Professor Mikey here. Thanks for marking the attendance sheet today on Old School. 🏫
Something you notice when you transcend from being a young punk disc jockey into being an old professorial spinner of the tunes, part gasbag, part profound, is …well…how you pick your music.
Don’t get me wrong. There are lots of good golden oldie shows out there. And most of them are based on the number of listens that get piled up over 40 to 60 years. It’s like they are working for out of focus groups. If they say Eagles, the machine says Hotel California. If they say Fleetwood Mac the machine goes for Rhiannon.
In the process, a lot of great tunes get forgotten or never heard by the new cool kids on the block.
That’s were the vintage wine of the ones and twos kick in. Old DJs remember every song they ever played, as well as the people who dug the sounds that were going down.
Human programmers can do something that never occurred to Algo and the Rhythms. They can take sidetrips that lead to who knows where. The destinations appear to them in visions about halfway through the current song thats being heard.
Funny, that’s the theme of this edition of Old School. These are all destination songs, but not exactly road trip songs. These are all great places to go, but they might give Waze and Google Maps an error code, even if the kickoff tune started in New York City.
Stay with me on this. The longer you listen the longer the tracking machines like it. There is one podcast for every three people on the planet now, so Old School needs all the help it can get. Hit subscribe and I’ll take you there.
We have much ground to cover, so let’s get started. With the hard rock Beatle, John Lennon no less. And our first song is not Imagine. Or Strawberry Fields.
Thanks for listening. This is Old School number 72. Buckle you seat belts. The destinations are all Side Trips!
NEW YORK CITY John Lennon & Yoko Ono 1972
50,000 MILES BENEATH MY BRAIN Ten Years After 1970
JOURNEY TO TYME Kenny and the Casuals 1965
PRIMROSE HILL John and Beverly Martin 1970
ONE WAY STREET Nine Below Zero 1971
SHAMBALA B. W. Stevenson 1973
HITCHHIKE Marvin Gaye 1962
STRANGER IN TOWN Del Shannon 1965
CHELSEA Elvis Costello 1978
BERLIN Lou Reed 1973
SECRET LIFE OF ARABIA David Bowie 1977
OKLAHOMA USA The Kinks 1971
BILOXI Jessi Winchester 1970
DEBRIS Faces 1971
THE GIRL FROM MILL VALLEY Jeff Beck Group feat. Nicky Hopkins 1969
PROMISED LAND Chuck Berry 1964
A side trip is a wonderful thing in music when you are a disc jockey, free as a bird, without a corporate playlist or strict directions delivered by someone who doesn’t like music. Traditionally it means you are in the midst of a trip when you realize you wouldn’t have to go far out of your way to experience a completely different destination. You are at Disneyland, and find out Knott’s Berry Farm is just 7 miles away.
In free form radio it means you have 3 or 4 minutes to find another record that will sound good after the one you are playing.
For this episode #72 we chose from a number of possible musical destinations that were generated by musicians who may have been planning to do something else. You never know with these guys and girls.
Twice we have pondered rock and roll destinations on Old School. I’ll put the links at the bottom of the newsletter page, which you can get to for free at professormikey.substack.com. They will get you to Episode 25, Omaha Shout, a theme show about place names that may or may not have come from Peyton Manning while trying to throw the defense into confusion. It featured powerful yet easy to understand directions from Moby Grape, Nina Simone, and the Dead Kennedys. Great city songs from Episode 21, “Location Location Location” worked a real estate vibe with classic recordings from The Runaways, The Jam, Porter Wagoner, and T Rex.
As always Professor Mikey hopes Old School is becoming your jam. If you hear this on Spotify, just a comment or any kind of signal that the the Spotify empire in Stockholm might see or hear.
Old School is produced for educational purposes, with whole songs coming from the public domain, with encouragement from labels from years gone by, or are used within the guidelines of fair use stipulated in Section 107 of the copyright act of 1967. It was a very good year.
Thanks again for listening, avoid dead air, and I’ll be back very soon with another edition of Old School.
The past is a blast!
Links to similar side trips
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