Friday Photo Flashback

I have a few bloggers that I follow who always answer the daily writing prompt offered up by WordPress. With the features I am currently running, I don’t have much need for a prompt every day, but do jot down ones that I would like to come back to. This week one of the prompts was: List three jobs you’d consider pursuing if money didn’t matter.

I had to struggle to come up with three, but one of those would definitely be to get back in radio. A joke told by radio people everywhere is that you don’t work in radio for the money. Sadly, this isn’t a joke! The pay for on air personalities is not very substantial. Another joke, that is not a joke, is that a person who works in radio’s wardrobe consists of a pair of jeans and T-shirts from all the radio stations that they have worked at.

There was no money in that job, but I loved doing it. I found a photo that must have been taken by an intern, a visitor to the station, or my now ex-wife. This photo had to be taken right about the year 2000. I am wearing a full beard, so it must have been taken in the fall. I am still wearing glasses, so I hadn’t had my Lasik surgery yet.

I was probably doing the Mid-day shift at the time. The clock on the wall is at 10:30 in the uncropped picture read 10:30 (most likely AM). I have me feet propped up on the counter, so I am probably playing a nice 4-5 minute set of commercials.

I loved this studio. There was one thing that I hated, and they eventually fixed. Under the microphone you see a cabinet with some knobs on the right. You can’t see it, but inside there was our main computer that ran all the music. It was a touch screen. On that screen, you would see the songs coming up, commercials and a set of “hot keys” on the right for things you use on a regular basis. It sort of looked like:

The problem was that the screen sat inside that cabinet on an angel. With the microphone right above it, all it took was a small bit of spittle from your mouth to land somewhere on that screen and it would (1) start playing something that shouldn’t be playing, (2) fire song after song after song after song in rapid succession, (3) turn your microphone on (when it was supposed to be off), or (4) stop something that is playing on the air. It was an awful set up. One sneeze and you could burn through three hours of music in 25 seconds.

Eventually, they brought the screen up and put in a mixer board, which worked much better. It looked like this:

Back to my picture. Directly above that cabinet was a shelf where the liner book sat. It was full of the station information that we read throughout the show. If we were going to be out doing an appearance, the info for it was in there. Various scripts for weather forecasts, artist and concert information, and sponsorship information was all found in that book.

I won’t lie, I laughed out loud when I saw that big honking computer monitor that is behind me. That was the computer that we used to record phone calls. There was a digital editor on it so we could cut out stuff that we didn’t want in a hurry. Digital editing was so much faster than when we had to edit on reel to reel tape.

On the left side of the picture and behind me (to my right) you can sort of see a few CDs in a rack. Those were there in case something ever happened to the automation system. If it had to be rebooted, we’d have a few songs that we could play from CD. In some cases, we had burned CDs with an hour of music on it in case the computer needed to be down longer. Worse case scenario, we could go next door to the news room and do a very limited version of the show from in there, but that took some shuffling around.

In the bottom right corner of my photo, you can see the phone bank next to the cabinet. We had three lines that were request lines. We also could answer the business phone after hours and there was a hotline that the boss could call us on during the show. Prior to contests, we could “block” the lines so people couldn’t start calling in before we asked them too. (And yes, if we asked for caller number 95, we actually answered and counted. “B-95, You’re caller 1, B-95. You’re caller 2 ….”)

The final thing that sticks out to me in this photo is in front of the phone bank. My Sony headphones. I loved those headphones. I had quite a few pairs of “cans” throughout my career, but those Sony’s were my favorite. I beat the snot out of those things and they always worked. I can’t tell you how many times I dropped those thing, but they always kept working. If I remember correctly, I ran over the cord with the chair wheel and it sliced the cord. I wound up buying another (cheaper) pair, which sounded good, but it had a thinner cord and it shorted out after a few months.

Eventually, I bit the bullet and bought another pair of them. They now sit in a box with my DJ equipment gathering dust.

Sigh. I miss radio….

A Tedious Project

Last month I started a project that was long over due. It took me awhile because I wasn’t sure I could do it. Thanks to some really helpful friends, I have the pieces in place to get it done.

