The Encyclopedia Project: 'I'
Unsurprisingly, there are very few entries in the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (2001 Edition) for the letter 'I'. The only reason it took me a month since I finished 'H' was that I took Christmas off to focus on holiday music and was gone for New Year's Eve.
Equally unsurprisingly, in the two weeks of actual bands I had neither any particularly good band nor any particularly bad bands. I also found everything in the book.
12/24 - XMAS MUSIC
12/31 - NEW YEAR'S EVE
1/07 - Ides of March, Incredible String Band, James Ingram
1/14 - Inspiral Carpets, the Intruders, It's a Beautiful Day
The most entertaining thing about this piece of the alphabet was when I played White Bird by It's a Beautiful Day. I quickly got two phone calls expressing incredulity that I had never heard of them, plus another message via our online request system indicating similar surprise. For the record, the shorter radio edit of the song peaked at 118 on the charts, and the album only made it to 47. That's not exactly a huge hit, and given that it came out in 1969, I'm frankly a little confused about why it was in the encyclopedia in the first place. Judge for yourself.
In more hilarity, our music director emeritus (he ditched the parts of the job he didn't like) called me during my show to ask for a list of the bands from this project that I couldn't find in the library so he can get them. There are only six thus far, so he's been doing a good job for the last 35+ years.
81 weeks (not including weeks off)
9 letters, 469 pages (42.2% of 1110 pages)
243 bands
+Unusually good bands: 20 (8.2%)
&Unusually terrible bands: 6 (2.5%)
*Could not be found in the library: 6 (2.5%)
Missed shows: 15 for travel, 5 for radio station override, 1 intentional choice, 1 for prep failure.
103 total weeks
Equally unsurprisingly, in the two weeks of actual bands I had neither any particularly good band nor any particularly bad bands. I also found everything in the book.
12/24 - XMAS MUSIC
12/31 - NEW YEAR'S EVE
1/07 - Ides of March, Incredible String Band, James Ingram
1/14 - Inspiral Carpets, the Intruders, It's a Beautiful Day
The most entertaining thing about this piece of the alphabet was when I played White Bird by It's a Beautiful Day. I quickly got two phone calls expressing incredulity that I had never heard of them, plus another message via our online request system indicating similar surprise. For the record, the shorter radio edit of the song peaked at 118 on the charts, and the album only made it to 47. That's not exactly a huge hit, and given that it came out in 1969, I'm frankly a little confused about why it was in the encyclopedia in the first place. Judge for yourself.
Click to viewIn more hilarity, our music director emeritus (he ditched the parts of the job he didn't like) called me during my show to ask for a list of the bands from this project that I couldn't find in the library so he can get them. There are only six thus far, so he's been doing a good job for the last 35+ years.
81 weeks (not including weeks off)
9 letters, 469 pages (42.2% of 1110 pages)
243 bands
+Unusually good bands: 20 (8.2%)
&Unusually terrible bands: 6 (2.5%)
*Could not be found in the library: 6 (2.5%)
Missed shows: 15 for travel, 5 for radio station override, 1 intentional choice, 1 for prep failure.
103 total weeks