BajaNomad

More Music

Osprey - 8-9-2015 at 01:50 PM

More and Better Music

1953 Las Vegas found us teens searching for more and better music; I remember summer time midnight rides with cars full of kids inching the cars back and forth in some certain neighborhood out in the boonies trying to pick up radio signals from L.A. Somebody, we never knew who it was, found a spot where there was a bounce and if you hit it right you could rock out with what was new in music way back then. What was new was rock and roll and lots more but none of us saw ourselves living in some future special music era we could call our own.

Down through the years music changed and so did everything else --- sometimes lightning fast. Maybe that’s the reason I never thought about what I was hearing compared to what came before or what came after.

Thanks to Sirius and others we can now listen to music down through the ages – only now can I hear just how innovative rock and roll sounded at the end of a very long run for ballads, big band and the clever patter that was the best of tin pan alley.

My wife and I play a little gin rummy on the patio after our midday siesta and I delight in choosing a different kind of music on the music channels each time we play. I find joy in almost all the various forms except rap so our card game backround noise is sometimes raucous, sometimes serene lending a nice change of mood to the hour as we play.

The music that moves me, enthralls me the most, transports me instantly to a place 62 years younger than the moment is that good old rock and roll. Puts me on the gym floor in my socks falling in love with every pretty girl in school one at a time. I really must have wanted, needed that stuff for it to fill so completely the memory box of sounds in my young spongy brain. In the midst of all that wonder, Las Vegas got its own radio station and things really started jumping.

By the time I was in my twenties and thirties Vegas casino lounge shows were showcasing new music and old; great entertainment for just the cost of a drink by Louis Prima, Count Basie, Bobby Darin, Sinatra and the pack and many more. Those stellar opportunities come rushing back to me, just as I heard them each time I choose some oldies sounds on the tube.

Sure glad the producers saved all that stuff for me because I can only handle so many hours of Malcolm in the Middle or Fifty Ways to Cook Kale.


bajabuddha - 8-9-2015 at 04:29 PM

My high school memories of music (late '60's) were of 2 major AM stations, and one FM (wooooo!) where they'd even play the LONG versions of "Light My Fire" and "Inagaddadavida", etc., being considered 'underground stations' with a DJ with the dark, deep voice rather than the ultra-high (?) pitchman running the top 40 as fast as he could. I remember watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and my ol' man giving 'em hell.

Funny thing was, Pappy was a musician (majored in college and taught) and raised me as one, but in them-thar daze, "that was all junk and noise" of course. I was raised on a diet of classical and Big Band. Had a chance at orchestral scholarships, but I ''tuned in, turned on, and dropped out". Pappy would give me grief of my 'noise' and i'd ask him, "Yabut, what about 'Fim-Fim Fishies and Dey Fam Over Da Dam'", and he'd..... quiet down a little....

Music in my world is the Universal Language. I love it all ... well, most. Jazz, the musicians' music. Blues, the root of what started ALL of the current trends from 40's on, and itself started much earlier; how many bands and bandleaders were black playing to white-only audiences even in Prohibition days?

Aaah, tunes. Never go anywhere without 'em on my juke box, even the one in my head (you don't wanna know). Nothing brings people together faster and closer than a good rhythm, other than maybe food; but what's eats without beats?
:cool:

vandenberg - 8-9-2015 at 04:34 PM

Jorge, I never took much to R&R. My favorites are still the old big bands and the likes of Ella, Anita, Frank, Dean, Julie, Billie, etc. List is endless.
But, to each his/her own.
Listening to good old Anita O" Day right now, marvelous!!

:biggrin::biggrin:

pauldavidmena - 8-10-2015 at 09:50 AM

I grew up in New York during the heyday of AM radio and the very earliest days of FM. Trends were set and abandoned with blinding speed. I remember embracing fusion and art rock in the early seventies only to abandon them for punk rock in the late seventies and indie rock in the eighties and nineties. The only common thread is that people young and old will always find an escape in music - still the only tried and true way to soothe the Savage Beast in us.

Ken Bondy - 8-10-2015 at 10:05 AM

My first musical love was classical, my mom was a classical pianist. That grew into the "normal" '50s stuff, R&R, Beatles, Elton John....my quirky side loved Broadway show tunes (all the Rodgers and Hammerstein stuff) and folk - couldn't get enough of the Kingston Trio, Peter Paul & Mary, Belafonte, and later John Denver....never quite got into jazz.

Udo - 8-10-2015 at 10:43 AM

Thanks for the memories, Jorge!

I have a fairly large music collection on my MAC. It is about 110 gigs of music, which translates to about 5 year of listening pleasure at 24 hours a day.
I acquired it by borrowing compatible friends music collections and copied them to the MAC.

There is everything from the fifties on up to the early 90s. Similar music tastes as Ken Bondy.

Osprey - 8-10-2015 at 02:03 PM

Music gets hard wired way back in early life. I think the stuff you remember most are tunes or songs you heard at your mother's knee and other lousy joints.

Udo - 8-10-2015 at 02:41 PM

What I remember most, Jorge, during my knee days, was in Venezuela. My dad did a lot of drinking and my sister and I got hit with a belt a lot. At the time, music was not on my mind, nor do I remember any of it from that era.
The music that I grew to love was in the early sixties. Then after the late sixties there was a time I'd as soon forget. Then it got picked up in the early seventies with John Denver.

vandenberg - 8-10-2015 at 07:08 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Osprey  
Music gets hard wired way back in early life. I think the stuff you remember most are tunes or songs you heard at your mother's knee and other lousy joints.



Wish I could call my mom to tell her a friend of mine called her knees lousy joints.:biggrin::biggrin:

CortezBlue - 8-10-2015 at 07:29 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Udo  
Thanks for the memories, Jorge!

I have a fairly large music collection on my MAC. It is about 110 gigs of music, which translates to about 5 year of listening pleasure at 24 hours a day.
I acquired it by borrowing compatible friends music collections and copied them to the MAC.

There is everything from the fifties on up to the early 90s. Similar music tastes as Ken Bondy.


Sorry to here you have to use a Mac:P. being an IT guy, Apple is like buying a Volkswagen for the price of an Audi. Now that I have that off my chest, put your Mac, PC and any other devices away and BUY A SONOS!!!!!!

Sonos is the bomb. I have been using a Sonos for many years and it is the best way to stream your music.

I have been a music nut since High School. Put myself through school selling hi end audio and still have my 4000 albums and over 1000 cd's. I also have Rhapsody and Spotify on my Sonos so I have won many a bet about a song that I don't have and of course, I do between the 8 to 15 million tracks combines on the 2 services.

Also, if you have your CD's and want to rip them and then put them away, buy DBPoweramp ripping software and RIP your CD's in WAV uncompressed format. DBPoweramp will tell you if you have any missing bits and it will compare the rip to a database that they have online. It gives you a check mark if it is an exact rip.

Rip it! has a whole new meaning

Udo - 8-11-2015 at 11:08 AM

Mil gracias for the advice, Cortez.