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My First Record Player and Other Stories by Alan Haber Part Two: From Strat-o-Matic to the Long Island Hi-Fi Show It was lonely being a kid in my neighborhood. I was basically alone in my geeky pursuits, although I knew one or two kids who also collected comic books, and there was a guy who had old issues of my favorite sci-fi digest, Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine, and I had a friend who would sit still for an afternoon every so often while I played him my favorite records; he was cool because he wouldn’t fidget while Gilbert O’Sullivan sang “The Marriage Machine.” I didn’t know anyone, however, who was crazy about radio and the quest for the perfect three-minute pop song. I was a charter subscriber to one of the first magazines about FM radio, the name of which I have sadly forgotten; in its pages, readers thrilled to program listings and articles, most of which, if memory serves, were about classical music, which I was seriously not in love with at that time. Although a devoted fan of the AM band, I instantly took to the wonders of its high-fidelity cousin. Plus, the deejays had voices that seemed to be lodged in their groins, and anyone who could project from that deep in their bodies was my kind of guy. And then there was the sound quality, something akin to listening to records at home. Pretty damned fantastic. And there was...stereo! I was hooked. So naturally, I was beside myself when I won tickets to the Long Island Hi-Fi Show while listening to the late, great WLIR-FM (I also won a t-shirt from the station; I had gone to the offices of Strat-O-Matic Baseball, a great baseball strategy game from yesteryear (I know about the computer version, but the old card system was better, take my word for it. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, I apologize; digression is my middle name)). Anyway, there I was, coming back from the Strat-O-Matic offices, stopped at a light, waiting for it to change to green, and boom! there was a fist banging on my driver’s side window. “Roll it down!” the hot young girl implored, so I did, and in it went like a rocket, a WLIR t-shirt (there was a WLIR bumper sticker on my car), hitting the passenger seat with a gale force wind (or thereabouts)! Suitably freaked, I regained my composure—the shirt wasn’t my size!—and drove home to experience another Tim McCarver, game-saving home run, Strat-O-Matic style. The hi-fi show was a blast. I'd won a ticket by calling in to WLIR with the name of a song they were playing (I remember it being something from Creedence Clearwater Revival). I'd never won anything on the radio before, so I was pumped. I probably screamed, perhaps jumped up and down a couple of times, before I came back down to earth and realized I was a winner. WLIR had a table in the motel that was hosting the event—the Westbury Motor Inn, I believe it was called. I don’t remember much about what went on inside the hotel (get your minds out of the gutter!), other than talking to a guy from the radio station about how much I loved what they were doing on the air; the real draw was the magnificent, how-in-the-hell-do-they-do-it demo of quadrophonic sound, out in the big tent in the parking lot. The way I remember it, that tent was as big as Staten Island, but I’m betting it wasn’t that big (maybe as big as Queens?). Doesn't matter--there were a lot of speakers in there, and it was pretty damn impressive: sound coming from all around me as some classical piece played. I could hear every instrument, the clarity was that impressive. Truth be told, they could have been playing polkas in there; they had me at hello. I wanted quad, but quad would have to wait; top of my want list was something that I wasn’t the first on my block, or in my neighborhood, to get: an FM stereo radio. I was still working off a transistor model; I would listen to the great AM station, WABC, the radio set on my desk during daylight hours, and under my pillow at night. I rarely used my parents' stereo when they were home; they preferred me not to disturb their de facto setting, which was WNEW, the Metromedia station that was home to Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, the Make-Believe Ballroom, the great deejay William B. Williams, and the team of Klavan and Finch. I hinted for weeks and weeks that I wanted an FM stereo radio for Hanukkah. It was perfectly clear to my parents that was what I wanted (I threw enough hints out there), and that I would accept nothing less. After all, it would be impossible to keep up with technology with only my transistor in tow. Our Hanukah celebrations differed from those of some of my friends, who received a present on each of the eight nights of the holiday; my brother and sister and I got all of our presents the first night. I ran downstairs when it was time for the booty call. My eyes zeroed in on my pile of gifts, and my heart plummeted into my stomach: There was no box big enough to house an FM stereo radio and two separate speakers. I went to the biggest box (I don't remember what else I got that year) and ripped off the wrapping paper, and what was inside made my heart sink even further, as if that were possible: the very same Emerson table FM mono radio my grandfather had. I was heartbroken, and my face showed it. My mother got mad. How could I be so ungrateful, she wondered. So it's mono--what's the difference? Well, it made a huge difference! Actually, I had a soft spot in my heart for that Emerson--I used to listen to it all the time when we visited my grandparents in Brooklyn; listening to WABC, I used to write down the songs the station played, in what order, and how often, and that was how I figured out the nuts and bolts of top 40 radio. But I was past that now. I wanted stereo, and that Emerson just wasn't going to cut it. So my father, bless his heart, took me to Mays Department Store in Massapequa to return the Emerson and purchase an FM stereo setup, the model of which I don't remember. But it was something to behold. I used to have my friends over, and we would marvel at the sound bouncing from speaker to speaker. I was fascinated by stereo, and I would listen for hours and hours. It was hard to pull me away from that set. It's still hard to pull me away from the radio, but these days my fascination lies with Internet specialty stations and satellite. But back in my youth, FM stereo was it. And so was my Symphonic one-piece stereo turntable system, on which I learned, painfully, that Paul was not dead... To be continued… November 27, 2004 |
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alan haber's pure pop
(c) 2004 Alan Haber |
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