Rewind Replay Remember

You kids don’t know how easy you have it.  In my day, if we wanted to hear a song we loved, we had two choices: buy the album or record the song off the radio.

Buying the album was the easy way out, but we didn’t have the disposable income to go buy every album under the sun just because we liked one song.    Of course, that changed towards the end of the 80s when the “Cassingle” was introduced.  But had to be the song you wanted.  If it was buried towards the end of the album the chances were you would never get it in that format.  So, that leaves you with option two; record it.

Recording was a bitch, even with one touch recording.  If you had the time and tape, you could set up the radio to just record an hour’s worth of music and then just hope to find the song you liked.  Again, it had to have been released on the radio, but it was doable.  Problem was, most songs had incessant DJ chatter over the beginning or end of songs which usually took up the instrumental opening of most songs.  OR… they’d lower the volume of the song at the end and cut it short.  

Then, came mp3s and iPods and iTunes and YouTube.   Now, you can get to any song, any version, live or acoustic recordings, and even mash-ups all at the click of a mouse.  The precision timing of a record/stop movement on a boom box equipped with a TDK DNR 90 minute cassette is a lost art form.  Go ask your mom and dad and get off my lawn.

But to that point, did you ever have a song that you wore out with repeated replays?  Was there one song that forced you to break out the No. 2 pencil and do reconstructive surgery on the wheels of a Maxell or Memorex, because of continual rewind and replays, over an evening of dark sunglass brooding due to a case of heartbreak or unrequited love?

I remember setting up one tape to record every time I heard Bryan Adams’ “Everything I do”.  That way, I could just run through 30-45 minutes worth of Michael Kamen/Canadian Pop Rock God influenced cheese to fulfill my inner dork.  Eventually, I had one or two versions intact among all the DJ chatter and overlapping of other songs.    After a marathon session of gaming on my Apple IIC on a lonely Friday night, I’d set the boom box to just play that one tape and I’d slowly doze off into dreamland.   Of course, the harsh reality of the world would snap itself with the end of the tape and that distinctive “CLICK” of the end of the tape.

Other times, I’d just turn on the tapes and just relax, trying to focus on the music.   In a teenage state of constantly over analyzing the universe, I’d want to focus on every note and every word of a song.  Ultimately, my mind would drift off and I wouldn’t realize that the song was over and I missed it.  So, I’d reach up from my horizontal state, and with one finger, REWIND, REPLAY, and REMEMBER.

When I graduated high school, I found another song to replace Bryan Adams…  I already had the Robin Hood soundtrack on CD by then and could simply just choose “Repeat One” on my boom box.   So, the need to focus on capturing that one song was no longer an issue.   So, I obsessed on one song that sort of became my anthem of change.  It was an anthem of letting go.  It was the song I used in order to deal with life’s changes.  I was a freshman heading 600 miles to school, trying to find my way to an "Ordinary World".

Yes, roll your eyes, Internet.  Roll your eyes at the concept of an 18 year old male, stuck in love, and 600 miles away from his high school girlfriend, listening to an early 90s Duran Duran song on Cassingle.  The other songs were an acoustic version and Save a Prayer, by the way.  I wore that tape out so much that the cardboard sleeve disintegrated before Sophomore year.  My Walkman hated me for always piping that song through my foam covered earphones again and again as I rode my bike through the quiet campus in Myrtle Beach.   And when we broke up in 1995 and I would find myself wrapped like a cocoon in my dorm at Pitt, single and lonely, I’d reach up and click, with that one finger, rewind, and then replay.  It was so I could remember.

I heard it today on the Lite FM station, coming into work.   I wish I had a rewind button on the radio, but I didn’t.  I just tried to sit there and be absorbed in the,  now, 38 year old’s anthem for coming to grips with the world of change.  Slowly trying to get his life in order and learning to survive with all that has gone down.  I know I haven’t REALLY talked about it and it’s just not time yet.   There are things to consider.   People.   Privacy. 

But for now, I do what I can.   

Rewind.

Replay.

Remember.

And remind.

Walkman Turns 30 and Makes Teen's Head Explode

That title makes it sound like this came out of the Weekly World News. You would almost expect to see the decimated skull of a teen wearing head phones in a picture next to an update on Bat Boy. And the title doesn’t really denote any physical harm to the little whipper snapper. He didn’t get rocked to death. In fact, the only thing harmed was the hope that the next generation will be able to take care of us old fogeys. All of this is over the 30th birthday of the Walkman and how a 13 year old couldn’t figure one out. Oh, how my generation gently weeps.