A couple years ago, the iPod Classic that I bought in the early 2000’s stopped playing in one headphone. I was told this happens and there is nothing I can do about it. The original computer that I used for iTunes has not been working for years, so there was no way to take what I had and transfer it. I tried, but couldn’t remember my Apple ID.

So, after talking to a few friends, I learned that if you plug the iPod into a computer and click the “show hidden files” button, the music that is stored on the iPod becomes visible. Then, you can plug in an external drive to the computer and transfer the songs to it. There are some negatives, though.

First of all, despite the fact that you can see that the song is “Blue Moon” by Frank Sinatra, Apple renames every file with 4 letters. So it comes up “JFXY” or “WKSP”. The second issue is that many of the songs are are in an iTunes format. So now, if I want to play them from a flash drive in the car, they have to be converted to an MP3 or WAV format.

Another friend told me about a program called Audacity. It is similar to other digital editors I have used at various radio stations over the years. You open the iTunes formatted tune and export it to another drive in an MP3 format.

After downloading all the folders that contained songs from my iPod, there are about 40-50 of them. Each contains about 100 or more songs. So I am going folder by folder, song by song and converting and transferring. While it is a tedious process, I am happy that many of the songs I thought I would lose, will be saved.

In the transfer process there were some hiccups. I have come across a few songs that had issues and actually have areas of silence in the middle of the songs. Then there are those that were MP4 that I purchased on iTunes almost 20 years ago that show up, but they won’t convert. For these, I will probably reach out to my buddy Max (who seems to have a boatload of songs) to see if he can replace them….

On the bright side, there were many albums that I downloaded for various DJ jobs I had done in the past to get one song. Many of those albums were things I would never listen to and I always wound up skipping songs. All of those songs will not be transferring to my hard drive. I had an album of this weird traditional Irish music for a retirement party – that will all be deleted. I have another album of Hawaiian tracks for a Luau wedding I did – bye bye. I can also put all of the Christmas songs that were in the mix in a folder or on a drive that is nothing but holiday music.

It is taking me about 45 minutes to clear out one folder. Open the song – rename it – convert it. Once this is done, I will take on the bigger task of going through the 4 plastic totes I have downstairs with CDs in them and transfer the songs I want to keep to digital.

All this while living life … LOL

I Miss Record Stores!

My first job was a paper route. I delivered for both the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News. I guess I was probably about 10 or 11. Some of your customers paid the paper directly, but most of the time, you had to go door to door to “collect” for the week’s deliveries.

My dad decided since I was making money, I’d need to have a bank account to put the money in. He went with me and I opened an account at Michigan National Bank. I think he had hoped that I would put money in there and save it for when I needed a car or something. The fact that the bank was basically in the parking lot of the Hoover Eleven shopping center, which was almost directly across from my paper route, was probably a bad idea!

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There were two stores in the shopping center that ended up with most of my money. The first was Circus World, a long gone toy store where we bought the latest Star Wars toys, Matchbox cars, and toy guns. The second store, and the one that got most of my money, was a record store called Harmony House. Oh, Harmony House, how I miss you!!!

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When I had my paper route, Harmony House was located in the original wing of the shopping center. I had a turntable in my bedroom and I would go and buy 12 inch LP’s, 45 singles, cassettes, and eventually CD’s. Some of the music blogs I follow have often said, “You never forget the first album you bought with your own money.” I can say that isn’t true. I don’t remember mine. I can tell you the ones I bought, but don’t remember my first. This is probably because many of the albums my dad had ended up in my collection.

What I remember is walking in and there was a wall which had a pegboard on it. On the pegboard, there were pockets which had the new 45 singles on it. Each pocket contained about 20-30 45 records in it. On the front of the pocket was the title of the song and the artist. If you were to compare that wall to the Billboard chart, it was basically the Top 30 or 40 songs that were being played on the radio. I remember buying “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” by Queen on 45.

