meandthestereo

I will freely admit it: I love satellite radio. I could be the poster child for satellite radio. I turn on my car and flip on the radio. It takes a second or two and then snap! A good song is banging through my speakers. When the first song is over, another one follows; then another and another! There is no string of commercials to endure until I can again hear some kick-ass music! All the music I could possibly ask for right at my finger tips. You like rock? It’s there. You like the hair bands…got ‘em. Are the blues your thing? Not a problem. How about something from your favorite musical era? Fifties, sixties, seventies all the way up to today’s stuff from folks like Kings of Leon and Taylor Swift. I’m telling you, it is a butt-load of music just waiting to be listened to! And if having great satellite radio in your car isn’t enough, bring it with you. There are phone apps, boom boxes and iPods so you can bring non-stop, commercial-free tunage with you anywhere you go. By the way, have I mentioned I love satellite radio? But, if you stop and think about all the behind-the-scenes machinery, it’s pretty cool, isn’t it? There are these chunks of metal floating around in space over the planet, flooding the Earth with music. You got guys like Bodhi and Lou Brutus loading up the tunes and cranking them worldwide for all of us audiophiles to devour and enjoy. Isn’t technology wonderful?

As I sit here and think about the technology of distributing music, I can’t help but to hark back to my younger days. I loved music as much then as I do now, but the medium was a little different. I remember getting my first LP. For those of you who are too young to remember LPs, I’m speaking of vinyl records…twelve inch circular discs of varying dark-colored rings, plus a label and a little, tiny hole in the middle so it would fit snugly on your record player. I think the technical term was phonograph, but I could never quite figure out how this piece of equipment ever got a goofy name like that. No matter what it was called, it was magic to me. I would drop the needle into the groove and a couple of crackles and pops later, my favorite tune was cranking out of bad speakers. Awesome! How could this get any better? Even having to tape a penny or two to the record player arm never bothered me. Musical bliss! Read the rest of this entry →

Rock band! That single phrase has such a different meaning nowadays, doesn’t it? When I was growing up, listening to Rock and Roll LPs on my cheap record player, and someone mentioned a rock show or a rock band, it immediately made me think of a live concert. A real, honest-to-goodness, balls-to-the-wall type of rock show. You know what I’m talking about here, right? I’m talking about a buzz, an unbearable anticipation in the air…until the lights finally go down. The arena goes dark and the lighters go straight up in the air. The band takes the stage and just rocks your socks off! The lights pulsating to the beat of the music, some killer pyrotechnics, plenty of fake fog rolling off the stage…and the music was loud. Really loud! And if you were lucky, you would see some lasers! Oh man, how I loved a good laser show! I’m pretty sure the amps went to 11 at the old Capital Center shows. I think my heart beat was altered forever at the AC/DC ‘Back In Black’ concert! And when you left the show, after at least two encores, you couldn’t hear a damn thing. It was like your ear canals were full of cotton. You were shouting to the person next to you just to tell them how great the show was!

This is a Rock band.

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