My friend John Gabriel – yes, the Time Warner Cable News traffic reporter and announcer, the man who has a complete collection of old WTRY and WPTR weekly survey playlists – recently acquired a jukebox. Not just any jukebox… the man owns a 1949 Seeburg M-100-A. the first jukebox to play 100 78 RPM selections…
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The Yard Sale Conundrum: What would you do?
Mark is a longtime friend of mine. We met in college and worked together on the college radio station WHCL. We’ve stayed in touch with each other through graduation and our lives and careers. Facebook helps, too. Mark turned his love of music into a thriving business as a record dealer. He goes to several…
Read MoreFilthy Lucre, indeed: The Sex Pistols on credit cards
If there was ever a music group that defined anger and uprising and the very heart of punk rock music, it was certainly the Sex Pistols. Okay, does that refresh your memory? Good. The image of the Sex Pistols were of a band rebelling against anything and everything – class structure, the monarchy, all of…
Read MoreI know that song from the QuickBooks commercial!!
I realize that I’ve come to the age in my life where the songs I played on college radio are now appearing as jingles for commercial products. Yes, I’ve heard Modern English’s “I Melt With You” in a Burger King commercial, and Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me” has shown up in Chips Ahoy! commercials…
Read MoreBrother Jon Rivers and the other “Powerline”
A couple of days ago, I posted this picture of a snow-capped telephone line in the Adirondacks. I called the picture “Powerline,” for no other reason than it was descriptive of the scene. I should note that after I named the picture, I had a tiny flashback. To a man named Jon Rivers, and hearing…
Read MoreDid the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame get it right for 2015?
I stopped doing a “who should be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame” listing years ago. Mostly because the artists I thought SHOULD be in the Rock Hall by now – the Moody Blues, the Guess Who, Styx, Boston, Cheap Trick, Kansas, the Electric Light Orchestra, New Order, Depeche Mode – kept…
Read MoreThe cleaning
I looked at my iTunes directory the other day. Over 4,300 songs. That’s too many. Recently I purchased a last-generation iPod Classic 160g music player, with the specific plans of keeping that bad boy for the rest of my music-enjoying life. And when I synched the iPod up to my iTunes computer storage program, I…
Read MoreThey’re tearing down 309 South Broad Street
309 South Broad Street in Philadelphia is a very famous address. I’ve been there a couple of times, and I’ve found it to be a very inspiring and stimulating locale. Maybe you wouldn’t recognize that address among such others as 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, or 2648 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit. but 309 South…
Read MoreRemembering Tim Hauser of Manhattan Transfer
It was sixteen years ago and it felt like yesterday. I was working for Goldmine magazine, the record collector’s biweekly publication, and had been asked by my editor to come to Sharon, Pennsylvania to cover the inaugural class of the Vocal Group Hall of Fame. And that’s where I first met Tim Hauser. Tim was…
Read MoreDid Phish get ripped off by a tween-pop star?
All you Phish fans, pay attention. This is important. Apparently, someone out there likes one of your hits. So much so, in fact, that the melody of one of your hits is remarkably similar to their breakout hit. This is not new. Imitation is the sincerest form of plagiarism, and I’ve chronicled in past blogs…
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Chuck The Writer 
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