Old School #63 roadtrips in time to a lost spring break, a half century in a Mustang rearview mirror. Come party and try to stay out of jail. The dawn of the last hard rock summer before disco.
Hey and welcome to a special edition of Old School. I’m Professor Mikey. My lesson plans are all about digging into the lost world of 20th century rock and roll and listening to records rather than delivering lectures, assigning homework, issuing grades. It’s all pass, no fail.
Last year we had our first 50th anniversary rite of spring party with episode 44. You can hear it anytime by searching Spring Break 73. It racked up thousands of hits last year, which tells me we had older listeners grooving on the music of their glory days, and even more younger ones who feel they were born to late, to late for the cool that settled upon the earth before algo rhythms and cell phones.
Now it is 1974. The tunes are still rocking but there are signs that a dance craze is on the horizon. Disco is being born, just as the Watergate scandal dies down. President Nixon will turn in his resignation before the end of summer. Also a bare assed craze is sweeping the country.
It involves people jumping out of their clothes and jogging in their birthday suits, wherever they can find a large crowd. It’s called streaking, and it’s just weird. But that’s the naked truth.
The times are still changing. Nineteen year old heiress Patricia Hearst, kidnapped by the radical lefties of the Symbionese Liberation Army in January, has now joined the group and is helping with bank robberies and demands to feed the poor and bring about social change through violence and regular meals.
Skylab just spent 84 days in space. Right in the middle of spring break, Hank Aaron will break Babe Ruth’s record by hitting the 715th home run of his career. Muhammad Ali is in training to fight George Foreman around Halloween.
And though it isn’t making headlines, the annual tradition of spring break is swerving toward the drunk and crazy spectacles that will evolve in the next couple of decades.
So much for history. Now lets hear some tunes. What got played at beach raves and beer busts was a mixture of Top 40, underground, and the freewheeling fabulous foundations of funk. For our purposes the music selection boundaries fall between September of 73 and about May of 74. It’s long on music, but there’s some sound bites of the time, in this the last year of beach blanket bingo before JAWS becomes part of pop culture.
Get ready to slice some sand, chill some Lone Star, fall in love with a stranger, and introduce another Endless Summer with a Spring that is hardly silent.
We start with where we have landed in our time traveling Mustang. It’s the Golden Age of Rock and Roll by Mott the Hoople. It’s not me doing the introduction, but I think this guy sounds great. This is Professor Mikey’s Old School…Spring Break 74!!!
Professor Mikey’s Old School is on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Pandora, anywhere you get your podcasts. It’s a crapshoot whether or not YouTube will have it on my channel because they are so strange about what music they block and what they post, even though every song included in Old School mixes can be found elsewhere, streaming away on YouTube with no problem. Last years 50th anniversary show entitled Spring Break ‘73. In case you missed it, the links are below.
The educational underground pirate radio Old School podcast with Professor Mikey featuring rarities, stories, and surprises from the last half of the 20th century. A eclectic variety of discovery for newer music lovers, a reconnection for the rest of us, present in a theme format that thinks outside the album cover. Rock, country, blues, and anything else that might have captured the 20th century imagination, updated for a newer audience while remaining a comfort to older rockers.
Professor Mikey spent over 50,000 hours in various broadcast booths in 60-some markets, taking to the air at 16 a couple of months before The Beatles released Revolver. He rocked, informed, and amused his listeners in six different decades. Old School is his attempt to put it all together in a great set. He is confirmed AM-FM Positive.
The educational underground pirate radio Old School podcast with Professor Mikey featuring rarities, stories, and surprises from the last half of the 20th century. A eclectic variety of discovery for newer music lovers, a reconnection for the rest of us, present in a theme format that thinks outside the album cover. Rock, country, blues, and anything else that might have captured the 20th century imagination, updated for a newer audience while remaining a comfort to older rockers.
Professor Mikey spent over 50,000 hours in various broadcast booths in 60-some markets, taking to the air at 16 a couple of months before The Beatles released Revolver. He rocked, informed, and amused his listeners in six different decades. Old School is his attempt to put it all together in a great set. He is confirmed AM-FM Positive.
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