The Encyclopedia Project
Back in February, I talked about how I was reading through the 2003 Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll and playing bands I hadn't heard of. To give you an idea of how long this project will take, here is the list of all 81 bands in the letters 'A' and 'B' that I played.
A + sign indicates an unusually good band. There were eight of them.
An & indicates an unusually bad band. Some of these were turned off mid-track. Thankfully, there were only four of them.
So far only three bands were not available in the WRUW library, or at least not that I could find. They are marked with an *.
ALL CAPS indicates I was off that day.
I thought about linking to all of these, but that's a lot of work and you can all right-click and google.
2/14 - ABC, Ace, +Johnny Ace
2/21 - The Alarm, Arthur Alexander, Lee Allen,
2/28 - Luther Alison, Mose Allison, &Amazing Rhythm Aces
3/06 - +Ambrosia, Amen Corner, *American Breed
3/13 - American Music Club, Eric Andersen, &John Anderson
3/20 - Arrow, Atlanta Rhythm Section, +Kevin Ayers
3/27 - Ron Ayers, &The Babys, +LaVerne Baker
4/03 - John Baldry, Hank Ballard, The Barbarians
4/10 - Basia, The Beat, The Beautiful South
4/17 - TELETHON
4/24 - +Be-Bop Deluxe, Archie Bell & the Drells, +William Bell
5/01 - Bell Biv DeVoe, Jesse Belvin, +George Benson
5/08 - Brook Benton, Big Country, Big Daddy Kane
5/15 - Big Youth, Black Oak Arkansas, Ruben Blades
5/22 - HESSLER STREET FAIR
5/29 - Carla Bley, Blodwyn Pig, Bloodstone
6/05 - Luke Bloom, Michael Bloomfield, Kurtis Blow
6/12 - Blue Cheer, Blues Image, Blues Magoos
6/19 - Blues Project, *Bobettes, &Angela Bofill
6/26 - Tommy Bolin, Graham Bond, +The Bongos,
7/03 - BOSTON
7/10 - James Booker, Eddie Boyd, *Tommy Boyle & Bobby Hart
7/17 - Brand Nubian, Laura Branigan, Bread
7/24 - OREGON
7/31 - OAKLAND ATHLETICS BASEBALL
8/07 - BWCA
8/14 - BWCA
8/21 - Brinsley Schwarz, David Bromberg, The Brooklyn Bridge
8/28 - Arthur Brown, Charles Brown, Foxy Brown
9/04 - Roy Brown, Bill Bruford, Roy Buchanan
9/11 - The Buckinghams, Billy Burnette, Dorsey Burnette
9/18 - DENVER
9/25 - Johnny Burnette, Rocky Burnette, Jerry Butler
It took me 27 weeks to finish the first two letters of the alphabet. That covered 139 pages of the 1110 pages of essays, or about 12.5% of the encyclopedia. At that pace, it will take 216 weeks to read the book (more than four years even if I never miss a week again), and that will cover 648 bands. According to the back cover of the encyclopedia, there are 'nearly' 2000 bands who merited their own essay. Again, if all paces hold, that means I've never heard of 1/3 of the bands in the book. All of those numbers don't include the last two pages of the book, which use a tiny agate type to list every band who was featured in the second edition of the encyclopedia but did not make the cut in the third edition.
The takeaway is that I'll be doing this for a while, even if I start covering four bands a week. Have some pity for my poor co-host!
A + sign indicates an unusually good band. There were eight of them.
An & indicates an unusually bad band. Some of these were turned off mid-track. Thankfully, there were only four of them.
So far only three bands were not available in the WRUW library, or at least not that I could find. They are marked with an *.
ALL CAPS indicates I was off that day.
I thought about linking to all of these, but that's a lot of work and you can all right-click and google.
2/14 - ABC, Ace, +Johnny Ace
2/21 - The Alarm, Arthur Alexander, Lee Allen,
2/28 - Luther Alison, Mose Allison, &Amazing Rhythm Aces
3/06 - +Ambrosia, Amen Corner, *American Breed
3/13 - American Music Club, Eric Andersen, &John Anderson
3/20 - Arrow, Atlanta Rhythm Section, +Kevin Ayers
3/27 - Ron Ayers, &The Babys, +LaVerne Baker
4/03 - John Baldry, Hank Ballard, The Barbarians
4/10 - Basia, The Beat, The Beautiful South
4/17 - TELETHON
4/24 - +Be-Bop Deluxe, Archie Bell & the Drells, +William Bell
5/01 - Bell Biv DeVoe, Jesse Belvin, +George Benson
5/08 - Brook Benton, Big Country, Big Daddy Kane
5/15 - Big Youth, Black Oak Arkansas, Ruben Blades
5/22 - HESSLER STREET FAIR
5/29 - Carla Bley, Blodwyn Pig, Bloodstone
6/05 - Luke Bloom, Michael Bloomfield, Kurtis Blow
6/12 - Blue Cheer, Blues Image, Blues Magoos
6/19 - Blues Project, *Bobettes, &Angela Bofill
6/26 - Tommy Bolin, Graham Bond, +The Bongos,
7/03 - BOSTON
7/10 - James Booker, Eddie Boyd, *Tommy Boyle & Bobby Hart
7/17 - Brand Nubian, Laura Branigan, Bread
7/24 - OREGON
7/31 - OAKLAND ATHLETICS BASEBALL
8/07 - BWCA
8/14 - BWCA
8/21 - Brinsley Schwarz, David Bromberg, The Brooklyn Bridge
8/28 - Arthur Brown, Charles Brown, Foxy Brown
9/04 - Roy Brown, Bill Bruford, Roy Buchanan
9/11 - The Buckinghams, Billy Burnette, Dorsey Burnette
9/18 - DENVER
9/25 - Johnny Burnette, Rocky Burnette, Jerry Butler
It took me 27 weeks to finish the first two letters of the alphabet. That covered 139 pages of the 1110 pages of essays, or about 12.5% of the encyclopedia. At that pace, it will take 216 weeks to read the book (more than four years even if I never miss a week again), and that will cover 648 bands. According to the back cover of the encyclopedia, there are 'nearly' 2000 bands who merited their own essay. Again, if all paces hold, that means I've never heard of 1/3 of the bands in the book. All of those numbers don't include the last two pages of the book, which use a tiny agate type to list every band who was featured in the second edition of the encyclopedia but did not make the cut in the third edition.
The takeaway is that I'll be doing this for a while, even if I start covering four bands a week. Have some pity for my poor co-host!