1979 Archives – How Good It Is

Despite the allusion in the title, today’s song has no spiritual content or religious references. It’s just a description of life on the road with a hard rock band that’s paying its dues. And, as the band members would tell you, they were–and are–a rock band, not a punk band, thank you very much. AC/DC … Continue reading "184: Highway to Hell" The post 184: Highway to Hell appear...

One of the things that always amazed me about the songs that became big hits in the pop era between the 1950s and the 1990s was the sheer variety of musical styles that topped the charts. When doing research for this show I went into a bit of a spiral looking at Billboard charts for … Continue reading "181: Influential Women Part 5–Stevie Nicks" The post 181: Influential Women Part 5&#...

How many times now have I gone into the backstory with a song and learned that the person who wrote it says something akin to, “Yeah, I knocked that one off in about fifteen minutes.” Oftentimes they also think that the song isn’t going to amount to very much, which I find kind of funny. … Continue reading "170: I Fought the Law" The post 170: I Fought the Law appeared firs...

Pardon my allergies; I’ve sounded kind of rough for a week or so. There was a lot of throat-clearing to edit out of this one. I can’t even blame the Southern Studio on this one; it’s the direct result of spending too much time cutting the grass at home. (And THEN I can blame the … Continue reading "160: Failing Upward, Vol 2" The post 160: Failing Upward, Vol 2 appeared fir...

Oh, I do enjoy breaking format once in awhile to do special episodes like this one. For this year’s Christmas episode, I return to the songs that you don’t seem to hear on the radio when the stations are playing All Christmas All The Time. You’d think that with the huge catalog of recordings to … Continue reading "151: More Obscure Christmas" The post 151: More Obscure Chri...

When the B-52s first hit the music scene, even their own reaction to the sound of their first album was “this is SO bleak!” because it was relatively unproduced. There was no reverb, no echo, no studio tricks filling out the gaps in the recording. And then they decided they liked it that way. Their … Continue reading "150: Rock Lobster" The post 150: Rock Lobster appeared first o...

This whole episode came about because of a request by someone who wanted to hear the story behind a song. Unfortunately there wasn’t a lot to it, but it got me thinking about other songs with similar subject matter. And now that I’m typing this, I realize that all the songs I discuss came from … Continue reading "149: Musical Hookers" The post 149: Musical Hookers appeared first...

When I was in high school, there was a guy I knew named Phil. Phil and I shared an art class, a class I had to be talked into attending because I’d had a bad experience with an art class in the eighth grade. But I was told that the teacher was really good and … Continue reading "140: Cars" The post 140: Cars appeared first on How Good It Is .

Last week’s show was short, time-wise, and I promised I’d make up for it. And make up, I did, because this is one of my longer non-interview shows, clocking in at 20:30. If you listen to this show during your morning commute, you may have to circle the block a few times before going in … Continue reading "Episode 108–Books on Vinyl" The post Episode 108–Books on Vinyl...

Holy Moly! The show is back! For those of you who don’t follow the show on Facebook or Twitter, I’ll be posting the pictures here in another couple of days, outlining the New Studio Project. My return to the Podcast Zone was delayed a little bit by a faulty cable I needed to replace, plus … Continue reading "Episode 91–Under the Covers, Part 5" The post Episode 91–Und...