In order to write this novel, I have tried to immerse myself into the world of Mykel and Clint. Since Mykel works at a radio station and is living in the college dorm, I try to listen to the music they would be hearing on the radio.
I had two Ipod. One stopped working and nobody in the Ozarks will fix it, the other was briefly lost for awhile, but I have since found it.
For a while, I tried using Spotify. It didn’t have all of the music I liked, but it did help when I created playlist for the rival radio stations to K-I-L-L, which are K-B-U-B (hillbilly country)and K-R-C-A (easy Adult Contemporary). Spotify came in handy for this because I couldn’t just go out and buy the music for K-R-C-A and I didn’t want the music for K-B-U-B, because, as you can tell from the chapters I’ve posted, I’m not a country music fan.
If you have been on social media for the past week or are on Spotify, you know they have been giving users these stat based on their listening call “Wrapped”. Spotify thinks I’m 78 years-old by what is on my playlist. As much as I laughed about this, the truth is Mykel, Sherry, and Slick would be around that age now.
It also mentions that one of the most listened to groups is the Pretty Things. In one chapter, a columnist with the Springville Daily News starts a campaign to force the Springville radio stations to play “Ballad of the Green Beret” over and over. Lovable Lance gets tired of it, especially after a woman requesting the song, said she never listed to K-I-L-L because all they played were “Limeys and darkies,” and breaks the record. When the columnist learns they are no longer playing “Ballad of the Green Beret,” she calls Lovable Lance, basically telling him the the “Ballad of the Green Beret” is better than most of the current music and mentions a band called the Pretty Things, being promoted as ‘worse than the Rolling Stones.’ So, Lovable Lance, to irritated this columnist, adds the Pretty Things records to the K-I-L-L playlist.
So how does Martin Denny fit in to all of this. In one chapter, Lovable Lance and his fiancé, Sharon, treat Mykel and Sherry to a meal at a local Tiki bar/restaurant called Lost City of the Amazon. While writing that I listened to exotic/Tiki bar music and Martin Denny (with Lex Baxter & Billy Vaughn’s Blue Hawaii LP) are the music playing in the restaurant. Lovable Lance tells Mykel he wants him to stop doing the mushy love song show that Mat Midnight had been doing and instead start playing the newer hipper music such as Jefferson Airplane, the Blues Magoos, and Cream.
I just thought it would be fun to share this information with you.
WIP: DYNAMIC DUO OF THE OZARKS 