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The above pic is not really what the wall in Harmony House looked like, but it gives you an idea. Looking at the picture, it reminded me that I lost the adapter that you put on the turntable to be able to play 45’s. With an LP album, there was a small hole in the middle of it that the spindle went through. In the above picture you can see that hole on the “Creepers” record. The hole on a 45 was much bigger, as you can see in the majority of the 45’s shown in the picture. It seems to me that I had about 50 of those yellow 45 adapters at home for my collection! It snapped in the record so you could play it.

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The singles were often released in hopes that you’d buy the album when it came out. I was buying albums from artists that my dad introduced to me like Roy Orbison, Elvis, and others. If I had to take a good guess, I would imagine one of the first albums I ever bought was from the Beatles. Probably Beatles 65 or Beatles VI – both of which I loved! In elementary school we had a “Record of the Week” which each class voted on and we could all bring songs in for the class to vote on. I remember bringing in a Beatles Album.

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I used to spend hours in Harmony House! I remember that occasionally there would be a huge cardboard cut out of a local DJ (like Arthur P from WRIF) with a spot for 45’s. It would be their “Pick of the Week”. They had a listening station where you could put headphones on and listen to the 45’s and you could probably find me there 50% of my visit! I used to love talking about music with the people who worked there and became good friends with them in doing so. It was always cool to have one of them say, “If you like that … you will really like _____!”

Vinyl sales started to decline with the rise of cassette tapes and cassingles (a single song on a cassette). I used to take a vinyl album and record it to cassette so I could play it on my Walkman. Then, I just started buying albums on cassette. I DO remember the first album I bought on cassette –

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Eventually, CDs became the way to get your music. I remember when they first came out, they came in a HUGE box! The CD would sit at the bottom of the packaging, and the top half of it was pretty much nothing. Now, when you buy a CD, all you have to do is remove the cellophane around it – back then you had to crack open that huge box!

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Let me preface this by saying I realize that I am probably gonna sound like an old man here, but I hate the fact that more and more music is being delivered digitally. That being said, I will say that in some cases it is great – like for DJing. All my new music is downloadable and clean edits. It does make that very easy. However, I miss the days of listening to an entire album from start to finish. I miss picking out the songs I hoped I would hear on the radio. I miss comparing “notes” with other friends who bought the album to hear what songs were their favorites and why.

It seems that there is little interest in albums anymore. Hell, back in the day, there was a radio format called “AOR” which stood for “album oriented rock” and you got to hear those cuts that weren’t being played anywhere else! My Tune Tuesday blog this week about Dwight Yoakam was about a song that never played on the radio, but it is still a great song and one of my favorites! Think about growing up – no doubt you have an album that you could put on and play it from start to finish and you loved every song!! Right??

I guess one of the things I miss most about record stores, aside of the music that I bought, is talking with people about music. I loved being able to talk to staff members about music that had just come out. I remember talking to a guy at Harmony House all the time about the “Future Releases” that were coming out. We’d look at the list each week and talk about it. It was always a great conversation when an artist would do something “different” from what they normally did (Pat Benatar’s True Love album comes to mind).

I had the same experience later on with a place in Roseville called Record Time. My buddy Ken was the manager of the Oldies Department there and would steer me toward great imports and hard to find songs. I had so many rare and hard to find CDs in my collection because of him. Even though our music preferences weren’t always the same – it was always great to share thoughts with him.

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The other great thing about a record store is bumping into other music lovers. So many times I’d be looking at the back of an album and another customer would walk up and say, “That’s a great LP!” Those random conversations could also lead to discovering new music too.

It is nice to see that vinyl records are making a comeback. I think it’s crazy that they are trying to sell them for $30 an album, especially when you can get the CD for $15-$20! There is something to be said about hearing a song on vinyl, though. I don’t really even know how to describe it, maybe you can help me do that, but the best I can do is – it sounds “fuller” and more “real”. I don’t know, maybe that’s just the old man in me….

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Today, I am forced to look for CDs (if I am buying any) at Walmart, FYE (which is slowly becoming non-existent), Barnes & Noble (which is usually WAY overpriced), or online. It’s not the same. If I am at Walmart, the guy next to me looking at CDs is really there to buy toilet paper, not there solely to buy music. With the internet, we have instant access to album reviews, which can be useful if you know what you are looking for. I miss hearing about something that I didn’t know about from a fellow music lover. I miss walking into the record store and hearing something playing in the store and wondering “Wow! I like that! Who is this and how can I get it?!”

