I heard a very unfortunate reggae version of the very unfortunate hit Roxanne by The Police while at dinner tonight, which reminded me of a Casey Kasem fact that I forgot to include in my initial post.

Occasionally during the run of AT40 one of the songs on the charts would include some objectionable content. When these occasions would arise (as with Roxanne, for instance) the AT40 producers would cut the show together in a way that the affiliates could opt out of playing the objectionable song.

In one nearly famous case, when George Michael’s I want your sex was clawing from the floor of the men’s restroom to the top of the charts, Kasem refused to announce the name of the song, opting instead to just introduce the song as being by Michael.

He seems to have dropped that objection in later years, however, as he had no issue announcing that Birthday Sex by the multifaceted and talented Jeremih was #1 on the urban charts this week.

I heard Casey Kasem on American Top 20 this morning. Yes, it was current. No, I don’t know if he’s really alive or if they just strung together his voice with old clips.

Kasem still hosts 2 spin-offs of his original American Top 40 show, American Top 20 and American Top 10. The original show is now hosted by Ryan Seacrest.

(Because someone decided that shorter is cooler, the shows are now called AT40, AT20 and AT10.)

Casey Kasem co-created the original AT40 in 1970, and hosted from 1970 to 1988. Then he left over a contract dispute and the show was taken over by Shadoe Stevens. Kasem took his show to a competing radio network, and changed the name to Casey’s Top 40. The two shows ran side by side for a few years, but then Kasem returned to the original show in 1998. Ryan Seacrest took over in 2004.

In the early 90’s AT20 and AT10 were created to focus on Adult Contemporary music, whatever the hell that means. Both shows are similar to the original AT40 in format, just shorter, and with different songs on the charts.

Whatever radio station I was listening to was playing the AT20 version, starring Kasem.

As for those of you wondering what happened to Shadoe Stevens, he’s currently the announcer for The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and recently co-founded Sammy Hagar’s Cabo Wabo Radio, a rock radio station broadcasting from Mexico. His daughter is on the ABC Family channel’s show Greek.

Source: This fan site, wiki and wiki.

The Wife^® and I continued our Bands That Were Popular Before We Were Born Tour by seeing Fleetwood Mac this weekend.

It’s always hit or miss with old bands. The shows can be really good (Billy Joel/Elton John), or really pathetic (Steppenwolf). This one was a good show. The only bummer was that Christine McVie was not there, so we didn’t get quite the whole lineup.

The onstage banter by the band inspired me to come home and do some research. While all bands tend to have a tempestuous back story (hence Behind the Music) the FM story is a little more tumultuous than most:

• Fleetwood Mac was formed in 1967 in the UK.
• The band is named for two of the members, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie. McVie was not part of the band when it formed. But Mick Fleetwood named the band for him anyway, expecting that eventually he’d be able to convince McVie to join his band. He joined several months later.
• The band has had 16 band members over its 42 years of existence. They have had several different distinct lineups.
• Fleetwood Mac started as a blues band in the UK. They had a few hits that you have probably heard, but probably didn’t know was them. One was Black Magic Woman, written and originally recorded by FM, but really made famous by Santana. The other is Oh, Well which has the lyrics “I can’t help about the shape I’m in/I can’t sing, I ain’t pretty, and my legs are thin.”
• The bluesy style was due in large part to frontman Peter Green. He was in the band for a few years until he decided to stop being a rock star. He decided instead to give away all of his money. He may or may not have been schizophrenic.
• After Green left the band, they went on a tour in the US. During that tour one of the bandmembers disappeared. They found him a few days later. He had shaved his head and joined a cult. He chose to stay with the cult.
• The next guy that joined the band ended up having an affair with Mick Fleetwood’s wife. He was fired, and the band kind of sort of broke up.
• But they couldn’t break up, since they still had contracts for their remaining tour dates. So the band’s manager, without their consent, put together a completely new band with completely new people, stole the name Fleetwood Mac, and put his new band on tour. Eventually, through a few lawsuits, the band got their name back.
• After getting their band name back, now frontman Bob Welch quit. This left the band with some holes to fill. (BTW, we’re only in 1974 at this point)
• While in LA, Mick Fleetwood heard an recording by a band called Buckingham Nicks. He decided he wanted the guy from the band, Lindsey Buckingham, to join his band. Buckingham agreed to join if his girlfriend Stevie Nicks could come too.
• At this point the band had the lineup that most fans are familiar with: Fleetwood, John and Christine McVie, and Buckingham and Nicks. They recorded their first album together and it was a hit.
• Then the band recorded their follow-up album Rumours. During this time the McVies were divorcing, Buckingham and Nicks were breaking up, and Mick Fleetwood divorced his cheating wife. There may have been a few affairs in there as well. But all the drama led to great music, and the album went platinum 19 times.
• The band pretty much stayed with the same lineup, and continued to record albums and tour occasionally.

