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March 30, 2013
Yesterday’s Franorama 2.0 show on Cygnus Radio started out as the Good Friday it was and then took some weird turns at Albuquerque.
Started out with lots of inspiration. “Open Up Your Door” came from my Musical War Stories post earlier in the week. “99th Floor” was to commemorate the decades-later reunion of The Moving Sidewalks (Billy Gibbons’ band before ZZ Top) and their show tonight at B.B. King’s in Midtown Manhattan. Stark Raving Lulu is my favorite new local band; I just saw them Wednesday night at Best Video in Hamden (though we were distracted by Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! playing behind them).
And the second set was a twisted bit of spontaneity. I had two songs I didn’t get to the previous show: the original 1962 version of “Misery” by Detroit R&B group The Dynamics and the 2012 remake by Scottish beat boys The New Piccadillys. (It’s the song Pete Meaden ripped off when he wrote “Zoot Suit” for The High Numbers, aka The Who.)
And, since tomorrow is the start of baseball season, I had a mostly baseball show planned after that. Had to abort after five innings.
Started the second hour with the 2008 debut album by The Baseball Project, Vol. 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails. (That’s the alt-rock all-star team of Scott McCaughey, Steve Wynn, Peter Buck and Linda Pitmon.) That’s when the glitches started.
When I imported the songs to the playlist queue on my station-in-a-laptop (they automatically cue up and play), the third song somehow ended up first. I was having trouble with the sound levels again. (I need a windscreen or some other cover for the mic on my headset.) Then, a software glitch meant the sound levels on the background music stopped automatically going low when I hit the mic button, meaning I had to do it manually. (And this was with a software update the day before …)
And the clincher: After a Jonathan Richman interlude to send the grounds crew out to dance to “Walter Johnson” as they dragged the infield, on to the second Baseball Project album, 2011’s Vol. 2: High and Inside.
Oops. The entire album disappeared, Yet another glitch. Meaning the final hour would be pure off-the-cuff inspiration mixed with discouragement. The last baseball song before the game was called due to inclement technology was from my pals The Remains — their 2010 ode to ’60s Red Sox pitcher Bill Monbouquette, “Monbo Time.”
(And between that and “Ted Fucking Williams,” you’d swear I traded in my Yankee pinstripes for the colors of my esteemed enemies. Not true. But the way this season’s shaping up, I might sneak in some of the orange and black of the defending World Series champion Giants from time to time. No bandwagon-jump here; I lived in their Triple-A city, Fresno, for eight years.)
Oh well. That’s the beauty of baseball — you get to play another day. Most of the time. Anyway, hopefully no phantom pitches or hidden-ball tricks next Friday.