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Professor Mikey's Old School

Professor Mikey's Old School

Von: Mike Flanagan
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 The educational underground pirate radio Old School podcast with Professor Mikey featuring rarities, stories, and surprises from the last half of the 20th century. A eclectic variety of discovery for newer music lovers, a reconnection for the rest of us, present in a theme format that thinks outside the album cover. Rock, country, blues, and anything else that might have captured the 20th century imagination, updated for a newer audience while remaining a comfort to older rockers. Professor Mikey spent over 50,000 hours in various broadcast booths in 60-some markets, taking to the air at 16 a couple of months before The Beatles released Revolver. He rocked, informed, and amused his listeners in six different decades. Old School is his attempt to put it all together in a great set. He is confirmed AM-FM Positive.

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  • OS#39a: New Year's Revolution

    OS#39a: New Year's Revolution
    Jan 1 2026

    Welcome to a Retro New Year’s celebration from the before times! Professor Mikey, a firm believer in the healing and hopeful aspects of music, takes off on another holiday musical expedition, this time to discover the heart of everybody's favorite midnight party.

    What is a Lang Syne? And how Auld is it? What do Bing Crosby, Spike Jones, and Blind Lemon Jefferson have in common? Do New Year's Resolutions really work? Is the best New Year's duet of all time sung by Otis Redding and Carla Thomas? And what's Carl Sagan doing in here? Don’t say he is back to tell us not to look up!

    These and other timely questions are answered in this full hour celebration of New Year's music. Plug in and buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy year. Get ready for Blues classics like Smokey Hogg's "New Year's Eve Blues" from 1948, a New Year's Eve 1970 appearance by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, an absolute wacko resolution romp with the City Slickers and many, many more. The genres melt into each other, the human condition gets a good going over, and we all resolve to be better next year!

    Happy New Year, push play, and be sure to click and download New Year’s Revolution to your podcast player!

    Playlist

    What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve? King Curtis

    Happy New Year Spike Jones and His City Slickers

    Let's Start the New Year Right Bing Crosby

    Happy New Year Blues Blind Lemon Jefferson

    Auld Lang Syne John Fahey

    Auld Lang Syne Frank Sinatra/Dean Martin

    Auld Lang Syne The Beach Boys

    Auld Lang Syne The Cucumbers

    New Year's Resolution Otis Redding/Carla Thomas

    What a Year for a New Year Dan Wilson

    A Glorious Dawn Carl Sagan

    Happy New Year Lightnin' Hopkins

    New Year's Eve Blues Smokey Hogg

    New Year's Resolution Blues Roy Milton Solid Senders

    New Year's Resolutions Scary Gary Alan

    What Are You Doing New Year's Eve Nancy Wilson

    The Closing of the Year The Musical Cast of Toys feat. Wendy & Lisa

    Auld Lang Syne Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians

    Professor Mikey's OLD SCHOOL is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support the leap into 2026, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit professormikey.substack.com/subscribe
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    56 Min.
  • OS90: Lounging Around the Christmas Tree

    OS90: Lounging Around the Christmas Tree
    Dec 21 2025

    There is something about true lounge music that is slightly radical. It’s not another kind of rock n roll. I haven’t had that much egg nog. But still it is a departure for most of these artists because of the audiences they were used to playing to.

    You’ve seen them, smoking and knocking down martinis two at a time. Hanging out in the clubs and hotel hideaways on Mad Men. Providing seductive and mysterious backgrounds in old movies. Everybody dressed to the nines, our parents and grandparent’s generations, looking for a late night don’t kiss don’t tell hookup.

    But when the biggies of that era of music switch to Christmas music, there’s a bit of a warm and wacky disconnect. Somewhere, deep down, the singer knows he or she shouldn’t be singing in a swanky saloon. The old suave crooner know they should be home with the first wife and her children on Christmas, not showing up sometime before New Years with a limo full of toys.

    It’s for the kids, you know? And that damn cowboy Gene Autry made a mint right next to the old corral when he had 15 minutes left in a recording session and relented to his wife’s wishes and recorded “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

    All that aside, here is a glimpse at that diamond ring and Cadillac world from a place way in the future. It’s a Marshmallow World of White Russians and Hot Buttered Rums, and baby, it’s cold outside.

    The Old School format is slightly different here. I took some mixer’s liberties that this music usually doesn’t experience. It has a more presentational form because it was created for public radio stations around the company to use over the holidays and perhaps move some Santa in the snow to make a small donation to an industry that has received nothing but coal lumps all year long.

    So hop on for the ride. It’s slick, its hot, its ritzy and glitzy and downright weird at points. Perfect for a celebration, for background while you are ripping into presets, for whatever floats your Deville. Think of it as mink seatcovers from another time.

