The Story of Rock and Roll Radio Show

Episode 47 of The Story of Rock and Roll Radio Show aired at midnight on 6 December 2019.  It was a cold, wet, rainy night and fairly early in the show, all the lights went out as the Mix 93.8 FM fell victim to load shedding.  The music never stopped.  For the next hour or so, Midrand was subjected to a generator driven little beacon of light in the form of The Story of Rock and Roll Radio Show, b...

Welcome to Episode 46 of The Story of Rock and Roll Radio Show.  It went on air at midnight Friday morning 29 November 2019.  Time flew as it always does when fun was being had.  The big news of the week was my interview with Tommy Thayer, lead guitarist for KISS.  I was lucky enough to get the chance to interview him on Wednesday night and it was an absolute pleasure to talk to him.  I had planne...

It was announced a few weeks back that KISS will be coming to SA in July 2020.  I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to interview lead guitarist Tommy Thayer.  It was actually my first ever radio interview so I am very proud to have started off by talking to him, nice to start in the deep end :-) What an amazing guy.  Tommy has actually been the longest running lead guitarist, he&apo...

Episode 45 went out live at midnight on 22 Nov 2019.  The show followed the standard TSORR format, plenty of rock and metal, a smattering of punk, some new stuff, some local artists and some unusual stuff.  We had another track from the brand new Equator EP and a track off the new Phil Campbell album, ‘Old Lions Still Roar’, he proved that admirably.  For the first time in a while, I had some tech...

Episode 44 was a real banger, plenty of good stuff happening on this one.  It went out live at midnight on 15 Nov 2019. The show kicked off with Rammstein and then a bit of ACDC and Van Halen.  Thanks to a great comment on the WhatsApp line the Roth vs. Hagar argument has been won, it’s all about Eddie.    The highlight of the show was the reaction that new kids Equator got for a track off their d...

Episode 43 of The Story of Rock and Roll Radio Show aired at the stroke of midnight on 8 November 2019.  We were straight into it with a brand new release by Airbourne, who were referred to as “the thinking man’s ACDC” by a quick witted listener.  The pace stayed right where it was all the way through Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Marilyn Manson and Iron Maiden.  Next we hit a short blast of Punk with...

WARNING this show comes in hot with Pantera and Slayer, if you are not a fan then hang in there for two tracks there is a good reason for this aggressive start and for why it is followed by ‘I’m In a Bad Mood’ by Aussie legend Jimmy Barnes.  Fear not, the healing power of Rock ‘n’ Roll soon kicks in and the show becomes its usual light-hearted, metal loving self.   Welcome to the 42nd episode of T...

This show is more fun every week, it is quite strange how the ones where you initially feel you have all the wrong songs turn out to be listener favorites.  This episode took place at midnight on 25 October and it felt a bit different from normal, I figured out it’s because there wasn’t any Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Rainbow or Megadeth which is unusual.  It’s being on a tightrope without a safety...

Episode 40 of The Story of Rock and Roll went out into the world at midnight on 18 October 2019.  Two hours went by in a flash, that’s the power of good music \m/.  It was foot to the floor for the first hour and then we started to get a bit more off the beaten track with stuff like Nibs Van Der Spuy, Walking Papers & 12th Avenue.  According to the WhatsApp line TSORR Radio Show is “The best s...

Episode 39 of The Story of Rock and Roll Radio Show aired at midnight on 11  October 2019.  It marks a change in the way the show is recorded in that the songs are submitted upfront.  This means any changes to the playlist on the night are impossible unless by some miracle the song is in the stations' data base.  It makes requests tricky.  Requests don’t form a huge part of TSORR Radio Show h...

Welcome to the 25th podcast of The Story of Rock and Roll Radio Show, affectionately known as Episode 37.  It aired at midnight on 27 Sept 2019 on a freezing cold night in Johannesburg South Africa.  The first 60 minutes or so was all foot flat,  driving rock and roll.  We kicked off with The Backyard Babies latest album and a track called ‘Good Morning Midnight’, which it was.  Scorpions, ACDC, M...

Episode 36 was a lot of fun, It was broadcasted live at midnight on 20 Sept 2019.  I'd flown back from a week in the Maldives early that afternoon so I'd had about an hour's sleep in the last 36 hours and it showed :-).  There are some funny bits towards the end where my brain is really melting.  For an unplanned show, it was very cool and the usual variety you have come to expect f...

