For nearly as long as I can remember I’ve loved music. Not only have I loved music, but I’ve been passionately involved in memorizing Artists, Song Titles, and Lyrics. My brain is a saturated treasure trove of lyrics and titles. There is some gaping void inside of me that screams “fill me with songs”. It is insatiable, and I love it.
My first real memory of this obsession gaining hold is in Silver Creek, NY.
I was in 2nd grade and got a very cheap blue portable cassette player. I remember walking around outside and around in school listening to my favorite (and only) tape: Scorpions – Crazy World
I will always remember the whistling from Winds of Change, and that Send Me An Angel was featured in the school dance part of the movie Rad Which I watched incessantly. This virtually forced my mom to buy me a BMX bike.
Another transformational event was soon to come. Radio:
I had just gotten my own room, and was maybe 8 to 10 years old. I received what was to be one of the greatest gifts. A two cassette AM/FM boom box with dual recording, and equalizer, and super fast dub mode to copy tapes quickly. Not only that, but it had line input. This didn’t come into play until years later though. More on that soon.
I was holed up in my room, and I would listen to any radio station that would come in. I tuned the dial (because it was a tunable thumb wheel type dial) and would stumble upon Canadian stations (just over the lake), and Buffalo stations. My favorite was 103.3 The Foxx. They played rock, and classic rock.
I remember vividly a sudden change in the 90s. They switched the format to this new fangled grunge, alternative. They changed the name to 103.3 The Edge. For a solid 24 hours they played nothing but the song It’s The End Of The World As We Know It, by R.E.M. No joke. 24 hours of that song. I can’t forget that.
Then I started listening more and more, and another exciting thing happened. I received a CD Player and Bush – Sixteen Stone. I took the CD player with me virtually everywhere, and hooked it up to my boom box with Line In. I would even take my CDs and rip them into tapes just so I had that extra copy.
I would spend hours and hours listening to albums over and over until I knew all of the songs, and all of the words.
When High School came around this continued even more. I bought an entire grunge collection from some kid who was converting to hip hop. I thought he was crazy, but he sold at deep discounts. My CD collection increased 5 fold. More new music to listen to!
It’s been down hill ever since. College was just insane for the amount of new music I downloaded, and now that I actually have some money I’ve started buying more. The combination of the Internet, and Satellite radio for my car is almost too much to handle. There is so much to listen to that I miss the simplicity I once had.
I miss finding one album, and playing it for weeks on repeat, and then shuffle.
Maybe it’s time to cleanse my iPod and simplify the playlist to just one or two artists at a time.
I had to post this. It was driving me crazy thinking about what song was playing on 103.3 The Edge when they switched formats back in the 90s. Now my brain is satisfied. I can sleep again.
These are the things that keep me awake at night. Now you know.
