Always a Cool Yule Here...

There are two groups of people who are already tired of Christmas music before most of us have even started our shopping: Anyone who works in retail, and…. DJs.

Personally, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with holiday music for years. As a young radio announcer, I would watch with a sinking feeling as the program director hauled a scarred cardboard box into the studio with the word “XMAS” scrawled on the side in faded block letters. This sight signaled four endless weeks of format-busting tedium, as even the most contemporary station’s playlist suddenly sprouted Perry Como, Bing Crosby and the Boston Pops. For a young DJ who prided himself on being on music’s cutting edge…. pure torture.

Had you asked me in those days, I would have told you the only Christmas song worth the vinyl on which it was pressed was Bruce Springsteen’s “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” As time passed, a few other tunes made my “tolerable” list: Bing Crosby and David Bowie’s “Little Drummer Boy,” Santa Baby” (Eartha Kitt’s original, not Madonna’s horrifying remake), and the Russian and Chinese Dances from the Nutcracker (although that may have been due more to Disney’s “Fantasia”).

But in 1984 a record arrived that changed how I, and millions of others, perceived Christmas music forever.

It was by a little-known Midwestern group whose music combined the forms of classical music with the rhythms of rock & roll.Up to this point, the major market for their albums had been to audiophiles and the occasional stereo store, who used their high-quality vinyl pressings to demo stereo speakers.

I’m speaking, of course, of Mannheim Steamroller. Chip Davis began writing what would become his Fresh Aire series when he was a junior high music teacher. Adding some drums and electrics helped his students relate to the classical structures he was trying to teach them. Later, as the leader of the “Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant Band,” backup group for 70s star C.W. McCall, Davis parlayed some particularly savvy instrumental work on the novelty hit “Convoy,” into a Grammy award for best Country Instrumental and subsequently a chance to record his own unique music.

But classically-inspired rock wasn’t easy to pigeon-hole, and Mannheim Steamroller’s Fresh Aire might have remained just a musical footnote (or perhaps, grace note), had Davis not turned his attention to Christmas music.

For my money, the release of "Christmas" is one of the major musical landmarks of the last thirty years, because it completely rejuvenated the holiday music industry. It not only made people take holiday music more seriously, it paved the way for other artists to get their Christmas music heard, even if it didn’t fit into the usual pop milieu.

Certainly, Mannheim Steamroller changed the way I thought about Christmas music. I was captivated not only by the fresh spin Davis put on familiar tunes, but also the obvious passion and love he had for this music. It made me listen to other Christmas music with a different perspective. Gradually, I began to hear that same passion in other, more conventional arrangements. The velvet-smoothness of Nat King Cole’s “Christmas Song,” Bing Crosby’s heartbreaking wistfulness in “White Christmas.” Even Whitney Houston, then a pop icon, now a self-parody, returned to her gospel roots in a soaring “Do You Hear What I Hear” that still stands up well today.

When I got to Jazz 88.3, I didn’t know what to expect when Gordon Paulsen pulled out the boxes with the Christmas CDs (aluminum instead of cardboard, it was the Nineties, after all). Would Christmas jazz meet my new “it’s OK if they’re serious about the quality” test or be the jazz equivalent of the Beach Boys “Little Saint Nick?”

I was pleasantly surprised. Instead of changing KCCK’s sound, our Christmas music enhanced it, as every tune was good jazz, just jazz that happened to feature holiday melodies. Now, Christmas on 88.3 is one of my favorite times to listen, as I get to hear all-time jazz greats from Miles Davis to Oscar Peterson to Harry Connick Jr. make the music of the holidays their own.

So what makes good Christmas music? I suggest that a great Christmas song needs to embody the same qualities of an artist’s entire body of work. The song needs to stand on its own, regardless of whether it’s a Christmas song or not.

Springsteen’s “Santa Claus” works because it’s a good Springsteen tune. Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, and of course Chip Davis bring the same artistry to their Christmas music they sought to achieve with their “regular” recordings.

Good Christmas music? Yes. But good music first.

My most memorable concert experience

My friend Chad Canfield, host and producer of the excellent podcast, The Canman Show, recently asked fans of the show on Facebook to tell him about their most memorable concert experience. Read those postings here.

Chad's request seems to have been inspired by taking his daughters to see Miley Cyrus in Des Moines, but let's not hold that against him.

Being in the media, and an omnivorous music fan, I've seen hundreds of concerts, of course. The unexpected appearance of a giant star makes this one my most memorable.

The year was 1979, I was in between my freshman and sophomore years of college, working a summer job in Council Bluffs, the town where I grew up. I bought tickets to see America in Omaha's Civic Auditorium, with a friend and co-worker, Steve Haberman.