The basics of the story, which you can click on above to open in a new window, leaving your current reading enjoyment of my blog intact, is that a 13 year old was handed a Walkman and asked to try it out against the current technology or the iPod and other Portable Media Players. The youngster was first put off by the size of the Walkman compared to the iPod Nano or Shuffle. Secondly, that all too familiar squeaky sound from the rollers turning the tape and the push button functionality made him feel like the monolith standing before primitive man, motionless, but trying to nudge them towards picking up a bone with a thought. But that notion became reversed when it took him three days to realize that there was a Side B to the tape. Now, who is flinging pooh, junior? His retort was that it didn’t hold nearly enough music compared to the iPod. This is the biggest slap in the face of music and technology since Limp Bizkit used a Speak and Spell to cover The Who’s "Behind Blue Eyes". If that kid ever loses his ball in my yard, he’s not getting back. Go cry to Fred Durst about it.

The Walkman was from a different time than the iPod. For all you young readers out there…first of all I commend you for taking the time out of your busy schedule of texting to read this…you have to remember that until 2001, we had no choice but to listen to our music on physical media. Whether we rocked out to a minidisc, a compact disc, or a TDK 120 minute cassette tape with DNR, we still had to open the player and stick something in it. You can imagine my frustration the first time I got an iPod and wondered how to open the damn thing. Oh and by the way, TDK and DNR are not txtspeak, that’s the name of the company and Dolby Noise Reduction. Regardless of how new technology may appear to be cool, let’s take a trip down memory lane and see a real trendsetter, the 13 year old Mongo on his 10 speed.

In my youth, I had a paper route. Actually, I had two paper routes combined into one. Starting from my house, I went in one direction, travelling 2.1 miles in a loop around half of my neighborhood. Then, I returned home, grabbed a second set of papers and headed in the opposite direction, travelling 1.7 miles in a loop around the other the half. In total I had roughly 60 papers to deliver and it took about an hour and a half to complete. I did this every weekday afternoon and Saturday mornings at 6:30 AM for nearly six years. To date, it is my second longest tenured job, though I am not too quick to include it on my resume.

To put this into perspective, I had 90 minutes of banal peddling, stopping, dropping off a paper; peddling, dropping…you get the idea. So, what better way to pass the time than by putting together the most awesome mix tape ever for riding your bike to? I labored intensively night and day toggling record and play on my dual cassette deck boom box, my fingers synced better than a twelve year old texting his five best friends, simultaneously. I rifled through my brother’s tape and CD collection to find the right mix of peddle pushing, fist pumping, kick ass mullet rock and 80’s movie soundtrack pop songs that could fill my TDK tape. Then, the coup de grace, knowing that the clip on a Walkman was near useless, I MacGyvered a way to strap my it to my leg with some parts from a book bag, Velcro and a little help from Doug Masters in Iron Eagle.

With my tunes at the ready, I strolled out of my house like an astronaut taking that slow motion strut along the catwalk, heading for the space shuttle on my way to destroy the Earth threatening meteor. I mounted up, pushed play, and left my driveway in the dust along with my Walkman which had slipped its bonds and fell off my leg. Hoping for the best, I tossed the now scuffed tape player into my paper bag and went about my way. The soundtrack gems of Roger Daltrey from Quicksilver, Queen from the aforementioned Iron Eagle, and John Parr from St Elmo’s Fire kept time with my feet as I rode along my route, delivering the news.

When I became old enough to drive, laziness kicked in and I started to take the family car on my route. Now, I could ride in Oldsmobile style, utilizing the factory equipped AM/FM cassette radio, free from earphones. I could share my music with the rest of my hood and not get my legs nipped at by the neighbor’s dog. Once I began college, I then upgraded to a DiscMan because I still did not have a car with a CD player already installed. I had to use the adaptor tape plugged into my tape player and headphone jack. I still used the Iron Eagle method of strapping my player to my leg because at the time, the car did not have a suitable storage are for me to put my DiscMan in and the skipping made it impossible to enjoy music if I laid it on the seat.

How could this be considered inferior to the iPod? I ask you. What do these kids know? Who doesn’t like to jog around town with an 8 Track sized block of plastic and printed circuit boards strapped to their arm, the weight of the Walkman shifting your balance, causing a curvature of your spine? That’s what chiropractors are for after all.

So, the next time some adolescent eyes you eye up because you are toting a Walkman, clipped to your belt, take his iPod and toss it against the wall. Then laugh because if the same thing happened to you, all you need is a set of jeweler’s screwdrivers, a solder gun, and an eraser topped pencil to fix your Walkman and rewind your tape. Tech support in the 80’s consisted of three techniques, bang on it, blow in it, or buy a new one for less than 40 bucks. Try that with an iPod besides the shuffle. And while you’re at it, go smack Fred Durst.

