Rock N Roll

ROCKIN' female radio DJs like Carol Miller have always been a rare breed. And almost extinct, some would argue, in today's age of YouTube and Spotify. Yet Miller counters in her breezy new autobiography, Up All Night: My Life and Times in Rock Radio , that broadcast FM is "the medium that just won't quit. " And this hearty survivor is certainly an apt case in point. Over the past four decades, Miller has charmed millions of rock-lovin' radio listeners - and been courted by several highly visible rock stars - thanks to that sultry smoky voice, uncommonly friendly and easygoing demeanor and deep musical knowledge.

What's brewing in Encino with the singing Jackson clan? Cola, namely "Jocola," a soft drink packaged by the Jackson patriarch, Joe Jackson. The drink comes in a distinctive red, blue and gold can that bears Joe's signature and the inscription: "Joe Jackson - father of the Jackson entertainment family and renowned entrepreneur - proudly brings you his signature soft drink 'Jocola. "' Rock 'n' roll is a tough business. Take former Jimi Hendrix sidekick Buddy Miles, for example.

"We took a long, hard look at the cola landscape," Ken Ross, chief spokesman for Pepsi USA, tells me during the final tense hours of Tuesday's long pre-Grammy afternoon. Half the world is relieved to learn that Marcos is finally out. The other half nervously awaits the world premiere of the Don Johnson Pepsi commercial. "There are 20 different colas out there," Ross says forlornly. "It's awfully easy to get lost in the clutter of 20 different colas. " His mind drifts back to 1984, when Pepsi called upon Michael Jackson to lead them out of the cola wilderness.

In a stadium where Phillies fans once booed future Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt, Rolling Stones devotees merely chanted "What the f - - -! What the f - - -!" when the power went out during "Shattered," the third song last night. But the sound and lights were back on within minutes, the only apparent glitch in a spectacular 2 1/2-hour performance at the Vet, the first stop of the Stones' "Steel Wheels" tour of North America. A sold-out crowd of some 56,000 got "Satisfaction," a fireworks display, two giant, inflatable honky-tonk women and some old film clips from the world's best and oldest rock 'n' roll band performing on an elaborately lit stage.

Nat King Cole has proven elusive to biographers in the past, but in "Unforgettable: The Life and Mystique of Nat King Cole" (St. Martins, $22.95), Leslie Gourse gets past many barriers to illuminate the dramas of his personal life. She talked with almost everyone around him, did not use this closeness to cover up the dark parts and, even more happily, found that in the end there was much sunshine. The book is titled after the song that sent its subject back to the top of the charts - a romantic ballad of enduring charm.

Many are the myths about what happened in rock 'n' roll between Elvis Presley entering the Army (March 1958) and the Beatles playing "The Ed Sullivan Show" (February 1964). One lie, for instance, says no great music was created in those years. But this part of the story is true: There was a deliberate effort to replace the wild, uncontrolled, "dangerous" elements like Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis with Fabian, Bobby Rydell, Jimmy Clanton and other clean-cut, controllable synthetic teen idols.

AC/DC, ALLY BOYS. CoreStates Center, Broad Street and Pattison Avenue. Showtime: 8 tonight. Tickets: $24.50. Info: 215-336-2000. What's a man in his late 30s doing stomping around in knickers, feigning schoolboy temper tantrums? If he's Angus Young, the diminutive, steam-driven guitar powerhouse of AC/DC, he's doing quite nicely, thanks. Twenty years after their U.S. debut, his Australian-based, Scottish-rooted band is still cranking out top-of-the-class, bone-rattling rock 'n' roll.

Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll is about political history and love and rock music and families and sex and death and passionately held ideologies; it's about cancer and Sappho's poetry and newspapers; it's about the differences between freedom and liberty, between the mind and the brain, between heretics and pagans. In other words, it's about all the important human stuff. As a minor character says, "We're supposed to know what's going on inside people. That's why it's the Ministry of the Interior.

Jazz authority Chris Albertson has pointed out that the Rolling Stones expropriated "Love in Vain" from a recording made 40 years earlier by blues artist Robert Johnson - "practically verbatim. " It was hardly the first time the Stones had dipped into the copious well of Mississippi blues and other freshets of Afro-American music for both material and inspiration. From the very beginning of their association, Mick Jagger, Brian Jones and Keith Richards had shamelessly co-opted the work of American rhythm-and-blues champions, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley among them.

Sad but true: Philadelphia is not known for its fine rock bands. But if Paul Green's work pays off, expect the Philly rock scene to change sometime soon - when his students are old enough to play in clubs. Green has taken being a guitar teacher to a new level: He's started his own school to teach young people the finer points of rock 'n' roll. Since 1997, the Paul Green Rock School has been a full-time job for Green. Of course, with a degree in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania, what else could he do for a living?

