I suggested on last Friday’s program that Nile Rodgers killed Rock music. I’d like to qualify my remarks and shed a little light on Rodger’s musical history from session rock guitarist to Disco king.

While still in his teens, Rodgers was in New York recording sessions and a member of the Sesame Street Band. (Perhaps this is where he began to get confused?) He met a bassist named Bernard Edwards and they formed a ROCK band in 1970. They played successfully in NYC but found it difficult to get a recording contract partially because the label execs couldn’t accept a couple of black guys performing ROCK music.
After years of trying, they gave up on rock and in 1977 formed Chic with some fellow musicians. Chic had a string of Disco hits including Everybody Dance, Le Freak, Dance, Dance, Dance, I Want Your Love and a personal favorite of mine, Good Times (which was later sampled for use in the first crossover Rap music hit, Rappers Delight).

On top of the huge success of Chic, Rodgers and Edwards went on to produce and write for other artists, using CHIC to perform everything musically and vocally except lead vocals. Those productions with Norma Jean Wright, Sister Sledge, Diana Ross, Johnny Mathis(!) and Debbie Harry (of Blondie fame) among others on hits such as “Saturday”, “He’s The Greatest Dancer”, “We Are Family”, “Spacer”, “Upside Down”, “I’m Coming Out” and “Backfired” to name a few. Rodgers himself also produced many major hit records such as Sister Sledge’s We Are Family, Madonna’s Like A Virgin, two albums by Duran Duran, and various projects for Jeff Beck, Mick Jagger, Thompson Twins, Al Jarreau (including the theme to “Moonlighting”!), The B-52’s, David Bowie, David Lee Roth, and more recently Michael Bolton, Soul Decision, and MorrisonPoe. Believe me, this is a short list of the artists he has produced.
To be fair to Chic, while they are most often associated with Disco, the music is really more of a funky blend of R&B, Rock and Jazz stylings. They were really quite a breakthrough band which are amongst those credited with salvaging the music industry as the Rock era suffered it’s first real slump in sales and quality.

Nile Rodgers has been noted to have influenced some Rock legends such as Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan.  Still scratching my head over this.
The introduction of heavy string support on Chic’s debut album and the over-produced singing tracks are among the reasons why I site Rodgers as the man who killed Rock music. Although these facets of music styling were not his invention, he used them to further his recording and financial success. In reality, Nile Rodgers seems more of a talented opportunist. He saw a hole and he filled it, now where’s ma-money?

The instrumental ballad Savoir Faire from Chic’s debut C’est Chic is the stuff of George Benson. At Last I Am Free sounds to have inspired much of Prince’s slow and easy attitude toward ballads. Sometimes You Win could have been penned by the BeeGee’s (who also started out as a Rock band, by the way). The final song from this album is called Bone (Funny) and is an upbeat instrumental dance tune with the sound of laughter running in the background. This song was obviously a filler with no great aspiration. The biggest hit from the album was Le Freak which when combined with the name of the band made the populous of the time think they were a French band, giving them cultural superiority over our lame US bands. (Isn’t it always the ‘guy from England’ or the ‘chick from Russia’ that seems to get all the attention in high school?)
Anyway, European envy aside, Nile Rodgers has certainly influenced music and I believe that influence was born of anger for not being considered a proper rocker. On top of that the success of Disco lead many of the great rocking bands to falter under the enormous pressure of the record companies to put out a “Disco Song”. We all cried as one-by-one our heros, rock legends, fell to the pressure of the almighty dollar and SOLD OUT to Disco!

On Friday’s Jared Morris Show I intend to expose these turncoats. Will you join me?

Yippie, everyone can be a star on Youtube!  Some recent highlights with commentary:

Who knew the Lewes Fire Department could “rock so hard?”

Homosexual in drag talks about “Rehomo the gay beach” (in “slower lower”)

Milford High School kid tapes his day in school. (This is part II of a III part series, with a lot of classroom time wasted, and disrespect shown toward the classroom guest speaker. Part I in the series shows a disorderly class with lots of talking, time wasting and general disorder.)

Trailer for the movie featuring the Rehoboth Beach Lifeguards.

I spoke to Regional Operations Chairman of MADD Chesapeake - Joe Sikes today and he informed me that Yesterday there was an intruder in the MADD Delaware office. According to Sikes, someone came into the office, started yelling, turning over tables and causing a general scene. The one MADD staffer who was in the building was so scared (s)he had to leave the building.

Is there any wonder that this type of thing is occurring when the press has been so malicious lately.

I’ve seen headlines “I’m angry at MADD” - “uproar over MADD’s support of OCPD”

I even heard word that one of the MADD higher ups may be in danger of leaving her post due to anger directed towards the organization.

Where do you get off treating a volunteer organization that works awful hard to keep you safer like that?

Take a look inward, find out where all the anger is coming from and stay clear of people who are actually trying to do good in the world.

Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge manager Jonathan Schafler continues his crusade against cigarette butts in Delaware, by posting these signs in areas where smokers drop a lot of butts.  (That’s everywhere if you start looking around!)

