Is Anyone Still Listening to The Radio?

[LeeVanCleef]

I have to defend something here.
Joni Mitchell's "For Free" is one of the finest recordings that I have ever heard.
She does have a few really good ones.

Okay, I was probably a little rough on Joni. I do like "Big Yellow Taxi," but that's about it. The zeppelin-inspiring song in question is "California" from the Blue album. "Free Man in Paris", I recently learned from a PBS doc on David Geffen, is all about Geffin gettin' his homo on in France. WEA was very generous in sending us CDs. They sent us a huge amount of back-catalogue one year for a Xmas giveaway. I still have my copies of Rust Never Sleeps and Steely Dan's greatest hits from that giveaway. Thank god for Napster, because I sure missed getting free music during those cold years between 1994 and 1999.

@Nic: oooooh, podcast goodness! Thank you for that. I know Wisconsin Public Radio streams past shows, but I rarely wanna sit in front of a computer and listen to something.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

oh wow... i just noticed who the guest is going to be for tomorrow: julia louis dreyfus from seinfeld, etc.

he usually has authors as his guests, not big names like that. hope it'll be an interesting / fun interview... probably no way for it not to be, i guess.

 

[Coil_Smoke]

Turn Me On...I'm A Radio

I saw the discussion about Joni Mitchell + radio and this song came to mind.
JONI MITCHELL you turn me on i'm a radio - YouTube

 

[sleepy]

CDs? Whoah, that was way past my time, though Mr. Benson was discussing them with me in '77.
That was cool since I was talking about the possibility of digital optical discs in Burbank, Ca. 1959.
What bothered me in '77 was that, as Quad was failing to catch on, that the future CD was being planned as a 2 channel medium-only. This according to Mr. Benson. The CD could have easily accommodated a compatible discreet 2/4 channel format on introduction in '83, by borrowing the sum and difference schemes used in FM stereo difference signals or the CD4 vinyl format.
Such a disc would have been a little larger in size.

It sounds like Warner Reprise consolidated the demo dept. (creative services)
with WEA. Back in the analog days, WEA Creative Services was right next door and was a separate concern, in spite of the hob-nobbing and crossing borders.

Mr. Benson once told me that, worldwide, at that time in '77, there were over 300 albums released every month.

So ruby, were you seeing anything near that number of demos in your mailbox, and if so, then how the hell did you cope with that? Did the mailman ever curse you for it?

Ah, "The Mezzanine". Like a very large Shark Cage full of reference copies and, as a temp employee on-call, when my assignment was finished, Mr. Benson would grant me 4 albums of my choosing from "The Mezzanine". At Christmas it was 8 albums.
Which is where I got most of my CD4 (4 channel vinyl albums).
And dammit, I had the vinyl Tom Campbell(sp?) interview with George Harrison.
Harrison had just transferred Dark Horse distribution to WB and, you know, after the folks locked me down and out for being a skinnydipping-but-straight Goy, well, I needed the money.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Nah, nothing like 300 a month. Remember that radio was much more narrowcasted in the '90s than it was in the '70s. Since we were pegged as a "rock" station, that's pretty much all the promo CDs we received. In fact, I'd say that we received a lot more releases when I worked in college radio than I did in corporate radio, since no one knew what the hell we'd play on the alternative airwaves. In fact, the first album I reviewed as a college radio DJ was by a then-unknown Miami Sound Machine. I'm proud to say that I didn't cotton to it.

 

[sleepy]

I remember the name but I can't quote them.

And ughh! The local pros are getting control-freakish again on My Time, and
the same personality traits are also showing in their music...tried to listen to the radio last night, all music, but their control freakishness is showing in the sounds and it just shoots them in the foot. In hindsight and as far back as I can remember, some 58 years, It was always about Political Control with them, not as a Politic of the Republic, but as Social Control of us children, and their Business Control against competition, indies, etc.

And it never was about control with me, except for Free Speech Issues like The Draft and Viet Nam. It was only about agreeable music provided by alleged peer group artists and those of kindred spirit... ...Now Blown Sky High!

Were politics ever an issue at the radio stations? ?? ???

 

[RockWizard]

Honestly, the majority of my radio listening is in the morning before work and coming home. Both cases - 99% of the time is on a classic rock station to hear the morning drive team. Football season is heating up, so it's time to listen to the talk shows on WWL AM/FM. They keep things lively with their lunacy. I still listen to another station that has an oldies format. Every now and then, they put something on I haven't either heard before or in a LONG time.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

btw, another thing that's great about the net radio is that you can snag yourself a little USB bluetooth emitter and a wireless stereo headset for as little as maybe $30 combined or something, then walk around your place doing stuff while listening to streams of bliss.

about 1/10th the cost of the bose / altec-lansing thing, for example. although i'm indeed still in love with that little wireless bose... if you remember my excitement from a year ago or so.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

I remember the name but I can't quote them.

And ughh! The local pros are getting control-freakish again on My Time, and
the same personality traits are also showing in their music...tried to listen to the radio last night, all music, but their control freakishness is showing in the sounds and it just shoots them in the foot. In hindsight and as far back as I can remember, some 58 years, It was always about Political Control with them, not as a Politic of the Republic, but as Social Control of us children, and their Business Control against competition, indies, etc.

