Birthday boys get fine-tuned on ‘Garage’

Elvis Presley isn’t the only pop-culture icon whose birthday will be celebrated this week, although the King is certainly primed to get the lion’s share of media attention with events at Graceland in Memphis, Tenn., and countless concert tributes around the country, including several in and around L.A. this week.

Two others who are still around to blow out their birthday candles are comedian Soupy Sales (born Jan. 8, 1926, precisely nine years before Elvis) and actor Bob Denver (Jan. 9, 1935, exactly 22 years after Richard Nixon), facts that haven’t escaped the attention of musician, actor and radio host Steven Van Zandt, a.k.a. Little Steven.

Van Zandt’s weekly radio show, “Little Steven’s Underground Garage,” will salute all three in his first show of the year, airing locally on Saturday at 10 p.m. on KLSX-FM (97.1).

His interest in two nonmusicians stems from Sales’ status as host of one of the first televised teen-dance programs featuring rock music. And Denver, as most baby boomers know, played the nation’s first TV beatnik, Maynard G. Krebs, on “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.”

“Little Steven’s Underground Garage,” now carried on stations in 45 countries and in 179 markets in the U.S. and Canada, won’t spend the entire program looking back. In addition to giving air time to garage rock of the past and “some interesting Elvis covers,” Van Zandt says he’ll be spinning “contemporary garage” records by R.E.M., the Fondas, the Cynics, the Preachers Kids, the White Stripes, the Caesars, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Jarvis Humby.

Plus, via his website (www.littlesteven.com), Van Zandt is inviting fans to vote for what will be crowned “The Coolest Song of the Year” from among 52 candidates running from the Raveonettes and David Bowie to the Donnas and Ringo Starr.

-- Randy Lewis