Radio still matters to some people. The CBC's radio news division gives me more accurate information and takes on world events than I can get from the visual media. I've been a regular listener since I was young and I know my life would be very different without it.
We had a transistor radio that still had Luxembourg and Paris and London written on the dial. And a two-reel tape recorder. I remember the first cassette recorder that we got for Christmas and recording Killer Queen and David Cassidy from the Top Twenty on Sunday Evening (275 and 285. We’re on a new wave band!). I remember The Walkman that I could sneak into school and the CDs that replaced tapes. I still have my big box of albums that I gaze at longingly while I listen to Spotify. That will all be gone soon when the next thing comes along. And I’ll be gone too.
When one of us is kvetching about little things that seem large in the moment, I imagine us in one of the many plausible apocalyptic scenarios and think how we would long to have this life back, how painfully precious all our mundane nonsense would look then. In a less dramatic way, remembering the clunky analogue 90s from the “everything’s computer” present is a bit like that.
BTW, we still have a portable am/fm radio. We have it out in the rabbitry to create some noise throughout the day so they don't startle when we walk in and out. We have it tuned to UCSC radio and when I'm out there, I'm often pleasantly surprised at the quality of the programing. Thursday mornings are The Beatles. :-)
I have taken to listening to radio shows again. When my brother's show ended a few years back I kinda stopped and relied on podcasts, Spotify and YouTube to do my choosing for me. To be fair, they've been pretty good.
I started listening for no real reason to Rewind Radio Cornwall, (Cornwall's only independent commercial radio station, People you Know, Music you Love). Their breakfast show is a joy and they play a surprisingly eclectic mix of music, which has introduced to me to the likes of Myles Smith and Chappell Roan.(Perhaps the demise of independent radio stations is cause for concern, especially as how company's like Bauer have bulldozed their way through what is still regarded by many in rural areas as a lifeline)
I'm not sponsored by them by the way.
Even in the DAB age, I'm still seeing a lot of beautiful radios around. Art Deco ones are particularly apropos, perhaps because it harks back to the radio as king era. I've even made some wood burned frames for a lad on site, a young fella, who still builds them!
That's good to hear! Yes, I've got a couple of old Deco ones that I picked up years ago... coming upon one of those in the spare room was part of what made me think about this piece!
I've long believed that the keys to living a rich and fulfilling life are to value the things that others don't, and to use them to create your own concept of success. It reduces the feeling of competition with others, so naturally leads to an "abundance mindset". You feel like you're winning at life while accepting your foibles, the limitations of your environment, and the reality that others will probably never perceive you that way.
It doesn’t matter where I am, it could be a small room.
The glimmer of gold Böhme saw on the kitchen pot
was missed by everyone else in the house.
Maybe the fire in my lashes is a reflection of that.
I’m a few years older than you, and radio played a similar role in my adolescence.
While I prefer reading books to audiobooks,
I do listen to podcasts every night (the creepier the better).
Hearing stories and music, in the dark, hopefully won’t disappear. And I hope civilization doesn’t regress so much that we’re actually gathering around fires to do so!
Oh, me too... and I think being told stories through voice will definitely last forever. I guess it's just the means of delivery that changes back and forth.
I have four in my house and at least one is on most of the time, listening to NPR and BBC World Service. So in this household, no, the radio is not even close to dead.
Also, I admit it's been a while since I bought a new car but don't they all still come with a radio? Surely not everyone pays the extra charge for satellite radio...? Never understood that, when there's perfectly good free radio in the air all around us.
I am delighted to hear this :-) Let us all keep these things going. I grew up with a radio in in the background all the time (BBC R4) and I think it's the sanest way to live.
Still a (fairly battered) radio in the kitchen. As much as I love music one of the pleasures of my adult life has been making a Sunday roast with the football on Radio 5
I’ve been listening to my electric kitchen radio (local Colorado Public Radio station) every morning for decades. We have numerous other more high tech ways for listening, and I utilize them often. But mornings are reserved for the radio, a ritualistic reminder every day of my parents, carrying on their tradition.
