back from denver, classic rock, vbt preview

Back from Denver. Had a nice enough time, even if my carlessness the last three days limited my funtitude options. Then again, I didn’t have my lung collapse, so that’s something.
On Sunday, with my car rental coming to a close, I went roaming in the Rockies, mostly staying on I-70 west of town for a couple hours. One thing I learned while driving: Denver has the best classic rock station I’ve heard, 99.5 “The Mountain.” (I’ll forgive the name.) Their schtick seems to be playing album tracks and obscure songs from the classic rock catalog, not the same few songs that you hear over and over again elsewhere on the geezer-rock dial.
Some examples: Instead of playing “Like a Rolling Stone” for the four-millionth time, they play all eight-plus minutes of Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane” — a song I’ve never heard on the radio before, even during all the movie hubbub around the Rubin “Hurricane” Carter case. (Perhaps because Bob uses no fewer than three not-supposed-to-be-on-the-radio swear words, not to mention the ol’ n-word.)
Instead of “Aqualung” again, they play “Bouree” when they get a Jethro Tull urge. Instead of “Stairway to Heaven,” it’s “The Rain Song.” “Bell Bottom Blues” instead of “Layla.” “Madman Across the Water” instead of “Tiny Dancer.” “There Is No Way Out of Here” (from David Gilmour’s 1978 solo record) instead of “Comfortably Numb.” “The Punk and the Godfather” instead of “Who Are You.” (Actually, this station looooves the Who. In two days of sporadic driving, I heard “The Real Me,” “Can’t Explain,” “Love, Reign O’er Me,” and “Athena.”)
Now, not all of those are improvements over the big hits. (For instance, “Athena” should stay locked in whatever vault every other station in the hemisphere keeps it. If you have to pull something off that album, which I still have on tape somewhere, at least have the taste to pick “Eminence Front.”) But a little variety goes a very long way, and it’s nice to see some personality in what’s traditionally been the most stagnant major radio format.
In totally unrelated news, this site will be tomorrow’s stop on the Virtual Book Tour. Last week, I interviewed Mary Roach, author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. A transcript will run tomorrow.