And it never was about control with me, except for Free Speech Issues like The Draft and Viet Nam. It was only about agreeable music provided by alleged peer group artists and those of kindred spirit... ...Now Blown Sky High!

Were politics ever an issue at the radio stations? ?? ???

Politics? Radio? Never! I'm sure Elvis would agree with me!



TOPPOP: Elvis Costello - Radio Radio - YouTube

 

[sleepy]

I do indeed remember something about Bose and ping-pong,
and how well the Bose was sounding.

I had one of those local experiences yesterday, can't talk about it.
It wasn't bad, but the thing of it is, I was able to hear a certain somebody's voice in person without amps and speakers in the way and, unlike her recordings, the voice was sonorous and beautiful, though that was Not how she meant it, and the exposure reconfirmed my suspicions about hi-fi.

I don't think there has ever been a hi-fi system or speaker in the history of the medium that has recreated sound accurately. Not even now. I played violin in school orchestras and I thought so then, and I was once invited to one of Kathy McDonald's (Michael McDonald's sister's) gigs and I thought so that night too.

Brother Al took me to a private grand opening party for a West L.A. Music store where they have their best gear in use. Still the same. They even had Stanley Kubrick there. He was shooting one of his personal home movies, and it didn't help the sound at all.

So you can probably tell that I am certain that all of the hi-fis ever made still suck at realism, or at least leave something to be desired. I had hopes that an ultrasonic playback system would correct for these deficiencies in both the image solidity And the ambiance, realism and rock-solid presence, but that system is now in production by a company in Boston, or was at last check, and, no, it's just another clear ambient hi-end novelty with added limitations.

The best sound experience I've ever had was the night I played the vinyl Yellow Brick Road with the Shure Bros. phono cartridge wired directly to the old school (Good) Koss headphones with no electronics in-between. Unbelievable the vocal slaps in Elton's voice on "Love Lies Bleeding in My Hands" that get lost in the amps and crossovers and speakers, but of course the sound was ultra-quiet.

 

[Coil_Smoke]

No Amp...Really?

I do indeed remember something about Bose and ping-pong,
and how well the Bose was sounding.

I had one of those local experiences yesterday, can't talk about it.
It wasn't bad, but the thing of it is, I was able to hear a certain somebody's voice in person without amps and speakers in the way and, unlike her recordings, the voice was sonorous and beautiful, though that was Not how she meant it, and the exposure reconfirmed my suspicions about hi-fi.

I don't think there has ever been a hi-fi system or speaker in the history of the medium that has recreated sound accurately. Not even now. I played violin in school orchestras and I thought so then, and I was once invited to one of Kathy McDonald's (Michael McDonald's sister's) gigs and I thought so that night too.

Brother Al took me to a private grand opening party for a West L.A. Music store where they have their best gear in use. Still the same. They even had Stanley Kubrick there. He was shooting one of his personal home movies, and it didn't help the sound at all.

So you can probably tell that I am certain that all of the hi-fis ever made still suck at realism, or at least leave something to be desired. I had hopes that an ultrasonic playback system would correct for these deficiencies in both the image solidity And the ambiance, realism and rock-solid presence, but that system is now in production by a company in Boston, or was at last check, and, no, it's just another clear ambient hi-end novelty with added limitations.

The best sound experience I've ever had was the night I played the vinyl Yellow Brick Road with the Shure Bros. phono cartridge wired directly to the old school (Good) Koss headphones with no electronics in-between. Unbelievable the vocal slaps in Elton's voice on "Love Lies Bleeding in My Hands" that get lost in the amps and crossovers and speakers, but of course the sound was ultra-quiet.

Does that actually work? Can the few millivolts from a phono cartridge drive headphones? I gotta give this a try...

 

[sleepy]

If there is a sufficient output from the cartridge and the headphones have enough response, then it will. Yes it did work, but again, the output is Very Quite, but audible in a quiet room. I remember it was after midnight when I did it, so the external sounds of the area that would normally interfere were at a minimum.

It was a magnetic cartridge with coils for the phono conversion to signal and it was connected to Koss stereo headphones with voice coils. On a related note, if you take two matched speakers (with no crossovers!) and connect them to each other with the speaker wires, either speaker will act as a microphone and whatever sound it picks up will vibrate or move the diaphragm and its voice coil against the magnet which will generate a current that will drive the other speaker. Same as how an electric motor can be used as a generator, as long as it uses permanent magnets and as long as you have a means to rotate the armature at a reasonable rate of speed.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

was listening to the oldies stream on sky, just heard this little gem... possibly for the first time ever.
downloaded and put it on repeat. can't stop listening...!!

Guess Who-Clap For The Wolfman - YouTube

 

[LeeVanCleef]

How did you miss that one, Nic? It was all over the airwaves the summer I was visiting my family down in Memphis... about '74, I think. Probably about the time the Wolfman was doing coke with Robert Plant and my former boss. Just to ensure that you aren't missing out on other Wolfman-related singles... Here's one recorded by the "prom band" in American Grafitti.
Flash Cadillac & The Continental Kids - Did You Boogie (With Your Baby) with Wolfman Jack - YouTube

 

[Coil_Smoke]

Fixed this link.....

