The Encyclopedia Project: 'S'
It's been more than five months since I concluded the letter 'R'. 'S' tied 'B' as the longest letter in the encyclopedia to date, with 18 weeks of music. 'B' had more interruptions so it technically took me longer to finish that letter. Of the five weeks I missed, two were radio station events (Telethon and Hessler Street), two were for travel and one was for the very first time I ever had a telethon donor come down and do the music for the show (hi Gaela!).
Somehow I slipped through 18 weeks and was able to find every single artist. Only one track was terrible beyond words, which is probably what happens when I picked a TV theme song to represent John Sebastian. On the other hand, it was a number one hit, so go figure. I also found six artists that I really liked, but so much time has passed on some of them that I had to look a few of the early ones up again. Of those six, five were from the 1980s and had at least some '80s' sound to them (Shriekback, The Silos, Split Enz, Squeeze, Swing Out Sister), so apparently I have a soft spot for that admittedly large genre. Suicide was just loud and weird.
Here's the list:
3/17 - Doug Sahm / Sir Douglas Quintet, Saints, Ryuichi Sakamoto
3/24 - Leo Sayer, Schooly D, The Searchers
3/31 - &John Sebastian, The Seeds, The Seldom Scene
4/07 - Charlie Sexton, The Shadows, Sha Na Na
4/14 - TELETHON
4/21 - Roxanne Shante, Jules Shear, Shep & the Limelites
4/28 - Bobby Sherman, Shinehead, +Shriekback
5/05 - +The Silos, Simply Red, P.F. Sloane,
5/12 - Patty Smyth/Scandal, Snap!, Phoebe Snow
5/19 - Soft Machine/Robert Wyatt, Soul II Soul, Joe South
5/26 - Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans, The Spaniels, Spanky & Our Gang
6/02 - HESSLER STREET
6/09 - Chris Spedding, Spirit, +Spilt Enz / Tim Finn
6/16 - Spooky Tooth, +Squeeze, Lisa Stansfield
6/23 - GAELA PICKED THE MUSIC
6/30 - OKC
7/07 - WASHINGTON, D.C.
7/14 - Status Quo, Stealers Wheel, Steel Pulse
7/21 - Stetsasonic/Prince Paul/Daddy-O, Al Steward, Billy Stewart
7/28 - John Stewart, Stone the Crows, Stories
8/04 - The Strangeloves, +Suicide, Supergrass
8/11 - Surface, Swamp Dogg, Billy Swan
8/18 - Rachel Sweet, +Swing Out Sister, The Swinging Blue
There are only 142 pages left in the A-Z part of the encyclopedia, of which the letter 'T' has 48 pages, which puts it about on par length-wise with 'R'. I've got a solid shot at finishing the A-Z by the fourth anniversary of the project in February 2020. However, that's not counting the two pages of "bands we removed in this edition" which has another 150+ bands listed in agate print. In short, there's a long way to go.
148 weeks of music
186 total weeks
19 letters, 967 pages (87.1% of 1110 pages)
444 bands
+Unusually good bands: 35 (7.8%)
&Unusually terrible bands: 9 (2.0%)
*Could not be found in the library: 8 (1.8%)
Missed shows: 38 total:
-- 26 for travel (13.9% of total weeks)
-- 9 for radio station override
-- 2 intentional choice on my part
-- 1 for forgetting to prep
Longest Letter: ' B' and 'S' - 18 weeks and 54 bands each (not counting weeks not present)
Shortest Letter: ' Q' - 0 weeks, 0 bands.
Somehow I slipped through 18 weeks and was able to find every single artist. Only one track was terrible beyond words, which is probably what happens when I picked a TV theme song to represent John Sebastian. On the other hand, it was a number one hit, so go figure. I also found six artists that I really liked, but so much time has passed on some of them that I had to look a few of the early ones up again. Of those six, five were from the 1980s and had at least some '80s' sound to them (Shriekback, The Silos, Split Enz, Squeeze, Swing Out Sister), so apparently I have a soft spot for that admittedly large genre. Suicide was just loud and weird.
Here's the list:
3/17 - Doug Sahm / Sir Douglas Quintet, Saints, Ryuichi Sakamoto
3/24 - Leo Sayer, Schooly D, The Searchers
3/31 - &John Sebastian, The Seeds, The Seldom Scene
4/07 - Charlie Sexton, The Shadows, Sha Na Na
4/14 - TELETHON
4/21 - Roxanne Shante, Jules Shear, Shep & the Limelites
4/28 - Bobby Sherman, Shinehead, +Shriekback
5/05 - +The Silos, Simply Red, P.F. Sloane,
5/12 - Patty Smyth/Scandal, Snap!, Phoebe Snow
5/19 - Soft Machine/Robert Wyatt, Soul II Soul, Joe South
5/26 - Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans, The Spaniels, Spanky & Our Gang
6/02 - HESSLER STREET
6/09 - Chris Spedding, Spirit, +Spilt Enz / Tim Finn
6/16 - Spooky Tooth, +Squeeze, Lisa Stansfield
6/23 - GAELA PICKED THE MUSIC
6/30 - OKC
7/07 - WASHINGTON, D.C.
7/14 - Status Quo, Stealers Wheel, Steel Pulse
7/21 - Stetsasonic/Prince Paul/Daddy-O, Al Steward, Billy Stewart
7/28 - John Stewart, Stone the Crows, Stories
8/04 - The Strangeloves, +Suicide, Supergrass
8/11 - Surface, Swamp Dogg, Billy Swan
8/18 - Rachel Sweet, +Swing Out Sister, The Swinging Blue
There are only 142 pages left in the A-Z part of the encyclopedia, of which the letter 'T' has 48 pages, which puts it about on par length-wise with 'R'. I've got a solid shot at finishing the A-Z by the fourth anniversary of the project in February 2020. However, that's not counting the two pages of "bands we removed in this edition" which has another 150+ bands listed in agate print. In short, there's a long way to go.
148 weeks of music
186 total weeks
19 letters, 967 pages (87.1% of 1110 pages)
444 bands
+Unusually good bands: 35 (7.8%)
&Unusually terrible bands: 9 (2.0%)
*Could not be found in the library: 8 (1.8%)
Missed shows: 38 total:
-- 26 for travel (13.9% of total weeks)
-- 9 for radio station override
-- 2 intentional choice on my part
-- 1 for forgetting to prep
Longest Letter: ' B' and 'S' - 18 weeks and 54 bands each (not counting weeks not present)
Shortest Letter: ' Q' - 0 weeks, 0 bands.