IF YOU are going to Friday's concert by The Who at Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall, do yourself a favor and get their early enough to see show-opener Vintage Trouble, the youthful, Los Angeles-forged quartet supporting the legendary Brit rockers on their current U.S. tour. Although still flying under the radar here, the unit has made considerable noise in the United Kingdom by combining old-school R&B with an almost New Wave-y attitude, and having it all delivered by electrifying front- man Ty Taylor.

JERRY GRANTLAND grew up in Lansdowne, enlisted in the Army right out of Cardinal O'Hara High School, deployed to Iraq in 2003 and was on reconnaissance patrol in an armored personnel carrier when a roadside bomb exploded. He wasn't wounded physically. But after eight months of hypervigilance in Iraq, always ready to run for cover from frequent mortar attacks, Grantland came home to a National Guard assignment in Texas, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. "I was driving 75 miles-an-hour on I-10 when I saw a couple of guys at the side of the road who looked like they were duct-taping something to the guardrail," said Grantland, now 28 and living in Roxborough.

ROCKIN' female radio DJs like Carol Miller have always been a rare breed. And almost extinct, some would argue, in today's age of YouTube and Spotify. Yet Miller counters in her breezy new autobiography, Up All Night: My Life and Times in Rock Radio , that broadcast FM is "the medium that just won't quit. " And this hearty survivor is certainly an apt case in point. Over the past four decades, Miller has charmed millions of rock-lovin' radio listeners - and been courted by several highly visible rock stars - thanks to that sultry smoky voice, uncommonly friendly and easygoing demeanor and deep musical knowledge.

When: Sunday, 8 a.m. Starting Line: Benjamin Franklin Parkway, running east on eastbound lanes, west of 22d Street. Finish Line: Eakins Oval, Fairmount Park between Kelly Drive and Art Museum Drive. Participants: An estimated 21,000. Defending elite champions Men – Matthew Kisorio (Kenya, 58:46) Women – Kim Smith (New Zealand, 1:07.11). Fast facts Neither defending champion will compete this year. Formerly known as the Philadelphia Distance Run, the race became part of the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon series in 2010.

There are many reasons more than 21,000 participants are competing in Sunday's Rock 'n' Roll Philadelphia Half Marathon. For Andy Aubin of Hatboro, it will be another step in a personal victory over the scale. For Malinda Ann Hill of Wynnewood, it's a way to raise money for a worthy cause. This is the 35th annual 13.1-mile race. The race will start and finish in Eakins Oval near the Art Museum, running through Center City past Independence Hall and along the Schuylkill. Start time is 8 a.m. The event was formerly known as the Philadelphia Distance Run before officially becoming part of the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon Series in 2010.

It has often been said that Wilco is the American Radiohead — an edgy, 21st-century rock band whose audience only seems to grow the more they challenge it. Less remarked on is the more obvious fact that they are also the new Grateful Dead — populist guarantors of the heartland verities of cosmic Americana. So it makes perfect sense that Wilco should headline the second night of the XPoNential Music Festival, curated by WXPN, a radio station that has astutely bridged the divide between edgy and crunchy and, like Wilco and Radiohead, commands a mass audience that is more a community than a crowd.

Richard J. Hodgson, 64, a Montgomery County Common Pleas Court judge for almost two decades, died Thursday night at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania from an infection. Judge Hodgson served as president of the county's jurists from 2007 until late 2011 and managed to carry a full caseload even as he struggled with complications from a liver transplant. "He was such a courageous individual; he was probably one of the most courageous men I've known. He never mentioned it," said Judge William J. Furber Jr., who replaced Judge Hodgson as president judge this year.

When David Bryan phones from a stage in Houston, the Bon Jovi keyboardist isn't calling to discuss his band's tour updates or studio news. He's not giving love a bad name. He's not talking about Slippery When Wet , Richie Sambora, or other topics typically Bon Jovi. The New Jersey native who started playing with Jon Bon Jovi when the singer still used his given name "John Bongiovi" (Bryan's real last name is Rashbaum) is in the Lone Star State, readying a theatrical production of The Toxic Avenger , his second musical stage pairing with playwright/novelist Joe DiPietro.

Sean Bonniwell, 71, lead singer and songwriter of the Music Machine, a 1960s Los Angeles band regarded as one of the most original of the garage-punk era, died Dec. 20 of lung cancer at a medical center in Visalia, Calif. A former folksinger, Mr. Bonniwell was recognized as the chief force behind the band that honed its sound during a regular gig at the Hollywood Legion Lanes bowling alley. The group's one big hit was "Talk Talk," a proto-punk single that broke into the Top 20 in 1966.

IT HAS BEEN said that Philadelphia hosts one of the fastest half-marathon courses in the world, and yesterday morning's Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon proved exactly why. With clear skies and a cool breeze in their favor, first-place finishers Matthew Kisorio (58:46), of Kenya, and Kim Smith (1:07:11), of New Zealand, led a record field of 20,866 runners as they set United States All-Comers' Records, cruising to the fastest half-marathon times ever recorded on American soil. Kisorio, the returning champion from last year, defended his title by running the fourth fastest time in history while knocking more than a minute off his personal record.