How did you miss that one, Nic? It was all over the airwaves the summer I was visiting my family down in Memphis... about '74, I think. Probably about the time the Wolfman was doing coke with Robert Plant and my former boss. Just to ensure that you aren't missing out on other Wolfman-related singles... Here's one recorded by the "prom band" in American Grafitti.
Flash Cadillac & The Continental Kids - Did You Boogie (With Your Baby) with Wolfman Jack - YouTube

Try this link instead...
Flash Cadillac & The Continental Kids - Did You Boogie (With Your Baby) with Wolfman Jack - YouTube

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

thx guys...! that will be very next song in my rotation after i stop listening to this indy pop tune i just discovered. i have probably listened to this two dozen times in a row now and DON'T KNOW when i'll stop!

Beautiful Song - Cansei de Ser Sexy (CSS) - YouTube

 

[Patch]

was listening to the oldies stream on sky, just heard this little gem... possibly for the first time ever.
downloaded and put it on repeat. can't stop listening...!!

Guess Who-Clap For The Wolfman - YouTube

Hmm ... guess who else likes that
one of my favorites from the '70s :)

I guess this Commander Cody number, didn't see ??? any air time in the '70s haha ...

Everybody's Doin' It on Hollywood Boulevard - YouTube

 

[GSGregg]

.....I linked Wolfman Jack to "The Mighty 690"
but apparently that should be "The Mighty 1090"

Shows the ease with which one can lose track; my last recollection of Wolfman Jack was something to do with "Ecks-Eee-Arr-Bee, San Antonio!", and I thought that meant he had 'retired' to Texas for his golden years (Of course, he had a great many golden years, didnee). Baja?! No wonder I could hardly pick it up!

Clicked briefly on this site; looks like it might be a kick.....

http://www.xerbradio.com/

 

[sleepy]

The Guess Who? Have you ever heard their song "Albert Flasher"?
Not sure what happened, but the song was on the charts in L.A. and was suddenly yanked overnight, never to be heard again on safe Top 40 A.M. radio.
I've always thought that *maaaybe* the song was yanked due to it's story about a pornographer??????

EDIT: But looking at the lyrics, perhaps that is only my misinterpretation...

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

I guess this Commander Cody number, didn't see ??? any air time in the '70s haha ...

Everybody's Doin' It on Hollywood Boulevard - YouTube

as they say back in philly, "that is a SHIT-awesome tune, bro"!
hits me right in my love of swing, too. :)


re: robert plant,
love the fact that he and page kept working on their art. last thing of his i heard was a collaboration with one of the songstresses from "o brother where art thou?"

so respect to guys like that, paul simon, dylan... even david byrne for a while (remember him?) for pushing themselves to evolve through new ages / new times.

do you have a particularly fun / crazy go-to story from your days of jockeying, bill?

 

[LeeVanCleef]

I think my "go-to" story would be the time I was frozen in a block of ice for 48 hours. It was one of those publicity stunts they make DJs do. I was in a space about the size of a large coffin, covered in a ton of ice, and there was a tiny hole where people could line up to look inside. It was, without a doubt, the weirdest fucking thing I've ever done!
I, too, appreciate artists who continue to push the envelope in their later years, however, if there was a celebrity I could punch in the face, I'd probably choose David Byrne. I don't know what it is about him...

 

[Coil_Smoke]

I See The Appeal

thx guys...! that will be very next song in my rotation after i stop listening to this indy pop tune i just discovered. i have probably listened to this two dozen times in a row now and DON'T KNOW when i'll stop!

Beautiful Song - Cansei de Ser Sexy (CSS) - YouTube

Bubbly(Gummy?) Newy Wavy lyrics.A little spacy Theremin sound and some nice changes ...I see the appeal.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

I think my "go-to" story would be the time I was frozen in a block of ice for 48 hours. It was one of those publicity stunts they make DJs do. I was in a space about the size of a large coffin, covered in a ton of ice, and there was a tiny hole where people could line up to look inside. It was, without a doubt, the weirdest fucking thing I've ever done!

WHAT... THE... FUCK...??


dude... serious??

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

Bubbly(Gummy?) Newy Wavy lyrics.A little spacy Theremin sound and some nice changes ...I see the appeal.

nice analysis, coily.

now put it on repeat and see if anything more interesting happens...?

 

[sleepy]

I'd probably choose David Byrne. I don't know what it is about him...

How about...he's Snarky for all the wrong reasons, at least in his late 70's-early 80's days. Him and Kenny Loggins.

All I can remember is how songs like "We dress like Students, We dress like Housewives" and the one about "the little wee-wee baby" were thrown at me while I could not relate to my Hollywood neighbor's phony housewives and phony commoners...I wasn't supposed to...while nursing the broken tailbone (without a single Doctor) that one of them gave me while suffering their extreme sleep deprivations.

You'll have to look up the song titles. I'm not going there, but I did see Byrne on a later edition of PBS' "Alive From Off-Center", around about the third or fourth season, and he was pretty cool.