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The CHIRP Blog
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Terri Nunn Edition
(Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
Today we celebrate the birthday of Terri Nunn, lead singer of the American New Wave band Berlin. In addition to singing, Nunn appeared in several extremely '80s TV shows (T.J. Hooker, Lou Grant) and even auditioned for the role of Princess Leia in Star Wars. Fortunately for her band mates, she also kept her focus on music. In a sea of electronic blips and bleeps, Nunn had the kind of solid vocal punch that stood up to and elevated the synth-pop sounds behind her, putting her in the same league with the era's top front-women like Belinda Carlisle and Debbie Harry.
Combining a hair spray and skinny ties New Wave aesthetic with an air of '70s-style Studio 54 decadence, Berlin had success with chart hits "The Metro," "No More Words," and "Sex (I'm A...)." For a brief moment the band hit the stratosphere with a song written for the blockbuster (and also extremely '80s) movie Top Gun. "Take My Breath Away" (1986), written and produced by Giorgio Moroder, was far and away the band's biggest hit, but ironically also led to the end of the line as the group broke up in 1987. Nunn reformed the band with different personnel ten years later and today they work the '80s nostalgia circuit while also producing new material.
Wish Ms. Nunn a happy birthday by pressing the "shuffle" button on your MP3 player and sharing the first 10 songs you hear:
Tyler Clark presents: Local Mythologies writesCHIRP Radio Road Trips: Indianapolis
Pitchfork. Lollapalooza. Riot Fest. If you never left Chicago between the months of June and September, you could make more great summer music memories than some people make in a lifetime. Although we're partial to the city we call home, we here at CHIRP also understand the value of exploring the world while the weather's still nice. In our new Radio Road Trips series, we'll be profiling the music scenes and secrets of Midwestern cities within driving distance from Chicago. This week: Indianapolis.
Most Musical Neighborhood: For years, Broad Ripple reigned as the Indianapolis's go-to hip neighborhood, but a decade of gradual bro-ification rendered the once-proud strip packed with sports bars, spray tans, and backwards baseball caps. Thus, if Broad Ripple is Indianapolis's Wicker Park, think of Fountain Square as its Logan Square. Bouncing back from its nadir in the 1970s (when construction of I-465 cut the neighborhood off from the rest of downtown), the once-seedy square is now home to some of the city's most vital arts and music venues.
SKaiser writesWill You Take the Year-Long Car For Bike Challenge?
This is the moment we bring you Bill Bushnell: 2012 Tour de Fat winner of the Car Trader challenge. He sat down with CHIRP Radio to share his experience of trading horsepower for legpower and biking the mean streets of Chicago.
Read on to see how Bill's challenge lasted over a year and what it really means to show up to work with an icy beard and smile on your face.
Stay tuned over the next couple weeks as we feature Car Traders of Tour de Fat past. CHIRP Radio is partnered with New Belgium Brewery for the 2015 Tour de Fat celebration in Palmer Square on Saturday, July 11.
CHIRP: Where do you currently live and what are you doing these days?
Bushnell: I'm living in the suburb of Elmhurst and I'm working as a web developer for a company in Glenview
CHIRP: Why did you take the challenge to give up your car?
Bushnell: A few years ago, gas prices were spiking and as I was standing at a gas pump watching hours of my life tick away with each gallon going into the car, I thought that there must be a better way. It sparked me to think about my commute differently, not driving my commute as a necessary, but a choice I was making everything morning. I saved up a bit, bought a relatively inexpensive bike since that's all I could afford at the time, and started commuting by bike. After a couple months of intermittent bike commuting, I was loving it, but my bike wasn't up to the challenge. I decided that the commuting by bike was something that I really wanted to do, but it was going to be all or nothing for me. So I threw my hat in the ring for the car trade, and was lucky enough to be selected. I traded the car, bought a new, more durable bike, and some accessories to make the commute easier and more feasible despite whatever weather may come out way. The rest is, shall we say, history.
SKaiser writesThe Week That Was and Will Be: What’s Happening at CHIRP Radio (6/22/2015)
NEW MEDIA:
- Shawna Kaiser interviews (the first in our series) 2014 Tour de Fat Car Trader Adam Wonak
- The First Time: First Lie with Ben Joravsky, produced by Dan Epstein
- Eddie Sayago writes Top Five Yo La Tengo Cover Songs
- Friday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday, Dave Lambert!
COMING UP THIS WEEK:
- Come out for CHIRP Night at the Whistler with Bleach Party and the Van Goghs on Wednesday, June 24th at 8:30 PM (2421 N Milwaukee)
- Become a volunteer with CHIRP Radio! RSVP to the New Volunteer Orientation at tbe Conrad Sulzer Library (4455 N Lincoln) on Thursday, June 25th at 7:00 PM
- CHIRP Radio welcomes Becca Stevens to Old Town School of Folk Music (4544 N Lincoln) on Thursday, June 25th at 8:00 PM
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Dave Lambert Edition
For today's MP3 Shuffle we celebrate the posthumous birthday of jazz vocalist and pioneer Dave Lambert. During the Hep-Cat heights of the 1950s and '60s Jazz scene, Lambert was one of the artists who perfected a singing style called vocalese, a technique by which a singer puts words to melodies and solos originally written for instruments (as opposed to scat singing, where a vocalist makes non-word sounds and basically becomes another instrument).
Lambert teamed up with fellow vocalists Jon Hendricks and Anne Ross to form a trio whose prowess in interpreting the complex Bee-Bop charts of musicians like Charlie Parker and John Coltrane earned them a following as The Hottest New Group in Jazz (which was also the name of their biggest album, released in 1960).
Lambert tragically died in an auto accident at age 49, but he left behind a truly unique art form that's still used by vocalists seeking to expand their repertoire. Sing a few notes in his honor by taking your MP3 player, pressing the "shuffle" button, and sharing the first 10 songs you hear: