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Professor Mikey's Old School

Professor Mikey's Old School

By: 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.

professormikey.substack.comMike Flanagan Music
Episodes
  • OS95: Famous Somewhere

    OS95: Famous Somewhere
    May 26 2026

    Hey all, fans of garage and early psyche are going to feel right at home on this one. Rock orphan stars reach all level of intensity and so much emphasis focus on bank accounts. But a record, any record, is a product of blood, sweat, and fears. So much captive sound lies trapped in the grooves of storage basement dungeons where the sun refuses to shine.

    But this show is hardly a bummer. Think of it as 30 miles of weird road, where anyone can have an ego and talent always come rocking through.

    Blah blah about That THing you DO and one hit wonders but then dive into those that didn’t even attain that status. And it’s all okay, you know?/////😎///What a romp that was, partly because we all have favorite songs that seemed like they had immortality stamped all over them and then...time passed...other records came out...things happened...enthusiasm waned.

    Welcome to a collection of songs that were, well, FamOus Somewhere. In the imagination of the artists who recorded them, and the parents of the would be rock stars who handed out copies to friends and family right and left.

    So here’s some sweet spots from an endless trail of lost possibilities. They could have been contenders, great tunes that came out on the same day as , oh I don’t know, 150-200 other 60s singles released on the same day. Sure the odds were terrible, but nothing like today when we are getting about 100,000 new songs uploaded every day. The episode of Old School gives them the airtime they never received back in the day. Chunks of creative real estate that lacked a swimming pool or a third bedroom.

    Here in the classroom of forgotten flip sides, they get another shot, to make it as an impossibly obscure oldie, a boat that most everyone missed, trends that stayed a mystery. For the next hour, we give them love they never received. Welcome to Episode 95 of Professor Mikey’s Old School, the killer podcast that is…

    Famous Somewhere.

    Professor Mikey's OLD SCHOOL is a reader-supported publication. How can you be all over Substack and not be here? Right? Thank you, and good on Summer. It’s easy to be a free or paid subscriber. Thanks so much!

    I Don’t Want a Lover TEXAS (1989)

    Love Trip TONY CHURCH AND THE CRUSADE (1968)

    Dancing Madly Backwards CAPTAIN BEYOND (1972)🕺

    So Mystifying THE SHAPES OF THINGS (1966)

    Like a Tear WORLD OF OZ (1969)

    I’ll Leave You Crying THE US TOO GROUP (1968)💧

    Mark Time ECLECTION (1968)

    Subconscious Train of Thought AARDVARKS (1968)

    Mystery Man THE BLUES INVENTION ( 1967)

    Pass Me By THE HELLO PEOPLE (1968)

    Skillet GALLIARD (1967)

    I’m Coming Home THE DEVIANTS (1966)

    10,000 Words Inside a Cardboard Box THE AQUARIAN AGE (1969)

    Get It While You Can THE CHECKMATES (1969)

    Professor Mikey back with the usual heartfelt closing. There is no telling what draws a person into listening to music, much less deciding to create it. This episode of Old School explored some of those decisions, and failed to explain any of them. We are so lucky to have these fountains of inspiration. Many of the bands we just listened to went on to various levels of success in the music business, most of them will be freaking surprised if they just heard themselves coming out of their phones or computers. I didn’t hear a bad song in the bunch. There were no failures, no misguided investments, no door dashed dreams. Just a lot of music from people who chose to rock their own personal paths regardless of what came next. Here to take us out is a band with some real wisdom from the class of 1967 in a Cincinnati high school. It’s some true advice from The Checkmates, Get It While You Can.

    I hope you join me for another episode after listening to this one, Old School Number 95, Famous Somewhere.

    4

    “The past is a blast.”