I wasn't a huge America fan, and was actually more interested in seeing the opening band, a new group called McGuinn, Clark and Hillman, who had just released their debut album. I say new, but these guys had been around and had an exceptional pedigree. The astute music fan has already recognized Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark and Chris Hillman as founding members of the Byrds, along with the legendary David Crosby.

I liked the MCH album, and was also intrigued to see what Byrds chestnuts (or Chestnut Mares) they might pull out during their set.

In retrospect, I must have been even more of a fanboy than I really remember, as I chose this concert over seeing Eric Clapton, who was playing a day or two later in the same venue.

So, the concert arrives, my friend Steve and I have sits in the first balcony with a good view of the stage. There's a skinny, middle aged man with brown hair and a bear a couple of rows behind us, who we are sure is an incognito Clapton.

The MCH set is good, including their minor Top 40 hit, "Don't You Write Her Off," but it was the encore that made it memorable. My sharp-eyed friend picked up some commotion just offstage and said "let's go to the main floor."

So, we run downstairs, and arrive in front of the stage just to hear Roger McGuinn say, "Here's a great old song, and a great friend to help us out... Eric Clapton!"

Wearing a faded jean jacket, Clapton walked onstage. He was clean-shaven, so was not the fellow who had been sitting behind us. In retrospect, I don't know why we would have thought Eric Clapton would have been sitting in the balcony, anyway, but it was the seventies and it is possible our thought processes were somewhat cloudy.

Clapton buckled the strap of a Fender strat around his shoulders, and proceeded to rip through a torrid version of "Eight Miles High."

We would have listened to that band jam all night, but unfortunately the headliners wanted to go on, so the ex-Byrds and EC left the stage. We went back to our seats to hear an unremarkable set from America.

Thirty-plus years later, that 15 minutes still ranks as my most memorable concert experience.

On an unrelated note, I see that Miley Cyrus Fan Club is now following me on Twitter. Obviously, typing that name in the original FB posting was a mistake.

Fall TV

Took me a few days to get to it, but I finally pulled "Flash Forward" off the DVR last night. I was pretty impressed. I haven't read the Robert Sawyer novel it's loosely based on, but was skeptical. I'm generally nuts for Sci Fi shows (or is it SyFy now?), but have been unimpressed with ABC's efforts in that direction.

I simply can't make heads or tails of the video morass that's "Lost." Nothing against dense plots, I mean I loved the way Babylon 5 set up plot points in Season 1 that weren't resolved till Season 3, but gimme a break. I understand this season, someone may go back in time to insure the airplane crash never happened. Does that mean we'll get back the hundreds of hours we've wasted trying to make sense of this show?

I had high hopes for Live on Mars, so, of course it barely lasted one season. I was a huge fan of the original BBC series. And I do have to give ABC credit for letting the producers give the show a real ending, and for cooking up an original spin on the "it was a all dream" plot device.

Way better than how Fox left the 8 viewers of "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" hanging, stranding young John Connor in a future where no one had ever heard of him. Of course, by my count, there couldn't have been that many people left in the future. Connor had sent them all back to torture his younger self.

"Daybreak" was another good show that never got traction. So, I guess I should be pleased that ABC continues to swing at Sci Fi shows, and has invested some pretty heavy promotional time in Flash Foward.

Which largely delivered. Since the Flash Forward happened to the entire world, we get to bypass the tired "I've seen the future but no one believes me" device. The Flashes we've glimpsed thus far represent the kind of variety in experience you'd expect from a random sample of viewpoint characters. Hopefully, each of them won't end up carrying around a vital (& obvious) piece of the puzzle. And, having one character whose entire Flash consisted of him taking a crap was too great for words.

I have high hopes, and will keep watching. I am also increasingly intrigued by the promos for "Stargate Universe," not normally being a fan of Planet of the Week shows, and am looking forward to the return of Sanctuary.

Although I do think the person who suggested the normally-excellent Amanda Tapping adopt that atrocious British accent should be forced to listen to an Ipod whose entire contents are recordings of Carrie Fisher's similarly-inflected lines from Star Wars: ANH.

I Got Your らどうぞ Right Here...

So, over on the Jazz 88.3 Blog, a post I made several weeks ago has been the subject of dozens of comments, way more then usual for any conversations about KCCK.

All in Japanese.

All nonsense in both Japanese and English.

The original posting dealt with the installation of our new 106.9 translator, which improves our signal coverage in Iowa City, and also extends our new HD Radio service. So, imagine my surprise when I open my email a few days later and read...

