May 17, 2010 - Ronnie James Dio - The Early Years!

For this week's show, I had planned to play an hour of brand new music. I had sent John a bunch of tracks from various 2010 releases and I was all set to go. Then on Sunday night, I heard the news that Ronnie James Dio had died. That changed anything. I sent John a few songs, figuring I would do a "Dio Block" during my segment. Then as I kept sending more and more songs to John, I realized that the entire hour would be dedicated to the music of Ronald James Padavona.


John is not a fan of "metal" and since the show is called Independents Uncovered, I figured there would still be plenty of Dio music to play without having to go into Rainbow, Black Sabbath or Dio. Aside from one track from 1980 (from Kerry Livgren's 1st solo album) every track I sent John was from 1975 or earlier.


I didn't become of Ronnie Dio until I was in High School when the first two Dio albums came out. I had liked old Black Sabbath but hadn't really gotten into the Post-Ozzy Sabbath yet. I had listened to the Joe Lynn Turner era Rainbow but didn't know the Rainbow that existed pre-Graham Bonnet. After hearing Holy Diver and The Last In Line, I searched out older Dio stuff because his voice was just amazing. The Black Sabbath stuff was great. Rainbow Rising is still one of my all-time favorite albums!


I had read about Elf, but had never heard them before. My freshman year in college, I found the final two Elf albums, Carolina County Ball and Trying To Burn The Sun. I also found the Roger Glover album The Butterfly Ball. Those 3 albums introduced me to a different side of Dio and I still love all 3 of them.


For some reason the building that house the station was closing early on Monday night, so John's show ended an hour early, which meant the interview he had scheduled would have to wait. In the 1st hour he played three tracks from the brand new Grip Weeds album, a song from Paul Simon's son and a few other things. Then he played the Donohue Theme and the rest of the show was dedicated to Ronnie Dio. Here is what we played:


Ronnie & The Red Caps - What'd I Say
Ronnie & The Prophets - Ten Days To Brenda
The Electric Elves - Hey Look Me Over
The Elves - Simple Man
Elf - Rainbow
Roger Glover & Ronnie Dio - Sitting In A Dream
Ronnie & The Prophets - Walking In Different Circles
Elf - Never More
Elf - Shotgun Boogie
Kerry Livgren - Mask Of The Great Deceiver


Ronnie James Dio was 67 years old. Because he didn't make it big until his early 30's people assumed he was much younger, but actually he was the same age as Paul McCartney. Before he died, he had gotten back together with Iommi, Butler & Appice in Heaven And Hell and there was talk about an Elf reunion with David Feinstein and Mickey Lee Soule. THAT would have been awesome! Unfortunately it won't happen now. Thank you Ronnie for over 50 years of great music!

May 10, 2010 - An abbreviated show...sort of

John had a busy show lined up with THREE cd releases from three artists who were all in the studio. Because of that, I had offered to take the week off, but John gave up his first 30 minutes of music and kept everything else pretty much on schedule to give me my allotted time.


Each of the three acts got 30 minutes. I originally was planning on only 30 minutes myself, but because John didn't play any music on his own, I had 50 minutes to work with. The Slow Learners were up first, followed by Johnny 3 Legs and finally Time And The Hour. I called in, the Donohue Theme Song was played about 9:10pm and here is what I went with:


House Of Freaks - Crack In The Sidewalk
Sparklehorse - Someday I Will Treat You Good
Little Feat - Oh Atlanta
Moby Grape - Omaha
The Left Banke - Pretty Ballerina
Fairport Convention - Meet On The Ledge
Hindu Love Gods - Raspberry Beret
Little Village - Don't Think About Her When You're Trying To Drive
Robin Trower - What Lies Beneath


I've been trying to play House Of Freaks since I first started doing the show but this was the first track I've played. I'll have to try and work more of their stuff in because they were a great band and Bryan Harvey is sorely missed! I also finally got to play the original version of Meet On The Ledge. I've talked about that song several times on the show and have played the Continental Drifters version of the song, but had never played the original until now.


I think we only have three shows left before our "summer vacation". I'll have to plan the shows very carefully. I've been playing some older music lately, so I guess it's time to go the other way. Next week I think I will go back to some new music. If possible, I may try to stick to 2010 releases only, since there has been some good stuff released already this year.

May 3, 2010 - Not supposed to be here....but I AM!

I wasn't supposed to be here for this week's show. I was planning on taking the week off because I had dinner plans with my friend Martina, who was visiting from Austria. But those plans were changed to Tuesday, which allowed me to do the show. John had Stuart Ferguson call in at the beginning of the show, to talk about some new songs he was recording. Justin Trawick was scheduled to come on at 9pm, but he had to cancel. John was running late (as usual), so Stuart's call-in pushed me back to 8:30, but Justin's cancellations kept me on the air until the show ended. The extra time gave me a chance to play EVERYTHING I sent for the week, plus a couple things that John wanted to play. Here's what was played:

Adrian Belew - Animal Grace
Loverboy - DOA
Elliott Randall - Bodhisattva
The Spongetones - Not So
The Spongetones - (My Girl) Maryanne
The Spongetones - Torn Apart
Chad & Jeremy - Yesterday's Gone
Orpheus - I've Never Seen Love Like This
All Day Sucker - The Big Pretend
The Baseball Project - All Future And No Past
The Rutles - Cheese And Onions
All Day Sucker - The Big Pretend Reprise
Third Of Never - Let My Love Open The Door
The Golden Palominos - Faithless Heart
The Golden Palominos - I've Been The One
The Grip Weeds - Salad Days
The Balancing Act - This Is Where It All Begins
The Antennas - Stop Running Their Mouths
Orpheus - I Can't Find The Time To Tell You
Chad & Jeremy - A Summer Song


I want to thank Martina, Britt and Rudy for the use of their pictures and for a great dinner on Tuesday. Next week I'll be on a tight schedule. John has the show broken down to five 30 minute segments, so I will be in and out in a half hour. It'll be nice to be done early for a change.