Listening to Vin Scelsa
As a kid, I didn't pay much attention to which DJ and station I was listening to at any given moment since I was surfing to hear certain songs that were not being played on the AM side. I remember listening to Vin Scelsa and Pete Fornatel - great radio names - and others whose names escape me now, and enjoying the fact that they at least made it sound like they had selected the music that they wanted to play themselves.
You can still hear Vin on his show 'Idiot's Delight' (http://www.wfuv.org/programs/idiotsdelight.html). Definitely, check it out and let me know what you think. Thirty five years of radio integrity. Interviews with folks like Wim Wenders, Leonard Cohen, Tim Robbins - a lot of my own favorite characters in music and film.
Listening to guys like Scelsa was like visiting a friend and having him tell you about a new record they had just bought, wanting to play you a side. I remember visiting my friend David Becker in high school and being introduced to the Stones' 'Goats Head Soup'. I was 14. We lay on the floor of his living room and listened to each track and talked about whether the Stones had lost it completely or whether it was good! Angie just didn't sound like a Rolling Stones song. We liked the harder rocking Stones.
Turns out Angie was the number one song of the year on the charts.
It beat out Tony Orlando and Dawn.
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