40 Year Itch: Heroes of the Ginza

Queen: Now I'm Here

[Purchase]

   After a ten day vacation in Hawaii, following the US leg of their Sheer Heart Attack Tour, Queen arrived in Japan where they were met by 3,000 fans at the airport.

  "Now we were the Beatles" guitarist Brian May would later say. "We literally had to be carried over the heads of these kids...this wasn't a rock band thing, this was being a teen idol".

  Sumo wrestlers were hired as bodyguards during the concerts but they could do nothing to prevent the teenage girls from sweeping over them to the front of the stage. Hysteria followed Queen wherever they ventured so each member was assigned his own bodyguard.

    In August they'd be back in the studio to begin recording A Night at the Opera where the band and producer Roy Thomas Baker would face a phenomenal challenge, recording a long tune with many twists and turns and even some operatic "Gallileo"s tossed in for good measure. It was known to the rest of Queen as  "Fred's Thing". But it would be known to the world as "Bohemian Rhapsody".

40 Year Itch: The Campus Report

What a few college radio stations were playing in December 1973

                    WSND- AM U of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana

1. Lou Reed Berlin

            2. Lighthouse "Pretty Lady"

3. Maria Muldaur

             Though best known for "Midnight at the Oasis", Maria Muldaur's debut album is a delightful collection of rock, blues, jug band, feel good music that will brighten anyone's day.

WTUL-FM Tulane University, New Orleans LA

1. PFM Photos of Ghosts

2. Billy Cobham Spectrum

             3. John Coltrane Concert in Japan

Concert in Japan is the original two disc live set released in 1973 but recorded in Tokyo in July of 1966. Coltrane's wife Alice plays piano. Pharoah Sanders, Rashied Ali and Jimmy Garrison make up the rest of the band. It's now part of a four CD box set.

WECI-FM Earlham College , Richmond, Indiana

1. Public Foot the Roman

2. New Heritage Keyboard Quintet NHKQ

3. Hawkwind Space Ritual

   Cambridge England prog rockers Public Foot the Roman  found a sweet spot between Wishbone Ash's double guitar attack and Yes's vocals and keyboards.