CHANGES COMING - MORE TOP 40!

One of my regular listeners chatted with me the other night when January's edition of The American Bottom 45 first aired, and he expressed concern that I had a sparse number of listeners even though I had a great idea for the show's concept. I am fully aware that my audience could easily be bigger, and I gave him 3 theories on why things are the way they are with my station right now:

1. The majority of the material I play makes the average music fan scratch his/her head(as in "I don't know this one, that one, etc."). My goal has always been to introduce...or in some cases, reintroduce...people to the other side of oldies music, which to me consists of records that stiffed due to lack of promotion, lack of quality, or lack of proper time to get heard. I guess the main thing I'm not realizing is that most people want to first be drawn in with some classics before giving a few obscurities a chance.

2. I took the station out of the Shoutcast listings a while back. That may have been a stupid thing to do since Shoutcast is arguably the #1 internet radio directory out there and they are partnered with many mobile application devices, yet there is another side of the coin with them. A lot of the popular stream ripping programs rely on their directory, and I just can't in good conscience open up the station to these programs who mainly connect whenever I happen to play a song that is on someone's "wish list." However, I am considering going public once again on Shoutcast because I have taken a lot of DRM measures(meaning I have "dirtied" up a lot of the tracks on my playlists). It really baffles me that someone would want to waste a lot of time trying to edit things out just to get a workable track for his/her collection when just a little bit of googling savviness would yield more satisfying results. But whatever...there may be some legitimate Shoutcast users out there, so I'll probably be back. And speaking of the ripping programs, this leads me to #3...

3. I have come to the conclusion that the typical internet radio audience is made up of mostly those who intend on recording, whether it be for time-shifting purposes or for splitting a stream into convenient, individual files. With all of the preventive measures I have in place(crossfading, metadata changes screwing up the beginning and ending points of the tracks, constant sweeper inclusions, and voiceovers), I'm pretty sure I have scared off a good portion of that "audience."

I don't intend on changing anything about #3; I'd rather have some personality and station branding as part of the flow instead of sounding like some plain old jukebox. As previously mentioned, I should be back in the Shoutcast listings in the near future(after I convince myself that the rippers will be crying once they realize they're not getting clean, complete tracks from me).

This regular listener mentioned at the beginning of this posting brought up a good point that I'm going to utilize in the coming weeks. One way for me to draw in more listeners will be to start showcasing more top 40 hits from yesteryear. What I'm planning on doing is having a couple of master playlists; one will have nothing but top 40 entries and the other will have minor charters/bubblers/non-charters. For every 10 tracks heard, 6 will be pulled from the minor charters and 4 will be pulled from top 40, so the theme to my station(rare oldies) will still hold true. Yet you will now have a greater opportunity to hear some of your favorite classics at the same time!

Doing a "no repeat" format is just not feasible for me. I would rather have people hear their favorite tracks a little more often than just once every 2 weeks or so. I'm always getting new curiosity seekers every day, so I need to take them into consideration too.

The changes will be more noticeable as we get closer to spring. In the meantime, feel free to contact me and give me your two cents about any of the points I made above. A big thanks goes out to those of you who believe in what I'm doing and who are helping me keep the station going...this is all for the love of oldies music that certain program directors want to pretend never existed.

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HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I'd like to take a moment and thank those of you who discovered my station during 2012 and have remained loyal listeners; I'd also like to wish you and everyone else a very happy 2013!

I will continue to showcase more unique oldies tracks that you don't hear anymore. I also hope to soon start a partnership with one of the more established oldies internet radio stations; we are looking to get me more exposure via my upcoming editions of my "American Bottom 45" countdown shows. A couple of my other show ideas I mentioned 2 to 3 months ago may turn into podcasts as I feel they will work out better in that method("Retro AOR - The Retro Attic Of Rock" and "The Retro Attic Presents 90 Minutes Of 90's" - the material I want to play in these two shows would mostly fall outside of my station's radar). The podcasts would be accessible through this webpage, so that may help me get additional exposure!

Tune in starting on Wednesday for our January Artist Of The Month, The Byrds. You will hear a track from them or a related solo effort once every hour. Coming in February will be The Grass Roots. Further down the road, I am planning on showcasing The Hollies, Bread/David Gates, Rush and Heart(this will be a double bill in April to honor their inductions into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame), Paul Anka, and Sonny And Cher.

Thanks again and keep on spreading the word about us, because there is still plenty of unearthing to do in the vaults!

THE HOLLIES - Look Through Any Window - Live B&W Beat Club Performance

I just recently added this superb top 40 pop gem(it peaked at #32 and should have been a much bigger hit) to my rotation, and it reminded me of the below related performance of it. Do you remember watching MTV in the mid 80's? They had this occasional feature called "Closet Classics" that mainly drew from the Beat Club archives(regular airings included performances from Blue Cheer, Vanilla Fudge, Cream, Tommy James And The Shondells, The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, Spooky Tooth, The Who, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, etc.). I always thought this was one of the better ones, mainly because The Hollies performed this live. The only other act I remember seeing on "Closet Classics" that performed live was The Easybeats with "Friday On My Mind."

