Imagine 1958, new set of wheels with a state of the art radio, cruising the strip. Brand new music from Elvis, Ricky Nelson, and the hot song from that summer, Purple People Eater. Sure looks strange to me, especially that one horn.
Flash forward to the Fashioned Challenged Seventies and I am just a wee lad, riding in the back of a 1968 Pontiac. What did we listen to? You got it, AM Radio. I grew up on a steady diet of 70's AM Radio, and I am thankful I did. Some of the best music from that decade I first heard in a car. From short trips across town to long Sheeple Vacation Road Trips. If I played it right, I could convince my parents to play something other than country music, for a little while.
You gotta have Rock N' Roll.
Tuneage on the go. I still listened to AM Radio, but mostly just for baseball games. I moved on to FM and the hot 100. I was a teenager, what can I say. And, all of thirty years ago, is when I started listening to a local 'Oldies' station. It was hip man, all the cool cats tuned in to get a blast from the past, listen to the classics man. The squares were doing the hustle, you wanted to get a groove on, you caught this station.
At that time(remember this) they played 50's and 60's and I could dig it. This is long before we started putting a lower case i in front of everything, long before the net, you know, stone age days. Those tunes were hard to come by unless you caught a garage sale where some oldie who had lived past the hipster stage was selling old 45's. The magic of radio though.. yeah, it was all there, Elvis, Ricky, and even a Purple People Eater.
It sucks, but you grow up. I dont listen to the radio much anymore. That is a shame really. Just on ocassion, in the Jeeple, do I tune in the radio. I have a CD player, I can play whatever. I have a lot of those oldies on CD, so I can catch it then. I do not listen to that oldies station much anymore, but I did yesterday.
Caught some cool tunes by Seeger, Bowie, early 80's stuff. And.. that right there, my friends, is the problem. That station is STILL an oldies station. The oldies are the Hot 100 from the Fashioned Challenged Seventies and the Hazy Eighties. Yep, you gotta it, they bill themselves as playing all oldies, all the time.
Except.. the oldies are from my teeny bopper years.. Shazam! In the blink of an eye I have become that past their prime old hipster cat selling ancient cassette tapes at a yard sale. If that fifteen year old could see me now.. he would laugh, snap his fingers and say too bad old dude. Maybe you should listen to the 'current' Hot 100.
But I can't.. I just can't get into it. For kicks, I just looked at the Top 40.. I know a couple artists and recognize one song. Sad really.. truly sad. I think I understand how my grandparents felt when all their favorite radio shows, The Lone Ranger for example, got replaced with that loud, teenage rock and roll stuff. Funny how that works.
So I will keep trying. I will still catch a Hot 100 radio station, hoping something catches my ear. After all, you can't listen to only the oldies, not if you want to be a real cool hipster cat, and not some kinda square.
Happy Musical Wanderings
Comments