Bonus Trivia:

• Stevie Nicks’ real name is Stephanie. She’s originally from Phoenix, and she’s 61 years old. Her mother is still alive, and was in the audience.
• Christine McVie’s birth name was Christine Perfect.
• Mick Fleetwood is also 61. John McVie is 63.
• Lindsey Buckingham plays a Rick Turner Model One Guitar. It was custom made for him. He has 3 of them. He uses several when playing live, trading them off between songs. He also does not use a guitar pick. He plays using a style called fingerpicking.
• The Model One that Buckingham plays has more playable frets than many other guitars. There are 24 compared to 21 on a Fender Stratocaster or Gibson Les Paul.

Source: This Site and wiki

Roxette, one of the most rockin’ bands ever, was made up of two of the most rockin’ rockers ever to come from Sweden: Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle.

Their breakthrough album Look Sharp! was a hit in Europe, but wasn’t released in the US until a Swedish exchange student from Minneapolis brought his copy of The Look to KDWB in 1988. The local station started playing the Swedish hit and soon they started making copies for other stations in other cities.

The record company then decided a US release was in order, and the rest is Swedish Rock history.

Source: Wiki, inspired by Junior, who either misled me about a piece of Roxette trivia, or I can’t find it.

2 Live Crew was a hippity-hop/rap group that was semi-popular for a brief time in the late 80’s/early 90’s.

They were mostly notorious for extraordinarily obscene lyrics. So obscene that several employees of record stores were arrested for selling the record.

Some 2 Live Crew trivia:

• At least 3 different record store employees were arrested for selling 2 Live Crew records. Two for selling to undercover cops, and one for selling obscene items to a minor (a 14 year old girl). No one served time. All were acquitted or had the charges dropped.
• 2 Live Crew was sued more than a few times. George Lucas sued over one of the performers using the stage name Luke Skyywalker. Van Halen sued over unauthorized sampling of a song.
• The highest profile lawsuit was vs. Roy Orbison. The Crew ripped off a bunch of the song Oh, Pretty Woman for what they claimed was a parody. The suit went to the Supreme Court, where 2 Live Crew was ultimately victorious.
• Tom got in trouble when he was about 8 years old for singing the lyrics to the 2 Live Crew classic Me So Horny.
• When I was in Germany, a group of the people I spent time with were huge 2 Live Crew fans. They liked the sound of the music and the bass. They didn’t understand the words. I explained the lyrics. They only liked the music more after that.

Source: wiki

There was really nothing on any of the usual channels last night, which forced me into the second tier selections. I landed on Biography, which was playing a profile of Billy Idol. So, now I present to you: Billy Idol Trivia!