    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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    58 mins
  • OS94: Spring Break 1976 Bicentennial Boogie

    OS94: Spring Break 1976 Bicentennial Boogie
    Mar 30 2026
    Most people remember 1976 as the time of America’’s 200th Birthday, the Bicentennial. The Vietnam War was over, Nixon was banned from the White House, and Pet Rocks were going the way of the Hula Hoop.it was a brand new day all the way from New York to LA and everyone was squeezed into denim so tight they had to use a coat-hanger and lie down to zip up.What many have forgotten for obvious reasons is how loud and crazy it got wherever you celebrated the annual rite of spring. Spring Break ‘76 was the time to get the party started, on the dance floor, on the beaches, in the bars and in the streets, and for some in a glamorous overnight lock box.Musically it was a wild time as well. People were listening to a great mish mosh of different kinds of music, split right down the middle between those who wanted to hustle and those who wanted to head bang. The air smelled like a 50/50 blend of Coppertone oil and exhaust fumes from a van with a wizard painted on the side.Disco and heavy metal was like mixing a Cuervo Sunrise with a Coors Rocky Mountain Sundance). KC and the Sunshine Band hooked up with Bad Company and things got very loud and very wet, all in the name of the red white and boogie down blue.Fort Lauderdale became Fort Liquordale when local bars began selling all you can drink beer for $1.50. But you didn’t have to get smashed to enjoy this Rock and Rip soundtrack that we are about to dive into headfirst while we hope there is water in the pool.I’m Professor Mikey and Old School is out of bounds! I just spent a brand new two-dollar bill, got my all night beer wrist band, and have enough left to hit the jukebox and never fear the reaper. Come on baby, we’ll be able to fly. It’s Spring Break 1976, the Bicentennial Boogie!The Sylvers make it big on the Midnight Special:SPRING BREAK 76 PLAYLISTDon’t Fear the Reaper Blue Oyster CultCherry Bomb The RunawaysBlitzkrieg Bop The RamonesDouble Trouble Lynrd SkynrdFool for the City FoghatJailbreak Thin LizzyNobody’s Fault Led ZeppelinRunning with the Pack Bad CompanyYou Make Me Feel LIke Dancing Leo SayerBoogie Fever The SylversYou Sexy Thing Hot ChocolatePlay That Funky Music Wild CherryGolden Years David BowieIn Zaire James WakelinKid Charlemagne Steely DanNightrider ELOIt’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock and Roll) AC/DCLive is a Minestrone 10ccSo It Goes Nick LoweBohemian Rhapsody QueenListening to all this great music from 1976 is more than a little jarring. I mean 50 years have gone by and these songs sound as fresh as the day that they cut them into viny. Having been around in 1976. I can guarantee you that nobody gave much of a wit about the music that had come out in 1926. It was long gone like Babe Ruth in the great Gatsby.Many things struck me about the Bicentennials who birthed the Mllennials. One was the length of so many careers in this mix. Steely Dan was around for a long time and people are still amazed at the sound they put out… Blue Öyster Cult became a model for so many bands while they were originating a lot of darkness on their ow The disco darlings were doomed to be pigeon holed in an era of predictable music that had been helped out by the fact that so many hippies who had listened so closely to their Woodstock notions usually sat and grooved… for around 10 or 15 years. After that much sitting on their fannies music fans were ready to move it. They were ready to shake their booties. New music comes and goes, and if you’re lucky, it takes its place in the culture and then your heart and you’re able to go back to the spring break of 1976 with the flip of a switch. We are going to close with the biggest song of Spring Break 76, perhaps more popular today than it was a half century ago. On schedule to be around in 2076 and probably 2126 I’m Professor Mikey. Enjoy this podcast in anytime you feel like taking the trip back and staying out of jail Spring Break 1976. –Bicentennial Boogie!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! Chances are you know someone who would LOVE this. 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 hr and 29 mins
  • OS93: Mean Old World

