The folks here at Project 42 have made improvements here at the Secret Broadcast Cave. We’re now capable of having more listeners tuned in simultaneously. We’re also done more tweaking to the doohickeys and frammistats to make our station sound even better, even if you have dinky little speakers on your computer.
There is a downside, at least if you’ve been listening via iTunes. We’ve informed Apple about our changes, and until they get around to modifying our link in iTunes (and how long that takes in entirely up to them), you likely won’t be able to listen this way. Until then, you can click on the big green “Listen Now” button on the top right, and you’ll be taken to our launch page. You can listen through your browser, or click the icons under the web player to launch Project 42 in your favorite media player.
We apologize if you’ve had any trouble tuning in, and as always, appreciate any comments and suggestions you might have.
Remember the good old 1980s when the United States and the Soviet Union could have blown each other, and the world, to kingdom come? How wouldja like to hear a song about it?
In 1985, Sting was in the early stages of his solo career. After the breakup of The Police, his first solo effort was The Dream Of The Blue Turtles. The album included upbeat fare like “Love Is The Seventh Wave”, “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free”, and then this joyous little ditty about Mutual Assured Destruction.
In “Russians”, we get signs of the beginning of Sting’s Pretentious Period, which, as far as I can tell, is still going on. Sting’s hope that “the Russians love their children too” is nice, but I think it’s pretty obvious they did. The sentiment was echoed by my young man’s heart then, but that’s changed as I’ve become older and hopefully wiser. Despite what the Beatles told us, love is not all you need to win against the most murderous ideology in the history of the modern world (Stalin and Mao, anyone?).
But I digress.
“Russians” debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart this week in 1986, and peaked at number 16 in March.
Don is broadcasting now until midnight CST. Say hello in the chatbox below, through our Facebook page, or via Twitter @Project 42. Requests, dedications, and general conversation welcomed!
Talking Heads’ excellence as a band didn’t translate into many hits on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. Only “Burning Down The House” made it into the Top 10 in late 1983. Perhaps it was the success of that song that led the music programmers at KQIZ (Z-93) in Amarillo Texas to add “Take Me To The River” to the playlist.
“Take Me To The River” peaked at number 26 on the chart in 1978, but I didn’t hear it on the radio until I was in my high school years. It was a few years after that when I discovered it was a cover of a song by an artist named Al Green. I looked around for other songs Green did, and when I heard them, I instantly became a fan. If it wasn’t for Talking Heads covering that song, I may have never discovered my favorite soul singer of the 1970s (sorry, Marvin). So thanks to David Byrne, to that unknown Z-93 program director, and of course, to the Reverend Al.
Here’s Talking Heads performing the song at a 1983 Rome concert:
And Al Green getting funky with it at the 1999 Montreaux Jazz Festival.
We’ve done some modification to the stream to enable more people to listen. It might take a couple of days for the change to migrate to iTunes (or it might not), but you can always listen through your browser by clicking the “Listen Now” button in the right column.
Our first-ever official real-live-person-behind-the-mike show will be Friday, January 29 from 9 p.m. to Midnight (CST). We’ll be playing a lot of music and shooting a little bull. The only goal is to have a little fun on the (internet) radio, and I hope you can be a part of it!
There are several ways to interact with the live show:
Our Facebook page (Project 42 Radio)
Twitter (Project42)
Or the old email standby (project-42-radio-AT-gmail-DOT-com).
Tell me what songs you’d like to hear, what you like about Project 42, or anything else you want to tell me.