• Billy Idol’s first name is really William, but the Idol part is a stage name. It was an FU to a teacher that had referred to him as “an idle student.”
• Billy first made it big across the pond with a band called Generation X. He later felt restricted by the British Punk Rock scene and went to America to strike up a solo career. The Punk Rock scene was too asexual for Billy- he wanted to write more songs about sex.
• White Wedding is about his little sister, who got knocked up as a teenager and “bowed to social pressure” and married the dude who knocked her up.
• For most of his solo career, Billy partnered up with a guitar player named Steve Stevens. Later Steve and Billy had the requisite rock-n-roll falling out, and Steve went on to his own brief solo career. His biggest success (besides his rockin hair) was the Top Gun Anthem. Eventually Steve and Billy had the requisite rock-n-roll make up, and now they tour together again.
• During the shooting of the video for Eyes Without a Face, Billy spent 30 straight hours on the video shoot. The combination of hot lights and fog melted his contact lenses to his eyes. After the shoot he went outside and fell asleep on the lawn of the studio. A policeman woke him up, thinking he was a homeless guy. The cop noticed something wrong with Billy’s eyes and brought him to the hospital, just in time to save his vision.
• There’s a horrible “eyes/face/blind” pun somewhere in the that last bullet, but I won’t stoop that low.
• Rebel Yell, one of the most awesomely awesome songs ever, is named after a brand of whiskey.
• In 2006, Billy, like all stars looking to make a quick buck, released a Christmas album.

Source: Biography Channel

You have no idea how much it pains me to say this as a card carrying member of the Fiona Apple anti-fan club, but I have to say that Fiona Apple’s version of Across The Universe is one of the very few covers of a Beatles song where the cover is actually better than the original tune.

The other 3 I can think of, in case you’re wondering, are Our Lady Peace’s version of Tomorrow Never Knows (original), Joe Cocker’s With a Little Help From my Friends (original), and Tiffany’s I Saw Him Standing There (original).

Across The Universe contains a line in the chorus that is in another language. I always assumed it was French, but I was wrong. It was Sanskrit (of course).

The line is “Jai Guru Deva, Om” and the translation is a matter of contention.

All proposed translations end with “Om,” which pretty much everyone agrees cannot be translated since it is the source of all existence that comes from vibration. For “Om,” think an Indian guy (dot not feather) with his legs crossed chanting “ooooooommmmmm, ooooooommmm.)

Possible translations:

• Victory to God Devine, om
• I give thanks (victory) (salutation) to Guru Dev (or heavenly teacher), om
• Hail to the Divine Guru, om
• All Glory to Guru Deva, om

Pretty much variations on the same theme, but there you have it.

Source: here, here, and here.

Folks who were around in the late 90’s (or have seen Home Alone 3) are familiar with the Billboard #6 hit Tubthumping by Chumbawamba.

It was #12 on Rolling Stone’s 20 most annoying songs list. I think it should have been higher.

Though you undoubetedly recognize the song, I bet you didn’t know that Chumbawamba has been around since the mid 80’s, and considers themselves an “Anarcho-Punk” band- a band that promotes Anarchist policies. They are also anti-corporation (despite being signed to a major record label).

Tubthumping, which is mostly about drinking, is described as “an anthem written to celebrate ordinary people’s ability to have a good time despite being constantly knocked down by poverty and inequality.”

And since I know you’ve been wondering: a tub-thumper is a slang term for a politician in the UK.

Source: wiki

One of the more annoying Christmas Tunes is Do They Know It’s Christmas (”And there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmastime…”)

The song was recorded as a fundraiser for Africa by a group of mostly British stars. But did you know there are 3 distinct versions of this obnoxious song?

The first was recorded in 1984 and featured (among others) Duran Duran, U2, Kool & The Gang, Paul McCartney, and Phil Collins on drums.

The second, from 1989, was quite a bit less star-studded, featuring Kylie Minogue, Technotronic, and the guys from Bananarama.

The third was recorded in 2004 for the 20th anniversary of the travesty. It featured some updated British stars like Dido and Chris Martin from Cold Play, but Bono, Paul McCartney and George Michael came back for an encore.

Do they know it’s Christmastime at all?

Oh, yes. Vanilla Ice did a cover album of all the sweet hippity hop classics of the 90’s.

Because you were thinking to yourself “All I needed to make my life complete was Vanilla Ice’s version of Baby Got Back!”

Well, your musical prayers have been answered. Also included is his rockin’ version of Insane in the Brain and Jump Around, both of which are on The Wife^®’s all time least favorite songs list.

Still not sold? How about 3 remixes of Ice Ice Baby?

When I started writing about this, I just assumed that this was old news and that I somehow missed this in the 90’s. Oh no. This instant classic just dropped in November. Ice is back indeed.

Source: Amazon.com while researching Vanilla Ice Tunes, you know, like you do.