1967, KOMA radio, and bourbon...
Well, at the moment there are two Virginia Gentlemen in the room. One is typing away at the keyboard, the other is sitting in a glass to the right. Let’s see where this goes….
The Post has been full of articles recently about how the same soulless, corporate maggots who destroyed broadcast radio are succeeding in getting people to pay them money to subscribe to satellite radio, (which will soon be as boring and middle-brow as anything on the airwaves). I keep insisting that the only excitement in programming is now on the Internet amongst amateur creators, and I still believe that – but things weren’t always this way. In the late 60’s, radio in D.C. was easy. We had WEAM and WOL and WPGC, (with my favorite DJ, Cousin Duffy). But in the summers, the family would leave Washington to go West. Then, radio got more limited. You’d hump over the Appalachians, maybe catching a whisper of a signal from Pittsburgh or Ft Wayne (WOWO); but you really weren’t safe until you’d hit the flatlands of Ohio – then you could get WLS out of Chicago. What a great station! You could pull in rock and roll from the foothills of the Appalachians through Eastern Iowa. After that, things got desperate. There’d be C&W from Kansas, polka out of Iowa, and the staccato bilge of Paul Harvey from everywhere else. It was Hell. The family would get to Western Colorado and it would be no better – until the night. Then KOMA, out of Oklahoma City would get to boost their signal up to about 100,000 watts and be able to bounce off the cloud cover, and we’d be saved! The limitations made the music all the sweeter; and there is nothing more appropriate to the true spirit of rock’n’roll than it only being available at nightfall… My cousins and I would sit there, hunched over our transistor radios, reveling in the sounds of the Buckinghams, Aretha, the Music Explosion and the Stones. It was our little version of being like Soviet dissidents passing along the latest samizdat manuscripts, or the Maquis, waiting for instructions from London. In its own way, rock radio was romantic, and dangerous.
And now we are left with safe, corporate, focus-group sludge. To someone younger than me, I can only say that it wasn’t always this way, and it doesn’t have to be this way now. But I know a forlorn hope when I see one - we’ve lost a rather large piece of pop culture here, and it isn’t coming back. But I know for a fact that there’s nothing cooler than the sun going down over the horizon and suddenly being able to hear “Little Bit O’Soul”, or “Respect” crackling through the speaker on an evening in July. And I honestly feel sorry for those of you who don’t know, (or care) what the hell I’m talking about.
So here’s to dark nights and bouncing signals; to at time when rock was dangerous and defining and a thin beam of rebellion and freedom bouncing around in a million kids’ heads – all from 3 inch speakers. And I bid a good night to you, to Virginia Gentleman, to KOMA, and to my cousins and comrades of the night. And goodnight Cousin Duffy, wherever you are….
The Post has been full of articles recently about how the same soulless, corporate maggots who destroyed broadcast radio are succeeding in getting people to pay them money to subscribe to satellite radio, (which will soon be as boring and middle-brow as anything on the airwaves). I keep insisting that the only excitement in programming is now on the Internet amongst amateur creators, and I still believe that – but things weren’t always this way. In the late 60’s, radio in D.C. was easy. We had WEAM and WOL and WPGC, (with my favorite DJ, Cousin Duffy). But in the summers, the family would leave Washington to go West. Then, radio got more limited. You’d hump over the Appalachians, maybe catching a whisper of a signal from Pittsburgh or Ft Wayne (WOWO); but you really weren’t safe until you’d hit the flatlands of Ohio – then you could get WLS out of Chicago. What a great station! You could pull in rock and roll from the foothills of the Appalachians through Eastern Iowa. After that, things got desperate. There’d be C&W from Kansas, polka out of Iowa, and the staccato bilge of Paul Harvey from everywhere else. It was Hell. The family would get to Western Colorado and it would be no better – until the night. Then KOMA, out of Oklahoma City would get to boost their signal up to about 100,000 watts and be able to bounce off the cloud cover, and we’d be saved! The limitations made the music all the sweeter; and there is nothing more appropriate to the true spirit of rock’n’roll than it only being available at nightfall… My cousins and I would sit there, hunched over our transistor radios, reveling in the sounds of the Buckinghams, Aretha, the Music Explosion and the Stones. It was our little version of being like Soviet dissidents passing along the latest samizdat manuscripts, or the Maquis, waiting for instructions from London. In its own way, rock radio was romantic, and dangerous.
And now we are left with safe, corporate, focus-group sludge. To someone younger than me, I can only say that it wasn’t always this way, and it doesn’t have to be this way now. But I know a forlorn hope when I see one - we’ve lost a rather large piece of pop culture here, and it isn’t coming back. But I know for a fact that there’s nothing cooler than the sun going down over the horizon and suddenly being able to hear “Little Bit O’Soul”, or “Respect” crackling through the speaker on an evening in July. And I honestly feel sorry for those of you who don’t know, (or care) what the hell I’m talking about.
So here’s to dark nights and bouncing signals; to at time when rock was dangerous and defining and a thin beam of rebellion and freedom bouncing around in a million kids’ heads – all from 3 inch speakers. And I bid a good night to you, to Virginia Gentleman, to KOMA, and to my cousins and comrades of the night. And goodnight Cousin Duffy, wherever you are….
posted by mendip at
11:01 PM
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