Thank goodness there are still a few stores around that sell used CD’s, records, and even movies. Sadly, they are as close as we’ll come to Harmony House or Record Time.

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I’m making a list ….

The iPod Classic debuted in 2001. At this particular time in my life, most of my music was on “mix tapes” or on CD’s. It was about 2006 when I finally caved and bought my iPod. I bought the 80 gig version. The iPod has out lasted the computer that I originally used for iTunes! Eventually, after loading it with over 5000 songs, I reached the point where I reached the maximum amount of computers that I could use for that iPod (I don’t know, maybe that’s changed now). It has been some time since I added any music to it, but I am constantly listening to it!

As a music guy, I HAVE to have music! I have Pandora on my tablet, but I find that their play lists are often narrow, and even shuffling between my “favorite stations” doesn’t help. My son had Spotify on his phone, and I really don’t know much about that. I don’t use my phone for anything really but making calls, taking pictures, and surfing Facebook. I don’t want to be using an App and find out it is using all my data (when I am not connected to Wi-Fi – which happens WAY too much!). When I want music – my music – I can grab my iPod and enjoy! I can replay songs over and over if I want and I can skip songs I am not in the mood to hear.

I listen to my iPod a lot, especially at work. There are times when I need to zone out and score studies that are running and I just need to tune out what else is going on in the tech room. Other times, I find myself annoyed by the chatter of co-workers, so I “headphone”. I can still watch patients and enjoy my music, while tuning out BS. I have a pair of headphones that I use at work that are “noise cancelling”. They are amazing – and sometimes allow me to escape into my own little musical world.

“Are these things broke?”

As one of my coworkers went off on a rant about something that just annoyed me last week, I reached for my trusty headphones and iPod. When I put them on and pressed play, and only heard music from the left ear. My first thought was that the headphones had a short in the cord – a very common occurrence. Yes, I paid extra for the “noise cancelling” feature, but they were not too expensive. The headphones I wore when I work on the radio are about $100 for a pair, however, I probably only paid about $30 or $40 for these.

I began to push and pull and wiggle the cord of the headphones where it connected up by the ear. Nothing. I began to wiggle the cord down by where it plugged in to the iPod. Nothing. When I pushed down on it, the other ear came through. Urgh! It’s not the headphones, it’s the headphone jack of the iPod. 13 years of headphones in and out have finally taken its toll.

A buddy told me, “It’s no big deal. You can still listen to it in one ear”. This guy clearly has no idea about stereo and mono! I have some Beatles stuff that is in stereo on my iPod. If you are only listening in one ear, you are either hearing guitars with no vocals or vocals with no guitars! It also ruins any type of classical music. You just miss the whole experience if you are listening to a classical piece in only one ear. I am sorry, but it IS a big deal!

The good news is that I can still connect it to the car and listen with no worries at all. I just can’t listen at work anymore – which is a MAJOR problem for me. I may actually have to look into a new or refurbished iPod. The problem is how do I get the stuff from the old one to the new one? Another problem is that much of the stuff I have on my iPod is stuff that I used to have on CD, but do not anymore. I also don’t have a list of the songs that I have on the current iPod, because the computer(s) used for iTunes are long gone.

I guess I could just go buy a cheap MP3 player, but I know those don’t last. This iPod is 13+ years old and outside of the headphone jack, still going strong! Maybe a new iPod is something I really need to do. There are plenty of albums and songs that have come out since the last time I added music to it that deserve a spot on my playlist. Many of those songs I have on my external hard drive, which I use to DJ, and I will occasionally play that while working on the laptop. It’s not my iPod, though….

So now it begins. I am going to hit the “shuffle songs” feature and start at song #1. I am going to start a list of every song on this iPod and that way when I am able, I can begin adding them to a new one. I probably need to do a little digging as well, because I couldn’t remember my Apple ID from 2006 if my life depended on it.

Song #1 …. After Midnight – Eric Clapton. Song #2 …. Can’t Buy Me Love – The Beatles.