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Access Atlanta > Blog > Archives > 2006 > May > 22
Monday, May 22, 2006
He’s a morning person after all, Kicks jock says
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Given opportunities in the past to take the crucial morning slot at country radio station Kicks 101.5, afternoon jock Cadillac Jack said he didn’t feel right about it. He passed.
But after Craig Cornett’s brief, unsuccessful morning stint, Kicks gave Cadillac (real name: Hyde Choate) another trial run. This time, things were different. He liked it. He officially starts today.
“At some point, you have to take the job,” Cadillac told Buzz. “This time around, I knew I was ready.”
Kicks has had problems finding a go-to morning show since it dropped old-school jock Moby in 2002. The amiable Bandy & Bailey lasted three years but couldn’t agree on a renewal deal. That led to the short-lived Cornett experiment. But now Kicks is going with someone with whom listeners are familiar.
“They deserve to be comfortable and depend on someone they know,” Cadillac said.
His boss, Victor Sansone, said Cadillac never wastes words and has good timing and great cadence.
Cadillac, 33, will have to work with a team for the first time: former Star 94 producer Kristen Gates and veteran traffic guy Jim Vann. (News gal Jill Kelly was ousted Friday, told that Gates filled the female role without her.)
“He’s comfort food,” Sansone told Buzz. “Listeners relate to him.”
Cadillac, who is married with three children, has worked at Kicks and Eagle over the past decade. He knows he’ll be under far more scrutiny from now on.
“I’ll have to get tough skin,” he said. “I’m not a very tough-skinned person. You have to expose yourself to everything you do.”
Live-band karaoke takes off
For guitarist Curtis Clark, live-band karaoke was a bit of a lark three years ago, a way to fill the usually dead Monday nights at Virginia-Highland’s 10 High.
But Metalsome Mondays, in which the band focused on ’80s metal hits from the likes of Guns N’ Roses and Whitesnake, quickly caught on. Soon, upwards of 300 people were crowding into the tiny basement space as the band reeled off a marathon of 36 songs a night. Artists from Butch Walker to Skid Row bassist Rachel Bolan have hit the stage.
Tonight, the Metalsome quintet— which now knows 185 songs — will celebrate its unlikely success with a third-anniversary party featuring a karaoke awards show and a renovated stage. “And we got new ceiling fans that work!” Clark said. (Details at www.metalsome.net.)
Other bands have copied Metalsome but failed to capture the zeitgeist.
“We have created a family” on Monday nights, Clark told Buzz. “The crowd knows we are sincerely enjoying what we’re playing. It’s not a goof.”
Metalsome has since added a second night at 10 High, on Saturdays, and a weekly Thursday night gig at the Wild Wing Cafe in Alpharetta. The band also gets corporate gigs, from Motorola to the Cartoon Network. A radio station flew them to Baltimore for a festival and paid them $12,000.
“We were saying, ‘What’s going on?’ ” Clark said. “I never got any of this playing original music.”
Strange encounter
Fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger went ballistic on Axl Rose last week, though not because Rose hasn’t released a Guns N’ Roses album in more than a decade.
At a birthday party for Rosario Dawson at a New York City nightclub, Rose told an L.A. radio station that he had moved the drink of Hilfiger’s girlfriend so it wouldn’t spill. Hilfiger got angry, began punching Rose’s arm and swore at him. Club security, Rose said, kicked Hilfiger out.
Rose described the incident as “the most surreal thing that has happened in my life.” No comment from Hilfiger.
Chicks’ Maines still defiant
The ever-defiant Dixie Chicks will hit Philips Arena on Oct. 17. The trio sold it out in 2003 — before Natalie Maines dissed President Bush on the eve of the war in Iraq. In Time magazine’s cover story out this week, Maines wasn’t ready to make nice. “I apologized for disrespecting the office of the president, but I don’t feel that way anymore,” she said. “I don’t feel he is owed any respect whatsoever.” Her record label execs must be popping a lot of Valium.
Celebrity birthdays
Songwriter Bernie Taupin is 56. Singer Morrissey is 47. Singer Johnny Gill is 40. Model Naomi Campbell is 36.
If you have a tip, call 404-526-2749. Or fax 404-526-5509. Or e-mail: buzz@ajc.com.
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