RIP Kelly Holland

In the spring of 1993, I was a junior at Syracuse University and my friend and I had part-time gigs at local radio stations.  One day, I was visiting Scooter in his studio at Syracuse rock station 95x when he waved a CD single in the air.  "Dude", he said excitedly.  "You've got to hear this.  It's gonna be the song of the summer."  The song was "Peace Pipe" by a band called Cry of Love.

Fast forward 10 years later, and I'm a newbie at 96rock when a guy by the name of Warren Hall sets up a meeting with me.  Warren had just started a burgeoning website called zspotlight.com, and he brought along a guy who played in a local cover band called Crush to discuss an event we were promoting together.  He introduced himself as Kelly Holland, and I couldn't quite figure out where I knew that name from.  "Kelly used to play in a band called Cry of Love", Warren mentioned.  My mouth literally dropped.

Kelly Holland had one of the great voices in rock, and Cry of Love was a band loaded with talent - other members moved on to Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Black Crowes - but Kelly was only with the band for one album.  It was, by far, the band's biggest album, and by measure of Billboard charting ("Peace Pipe" was a #1 Billboard mainstream rock hit), Cry of Love was one of the most successful bands to come out of Raleigh.

Over the years, he played in various local bands including drums & vocals for Crush, the most well-known Triangle cover band.  Those that got a chance to see him were treated to one of Raleigh's best.

Kelly Holland died of a severe abdominal infection early this morning at the age of 52.

Here is the obituary from the News & Observer's David Menconi:

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/02/24/3650673/kelly-holly-lead-voice-of-cry.html

Rest in Peace.

Foster
P.R.O. (Petty RadioHead Officer)

NC Auto Expo Fun!

The NC International Auto Expo was held at the State Fairgrounds over the weekend, and undoubtedly got off to a rough start on opening day Thursday thanks to a little winter storm that made its way through our area.

Fortunately by the time the weekend rolled around, folks were sick of cabin fever and ready to get out of the house to see some cars!

It's one of the best family events around, as kids love to get in the cars and take pictures while the grown ups ooh and aah over some of the finest luxury cars seen anywhere like Ferraris and a $315,000 Aston Martin - shaken, not stirred.

The NC International Auto Expo is also a huge automobile showroom, with 2014 and brand new 2015 cars and trucks available to see and test drive.

Radio 96.1 and DJ Collin Y hosted car-themed Jeopardy on Saturday morning - overall, an awesome event!

Foster

Radio 96.1

Billy Joel Concert Review

I'll admit - I'm a big, big Billy Joel fan.

There are some artists of which you know the hits, and some you know most of the catalog - and I'm pretty intimate with most Billy Joel albums.  Having seen him in concert numerous times over the years, I know the general drill - you'll usually get a high energy greatest hits set, with a spot or two for a rare nugget for the hardcore fans.

Now that Billy has been at it for 40 years, he's made it clear he doesn't just want to play the hits anymore - and that was made evident from the get go at PNC Arena last night with the opener "Miami 2017".  The first 45 minutes of the show was filled with great moments of joy for huge fans (otherwise known as bathroom breaks for casual fans).  This included songs like "Summer, Highland Falls" (my favorite Billy Joel song), "Zanzibar", and "Sometimes A Fantasy".

As I predicted on Twitter, Billy (who has claimed the Beatles appearance on Ed Sullivan inspired him to pursue a career in music) played a Beatles cover last night, on the 50th anniversary of that show - in fact he played three Beatles songs.  "Can't Buy Me Love", "The Night Before", and "She Loves You" all sounded fantastic.

As usual, the audience was bombarded with hits in the last hour.  I don't think you'll ever see a Billy Joel show lacking "Movin' Out", "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant", "Piano Man", "You May Be Right", "It's Still Rock n Roll To Me", or "Only The Good Die Young" (though he oddly swapped out "Big Shot" for "We Didn't Start the Fire").

Billy's voice was in better form than it's been in many years.  While in the recent past he's used background singers for the high notes, this time he was nailing even the most challenging of them.  Radio 96.1 and DJ Collin Y hosted Billy Joel karaoke before the show, making it a memorable evening from start to finish.

Foster
P.R.O. (Petty RadioHead Officer)
Radio 96.1

Review: The Monuments Men

Monuments Men, the new movie directed by and starring George Clooney, is out on Friday. I joined many of you last night at the Regal Cinema North Hills for a sneak peek.

You can watch the trailer above, or I can summarize it for you here:  the movie is based on a book, which chronicles the true story of a platoon of guys who are art scholars and the like who go into Europe during World War II to rescue, recover, and return stolen works of art from all across Europe.  It is described on IMDB.com as "an action drama." It was supposed to premiere, at least in some theaters, before the end of 2013 so that it could be considered for an Oscar.  It was moved out of "Oscar Season" to February, and after seeing it I know why.

The movie, which features no less than 4 Oscar winners and one Oscar nominated actor, has a huge cast.  It's like Ocean's Eleven, but during World War II.  Because the cast is so huge, you never get to actually get to know any one of the characters, not even Clooney's own (seemingly) main character, Frank Stokes.  None of the storylines or even some backstory are really fleshed out.  Therefore, when a character (spoiler alert!) dies, you aren't that invested in them anyway.  I actually found myself guessing when some characters would bite it in the film.


The movie itself jumps around a lot, and I think it has to do with the fact that the cast is huge and everyone needs some sort of screen time.  As a result, it felt sort of incongruent and sometimes confusing.  I mentioned before that IMDB calls it "an action drama."  I brought that up because I couldn't figure out while watching it whether the movie was an action film, a drama, or was a comedic drama.  The Monuments Men does all of those things and does none of them well.  The jokes felt forced, and when a dramatic moment was coming, (spoiler alert, again!) like when Stokes and his gang find barrels of gold that turn out to be gold teeth taken from Jewish people at concentration camps, you not only figured out that there were teeth in the barrels, but you kind of saw it coming.  You're not that invested in the drama part anyway, because you keep waiting for the laugh. And, the action. There really isn't much at all.

To sum up:  I can see why The Monuments Men was moved from Oscar Season.  It wasn't a bad  film, per se.  But it certainly wasn't good. If I were to give it a grade, I'd go with C+.

Alli


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