Click for large version.

Jonathan tells me, he is developing a character that will accompany the slogan. I like his idea of a 5 cent deposit on cigarette butts.

 

I believe Delaware Senate Bill 4 is one of the most important pieces of legislation ever introduced in Dover.  A simple bill, it would define the General Assembly as a “public body” in our Freedom of Information Act.  State lawmakers exempted themselves from the law when first passing the FOIA rules.  It is ridiculous to argue that the General Assembly is not a “public body”, so I congratulate Senator Peterson and her co-sponsors, Senators Sokola, Copeland, Bonini, McBride and Cloutier along with  Representatives Gilligan, Maier, McWilliams, and Keeley. 

Absent from the bill are lawmakers from Sussex County!  The culture of secrecy is alive and well here in slower lower.  Pete? John? Joe? Gerald? Danny? Thurman? Gary? George? George?  What are you guys trying to hide?

 

UPDATE:  Senator George Bunting faxed me a letter stating he was asked, and will sign on as a sponsor of this bill!  Anyone else?

Republican Jud Bennett, sent this from his Coastal Conservative Network:

BREAKING:

Atkins calls for an ethics investigation of himself.

Read it here.

House Republican spokesman Joe Fulgahm ads:

“Attached is a pdf of the letter John Atkins discussed with you a few moments ago.

     Delaware made headlines a few years ago when we passed the Clean Indoor Air Act, one of the most restrictive anti-smoking laws in the nation.  Are we ready to take the next step? 

     The Bangor, Maine, City Council has approved a measure that makes it illegal to smoke in vehicles if children are present. The 6-3 vote makes Bangor the first municipality in Maine with such a law, although similar statewide bans are in place in Arkansas and Louisiana and are being considered in other states. The law goes into effect next week.  Bangor City Councilor Patricia Blanchette — herself a smoker — told AP that people who smoke with children present in the confined space of a vehicle might as well be deliberately trying to kill them. But Councilor Susan Hawes was opposed to the legislation, saying police should concentrate on more important issues, and that there’s already too much government intervention in people’s lives.
     If we ban smoking to “protect” your local waitress, shouldn’t we do the same for our children?
 

Dagsboro man, Bill Graham is looking for witness who observed his wife’s car accident on October 23rd, 2006 to help with an insurance claim.

Graham’s wife recieved an inattentive driving charge, however, here’s how Bill said it went down.

At appox 11:01am, in the Lewes/Rehoboth area of RT. 1 and RT. 9, a tractor trailer “popped a gasket” and leaked a huge pool of oil into the intersection. Graham’s wife, as she proceeded into the intersection, lost control of her vehicle, started hydro-plaining and “doing doughnuts” due to the oil spill.

Graham’s wife was driving a Blue 1999 Camaro, she has blonde hair and weighs appox. 130 lbs.

Graham is asking any witness to step forward to confirm this story. He asks you call him at 302-745-1268.

Osama bin Laden has provided the environment in America for the Cheney/Bush administration to exert excessive executive branch power, leaving a virtually powerless Congress in the dust. For our democracy, this has unearthed once more a political weakness, exploited similarly by Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.

The outcome has been our diversion from the real war against our enemy terrorists, to the point where these terrorists have been strengthened, and will continue to be so strengthened as Bush escalates his Iraq War and we become detested more than ever. We need outside help in this battle; help is evaporating as we speak.

In spite of Democrat control of Congress, we will see tomorrow evening an aggressive Bush use his power to escalate his Iraq War to a new level of militarism against an enemy we cannot see. This also in spite of our recent election and current polls indicating the American people are increasingly opposed to this war; only 23% now support Bush’s performance regarding his Iraq War. We are losing this war; everyone knows that!

Then with the disapproval of both Congress and the American people, how can Cheney/Bush do this? Answer: As Commander in Chief, he has the power, even if Congress should decide not to fund the escalation! He can spend the money anyway, the pundits say.

This is a huge weakness in American governance, when the will of Congress and the American people is ignored by the Executive Branch, as I believe it will be as of Bush’s speech tomorrow.

Were we to have a Parliamentary form of government instead of the Republic that we do have, a lack of confidence vote would bring down the majority party leader, and new elections would then be held. For us, this cannot happen; it constitutes a political weakness in terms of power not being in the hands of the governed, rather in the hands of a power elite, competent or not, in this case NOT!

Consequently, we need to put up with two more years of this leadership incompetence, unless we move to impeach both Cheney and Bush, putting our leadership in the hands of Nancy Pelosi, certainly more competent and truthful than that which we have, in my view.

Therefore, it just may be that impeachment is exactly what we must do; honestly, I can see no other option.

PS: For the sake of our nation, we must listen intently to the President with an open mind tomorrow evening, to see if he is able to make his case convincingly, but taking into account also the track record we have already witnessed since January 2001. Let us also see if he owns up to this awful track record — that’s pretty important too!