Anyways, enjoy this clip. This is how it should have always been done...a nice, simple setup...no Pro Tools...no tuned down, distorted guitars...no depressing lyrics...happy, dancing teens...I could go on and on!

Speaking of live performances, I was also checking out the rare newsreel footage of The Byrds and The Grass Roots from the Newport Festival in '69. Simply amazing stuff! If I was given a chance to step into a time machine, I would just want to attend one of those festivals and stay there all day. 3 to 5 dollar tickets...are you kidding me? Who wouldn't want to?

ARTIST OF THE MONTH FOR NOVEMBER PUSHED BACK TO DECEMBER, THANKS TO A GAL NAMED SANDY!

Hurricane Sandy wreaked a little havoc with my radio station during the last couple of days. I am up and running again, but the storm put me way behind with my new adds. It wasn't due so much to the wind and the rain, but a freak lightning storm that lasted only 5 minutes.

Therefore, The Everly Brothers will be pushed back to being the featured Artist Of The Month for December. This will give me more time to beef up content on them as well as being able to devote more time to new adds for the general rotation.

Thank you for your understanding...and now back to our regular programming...

CHANGING MY MIND MORE OFTEN THAN MENUDO CHANGED THEIR LINEUP!

I listened to my master playlist a few times this past weekend in its "no repeat" format, and I have decided that it's not the most ideal way to present my programming. I found that occasionally I would have wanted to move a few tracks either up or down in the rotation, which would mean saving the changes afterwards. Saving the changes results in the master playlist starting all over again. This would have created more work for me as the flow would have needed constant reorganizing.

I would rather spend more of my time presenting new content with song facts and artist promotional commentary. Once I submit my new content, the programming does its thing automatically; having to do additional steps with it is not why I got into music broadcasting in the first place.

And speaking of new content/new adds, that was another major issue. I don't want my listeners to have to wait at least a week to hear any new tracks I add. I have found that my new adds get thrown into the mix fairly promptly with my master playlist being on random shuffling.

I honestly think that any issues I have with a few tracks repeating either twice a day or on consecutive days are very minor. You need to stop and think about what I'm playing, which is seldom-heard oldies! These are tracks that never got a ton of airplay to begin with; they're far from being in the overplayed league of "Stairway To Heaven" and "More Than A Feeling!" Let's face it...with the playlist being on random shuffling, at least the daily mix is virtually guaranteed to be different! The "no repeat" format would have grown old a lot quicker; you would have noticed the same tracks being played every Monday. Does this make any sense?

My listener count is not really where I want it to be right now, so I'm not going to be moving full steam ahead on any new show ideas until after 2013 begins. Speaking of new show ideas, I do have a few going through my head right now. Please visit my webpage at http://retroatticrareoldiesradio.blogspot.com and look for my current poll; please participate in it and let me know which show ideas sound the best to you(you can make multiple choices).

I have plenty of cool new adds coming this week(in addition to the ones I have already added in the past week, which can be viewed in my "New Attic Adds" section of my webpage), so please keep tuning in and thanks for being a loyal listener!

PANHANDLE - HEY GIRL - 1969 SINGLE ON HAPPY TIGER RECORDS - INTERNET MYSTERY SOLVED!

I recently added this record to my rotation; I liked it a lot, so I decided to track down some information on it. It turned out that ever since 2004, no one on the net seemed to know anything about this group. I think I have the puzzle pieces all in place, so here goes my theory:

"Hey Girl" by Florida group Panhandle(Happy Tiger Records 523) bubbled under at #122 for 1 week on November 22, 1969. The group name apparently came about due to the songwriter's Texas and Florida connections. The song was written by Galen Ray, who was with a Texas garage band called The Checkmates. In 1965, The Checkmates released "Hey Girl" b/w "All The Time Now" on the Ruff Records label. "All The Time Now" is also the flip of the Happy Tiger record. Both versions of "Hey Girl" sound very similar, but there is a difference. The Ruff Records version is straight-ahead jangly guitar pop in the style of The Byrds and The Beau Brummels. The Happy Tiger version adds in some horns, which in 1969 was the "in" thing(think of Thee Prophets' "Playgirl" as an example). The time lengths are almost identical(maybe a 2 second difference).

Ruff Records was run by Ray Ruff, who would later join the staff of Happy Tiger Records as an engineer and a producer. So as you can see, we had one happy family here who apparently stayed in touch for a few years. From what I can gather, Galen knew a fellow musician who lived on the Georgia/Florida border, so that is probably how he ended up in Florida.

Panhandle would release 1 more 45 on Happy Tiger 532 in 1970("Everyday" b/w "Tears Come With Forgetting You"). I have yet to hear it, but I look forward to it.

Thanks goes out to http://www.garagehangover.com for leading me in the right direction. Keep an ear out for this great pop gem here on The Retro Attic - 50s To 80s Rare Oldies!