Rocks stars conquer the cosmos!

The rapid growth of self-storage facilities across the United States is a testimony to Americans having more stuff than they know what to do with. Before you rent a unit for your excess stuff,read this:

Do You Really Need This Stuff? – If you put something in self-storage, it’s obviously not something you’re going to need every day. Think long and hard about selling those extra possession or simply throwing it away. It will say you that monthly rental fee.

Think of Moving to Another Until Every Once in a While – The longer you stay, the more your rental fees are going to increase. Meanwhile, many storage facilities offer significantly lower rates to new customers. So, it pays to shop around every so often.

The Colder the Weather, the Lower the Rates – On average, rental rates decrease in the winter months, particularly in February. Conversely, rates are at their highest in July. So, when you rent is important.

Finally, if you do decide to use a storage facility, check with the agency that insures your home to make sure anything you store in that unit is still covered by your homeowner’s policy.

Doctors say the best way to say healthy AND lose weight is to make sure your meals are built around fiber-rich foods such as:

• Fruits
• Vegetables
• Beans (legumes, not green beans)
• Nuts
• Seeds
• Whole Grains

That kind of diet can actually encourage the grow of microbes in your body associated with weight loss. You’ll also sleep better, think more sharply and catch fewer colds!

For decades now, “Weird Al” Yankovic’s name has been synonymous with clever song parodies of popular songs. But there was another parody artist well before “Weird Al,” one who had his own string of hits and actually provided a young Mr. Yankovic with inspiration – Stan Freberg!

Freberg began his career doing character voices for Warner Brothers cartoons. He then moved on to Capitol Records, where he provided voices for the early Bozo record albums. Although Pinto Colvig was the voice of Bozo, Freberg provided other character voices.

At Capitol Records, Freberg began crafting clever parodies of the pop culture of the American 1950s. He hit gold with a parody of Dragnet called “Saint George & the Dragon Net.” It stunned the recording industry when it went all the way to #1 in 1953. He followed that with a sequel, “Little Blue Riding Hood” (“the color has been changed to protect the innocent”). That record also reached the top 10.

Freberg interspersed his little TV show parodies with parodies of actual songs, including “Try” (making fun of Johnny Ray’s hit “Cry”) and “C’est Si Bon.”

As rock & roll gathered steam, Freberg inevitably turned his attention to that, cranking out parodies of “Sh-Boom,” “Heartbreak Hotel,” & “The Great Pretender.” In all, he placed 13 records in the Top 40 between 1951 and 1959. His most enduring recording was “Green Chri$tmas,” a parody of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” neatly satirizing America’s over-commercialization of the holiday. As Christmas has only gotten even more commercialized, his parody still receives fresh airplay every December.

Freberg then turned his attention to advertising, where he helped pioneer the use of outrageous humor in commercials, including a spot that featured Ann Miller tap dancing on top of a giant can of soup.

Most of Freberg’s hit parodies remain available on CD and from music streaming services.

Frankie & Annette usually get all the attention, so to kick off this summer, we thought we'd salute Ride the Wild Surf & start our summer with Susan Hart, Shelly Fabares & Barbara Eden (Eden having to dye her hair red because Fabares dyed hers blond).

In our rush to legalize weed, aren't we forgetting somethingz?

After all, these are authentic police cases, right?

Remember when life was this simple (BTW - The band seems to have had terrible taste in albums)?

With the passing of songwriter/producer Jim Steinman last week, we were surprised at how many people were unaware of his other contributions to pop history outside of his collaboration with Meat Loaf on the 3 Bat Out of Hell Albums as well as Dead Ringer and Braver Than We Are.

As we mentioned in our brief obituary, Steinman recorded one solo album, Bad for Good. Those songs were intended for a follow-up to Bat Out of Hell, but problems with Meat Loaf led Steinman to record these songs himself. Ironically, over the years, Meat Loaf has recorded or performed nearly all of them; so, if you’re diligent, you can compile your own Bad for Good playlist featuring Mr. Loaf’s versions.

The exceptions would be for “Life & Death of an American Guitar” (which likely would have been voiced by Steinman anyway – similar to Steinman voicing the “Wolf with the Red Roses” speech that precedes “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth” on Bat Out of Hell) and “Stark Raving Love.” “Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire” is a little bit tricky as Meat Loaf has never released a studio version of this track, but did perform it in his live shows back in the day. As such, many video clips of Meat Loaf performing this song live exist via YouTube.

Now, once we get past Meat Loaf, Steinman also collaborated with Broadway behemoth Andrew Lloyd Webber on a stage musical called Whistle Down the Wind (Webber handled the music, Steinman contributed the lyrics). The show has seen productions in the UK and the US as well as a “for-records-only” version. A couple of the songs from the show have also been covered by other artists over the years – most notably “No Matter What,” which was a huge hit in England for Boyzone (yes, Meat Loaf has also covered this one).

Unquestionably, Steinman’s most successful recording, bar none, was “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” which he wrote and produced for Bonnie Tyler in 1983. The song topped the charts in countries all over the world, racking up sales of more than 6 million copies and has been recognized as one the absolutely most popular songs to be released during the 1980’s.

But here are some of the other songs Steinman wrote (many of which he also produced):

Yvonne Elliman – “Happy Ending” (1973 – Steinman’s big break as a songwriter)

Barry Manilow – “Read ‘Em and Weep”

Air Supply – “Making Love Out of Nothing at All”

Fire, Inc. – “Nowhere Fast” (from the soundtrack of the film Streets of Fire)

Fire, Inc. – “Tonight Is What It Means to Be Young” (Ditto)

Taylor Dayne – “Original Sin” (Written for the movie The Shadow)

Barbra Streisand – “Left in the Dark”

WWE – “Hulk Hogan’s Theme”

Bonnie Tyler – “Holding Out for a Hero” (Another big hit in the U.S. & several other countries)

Sisters of Mercy – “More”

Celine Dion – “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” (Another #1 single)

Everly Brothers – “A Kiss Is a Terrible Thing to Waste” (Cover of a song from Whistle Down the Wind)

This list is by no means complete, so if you love Steinman’s songs, we wish you happy hunting and hope this will give you a great start!

They were so cute as kids...