Episode 35 of the Story of Rock and Roll Radio Show aired at midnight on 6 September 2019.  It was a great episode even if I do say so myself.  I had exclusive permission to feature a track off Headed to Hell the new album by East Rand rock stars The Burning, it sounded fantastic and the comments on the WhatsApp line were overwhelmingly positive.    I played some more from the Bite! album by Anima...

Midnight 30 August 2019 marked the airing of Episode 34 of The Story of Rock and Roll Radio Show.  As always it was an interesting mix and included a few wonderful energy swings.  I enjoyed the shift going from full tilt with the new Long Live the Loud feature into Neil Young's Thrasher.  We listened to Boston and we listened to Slipknot and everything in between.  Looking back the show was s...

Episode 33 of The Story of rock and Roll Radio Show aired at midnight on 23 August 2019.  This show marked the introduction of the ‘Long Live The Loud’ feature.  It takes place at 1 am i.e. halfway through the podcast and it’s a feature where I have 10 minutes of metal in the form of two songs suggested by the legendary Marq Vas.  Marq and I met in around 1990 and for a few years, we were insepara...

TSORR Radio Show’s 32nd episode went out live at midnight on 16 August.  It was Madonna’s birthday and we celebrated that making sure we played nothing by her.  As always the show kicked off with a bang, this week in the form of Iron Maiden.  The show starts very quickly, in fact so quick that Speed of Light was indeed a fitting first track.  A huge technical problem that has been plaguing TSORR s...

Episode 31 of The Story of rock and Roll was recorded in the Mix 93.8 FM studios in Midrand at midnight on 9 August 2019.  It was a joyous celebration of Women's Day and the fact that it's a long weekend.  It was also the first episode recorded in the revamped Studio A with a brand new desk.  What a pleasure.  It also marked a change in the recording process for the podcast.  My Apple Ma...

Episode 30 of TSORR Radio Show went out live at midnight on 2 Aug 2019.  Everything went smoothly and it was a well balanced mix of rock, metal, ballads and blues as it is supposed to be.  We got as heavy as Hell Yeah and Mark Morton and as mellow as Bob Dylan and a Def Leppard ballad.  For me personally one of the highlights was hearing Chester Bennington guesting on the new Mark Morton album.  I...

In the words of a listener, Episode 29 was “really cool, good energy”.  I have to agree wholeheartedly.  The show was recorded at midnight on 26 July 2019.  It was probably one of the first shows to wish Mick Jagger a very happy 76th birthday.  We played ‘Bitch’ to celebrate, taken from the Live in Atlantic City album.  The show kicked off with Metallica and we didn’t stop rocking for  the next tw...

Episode 28 of The Story of Rock and Roll Radio Show aired at midnight on 19 Jul 2019.  The show was jam packed with the type of rock you have come to expect from TSORR.  No technical hitches so it was a downhill run all the way from midnight through until 2am.  Due to the sad passing of South African icon Johnny Clegg there was a short little tribute to him and a few words about how special he was...

Episode 27 was recorded at midnight on 12 July 2019.  As always the show contains an eclectic mix of Rock, Metal, Ballads and Blues.  It was pretty diverse and had a good flow, the only technical hitch was an annoying little problem where the recording cut off some of the talking at the beginning of the show.  Maybe it’s trying to tell me something, anyway you may hear a couple of bits where it ju...

Episode 26 was a lot of fun, it aired on 5 July 2019 after I had been in the studio for 3 hours filling in on another show.  I was pretty warmed up at the start and pretty fried by 2 am.  The show was also pretty spontaneous because when I looked at what I had planned to play nothing felt right and I had to change everything.   The result was a great mix of rock, heavy and light, fast and slow fro...

Welcome to Episode 25 of The Story of Rock and Roll Radio Show.  The show aired at midnight on 28 June 2019 and it went extremely smoothly, probably the smoothest so far.  There were some technological challenges due to the realities of WiFi in South Africa but it's OK.  You should love this one it’s a very cool mix, something for everyone.   Among the bands featured were: ACDC, The Offspring...

Ep24 of TSORR Radio Show took to the air on a chilly winters night in Midrand Johannesburg on 21 June 2019.  The thing I love about Radio is that things do not go as planned.  The State of the Nation address by the President of South Africa took place earlier that night and I started the show mentioning that instead of blasting into full throttle R ‘n’ R it would be more fitting to start with Runn...

Episode 23 was a special episode in that I reflected back a bit on some of the songs that will always be an integral part of The Story of Rock and Roll.  The Show was dedicated to my daughter who just turned 21, without her there would probably be no TSORR.  The show went live at midnight on 14 June 2019, nothing was pre-planned, which was obvious right from the first 10 seconds.  This is how it w...