Takin’ It Back to that Ol’ School!

Assalamu alaikum, I think that’s actually a title of a Too Kool Chris mix CD featuring old school house music. Anyway, one cool thing about having a Rhapsody subscription is that in many cases, though certainly not all, you can find all the stuff you used to listen to when you were younger.

I used to love music when I was younger, still do sometimes, though as I said, it’s really a struggle! I guess when you’re blind you relate to things that are audible in nature and not visual, obviously, though I can’t say it’s true for all blind people. Perhaps the more vision you have, or had if you lost it later in life, the more visually you relate to and interact with the world around you.

At any rate, music was my way of escape, it was my way to get away from the rest of the world. Plus, I liked to sing, and that used to make me feel happy and help me if I was having a bad day! When I was a kid, I wanted to be a singer, although my father discouraged it, he htought that I should pursue a “real career”. Heck, some of my family used to tell me that I should try out for American Idol, though, one negative remark from Simon would have had me in tears, yeah, I can be pretty sensitive.

When I was 7 years old, my parents put their old stereo in my bedroom, and I had a couple of story records for small children, and oddly enough a huge stack of 45’s which included Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean, and Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing, which I didn’t like anyway and I think was promptly (and mysteriously I think) taken out of my room, once the adults found out that I had it.

I think I had a Pat Binatar album in there too, and an album by the group Moving Pictures because I absolutely loved that song “What About Me”, anyone remember that?

Anyway, when I was that age, I listened to WLS in Chicago, because the FM receiver wasn’t very good on the stereo I had, and AM got better reception. And this was when WLS still played music. At that time, my tastes were mostly pop/rock oriented. I really liked Deph Leopard, Quiet Riot, Michael Jackson, Shannon, hmmm, who else, I think Madonna was starting to get popular around that time. When I was turning ten, my mom got me my first “jam box” or “ghetto blaster” or what we’d today call a “portable radio”. I seem to recall having arguments with kids at school as to what exactly was the difference between a “jam box” and a “ghetto blaster”, something about the Jam box’s controls being on the top of the unit and a ghetto blaster’s being on the front, and the ghetto blaster sounding better, or something.

Anyway, the first radio I ever had was a Panasonic, single cassette, AM/FM radio. I think that was probably the coolest radio I had and took pretty much everything my brother and I and the neighbor kids threw at it or dumped in it. One time we got sand all in the knobs, I think the last time I saw it, the front was ripped off of it, revealing the insides, and the radio at least, still worked! I think my brother had tried taking it apart to fix something and never quite put it back together.

Anyway, I loved that radio! And I wish I’d taken better care of it. It had a set of built-in stereo mics, and I enjoyed taping myself, doing skits, doing pretend radio shows, etc. It was fun! And I also had a Panasonic walkman, this was before the Panasonic portable radio, that one of my mom’s coworker’s had gotten me for my birthday. That Walkman was cool and introduced me to FM radio. My grandmother also sometimes let me listen to her stereo with my headphones. But after I got my portable radio she wouldn’t let me do this anymore.

When my mom got me my portable radio, she bought me a Commodores album, can’t remember which one it was, the one with that song Night Shift on it, but I really didn’t like that song, it was another song I liked, though can’t remember the name of it now. She also got me the USA for Africa album with the “We Are the World” on it.

I think I might have also still had the copies of the Thriller album and the Purple Rain albums on tape that another of my mom’s coworker’s had recorded for me off the LP’s.
Later, a neighbor friend of mine gave me her New Edition Cool It Now tape, because a relative of hers had gotten her one for her birthday, so she gave me the extra copy she had for mine, I think either we had the same birthdays or they were around the same time or something.

Anyway, at some point we ended up moving on base, my father got another stereo, and my parents once again put a stereo in my room. By this time, my mom reluctatnly let me take my portable radio to school, and I discovered Indianapolis radio, which I thought was cool at the time. At this point, I started drifting more toward hip hop and R&B music and later toward house and other forms of dance music as well. At some point, I mainly only listened to “urban contemporary” music, and didn’t listen to too much “top 40″ music. As I remember it, I found it boring! Pour Some Sugar on Me and Once Bitten Twice Shy just didn’t cut it for me!

Anyway, I was perusing Rhapsody and found some interesting gems that took me way back! Anyone remember Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam? Heck, I Wonder If I Take You Home sounds down right respectable don’t it? Would a song like that succeed in 2008? OK I won’t go there!

Anyway, I had both Lisa Lisa albums, With Full Force and Spanish Fly, and Janet Jackson’s Control album, Madonna’s True Blue album, Whitney Houston’s first album, and hmmm, what else? Whatever I taped off of the radio I guess. I also borrowed tapes from friends and when I got my first double cassette deck, we all just taped stuff off of each other.

I lived in Northern Indiana and if I was lucky enough, I could pick up Chicago stations and I used to literally stay up all night taping from them. I wish I’d have kept that stuff! I really miss those days! I hate to sound old but music just isn’t the same, it just isn’t! Something’s missing from it, a friend and I were talking about this the other day, and we can’t quite figure out what it is. Does every generation go through this?

Give me some late ’80s early ’90s house music, some Run DMC, some Kool Mo D, some Zapp and Roger, some Guy, the first or second album, the first Keith Sweat album, (yeah I had that album too), and what other rap artists do I remember from the radio show on Wjel? That was a high school radio station that used to play rap, because WTLC, the urban station, wouldn’t at the time. Hmmm, Public Enemy, Mantronics, Buggy Down Productions, Ice T., KRS-One, and that’s just to scratch the surface.

I also used to listen to freestyle and house music too, though many of those artists I can’t remember, although I’d know the songs instantly. They just don’t make ‘em like they used to. There are many many other artists I enjoyed, but I just named whatever popped into my head at the time. Perhaps I get into classic rock, which I learned to appreciate later on in my life, in another post.

Anyway, enough reminiscing for one day. Gotta go for now.