    Merry Christmas Baby, you sure did treat me nice.

    —Professor Mikey

    Professor Mikey's OLD SCHOOL is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

    Thanks for reading Professor Mikey's OLD SCHOOL! This post is public so feel free to share it.



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit professormikey.substack.com/subscribe
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    1 Std.
  • OS89 - Chill Christmas

    OS89 - Chill Christmas
    Dec 16 2025
    Ever since I was a tot with a tape recorder, I attempted to make annual mixtapes as others might try to fashion handmade Christmas gifts. As my studios got better the quality of the tapes got better. They progressed from cassettes to CDs to digital on and on into the future.This year, to avoid too much extra work during the holidays, I’m, posting the 2010 offering “Professor Mikey’s Chill Christmas” basically in it’s original version. It’s been offered to public radio stations via the Public Radio Exchange for 15 years. CHILL Fact #1 — The Coldest Planet“Quick chill check: the coldest planet in our solar system isn’t Pluto — it’s Uranus. Temperatures there dip to nearly minus 370 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s cold enough to make a snowman reconsider his life choices.”The format is similar to the semi-regular Old School offering save for a particular detail. For the original Christmas tapes I did most of not all of my talking in the opening couple of minutes, leaving the rest of the hour (sometimes longer) as one long set. None of this “that was here come” radio jive. Huh-uh! My take was people might like to hear me saying Merry Christmas ya’ll for a bit, then they would prefer I shut up and give them a nice long stretch of hits, misses, quirky unknowns, comedy, lost commercials, and anyything else that might seem needed to complete an audio fruit cake.CHILL Fact #2 — Coldest Temperature on Earth“The coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth was minus 128.6 degrees Fahrenheit, measured in Antarctica in 1983. At that temperature, exposed skin freezes in seconds — which is why nobody hosts Christmas there.”So journey with me now back to 2010. It’s not all oldies, there are a lot of 2008 and 2009 Indie Yule offerings in there. Obama was in his second year in the White House, as the snow gently fell upon the Rose Garden.CHILL Fact #3 — Coldest Drink on Record“The coldest drink ever served? A martini chilled with liquid nitrogen can hit temperatures below minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s technically drinkable… briefly… and best enjoyed by people with very good dental insurance.”Key Issues for Americans in 2010:Economy & Jobs: The top concern, with widespread worry about unemployment (nearly 10% nationally, higher for youth/minorities) and creating jobs after the recession.National Security: Defending against future terrorist attacks remained a high priority.Budget Deficit: Growing concern about the national debt and government spending.Energy: Dealing with the nation’s energy problems was a key concern, though slightly less than the year before.Financial Stress: Money, work, and the economy were major sources of stress for individuals.CHILL Fact #4 — Why Winter Sounds Quieter“Snow absorbs sound. That’s why winter nights feel hushed and intimate — like the world put down its phone and leaned closer to the music.”CHILL Fact #5 — Chill Before the Fridge“Before refrigerators, people cut blocks of ice from frozen lakes and stored them in sawdust. In some places, that ice lasted all summer. Which explains why old-time cocktails were so serious about their chill.”Major Events Shaping Concerns 2010:Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: A major environmental and political disaster that dominated headlines, leading to criticism of the government’s response.Affordable Care Act (Obamacare): Passed in 2010, it sparked national debate and division over the government’s role in healthcare.Political Polarization: The rise of the Tea Party movement reflected deep partisan divides, particularly around economic issues and government’s size.Here is some of the original CHILL language:The word “chill,” as it relates to weather, was first used in England sometime before the 12th century. Thomas Beckett himself might have said the word CHILL to describe a sensation of cold accompanied by shivering. Chill, as in to chill out, took another 800 years to properly evolve. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Modern slang, it was first used in the Reagan era, around 1982. As an intransitive verb, used mainly in the United States, the modern definition of CHILL means “to become less tense, relax.”A little later in linguistic history, the Urban Dictionary reports an expanded version of the term “chillin’ like a villain.” To wit, to relax in such an overtly leisurely manner that one mimics the actions of a criminal who is so removed from society because of his evil deeds that he has no choice but to surrender and retreat into a state of absolute serenity. Example: “I’m so chillin like a villain I’m just illin.” To rest like one has no care in the world. To unwind and relax as though a major burden has been lifted.Thanks for reading Professor Mikey's OLD SCHOOL! This post is public so feel free to share it.The new meaning of chill puts a whole other twist on this year’s seasonal soundtrack. Become less tense? Relax? Absolute serenity? Can you think...
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    1 Std.
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