Loved the visual reminder of sitting there with my hand poised on my little cassette recorder, waiting for “that one song” to come on so I could record it for my own mix tapes.
A voice nattering in the background as you go about your chores is comforting but what is the difference between radio and podcast. It’s got to be the diurnal rhythms created by the programming, such as the soothingly familiar metre of the shipping forecast: “…Faeroes, Hebrides, Viking, North Utsire Cromarty, South Utsire…”
I listen to the radio a lot. I have one at home, old thing without a cassette player. But also listen a lot in the car. There is something about the unpredictability of the songs on the radio that Spotifies "DJX" cannot replicate as it tends to search too much in what it thinks I want. Interestingly they play more songs from the 80s than new ones, I guess people my generation is the generation listening and they normally don't care much for the modern stuff... or at least aren't supposed to... And when it comes to real books (or things in general you can touch) I think maybe it will come back. I don't think I'm alone in having a "out of sight, out of mind" personality and real copies of things cater to that. Maybe the e-things are just a momentary thing? Who knows, but I like the idea of not being too attached to the past and burying it when that is needed.
Very true about the unpredictability of radio — and there's less and less of that in life, and it's worth cherishing. Too much of our experience these days is "curated" to our tastes, rather than confronting us with the new and different and possibly exciting...
Radio still matters to some people. The CBC's radio news division gives me more accurate information and takes on world events than I can get from the visual media. I've been a regular listener since I was young and I know my life would be very different without it.
Oh, radio definitely still matters — my wife would be lost without it. I guess it's the free-standing object itself that got me thinking...
Yeah- the old fashioned radios built of wood and paint are a thing of the past. The clock radio I have in my office is the closest thing to them now.
I did collect very old radios briefly, and re-finding a couple of them in garage is part of what brought this piece on... beautiful things.
We had a transistor radio that still had Luxembourg and Paris and London written on the dial. And a two-reel tape recorder. I remember the first cassette recorder that we got for Christmas and recording Killer Queen and David Cassidy from the Top Twenty on Sunday Evening (275 and 285. We’re on a new wave band!). I remember The Walkman that I could sneak into school and the CDs that replaced tapes. I still have my big box of albums that I gaze at longingly while I listen to Spotify. That will all be gone soon when the next thing comes along. And I’ll be gone too.
Everything will be gone, but it — and we — are still here for now... and it sounds like you have very similar memories to mine!
When one of us is kvetching about little things that seem large in the moment, I imagine us in one of the many plausible apocalyptic scenarios and think how we would long to have this life back, how painfully precious all our mundane nonsense would look then. In a less dramatic way, remembering the clunky analogue 90s from the “everything’s computer” present is a bit like that.
Yes, very true. We try to do that too from time to time...
Vinyl records are selling well. Perhaps there is hope.
I hope so!
Reading this as I listen to KKJZ on my Bose ... Man, I feel old now.
We may be older but we're still here, goddamit ;-)
Here you can still see tiny walkie-talkies held in your hand while you're walking along the seafront (I saw one this morning).
That's good :-)
I dunno, HAM Radio just might make a comeback. But yeah, OTA radio on a set-top box, has been dead, dead for a while. Sad.
It is, and it's strange how those things you unthinkingly assumed were eternal... aren't. Like liberal democracy, maybe.
BTW, we still have a portable am/fm radio. We have it out in the rabbitry to create some noise throughout the day so they don't startle when we walk in and out. We have it tuned to UCSC radio and when I'm out there, I'm often pleasantly surprised at the quality of the programing. Thursday mornings are The Beatles. :-)
I'm glad they're still out there being used — and I like the idea of the rabbits picking up a bit of education in the process!
I have taken to listening to radio shows again. When my brother's show ended a few years back I kinda stopped and relied on podcasts, Spotify and YouTube to do my choosing for me. To be fair, they've been pretty good.
I started listening for no real reason to Rewind Radio Cornwall, (Cornwall's only independent commercial radio station, People you Know, Music you Love). Their breakfast show is a joy and they play a surprisingly eclectic mix of music, which has introduced to me to the likes of Myles Smith and Chappell Roan.(Perhaps the demise of independent radio stations is cause for concern, especially as how company's like Bauer have bulldozed their way through what is still regarded by many in rural areas as a lifeline)
I'm not sponsored by them by the way.
