dbostrom's blog

Used to be, when a popular musical group fell from favor, they’d “reinvent” themselves, ditching their perishable old shtick in favor of whatever “sound” was currently in vogue. They’d take this route as long as they could before finally being put to pasture on the oldies circuit. Albums from this period would often have “today!” or “now!” in the title (eg. “Junior Samples NOW!”).

"Staycation" was funny for about negative thirty seconds, wasn't it?

You know, around this time of year, my thoughts always turn to the things that make America great. I'm of course talking about tropical themed adult beverages, records on the backs of cereal boxes, paintings by animals, and of course internet radio. This week on "C'mon! Live A Little," we spotlight the best of consumer culture in a very special episode devoted to jingles, incidental music, sales convention shows and other detritus from the Great American Capitalist Wasteland. Well, it would be a wasteland were it not for all this fabulous music.

One of the mainstays of the big band circuit, the Glenn Miller Orchestra actually spent a mere half a decade with its namesake at the helm. Miller built his his legendary band, with its unique clarinet-centric signature sound in 1938. But by 1942, he was making music for the United States Armed Forces, struggling to add jazz touches to traditional military marching band music. Two years later, while still in the service, Glenn disappeared somewhere over the English Channel. Two years after that, Glenn’s estate drafted sax player/vocalist Tex Beneke to lead the first Miller “ghost” orchestra.

Is the pledge drive still on?

"C'mon! Live A Little!" continues to surge through the LuxuriaMusic Spring Pledge Drive, cleaving into the fray like the proverbial warm knife into soft butter. And it's great that host Derrick Bostrom cares so much about this station to take the time out from his busy schedule to make that effort, but why does he have to be so bitchy about it?

"What are you waiting for?" He whines, "We've got bills to pay!"

Gasoline is up to four dollars a gallon! It'll be up to FIVE dollars by Christmas! In five years, we'll be looking back on these times as a golden age as we pay up to TWELVE DOLLARS A GALLON for the noxious liquid!

God bless America’s secularized public school system for teaching generations of students the proper habits of good citizenship, public safety and personal hygiene. But don’t count out the scores of church schools who had their heavy hands in the game as well. Sure, they had a lock on the materials devoted strictly to religious instruction, but devotional institutions of learning also showed an interest in seeing that their students’ time on earth was as long and trouble-free as possible. And though classroom filmstrips might be more likely to, say, celebrate the studious habits of a young Abe Lincoln, they didn’t shy away from a good old traffic safety fear fest either.

This week on "C'mon!