Tony Bennett "Fly Me To The Moon"

The first radio station I worked at was a very small, independent, family owned-and-operated outfit.  We did a lot with a little.

But in my early days with them, we didn't have the resources to be a 24 hour station.  And since I worked the last shift, it was my job to sign off the air, shut off the transmitters and close down the building for the night.

On weeknights, I had an alternative music specialty show, that ran from 10 to 12, but on Fridays and Saturdays, I got to expand it to a full 6 hours---on at 8pm and off at 2am.

It was a joyful and exhilarating task, to build that much live programming, on the fly, playing CDs and keeping the night moving.  By 2am, I was usually a little punch drunk.

I had a ritual to close out the night.

There was a checklist of things I was supposed to do throughout the building before walking out the door.  Shutting down certain computers, turning of certain lights, checking certain locks, and finally, turning off the transmitter.

And I did it to the strains of Tony Bennett.

Tony Bennett isn't particularly alternative, but this was the little window in the mid-90s, when he had gone through an image rehab.  He'd appeared with The Red Hot Chili Peppers and performed with kd lang and recorded an MTV Unplugged CD.

And let's face it, there just weren't that many people listening to an alternative specialty show on a 3,000 watt rural Virginia radio station at 2 in the morning.  So why not do something weird.

"Fly Me To The Moon" the MTV Unplugged version, was about 2:30 minutes long, and when I hit play on the track, I had just enough time to walk out of the studio and weave in and out of the other rooms in the building, flipping switches and securing locks, all while singing along with Tony, at the top of my lungs.

My loop around the building would get me back to my chair just as the song was ending and the roar of the audience surged.

The album left nearly 30 seconds of clapping, where I had time to say something along the lines of:

"That's What's The Alternative? for tonight, I'll be back on Monday at 10pm for more.  We'll be back on the air tomorrow morning at 6am.  For now . . . you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.  WABN concludes another broadcast day."

And I'd fade out the track, walk to the transmitter and shut it down, and then head out the front door and into the night, my throat a little scratchy from the Bennett-belting and my mind a little fuzzy from the fun.



Hear the song on Youtube.



Hear the Sesame Street version on Youtube.

LL Cool J “Mama Said Knock You Out”

While writing about the Bob Dylan cover version of this song, I was reminded of an LL Cool J version---not the original.

Sure, I liked the original. It had the right mix of LL punch and swagger.

But the version that really stands out to me as a seminal musical moment, is from an MTV Unplugged episode.

Rap music is so much a part of the culture now, it’s hard to imagine a time when it didn’t have wide main stream acceptance, or even the acceptance as a legitimate musical form from the musical establishment. But yeah, even in the late 80s/early 90s Rap was having to defend its credibility.

Among the not-entirely-baseless claims was that Rap was a studio confection, that could not be reproduced in a live setting.

At the time, if you saw a Rap act in concert, you probably saw the MC onstage, maybe a DJ in the background, and the music was provided by a backing track. Flat and flaccid.

MTV was having a pretty successful run with its Unplugged format, and while there was no one Rap performer who could carry a full episode, they at least insured a curiosity factor, filling an episode with a couple songs each by De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, MC Lyte and LL Cool J, backed by a live instrument House Band.

The thing about concerts on TV is that they can only do so much to transcend the medium. With rare exception, the power of being in the room with a live act, is completely squeezed out when wrung through a TV’s tiny speakers and screen.

With rare exception.

I don’t know that the YouTube clip is going to do it justice either, but I remember watching on my TV as LL took the stage on this episode (which had the unfortunate title “Yo! Unplugged Rap”). The camera shows enough of the audience to really get the sense that the power of his performance was winning the crowd over, second by second, until the song’s frenzied conclusion, in the same manner it was winning me over at home.

It was an impressive performance, and I think it went a long way to legitimize the form for non-believers, as well as pave the way for the acceptance of live instrumentation in Rap, from bands like The Roots and The Beastie Boys, among others.