Vinyl Voyage Radio

Tom Flannery and the Shillelagh's debut album, Teen Angst and the Green Flannel is not available on vinyl. But it should be. It has a pure rock and roll sound that is a throwback to another era; something you rarely hear on the radio today.  And it is a refreshing accompaniment to a hot summer. I've known Tom now for a few years.  He was one of the composers for my two films, Facing Sudan and Crayons and Paper .  In fact, he provided the very moving song " Crayons and Paper " that accompanied images of war and death drawn by children in Sudan and Sri Lanka and is the centerpiece of both films.  Tom has always been the acoustic guy with a guitar. Not any more.  Wanting to deliver a hard rocking sound now for years, Tom assembled a band and put together a stellar album of pure rock, full of angst, pain, and love (or something like it).  It is a guitar driven reflection on life from the point of view of what has always driven rock and roll:  ...

1984 was the year I got my driver's license.  It was also the year of the Macintosh computer. Night Court premiered on NBC and a gallon of gas cost $1.10. Michael Jackson was severely burned while filming a Pepsi commercial and his album  Thriller was the best selling album for the second year in a row. It was a stellar year for movies as well:  Ghostbusters, Amadeus, Gremlins, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom ---just to name a few.  Entertainment Weekly recently argued that 1984 was the greatest year for films ever, even better than 1939. It was also the year K-Tel released Sound System , which features songs from Huey Lewis and the News, Pat Benatar, the Police, the Kinks and Styx. Take a trip with us to 1984 on Adventures in Vinyl.  Sound System is the featured album for July Plus, movie clips, trivia and music from 1984 as well.    Adventures in Vinyl is the only radio show dedicated to the magic of the K-Tel record comp...

When I was a kid, I had a 45 rpm record of the song "Cane and Able"  by some band named Meadow.  I knew nothing of the band or the song.  It was given to me by the lunchroom lady of my elementary school who also happened to hold a summer Bible camp in her garage every year.  I listened to the song several times and never forgot it. Not that the song was particularly good.  But it did have an interesting hook:  "Throw away your cane and you are able." Over the years I lost track of the record, but never forgot the song.  It stuck with me for almost forty years.  I could hum the song and sing much of the lyrics.  I went searching for it and found the full album on Ebay, of course.  So I bought it and became reintroduced to a band that was such a part of my childhood without me even realizing it at the time. The album is called The Friend Ship and its cover is adorned with four hippies, locked hand in hand, floating above the groun...