Create Your Own Concert w/ John Fogerty

John Fogerty is headlining a concert that airs on PBS on November 7.  In itself that is good news for me since I have been a fan of his since I began listening to my parents collection of Creedence Clearwater Revival records over 25 years ago. Called "Live By Request", this show allows fans to pick the setlist Fogerty is going to play.  As a precursor to the show, PBS allowed fans to write in questions to ask Fogerty prior to the show. In case you're interested he answers those questions here.

I applaud Fogerty for agreeing to try something different; a little outside his comfort zone. The road can't be easy out there...

As technology and the music industry progresses, musicians seem to be getting more creative and interactive with their fans.  This is especially true of veteran artists that have been in the industry for 25 to 40 years.  A couple of years ago John Mellencamp introduced a new song in a Chevrolet truck commercial.  On his current tour Bruce Springsteen set aside part of the setlist and allowed fans to bring signs to his shows as a request portion of the show.  He and other artists have also been playing live shows featuring songs comprising full albums of their material. This month Tom Waits announced his new live album from last year's Glitter and Doom tour on Facebook and Twitter.  (Side note: My wife and I were lucky enough to see this show at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis, MO and it was incredible!)  Waits and his current label, Anti, is even allowing a free download a preview of the album here.  This Fall Bob Dylan has released a Christmas album and included a previously unreleased outtake, a song called "California" from his classic album Bringing It All Back Home (1965) on a soundtrack to the CBS drama NCIS.

As radio gets more compartmentalized and segmented (Sirius and XM are guilty here) artists have had to get more adept at promoting their current project.  I find it interesting and sometimes fascinating to see which avenue they take to get the music to their fans. Years ago those committed to a particular artist would have called this selling out.  However, now artists must find new ways to reach their audience through all the static. I don't envy them. Believe me there's a lot of static out there!

Here in St. Louis you have to tune in a non-profit, community radio station KDHX 88.1 FM to get a lot of the new music by new artists and established artists. The Classic Rock station KIHT won't play much past 1990 - focusing mostly. The eternal Rock station KSHE plays new and old songs, but doesn't seem to embrace new songs by established artists.  Other than that St. Louis has two stations that seem to play 60's, 70's, and 80's hits - KLOU and WARH.

The only other station that really gets it for my money is in Chicago - WXRT - too bad I can't pick that up 300 miles south in my car.

Artists have been complaining about radio for a while, including three of my favorites...

Elvis Costello


Tom Petty


Finally, watch the video for "Radio Nowhere" by Bruce Springsteen here