You Got Chocolate In My Musical Peanut Butter!

You know, WSIE, the former jazz station and now smooth jazz “The Sound” from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, is not afraid to mix in some interesting musical choices. In addition to Sacha Boutros, Janet Evra, and Ashley Pezzotti (along with other favorites like Hiroshima, Keiko Matsui, Cindy Bradley, Al Jarreau, and so on).

Sometimes, they mix in a little Stevie Ray Vaughn and Steely Dan (and Donald Fagen solo). So they go a little towards blues rock. Today, they were all:

BTO, “Looking Out For Number One”.

You know, it’s bluesy enough to fit in with the sound. But some of us are old enough to consider BTO to be Album-Oriented Rock (later known as Classic Rock).

Fun story: I saw BTO in concert once. I have already mentioned it once, but I haven’t told you the whole story. BTO was the early afternoon act on one of the side stages at Summerfest in the early 1990s, and Weird Al was scheduled after them. So I stood on a bench amidst a bunch of aging bikers and didn’t think anything of it. I danced poorly, probably thrashed a bit, and had a great time. Then, after BTO finished, the bikers meandered off, and the Weird Al crowd of thirteen year olds mustered in, and many of them demonstrated Attitude brokered from being away from Mom for the first time, and they were getting a little restive. So I bailed out on Weird Al, the only chance I’ve had to see him live for nothing but the price of a Summerfest ticket, because I was either going to have to deal with abuse from thirteen-year-old tough guys or might end up in a scuffle with said tough guys, and even if I won (not a sure thing as I was a hundred and twenty gangly pounds at eighteen), I would have lost. You know, it probably wouldn’t have been like that, but I tend to extrapolate every conflict into physical violence as I lack the tact to defuse a situation.

Wait, where was I? Oh, yes, listening to WSIE. Which has returned to its more normal playlist of Diana Krall and Al Jarreau whilst I’ve been typing this and wondering exactly how bad I come off relating the BTO anecdote en toto. Not Toto. That’s another band entirely, and I’m sure WSIE could play some selections from them no problem.

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