    OS93: Mean Old World
    Mar 10 2026
    It’s been just about a year since Professor Mikey pulled out an Old School podcast entitled Brave New World. You can dial it up anytime anywhere you get your podcasts. I bring this up only because there are those who may think this particular episode is flying just a little too close to the 21st Century sunshine in tone and manner. Like Icarus singing “Here Comes the Sun” after a long cold lonely winter, this particular theme may indeed get singed wings and a quick trip down to terra firma.Enough similes and beatitudes. The theme for Old School episode 93 is MEAN OLD WORLD.Most of us need no convincing that there is a lot of meanness afoot. Not rudeness, not antipathy, just plain old rotten meanness. The kind you get from a portion of the population made up of jerks, tightwads, miscreants, lost loves, and bill collectors.So how can a set of music temper the ill effects of a Mean Old World. It ain’t easy, but this Old School lesson plan will try.Exhibit A.Humans are wired with what psychologists call negativity bias. Bad news grabs our attention faster than good news because, evolutionarily, ignoring danger could get you eaten by a tiger.So the brain remembers insults, losses, and dangers much more vividly than pleasant moments.Which leads to the famous newsroom rule: “If it bleeds, it leads.”Turn on the news from commercial radio, a source that fears for it’s FCC license. Or from public radio, an outlet that can no longer rely on government funding to supplement the truth.Media coverage amplifies that paranoid instinct we all share, focusing on disasters, war, and the price of eggs, rather than slow improvements. Over time that creates the feeling that everything is going to shit—even when many long-term indicators are improving.Then there is declinism–the belief that society is going to hell in a handbasket. For a long time now, at least ever since we began receiving instant news, we feel everything used to be better. So nostalgia and the love of old time rock and roll becomes even more important.Another weird fact. Where most people feel the world as a whole is getting worse, they feel their own lives will improve.Today we are going to spin tunes much older than that. Cautionary hits and deep cuts from more hopeful times. Are times better now than when these joints dropped. It is too heavy for me, that’s why I hide in an imaginary radio school with the curtains drawn and the volume cranked. We begin with a little show and tell from two honor students.Duane Allman plays a 1930s Dobro/Regal wooden-body resonator guitar using a Coricidin bottle for a slide. Eric Clapton accompanies him on acoustic guitar, with both playing in open G tuning.Welcome to Professor Mikey’s Old School, this is episode 93. Mean Old World.Mean Old World - Little WalterKing Heroin (Inst) - James BrownMean Old World - Duane Allman & Eric ClaptonMean Woman Blues - Roy OrbisonMama He Treats Your Daughter Mean - Ruth BrownMean and Evil - Elmore JamesMe and the Devil - Gil Scott-HeronEvil - Howlin’ WolfMean to Me - Dean MartinMean Mr. Mustard - The BeatlesKilling Floor - Electric FlagLonesome, On’ry, and Mean - Waylon JenningsWorld of Trouble - Big Joe TurnerMean When I’m Mad - Eddie CochranThe Unknown Soldier - The DoorsWar - Edwin StarrMean Old World - Sam CookeEnjoy the Silence - Depeche ModeCruel to be Kind - Nick LoweProfessor Mikey here, getting ready to put a cap on the nasty and draw the shades temporarily on Episode 93 of Old School, Mean Old World. It gets really mean out there, but the music can smooth those cosmic rough edges, especially with songs like our closer from Nick Lowe. A true cure for a world gone mean.If you are curious about the songs you just heard, you can listen to this podcast again anywhere you get your podcasts. The playlist is actually written down on the Old School newsletter which you can ready or subscribe to for free anytime at professormikey.substack.com.This episode had its share of samples and easter eggs along the way, including clips from the movie Devils Advocate with Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves, the instrumental background to James Brown’s “King Heroin,” Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men,” a real Coca Cola commercial with Roy Orbison, Kevin Spacey in “The Usual Suspects,” James Spader in the TV Series The Blacklist now available on Netflix, HBO’s series The Sopranos, The David Letterman Show with guest star Eminem, and US Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Any and all music heard resides within the public domain or is used within the guidelines of fair use provided for in Section 107 of the copyright act of 1976.I’m Professor Mikey, join me next time on Old School. It gets really mean out there, but the music can smooth those cosmic rough edges, especially with songs like our closer from Nick Lowe. A true cure for a world gone mean.Here’s the link from our most recent world view:Thanks for reading and listening to Professor Mikey's OLD...
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    1 hr and 3 mins
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