Repetition Killed the Radio Star

I hate radio. Let me state that again. I HATE RADIO. It's nothing personal against the recording artists, although I think there is too much sampling and covering of good music out there. I'm more pissed at the big radio conglomerates that get away with putting crap on the radio and then repeating it again an hour later. Growing up in Southwestern Pennsylvania, we had maybe three stations that we listened to. There was your classic rock station, WDVE 102.5 FM. There was the local AM station, WCVI 1340 AM, a haven for my Paul Harvey and Tradio fix, and lastly, there was the mountain top broadcaster WLSW 103.9 FM which played middle of the road popular music. Of these three stations, I still listen to one. Can you guess which? If you've read any of my past entries and answered the classic rock station then you get the gold star.

I can rely on classic rock. I know what I'm going to find on that station. WCVI is no longer around and WLSW is not what it used to be. DVE is still the home for classic rock and other stations have come and gone in terms of format while this fixture in Pittsburgh has thrived. That's not to say we don't have other stations in the area. During the early to mid 80's a top 40 juggernaut came on the scene. WBZZ 93.7 FM quickly became a favorite in the area for its music and morning show. But do to changing times they switched formats, fired the disc jockey's and tried to pull in the big names like Howard Stern to fill in the morning hours. Money begets evil. I stopped listening to B94 as we called it in the area when they started playing the same music as two other stations in the area because they constantly recycled music.

Now, as a kid, I can remember being in my room with fingers at the ready to record my favorite songs on a mix tape. Most tapes in my dusty archives still have lead ins or outros from the DJ's of old. In fact, to show how much of a dork I was, I took a cassette tape and had it ready to record Bryan Adams, "Everything I Do," whenever it came on the radio. I had about five back to back recordings in a row on one tape. I was a big Bryan Adams fan and had just seen Robin Hood in the theaters and was stuck on that song. Of course, then I got into CDs and I bought the soundtrack and did not require the need for five consecutive tapings of the rock ballad.

You would think with my interest in that one song that I wouldn't mind repetition on the radio? I would welcome it. Unfortunately, either my age or the lack of good songs out there proves otherwise, as I only listen to the radio on my way to work. On the way home it's a crap shoot. I like DVE but sometimes, I just want a change. Otherwise, I fire up the iPod, listen to NPR for news, or just drive home in silence. There for awhile, B94 had switched to an all talk format called the ZONE with Dennis Miller on during lunch and a local icon, Scott Paulsen, on during the ride home. It was a failed experiment and of course I would like it because it was meant to fail. On the weekends I tune in to Cigar Dave, not because I was some big cigar aficionado, but it was fun to learn a thing or two about something I had no knowledge of while driving around. After the station folded, once again, the owners decided to return to their roots. During the summer of 2007 they played about a week's worth of Christmas music and then unveiled their, "Christmas" present. Sprinkled throughout the holiday tunes were hints and riddles that something that been missing from Pittsburgh would be returning. Seeing as how every other format had failed, I could only imagine one thing, the return of B94. My enthusiasm was overwhelming, much like my sarcasm. Why did we think this time around would be any different? What could they offer Pittsburgh, now, that they could not or would not before?

As far as I'm concerned, after listening for the last six months, the NEW B94 sounds a lot like the old B94. I don't mean that in a good way. If I did, I would have said it sounded like the "Good Old B94." For now, it still plays the same rotation of about six songs, and in my opinion, they all suck. I guess if I expected it to be like the good old days, they'd play music from then. In that case, I should be listening to the variety stations that play music from previous decades. This begs another question? What will happen to the oldies station, WWSW 94.5 FM, when the oldies they play stat catching up to the variety that the other stations play? Will there be a format change? These are the things I think about at 3 AM when the power goes out. Where was I? Oh yeah, crap. My wife listens to these hit music stations that play the six pack of crap and when we are in her car, she has the dial control. It just twists my knob when we drive somewhere and I hear song "A" and then when we finish our errand and get back in the car to return home, song "A" is playing again on the radio.

Where does the problem lie? Is it the DJ's or the Producers' fault for the repetition? I believe it is the producers who bow down to the lowest common denominator and play the popular stuff to bookend the commercials that pay their salaries. Otherwise, they'd expand the playlist a little more and give us a better variety of crap. Until that happens, I'm content listening to the voices in my head while I make my way home in the afternoon. Yeah, it gets a little repetitious, but I like the artist.

 

Remember these little weird things when driving?

1. Back in the days when stations couldn't broadcast through the tunnels in Pittsburgh we used to play a game where we'd enter the tunnel and continue to sing the song until we reached the other side to see if we could sync up the words.


2. There were times when one of the popular songs was playing on the radio you could switch to the other Top 40 station and have the same song playing from the same spot.


3. You always hit that one station while it played your favorite song, but it was ten seconds from the end. I hated that.