Not counting college radio... Q101 sounds great (minus the Manfuck), 'XRT is good from 10pm-12am on Tuesday nights, The Loop will be awesome most of the time, B96 is a guilty pleasure (Holla!), and Nick Digilio fucking rules on WGN-AM. I've completely given up on WBEZ (a long time ago) and WLS (Roe Conn was their only asset and he's become a fucking bore), and in a matter of weeks... WCKG can suck it.

Howard Stern is dead. Long live Howard Stern!

Brandmeier vs. Byrd

It's 7:57pm, and Alice Cooper's School's Out is just wrapping up. It's still a bit too early to Get the Led Out... Seaver better put in something short and kickass to take us up to 8pm. Some AC/DC perhaps? Maybe... uh... some... damn... I don't know. The Loop doesn't have anything under 4 minutes in their library. I can think of a ton of classic rock they could play, but it's not the "classic rock" WLUP plays. So what do they end up doing? Are you ready for this? They play Far Behind by Candlebox. Candlebox? What in the fuck?! Fuck Candlebox!! What are you trying to pull here, Loop? Are you classic rock? Are you shitty rock? If you're going to play stuff other than classic rock, at least play some good shit. What exactly do you call shitty music from 10 years ago that was shitty 10 years ago? Candlebox can suck it.

OK, so it's 8:02pm and we're about to Get the Led Out. Despite the Candlebox, the segment is starting off good...

"Jimmy Page's New Yardbirds renamed themselves on this day in 1968. Legend has it that Keith Moon of The Who made a passing comment saying the band would go over like a lead zeppelin. And their identity was born the following year the first album hit.... which is where we begin tonight. It's Get the Led Out... on 97.9, The Loop... Chicago's Rock Station."

Nice info there, Seaver. I knew the story, but who knew this was the date? Awesome! And I'm not even being facetious here...

We kick it right into I Can't Quit You Baby from Zeppelin I. Nice.

It's been far too long since I've been able to Get the Led Out. It's been nobody's fault but mine... I've just been doing alot of shit lately. Alot of shit that may or may not advance my life and career, but right now I'm drunk and I just want to fucking Get the Led Out!

As I wrote before, Tributosaurus BECAME Led Zeppelin and their show fucking ruled. And I'm still on a high from that experience. From a guy who was too young to have had a chance to Get the Led Out from the band itself, it ruled so fucking much that I got to see a band cover them with complete accuracy and integrity. Tributosaurus has made me a fan for life, and I can't wait to see them again.

Speaking of Tributosaurus, I believe the second song they played that night was What is and What Should Never Be from the best Zeppelin album... Zeppelin II. Seaver follows the Get the Led Out bumper with the version of this song of the pretty recent live release How the West was Won, and if this version is any indication they rocked the fuck outta the US West during that tour. I have the DVD (even bought it before I got a DVD player), but never picked up the CDs... so it was really cool to hear this version. Who buys live CDs anyway? Live versions are a special treat on the radio, but why would you put a live concert on your hi-fi if you have a perfectly good copy of the studio record? I don't even own The Song Remains the Same.

So the other night, instead of Getting the Led Out... I was walking around town with my camera. I've seen this huge fucking billboard overlooking the I-90/94 Ohio/Ontario clusterfuck, and wanted to get documentation online that what I was seeing was true. The billboard is on Grand Avenue facing north, and features the Joey Bag-O-Donuts character from the old Jonathon Brandmeier Loop days. Not being a native Chicagoan, I missed this campaign in its previous form. Apparently, it's all about this fat guy who dances in front of a brick wall to some classic rock tune. The twist this time around is that Erica "The Loop Rock Girl" walks by, Joey follows her off-screen, and they come back and dance together. I gotta admit, I'm an Erica fan. If you asked me my type, she'd be the furthest thing from it... but dammit there's something about her. Maybe it's the blonde hair and the fake boobs. Not that I'm into blonde hair and fake boobs. But in her case, it works for me somehow.

