Looking At My Favorites from WCYY 2005-2016 part.1 [VIDEO]

As I plan to leave my full time spot on the radio station next week, I've been looking back at some of the tunes and bands that busted out during my 11 year run at CYY. These are some of my favorites. Been a pretty interesting 11 years of CYY music that's for sure. 

I remember playing this for a while on Spinout. Luckily CYY put it into regualr rotation eventually and it did well. I still love this song. So unique and of course unlike them as most people knew them.

In my 11 years with CYY, I'd say this is one of my favorite bands that launched during that time period. Possibly my most favorite. I've been lucky enough to see them a ton and meet up with them all over; Boston, Chicago, Iowa. Great dudes and I think they're one of the best rock bands in the world right now.

Muse was out and about before my time started at WCYY, but around the time I started (Feb 2005) is when the band really kicked into gear. "Absolution" is still my favorite record of theirs, but when the next record came out and this song was the first thing we heard; I was like what the hell is this fantastic thing? I remember saying to the record label rep for the band, "dude this song is absolutely amazing! It's legendary already to me, but who the hell is gonna play this as a single? It's too epic and too cool for radio to give it a shot." Sorry, but I felt that way. I didn't believe radio had the balls. It's long, it has so much going on and there's spaghetti western movie score influences!

Glad I was wrong. The first time I ever saw the show "Later.. with Jools Holland" (the greatest music television program of all time) his guests were John Legend, The Gypsy Kings, The Raconteurs, Amy Winehouse and Muse. Quite an episode. Muse closed with this and I think it's one of the most striking music performances I've ever seen on TV.

Also around the time I started at CYY, My Chemical Romance was tearing it up. Man we played them a mess huh? You guys were nutty for that band. I wasn't super super into the Warped Tour, emo scene stuff. I was selective to the ones I got into. I thought a lot of it was too similar and easily forgettable. These guys were a bit next level though. This song, I still love a lot to this day. When the hook comes in I always hear Cheap Trick. And that's a great thing in my book.

Layne Staley is one of my all time favorite rock singers. So accepting Alice in Chains with anyone else to me is not something I could completely do when they returned. I wasn't gonna boycott them or anything and William is cool and all. I just tried hard to take them as a newer version and that's all I could do. All due respect to the other three still in the band. When they came back they made it work well cause the record and the songs were damn good. I heard the sound, the influence and Jerry's greatness, but I wasn't comparing them to the original AIC. Live, that's another story. I hated seeing them live like this. After a few songs I walked out. I just couldn't enjoy it, them playing the old songs. I just couldn't do it. The new stuff, sure. They brought that strong and that's all I took from this version of Alice; a new band and I wanted nothing else. On album and on the air the new tunes were fantastic.  I'll never tire of these two that's for sure.

Blur was one of the biggest bands of the 90's... in the UK. Over here, most people knew them for one song, "Song 2". Woo Hoo! That song wasn't even like them really either. When the singer Damon Albarn started up Gorillaz, I'm not sure most Americans even knew who he was. Might still not know! Damon smashed up hip hop, alternative rock, dance and pop. For a while at the start they chose only to be presented as cartoon characters in videos and interviews; preserving their identities. Nice touch. When record two came out, "Demon Days", this tune made a lot of noise with the help of old favorites of mine De La Soul. This is a CYY classic now for sure too.

I really like Metric. I played stuff from them right when I started on Spinout. They have quite a catalog out by the way. They blew up, so to speak, a bit more with this album "Fantasies". We played "Help I'm Alive" and this tune. They write great tunes and Emily friggin rules. I kinda like Emily. She's pretty cool. And awesome.