素人 has left a new comment on your post "The New 106.9 - Dennis":

さびしい女性や、欲求不満な素人女性たちを心も体も癒してあげるお仕事をご存じですか？女性宅やホテルに行って依頼主の女性とHしてあげるだけで高額の謝礼を手に入れる事が出来るのです。興味のある方は当サイトTOPページをご覧ください

Now, because of our webcast, we do actually have a few listeners in Japan, (one contacted us just today. Hi, Erin!) but most of them communicate with us in English, and it's difficult to believe they would have anything substantive to say about a transmitter in Iowa City.

So, ever the curious type, I pasted the characters into Babelfish and not surprisingly, discovered the posting had nothing to do with us. It was vaguely pornographic, but mostly nonsense. So, I deleted it moved on to more important work.

But, they kept coming. One or two every few days, till deleting become a daily task.

In case you're curious, here is a translation of one of the cleaner ones:

The man with the amateur host of the leading part, just healing the body of the woman can receive large amount reward. The frustration human wife and the man the woman who does not have the coming out meeting seeks the man with this site and others the [tsu] plain gauze is. The one which has interest please from the TOP page.

Well, I'm glad we cleared that up.

So, I'm tired of cleaning them up, so they are probably just going to keep coming. I still have no idea what their purpose is, whether this is a live person generating the text or a robot of some kind.

Maybe it's code. Perhaps even now foreign agents are logging on to our Blogger account to receive the secret instructions for their nefarious missions. Homeland Security, are you listening?

My Brush with Hayden

With Fry Fest coming up Labor Day Weekend, I'm remembering how I learned first-hand what a caring person the Coach is, in addition to being an outstanding leader.

It was 1980, Coach Fry's second year as Iowa's coach. These were the days before there was one Hawkeye radio network. Instead, there were several stations that originated the game and fed their own small network. WHO had Jim Zabel, WMT Ron Gonder and KXIC (AM 800 in Iowa City) had Gene Clausen.

I was a sophomore at Iowa, working my first radio job, a part-timer at KXIC. One of my jobs was to help with the football broadcasts. This entailed running the board back at the station during the game and also producing a weeknight call-in show that featured Coach Fry answering questions posed by Gene and the sports directors of the other stations in our network, mainly stations in Southeast Iowa towns like Burlington and Muscatine.

Gene and Hayden were in the conference room, wearing headphones so they could hear the questions posed by the other sports directors. Everyone was connected by an open network loop. They could hear each other as well.

We taped the call-in show on Tuesday nights, which was the hardest practice of the week, the last time the team went full speed before tapering into the game. So, Hayden was usually tired after a long day and his conversations with Gene after the show ended were pretty free-wheeling. Listening in from the production studio was, shall we say, educational. But, that's another story.

One Tuesday, there was an equipment glitch in the conference room, none of the microphones worked. So Hayden and Gene had to come into the tiny production studio with me.

To fully understand the story, you need to know just a little about radio studios are designed (Radio folks: Please feel free to skip to the next paragraph). In a radio studio, speakers are always automatically muted when the microphone is turned on, to eliminate feedback. This is why you always see DJs wearing headphones when they're talking.

So, here's the scene. Hayden and Gene are squeezed into two chairs in front of the control board, sharing the studio's only microphone. I was perched on the edge of the counter. There was only one headphone jack, so my job was to keep the mic off so Hayden could hear the question, then turn it on so he could answer. And, that was how it went for nearly the full hour of the show:

Mic off: Hayden listens.
Mic on: Hayden answers.
Mic off: Hayden listens.
Mic on: Hayden answers.
Mic off: Hayden listens.

Then for some reason, I lost the rhythm, and turned the mic ON while the away SD was speaking, and clicked it off just in time for the three of us to hear:

"..at do you think about that Hayden?"

Oh, crap. I have just screwed up Hayden's call-in show. My career is over.

Hayden signaled for me to turn the mic back on, and said "Y'all mind repeating the question? I guess I wasn't paying attention."

The guy repeated his question, obviously a little annoyed, but we managed to survive the show. Neither Gene nor Hayden mentioned my gaffe, and I wasn't even fired. It obviously never occured to Hayden to blame technical problems, or the idiot kid who didn't know how to do his job. He took it on himself. It was a little thing, but it was taking care of the little things that made him a great coach and a good person.

Hayden Fry went on to take the Hawkeyes to three Rose Bowls, become the dean of Big 10 coaches and this weekend will be celebrated by the entire state of Iowa at a festival in his honor.

But I will always remember the coach who took the blame for an error made by a green producer whose name he didn't even know.