by Kevin Burton The Band Rush made a musical comment on the state of radio in 1980’s “The Spirit of Radio.” It took me more than 40 years to get wind of it. Though they made reference to the lyrics of two of my heroes, Simon and Garfunkel, in the song, they didn’t …
Category Archives: media
Video Killed Your Imagination, Not Radio
I think I’m done writing about MTV and Clear Channel for the moment, but I have one more thought on that Buggles tune, “Video Killed The Radio Star.” I raised the question without answering it in my Friday story: “If you could get your favorite top 40 hits, with pictures, moving pictures, wouldn’t that …
Clear Channel (iHeart) Killed The Radio Star
by Kevin Burton In the old days we turned on our radios for music, for news, for sports and weather forecasts, and we got all those things. But what we really loved, and what kept us coming back for more, was the way those things were delivered, something that was woven throughout the …
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Raised On Radio: MTV And Killer Video
by Kevin Burton In J.G. Ballard’s short story “The Sound-Sweep,” the main character is a non-verbal boy who has the job of vacuuming up all the stray sounds in a world without music. He befriends an opera singer living in an abandoned recording studio. The opera singer is destitute, having been displaced from …
Good Riddance Steve Physioc, Go Royals
by Kevin Burton The Royals lost their season-opening baseball game to Minnesota 2-0 Thursday. The prediction I saw last week said the team would lose 103 games this year. So why am I newly pumped about the team? The team has promoted Jake Eisenberg, who had been doing play-by-play for its Omaha …
Old Times, Springtime And Baseball Cards
by Kevin Burton Mid-March, this time of year. In the old days, when it wasn’t quite time for baseball, it was time for baseball cards. Growing up at the school for the blind in Ohio in the 70s, with the gloom and chill of February fading, with temperatures perhaps in the high 40s …
Raised On Radio: Petty’s “Last DJ” Banned
by Kevin Burton National DJ Day on Jan. 20 sent me rocking down memory lane, recalling a time when deft tuning of a transistor radio could take you to another world. The heyday of radio, as we talk about it now in the past tense, was a whole other American era, an entirely …
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Russian Reporter Jailed For Telling The Truth
Maria Ponomarenko has my respect, my admiration and full attention. Last March the Russian Air Force bombed a Ukrainian theatre in the town of Mariupol, with 1,200 civilians inside. The Russian defense ministry denied the attack. Ponomarenko, a 44-year-old Russian journalist, told the truth about it in a social media post. This is …
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Sweet Dreams And Super Bowl Victory For KC
by Kevin Burton My wife Jeannette got the news late: the Kansas City Chiefs are Super Bowl champions! She got the news late because she left the game in the second quarter and headed to bed. Her work starts very early and so bedtime comes early too, Super Bowl or not. She …
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Legendary Composer Bacharach Dead At 94
by Kevin Burton You know Burt Bacharach, even when it’s not Burt Bacharach. Bacharach died Wednesday at home in Los Angeles of natural causes, according to his publicist, Tina Brausam. The Kansas City-born composer had an unmistakable sound, especially in his work with longtime writing partner, lyricist Hal David. The New …
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