Strafed by the Album Meme

Zane at his Big White Hat blog recently hosted a post about your first vinyl purchase.

Immediately that dates everyone who responds.

I would reference these terms:

• Album = what you bought
• Track = an individual cut
• Cut = what the album producer had to do to create the vinyl album
• Vinyl = what that 1' round black plastic disc consisted of
• LP = "long player" or "33-and-a-third"
• 45 = as opposed to 33 or 45
• 78 = the rpm's that the album spun on the turntable
• Record = generic for an album of vinyl
• Turntable = the round, flat platform on which one played records
• Stylus = the needle which came in physical contact with the record
• Needle = another word for stylus
• Flip = what you'd have to do when Side One ended
• A Side = the first side
• B Side = the second side; usually a lesser "hit"

Need I go on, in order to remind you how old you are?

Today, it's all about MP3, Blue Ray, CD, downloading.

I have an iPod Nano but, despite that, I still like to hold all that stuff in my hand.

One of the first albums I purchased myself:

1968 soundtrack to the Steve McQueen movie "Bullitt."

1968 soundtrack to the Stanley Kubrick movie "2001: A Space Odyssey."

In 1968 I was reading early versions of "Spiderman" and Jack Kirby's "The Fantastic Four."

First "rock" album: 1970's "Cosmo's Factory" by Creedence Clearwater Revival."

Next: 1971's Black Sabbath "Master Of Reality" album which, oddly enough, was purchased by my USAF father at the WPAFB exchange as a gift.

From there, that messed me up big time. Nothing but heavy metal and continual doses thereof would satisfy me from then on. I can clearly recall placing my head between my two meagre speakers, on the floor of our 2-story USAF house at 444 E Street, and listening to Tony Iommi's riffs. Until I met the power chords of Mountain and Leslie West, with incredible bass provided by the ill-fated Felix Pappalardi.

From there I transported to King Crimson. But that's another post entirely. I was one of the first Loyalists (along with Karl Kimball) to watch King Crimson perform their very first version of Lark's Tongues In Aspic at the Agoura Theatre in Columbus, Ohio, in 1972.

All this music led me to another distinctly separate career in Radio.

I worked as DJ "staff" for WWSU, WING and WHIO in Ohio.

From there, I came back to Fornicalia and worked for KEG, KERS, KFBK, KNDE, KOBO and then KFBK-FM on any number of levels as on-air personality, Program Manager, Station Manager, Promotions Director, Programmer, Traffic Reporter ad infinitum.

I was blessed to have a slightly deeper voice that could replicate any manner of accents imagineable, create sound effects, and mock most anyone I heard.

That tradition continues today and would continue on this blog if I but had the technology to create a weekly summary podcast for my readers.

"And that's the way it is."

BZ