The Story of Rock and Roll: Episode 47

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, blasting rock and metal into the powerless night.  It was sort of like a scene from Stephen King’s masterpiece, ‘The Stand’.    The music was great as always, despite once again walking in to find that the show hadn’t been loaded, I managed to put something together at short notice.  The show featured everything from Led Zeppelin to Skid Row, Stiff Little Fingers to Bowie, In Flames to Tom Petty.  The highlight for me was hearing German (punk?) rockers Die Toten Hosen with Hier Kommt Alex, their ode to Anthony Burgess’s psychotic malletjie, Alex.  It’s exactly the kind of thing you don’t hear on the radio but should.  As always there was humour, we had Audioslave with I Am the Highway which, on my CD, is called The Limit To You Love.  This quirk of the CD printing has provided mirth before but I have never been able to find out how many of the 2002 release of Audioslave there are with completely the wrong tracks listed.  Not only are the tracks wrong they are not even written in good English.  We gave a bit of love to The Burning and L.A. Cobra. two S.A. bands that just keep grinding away putting out world-class rock and roll in a country that has largely never really appreciated or understood it.  On TSORR we definitely get it and we are very grateful to these guys and many like them.  Another highlight was taking a listen to Ozone by Odyssey, a track released in the early ’90s and is considered a classic by me.  Graeme in Brisbane immediately remembered it and gave it horns on the Whatsapp line.  In other news, I may get into trouble for calling Led Zep a “band out of Birmingham” instead of London and for using the word ‘Legend’ to describe people who are not dead.  Que sera era, ain’t life grand? :-) Artists featured on Episode 47 include:  Nashville Pussy, ACDC, Thin Lizzy, The Screaming Jets, Sixx A.M., Odyssey, Kiss, Skid Row, Tom Petty, Ozzy Osbourne, Rory Gallagher, David Bowie, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, The Burning, In Flames, L.A. Cobra, Audioslave, Stiff Little Fingers, Rush, Cold Chisel, The Exploited,  Die Toten Hosen, Rival Sons and Guns ‘n’ Roses.         The Story of Rock and Roll.  TSORR - Your one-stop shop for Rock