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Showing posts from December, 2009

Centerfield Maz's Top 20 Albums of 2009

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Hard rock is alive and well but not in the United States. For me, most of the best new music is coming out of Europe. Gothic Metal is currently pretty much the mainstream in Europe right now. This sub genre of Heavy Metal takes many different forms. I have become a huge fan of the female fronted Goth bands. Some of it can be labeled as Gothic Femme Metal and others as Symphonic Metal. I only hope America will catch on and this wave can save the music scene over here. There are still the classic rock acts which will continue to dominate the concert venues, and some good female jazz vocalist as well. #1 LACUNA COIL: SHALLOW LIFE This great Italian ba nd is out of Milan, Italy and have broken into the American mainstream. H opefully they will open the door on European Gothic Metal in America. The SHALLOW LIFE debuted at #16 on the US Billboard charts & became Lacuna Coil's first top 20 US Album. They have toured North America in small clubs. The band is fronted by two singers

Remembering George Michael & "The Sports Machine"

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George Michael was born on March 24, 1939 at St. Louis Missouri. He began promoting Motown in the Mid West and later moved to the Philadelphia area as an AM DJ, until 1966. He then came to New York City and remained there for over a decade on 77 WABC AM Radio during it's hey day. I remember him when I first started getting into music, during my grade school years of the mid seventies. AM radio was still the thing and 77 WABC was #1, before 66 NBC took over and then we all switched to FM by the end of the decade. Next time Michael appeared in my life was on Sunday Nights, on the first nationally syndicated sports highlight show. The show was simply titled The Ge orge Michael Sports Machine and it began in the early eighties. Back in the day before ESPN & s ports networks, all we had was Howard Cosell's Monday Night Football, Halftime highlights & the baseball Games of the Week to know what was happening around the leagues. Every Sunday before going to bed for school

"The Panamanian Express"- 1970's Oakland A's: Alan Lewis

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In the late sixties A’s owned Charlie Finley was putting together a team that would win three straight World Series titles and five straight divisions. He believed in anything that would lead to wins, and speed was a big part of the game. In 1967 he brought in the first of his full time pinch runners, his name was Alan Lewis “the Panamanian Express”. Alan Sydney Lewis was born on December 12, 1941 in Panama. He had success in the minors, batting .300 and stealing 116 bases in 1966. He was brought up to the A’s in 1967 appearing in 34 games, coming to bat only six times getting one hit. He was primarily used as pinch runner, stealing 14 bases while scoring 7 runs. He played for six years with Oakland, appearing in 156 games, batting a lowly .206 (6 hits in only 29 at bats). He stole an average of seven to eight bases a year after his rookie season, scoring 47 runs, an average of eight runs scored per season. In his last season of 1973, he never came to bat at all, but was still success