Anyway, there's the huge fucking billboard with no Erica to be seen... just a big fat Joey looking goofy. The rumor is that WLUP is bringing back this campagn for the return of Johnny B. The radio geeks online have been speculating and messing their pants about this for months, but there's been no confirmation of Johnny actually signing. Some estimates have him on-air as soon as next week, but I'll believe it when I hear it. As I stated before, I'm not native to these parts... so I didn't even hear Brandmeier until his WCKG days. It took me awhile to get into him, but once I did... I was fucking hooked. It was a sad day when he went off the air in 2001, and I've gotten excited about every gawddamn rumor of his return since then. It looks like reality this time, since my boy Stern is leaving for Sirius (which you better believe I am buying) and WCKG is a fucking mess that Spaceball Jeff Schwartz created by letting fucking Steve Dahl have more power than he should. I gotta listen to Howard's final days, but after that I'm all about Johnny B.

But I'm also torn since I've also fallen hard for the man known as Byrd. Byrd rocked my world when he was in every night to Get the Led Out, but as far as I'm concerned the mornings are for talk... and I haven't heard him since he was moved there. I like to rock in the evenings, so I hope they give him Byrd his old gig back. To be completely honest, Seaver has really grown on me... so I hope he gets to keep a gig too. And I'm not just saying this because Zakk Tyler sucks... but gawddamn does that guy really fucking suck!

Next up... In the Evening. Perhaps this is blasphemy, but am I the only one who doesn't really care for this song? Not that it doesn't belong in an edition of Get the Led Out... it's just not for me.

To sum it up: Bring back Brandmeier, and don't lose Byrd. That's radio gold right there. Keep them both, and I'm there mornings and nights. And I'm your fucking demo, Loop.

And back to being loaded... it's funny that I wanted to write about this Joey Bag-O-Donuts jag for awhile now, but I was only aware of him from a Sun-Times column and from the stream on the WLUP website. I had dinner with the girlfriend tonight in a local pub, when she suddenly pointed up to the TV for me to catch the infamous commercial. This long-suffering woman has heard my insane rants long enough, and still cared enough to let me know it was on the muted television. She fucking rules.

Seaver does the Get the Led Out outro, and jumps into Pearl Jam's Alive. I still like this song, despite being Poop McCrappy's show intro every day. For real... the best part of that idiot's show is the audio montage leading into Alive, but the minute he starts talking my radio is turned off. Some of my buddies at work and I used to have a contest on who could listen to him longest, but we all gave up after a couple days. What a dick...

The Greatest Five Minutes of Radio

If you've been looking for the best radio in Chicago and keep coming up short, you're listening in the wrong place. Forget Dahl, Mike North, and all the other alpha males who now suck (the former) or have always sucked (the latter)... go to your AM dial for a few minutes of magic each week.

Saturday nights around 7:30pm tune in for the crossover between Let's Talk Gardening and Pet Central on WGN 720-AM. Any week now, a fucking Michigan Avenue window studio cagematch is going to break out between hosts Mike Nowak and Steve Dale. If they'd market it right, they could put the weekly audio on CD and sell it... or at least leak some .mp3s around the web. The shows individually are surreal enough... the clashing of the two powers of Tribune Co weekend programming is just plain brilliant.

VS.

I implore you to check it out. You will not regret it!

Ramble On

Tributosaurus ROCKED last night. From Good Times Bad Times to Your Time is Gonna Come, they were fucking ON. These guys don't do the cheesy "dress like the band and play the MSG show from 1973"... they play the fucking tunes and play them just like the record.

They brought out guest musicians throughout the night, and the best (next to Buzz Kilman on harmonica for Poor Tom) was when members of the CSO came out for The Rain Song and Kashmir. I think there were 2 cellos and 3 violins, and they were rocking. During Kashmir, a violin guy stepped out a bit in front of the others... that must mean he was the best player or something. He was good, but there were enough nerdy white guys in the band already. The violin girls were awesome and really cute... the one in back was rocking the fuck out, swaying in her rockstar pants.

After a hilarious REO Speedwagon fakeout, Tributosaurus announced that next month they become The Monkees. Think I'll skip that one...