Even in the DAB age, I'm still seeing a lot of beautiful radios around. Art Deco ones are particularly apropos, perhaps because it harks back to the radio as king era. I've even made some wood burned frames for a lad on site, a young fella, who still builds them!
That's good to hear! Yes, I've got a couple of old Deco ones that I picked up years ago... coming upon one of those in the spare room was part of what made me think about this piece!
I've long believed that the keys to living a rich and fulfilling life are to value the things that others don't, and to use them to create your own concept of success. It reduces the feeling of competition with others, so naturally leads to an "abundance mindset". You feel like you're winning at life while accepting your foibles, the limitations of your environment, and the reality that others will probably never perceive you that way.
It doesn’t matter where I am, it could be a small room.
The glimmer of gold Böhme saw on the kitchen pot
was missed by everyone else in the house.
Maybe the fire in my lashes is a reflection of that.
— Mary Oliver
Maybe I'm a raccoon.
That sounds like a very sane and positive way to live, actually.
I’m a few years older than you, and radio played a similar role in my adolescence.
While I prefer reading books to audiobooks,
I do listen to podcasts every night (the creepier the better).
Hearing stories and music, in the dark, hopefully won’t disappear. And I hope civilization doesn’t regress so much that we’re actually gathering around fires to do so!
Oh, me too... and I think being told stories through voice will definitely last forever. I guess it's just the means of delivery that changes back and forth.
I have four in my house and at least one is on most of the time, listening to NPR and BBC World Service. So in this household, no, the radio is not even close to dead.
Also, I admit it's been a while since I bought a new car but don't they all still come with a radio? Surely not everyone pays the extra charge for satellite radio...? Never understood that, when there's perfectly good free radio in the air all around us.
PS> One of my four radios is a small waterproof one I carry around the house, to the garage, and into the shower almost every single day.
I am delighted to hear this :-) Let us all keep these things going. I grew up with a radio in in the background all the time (BBC R4) and I think it's the sanest way to live.
Still a (fairly battered) radio in the kitchen. As much as I love music one of the pleasures of my adult life has been making a Sunday roast with the football on Radio 5
I'm glad that kind of thing is still going on... my mother wouldn't cook without Radio 4 going on in the background!
I’ve been listening to my electric kitchen radio (local Colorado Public Radio station) every morning for decades. We have numerous other more high tech ways for listening, and I utilize them often. But mornings are reserved for the radio, a ritualistic reminder every day of my parents, carrying on their tradition.
Loved the visual reminder of sitting there with my hand poised on my little cassette recorder, waiting for “that one song” to come on so I could record it for my own mix tapes.
Ah, that's good. I'm glad the tradition continues :)
A voice nattering in the background as you go about your chores is comforting but what is the difference between radio and podcast. It’s got to be the diurnal rhythms created by the programming, such as the soothingly familiar metre of the shipping forecast: “…Faeroes, Hebrides, Viking, North Utsire Cromarty, South Utsire…”
Yes, definitely that... such an important part of the radio experience!
I listen to the radio a lot. I have one at home, old thing without a cassette player. But also listen a lot in the car. There is something about the unpredictability of the songs on the radio that Spotifies "DJX" cannot replicate as it tends to search too much in what it thinks I want. Interestingly they play more songs from the 80s than new ones, I guess people my generation is the generation listening and they normally don't care much for the modern stuff... or at least aren't supposed to... And when it comes to real books (or things in general you can touch) I think maybe it will come back. I don't think I'm alone in having a "out of sight, out of mind" personality and real copies of things cater to that. Maybe the e-things are just a momentary thing? Who knows, but I like the idea of not being too attached to the past and burying it when that is needed.
Very true about the unpredictability of radio — and there's less and less of that in life, and it's worth cherishing. Too much of our experience these days is "curated" to our tastes, rather than confronting us with the new and different and possibly exciting...
Listening to sport on his radio keeps my 12yo son quiet ;)
That's good :-)