Posted on Sat, Mar. 08, 2008
Little Steven makes the old brand-new on ‘Underground Garage’About 20 minutes into the 304th episode of “Underground Garage,” the radio show’s host, Little Steven, gives his listeners a slice of history behind one of the songs he’d just played:
“… ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ was a B-side. You should live so long, right? Yeah. Nothing special about that. ‘Let’s throw it on the B-side.’ The first of two records we’ll be playing on the show recorded at Gold Star Studios. … Written by Brian Wilson and Tony Asher, Brian taking turns with various lyric writers and somehow managing to maintain an extraordinarily consistent identity of innocence …”
Little Steven, his fans know, is Steven Van Zandt, guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. Until June he also was Silvio Dante, consigliore to mobster Tony Soprano in HBO’s “The Sopranos.”
In April, Van Zandt will celebrate his sixth anniversary as the creator and host of “Little Steven’s Underground Garage,” a two-hour syndicated radio show that strives to revive the glory days of radio and rock ’n’ roll.
The show reaches 1 million listeners in North America each week, according to Arbitron, including fans at KBLV (99.7 FM) — “The Boulevard”— which added the show Feb. 10.
Van Zandt, 57, started the show to resuscitate interest in the kind of music and the kind of radio he grew up with. The music is nuts-and-bolts rock ’n’ roll, blues and rock-pop, a spectrum that includes Iggy Pop, Sonny Boy Williamson, the Beach Boys, the Kinks and virtually any new band that fits the show’s format.
When he’s not playing music, Van Zandt is giving his listeners background on the bands and artists, and entertaining them with snippets of movie dialogue and other found sounds from the ’50s and ’60s, an era Van Zandt called “a pop-renaissance period.”
Van Zandt spoke to The Star recently about his radio show, the Springsteen tour and the infamous musical ending to his TV series.
It sure sounds like a lot of preparation goes into each show. How much time do you spend each week?
After 5 1/2 years, it now takes about 20 hours a show, with six other people helping me. We wanted to bring personality back in an old-school way. To do that, you’ve got to invest your own personality. You can’t let someone else do it. We set a high standard, and we did right away. Now we’ve got to maintain it. … The basic idea is to put so much work into it, it sounds spontaneous.
The film dialogue really adds flavor. Who finds those snippets?
We have a person dedicated to just that. In the early years, I literally picked them all myself. You know, B-movies are a big part of garage culture. We like to throw in some gangster stuff for fun, and some biker movies, some sci-fi and horror movies.
When you listen to the whole show, I hope listeners get a sense of being taken to a new place, a fun place that used to be called rock ’n’ roll. We also want to make the point that this stuff is not dead… We’ve introduced 175 new bands in five years.
We very much sort of reinvented the concept of rock ’n’ roll radio … where you play a record for no other reason than it’s great. It doesn’t have to have great sales or be on a chart or even be released in America. There’s a big international garage scene going on, and we are the flagship for it.
Do you repeat songs?
We make a point to repeat new songs. We want to sell records; we’re old-school that way. We’ll give 10 best new records play for a good six to eight weeks to get them in people’s heads a bit. That’s how things sell, by repetition. Plus we’re only on the air once a week.
How much music do you listen to in a week?
The entire office is one big A&R (artist and repertoire) unit, but I still listen to between 20 and 30 albums a week. We’re picky; we try to keep our standards high. We’re on the biggest stations in the country, and they play the best of classic rock over the past 30 or 40 years. We want to complement them.
How does the new music measure up to the old?
Once bands realized they’re making a record that will be heard by more than their immediate family, the records started to improve. Bands took a more professional approach. It’s not about who you know or how big the label is; if it’s great, we’ll play it.
The whole concept of sales is different in the garage world. Bands don’t spend $200,000 on a record; they spend $5,000 or $10,000 and, amazingly enough, you don’t notice the difference.
Do you have any sense of who’s listening — age demographics?
We get e-mails from listeners 12-, 14-year-olds saying, “Thank you for turning me onto that group called the Kinks. I’d never heard of them or the Animals or those guys you call the Hollies.” Their first reactions are the same as ours were: “Who is this guy Eddie Cochran?” It still sounds fresh. It’s really timeless.
Let’s talk about your band. The latest Springsteen album has several straight-forward, meat-and-potato rock and pop-rock songs on it, stuff that sounds perfect for your format.
I agree. It’s a wonderful evolution, sort of “old is new” in a way, “it” being a pop-rock style Bruce has always been good at. But he tended to keep a little separation between his more serious songs and his more fun songs. This was the first time since “The River” where things were more integrated. It’s all there in each song…They’re fun and melodic, but they have some depth. He’s really very good at it.
Is it fun to play them live?
Oh, yeah. They translate immediately live. Have you seen the show? Are we coming to Kansas City in this leg?
We’re not on the schedule yet. Does the tour go beyond July?
As far as I’ve heard, we’ll be out through October. We’ll probably hit Europe and then come back (to the U.S.). I haven’t seen the schedule, but we’re going to be out quite a bit for the rest of the year. …
How did it feel to have Journey be the last band played on “The Sopranos”?
(Laughs for several seconds.) Let me put it this way: I spent three weeks trying to talk David (Chase) out of it. It was nothing personal; no insult intended but … c’mon. In the end he said, “This is something (Tony) would play; it’s what he’s into.” And that’s probably true. But I said, “Good God, it’s going to be the last song; people are going to remember that. You can’t do it.”
But he stuck to his guns. He’s tough like that — no compromises.
SUNDAY NIGHTS
“Little Steven’s Underground Garage” airs from 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays on KBLV “The Boulevard” (99.7 FM).
SET LIST
Bands played on “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” Episode 303 of “Little Steven’s Underground Garage,” which aired the weekend of Jan. 18:
Music Machine, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, the Easybeats, the Hives, Blind Faith, the Urges, the Kinks, Sonny Boy Williamson, the Knickerbockers, the Launderettes, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, ALO Orchestra, Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, the Chocolate Watch Band, Leola & the Lovejoys, the Yardbirds, the Fleshtones, the Pretty Things, Laika & the Cosmonauts, Sugarman Three, the Cake, the Searchers, the Satelliters, Mink Jaguar, Sam & Dave.
Quelle:
http://www.kansascity.com/238/v-print/story/520448.html 
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