Loading ...Live Aid Contest
As I’ve written, I’m giving away a few copies of the 4-disk DVD Set of the Live Aid concert. The contest involves writing a bit about how you (or a friend/relative) remembers it. I realized that I actually hadn’t written anything myself about it, so I thought I’d jot down a few recollections.
In 1985 I was a junior in high school in New York City. Friends Seminary (a small Quaker school) to be exact. I had only the previous year started expanding my musical horizons beyond the array of Beatles albums we had at home and the popular videos on MTV. But I hadn’t really started listening to the radio yet.
I don’t think I knew anything about Live Aid before it happened, but the weekend it took place I decided to try out the radio of my combo radio/cassette/turntable unit (probably Fisher or Sanyo or one of those), which while cheap was actually above average because it had a digital tuner!
I think a schoolmate at the time had suggested trying to listen to WLIR, a radio station on Long Island that was one of the pioneering stations to play progressive rock, which I would not really discover until college. WLIR was at 92.7 FM and I was fiddling with the tuner to see if I could get it, but I was getting something else that turned out to be a very strong signal emanating from 92.3 FM. This turned out to be WXRK, or as they were calling themselves, K-Rock. They turned out to be an album-oriented rock station, and at the time there was only one other, the decades old WNEW.
But that day that I tuned in, I wasn’t hearing songs off albums but rather live music. I listened for a while and realized it wasn’t just a live record, but something else. From what I recal, the station was brand new, and they had basically started by broadcasting this Live Aid concert. I think I eventually figured out that I could get it on TV and so eventually made it over to it. But I don’t remember all that much about the live performances themselves. At the time I was pretty new to “classic” rock, and only new a few bands in addition to the big pop personalities of the day (Michael Jackson, Madonna, Cindy Lauper, etc.). Looking at the list of performers at Live Aid, though, I’m familiar with most of them at this point, and perhaps this event was really what spurred me on to really start listening to the radio and in particular album oriented radio rather than the insipid top-40 garbage that was prevalent then as it is today.
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January 29th, 2005 at 7:03 pm
Yea.
That was the weekend when abruptly KTU died and morphed into K-Rock. As a teen who was heavily into radio, it blew my mind! Wow! A drastic format change!
Of course, this was in those pre-internet years when unless you had a lot of money and time to research things, trivia such as the history or radio stations changing their format was hard to come by.
How about a post on how the Internet has changed the ability to learn about anything!
Think of this - today when I get into something new, I immediately turn to the Internet. Back then, I may find a magazine on the topic that presumes insider knowledge, and only through clubs and out-of-date books could one become intimately acquainted with a subject. Back in the late 70’s I thought no one was into Heinlein, short-wave radio, programming, ants, “Sci-Fi,” video gaming from it’s socioligcal perspectives (I had written a paper in H.S. about this and had a few gaming magazines and my own observations to rely on), etc..
January 30th, 2005 at 12:11 pm
know what you mean, William. I look back to the time before the mid 90’s and wonder how I figured anything out!
The internet has become this very “sci-fi” like tool in many ways. Kind of like the computer in Star Trek that you can basically ask anything of. But of course it’s much more than an online encyclopedia.
By the way, when are you going to install MoveableType or something like that and put out your own RSS feed??
January 31st, 2005 at 7:39 am
As I once told a friend of mine who asked the very same thing -
I wouldn’t bother reading anything I’ve written so why would I presume anyone else would.
January 31st, 2005 at 8:51 am
Hmmm, well, then why do you have a site, which you even provided a link to in your entry above? Obviously you have some desire for others to read what you’ve written? I no self-deprication can be endearing, but most people, I would think, if they have opinions about things, would like to share them. You don’t have to “presume” anything as I don’t either, but I do hope that those who happen by this blog would find something useful. If they don’t, no big deal, they move on. Same with anything else. Some people will have no use for what you write, but others will get something out of it… RSS just makes it easier for those of us who use newsreaders and such to get to it as soon as its produced without having to constantly go check a web page. Yes, I’m very lazy…
January 31st, 2005 at 10:14 am
Touché
Actually the base of the site is so that old friends can track me down, hence all the html keywords and clues (such as where I went to school, etc.) so long lost freinds can say “Yea! That’s Him!” on the main page.
When I google for combinations such as “Porto” and “Ascension” my site doesn’t come up. Why? The URL isn’t linked to from anywhere else, so how is one to find me? Gotta promote the URL!
Now I don’t want to direct traffic to my site, so I never include the URL when I post to usenet or my local community boards
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/around 110/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/morningsideheights/
etc..
but I have to propigate my url somehow.
My “Rants” section is the closest I get to a blog. The etiquette section is something totally different. My next topic will be on Subway etiquette and then I have a rant on cultural tolerance. Don’t hold your breath for either. Often I get as much pleasure contemplating a creation as I do in actually producing it.
William
January 31st, 2005 at 1:20 pm
Hmmm, seems tricky, or a contradiction. You want people to be able to find you but only the people who are searching for you specifically? Well, I suppose this is a valid goal, but one that’s somewhat difficult in the light of current technologies. I can understand not promoting via links, but you need to be spidered and indexed by search engines in order for your site to come up in a search. You can weight your page with the specifics that you think people should have to search for via meta tags, title, etc., but you will still get hits from people who are search for stuff that has nothing to do with you specifically…