esrosedotblog

RADIO IS NOT OVER

The LATimes Business section reported the end of an era today. The company RadioShack will now be known only as The Shack.

RadioShack updates its name and image

WTF!

But I see the point.

It won't be long before all radio is on the net or by satellite or cable and the air turned over to other shit. I won't mourn the end of talk-radio.

Of course, the end of radio has been predicted forever and it is still there.

Yet, we must admit that a retailer with the name "radio" in its title is probably showing a little age and creakiness.

When I was a kid (here it comes), there was only radio. It was the entertainment, the news, the sports. All of it.

Our first radio was a Majestic. It was a big fucker. Heavy. I have a photo of my dad sitting and listening to it.

Yes. We would stop stuff and sit and listen. this is exactly the model.

I tried it in its last years and it still worked pretty well and the sound quality was very good.

A little later there was a "portable" radio. It was pretty big about the size of, well, bigger than a breadbox but not too much. My dad built a box to sit it in that would hold the batteries. Big boxy ones.

I remember the first radio I got for myself. It was a little Zenith portable. AM of course. That is all there was.

And then the big breakthroughs began. We had FM. I got another Zenith AM/FM. I took it to school with me and a friend of mine hooked it up so I could use it to play a turntable through. MIT. Somehow he cheated the preamp requirements.

Now, back to RadioShack. They were the pre-emninent place to look at Hi Fi systems. Components. The place in Washington Street in Downtown Boston would be jammed with people on Saturdays feeling up all the equipment.

It was mostly parts. Pieces. On open counters. In bins. Geeks crawling over the displays. Demonstrations. A mad house. Wonderful.

Hi-fi was not stereo although that was in the background. Hi-fi was High Fidelity and as much of it as you could get.

I remember a show that was held at the old Touraine Hotel in Boston. A bunch of us went and nearly fainted at the sound which came from the huge huge speakers. Size was all. That changed fast but in the beginning bigger was very better.

My first Hi Fi was a Heathkit amplifier that my best friend made for me and gave us for our wedding. By this time, radio was not enough. You had to have a turntable. And then you had to have tape. This was the beginning of the end for radio as the sole source of sound.

Stereo killed it dead. I first heard stereo at my roommate's Dad's house. It was a record of an auto race and shit. Yes. Maybe a tape but I think a record. Amazing. We did just what my Dad did. We sat down and listened to the racing cars. And locomotives.

There was not stereo on the radio for quite awhile and the other modes leapt ahead.

Little things meant a lot. Incremental growth. The intolerable feeling of not having the latest shit.

I remember the first time I heard high quality stereo headphones. Sly and the Family Stone.

This came just at the juncture of the 60s and marijuana. Perfect.

By this time I am over the heathkit and into the heavy duty stuff mostly Sony. There was a time when they were preeminent.

But this is about radio.

I never really gave it up. It was always in the background.

Classical music stations emerged on FM. Jazz. Rock. We made our own tapes. A blur of change.

Today, we have a Bose radio. One of those wave things you buy through the mail. It has a CD player that holds five discs. That is it.

We have returned to the original situation. Almost. Radio. That is what we listen to more than anything else.

Why?

I reached a point where I realized I wasn't hearing the highs and the lows that I used to. The big systems were a waste of money. We left them behind in Boston.

So. Full circle.

Now I am picking up on internet radio. I watch Daryl Hall's monthly very high quality video hours with young rock musicians. I have headphones for movies.

We play the Bose a lot less. Just at dinner time.

Finally, it would seem, I am going to end up like my Dad. Sitting next to the radio on my computer and listening. And watching. In stereo. But it isn't too far from where I came in, is it?

Goodbye RadioShack.

I will still come in for the occasional battery. But no radios.

Labels: internet, life, nostalgia