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The Transformation of Music Since the '60s: What We Listened to and How We Listened to It · Hangin' Out with Bob

0:07
Okay, welcome to Hanging Out with Bob, podcast
0:10
hosted by me, Bob At Home. Thanks for joining
0:17
us and let's get started. Now, if you've listened
0:25
to some of the previous podcast episodes, you'll
0:27
know that we enjoy music, listening to it and
0:30
talking about it. For example, we've recorded
0:33
episodes about the music of the Moody Blues,
0:36
Steely Dan, Rolling Stones. I can't imagine what
0:40
my life would have been like without music in
0:42
it. And in this episode of Hanging Out with Bob,
0:45
our topic is music, and the theme is transformation.
0:48
Not just the transformation of music itself through
0:51
the years, from say the 1960s to today, but also
0:55
the transformation of the electronics that were
0:57
used to listen to those various forms of music.
0:59
Joining me in this episode to talk about the
1:02
transformation of music and electronics are brothers
1:04
Wayne and Al Damro. All three of us grew up on
1:07
the same street, Chatham Road, just six houses
1:10
between ours in Columbia Heights, Minnesota.
1:13
Both Wayne and Al have appeared together with
1:15
me on a few other podcast episodes, and I think
1:18
it's safe to say that they too love music. Wayne
1:21
and Al, welcome back to Hanging Out with Bob.
1:23
Great to see you again. Thank you very much.
1:29
Glad to be here. Full disclosure here, Wayne,
1:32
Al, and I are baby boomers, people born during
1:35
the years 1946 to 1964. Now before our younger
1:39
listeners are tempted to say, OK, boomer, this
1:44
episode isn't just about the music that we grew
1:47
up with and how we listen to it. No, we're going
1:49
to talk about music and the electronics that
1:52
were used to listen to it for Generation X or
1:55
Gen X. people born during the years 1965 to 1980
1:59
the Millennials people born during the years
2:02
1981 to 1996 Generation Z or Gen Z people born
2:09
during the years 1997 to 2012 and Generation
2:13
Alpha people born during the years 2013 to 2024
2:17
I haven't forgotten about that. There's a generation
2:21
beta which began in 2025 But it might be a little
2:25
early to talk about their music tastes. We'll
2:29
talk about the music of Generation Beta after
2:31
they've followed by the next generation, Generation
2:34
Gamma, which is expected to start in about 2040.
2:38
And the three of us will be in our 80s or octogenarians.
2:42
So get your calendars ready for that. Yeah, we'll
2:45
be waiting anxiously. I'm writing it down. Counting
2:47
down the days. Yep, yep. So, how did we come
2:55
up with this topic, the transformation of music
2:57
and the electronics that were developed to listen
2:59
to it? Actually, it started when Wayne here sent
3:02
me a text message a couple months ago. Wayne,
3:04
why don't you explain how you came up with this
3:06
idea? Well, we were talking about all the music
3:09
that we've talked about on the previous podcast
3:12
and started thinking, well, we haven't talked
3:15
about how we listen to music and how it impacted
3:19
us both from a musical theme. standpoint, and
3:23
there are various times where we had prog rock,
3:28
and various types of music, and punk rock, and
3:31
all those. And so those have an impact. But then
3:34
it's also how we played the music, everything
3:37
from records which we started out with in our
3:40
age, and then transforming to eight tracks, cassettes,
3:46
and all the various. So I thought it would make
3:48
a nice topic to talk about. Absolutely. Thanks,
3:51
Wayne. And here we are. Wayne, I see you've brought
3:53
in those catalogs. For the benefit of our listeners,
3:56
because we're an audio -only podcast, describe
3:59
these catalogs. When they came out, some of the
4:01
products that appear in them, the prices of some
4:04
of those products, and so on. Well, the two that
4:08
I brought along are a 1969 Radio Shack catalog
4:11
and a 1971 Radio Shack after Allied bought them
4:16
out. quite interesting. I was going to be an
4:22
electrical engineer at that point. Luckily, I
4:25
moved. But it's so I kept those catalogs thinking
4:30
that maybe something I could order from. Well,
4:33
I did order some music playing things like a
4:37
cassette deck and, and that. But they're particularly
4:41
interesting with what they sell from that time
4:44
period. Right. And reels to reel. Real players,
4:49
yeah. But they're quite expensive, $180, $170.
4:53
And that was 55, 56 years ago, right? Right,
4:57
yeah, it'd be worth several thousand now. Yeah,
5:01
yeah. And explain how you came upon these catalogs,
5:06
or how you discovered that you had them. They
5:07
were in the bottom of a drawer that I was cleaning
5:10
up, throwing out stuff. Yeah, yeah, that is so
5:13
cool. The fact that you have these sitting around
5:15
readily available indicates to me perhaps a hoarding
5:18
problem. Thank you for that. I'll help you clean
5:22
out your house. They're actually in really good
5:24
shape, too. I mean, they're not frayed to the
5:26
pages. I mean, you know, the paper kind of gets
5:28
yellowy after decades. But and then just the
5:32
fashions, the clothes that the guys are wearing,
5:33
gals and the hairdo. Yeah, definitely late 60s.
5:36
type stuff. And the other thing that's very interesting
5:40
that I like is when you look at the pieces that
5:43
are on display on the front cover, you see that
5:46
everything has beautiful walnut wood cases. Like
5:49
I have a Sherwood receiver from 1972 and it's
5:54
walnut. Everything's beautifully lit. It's solid
5:57
as a rock and it's 50 years old and it still
5:59
looks great. And it works perfectly. You've got
6:02
those big speakers that are solid walnut. Yep.
6:06
Yep. Did you, were you into Radio Shack catalogs,
6:09
Al? Do you remember looking at stuff like this?
6:11
Or was he maybe more than? Absolutely. Well,
6:12
no, he, he did, but he kept his. I didn't. Okay.
6:16
No, I saw similar things, but like these here,
6:19
I would have been 11 at the time that one came
6:21
out, but I probably saw the same one and going
6:24
on like 71, two and three. I would have started
6:28
really paying attention to that stuff. Cause
6:29
I got my first stereo in 1972. Okay, let's talk
6:39
about first let's talk about the baby boomers
6:42
boomers for short guys like us who were born
6:44
between the years 1946 to 1964 The cool guys
6:48
the cool guys and that means that the oldest
6:50
boomers are now 79 or 80 years old Well, the
6:54
youngest are 61 or 62. We kind of fall in the
6:58
middle. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah, we are really
7:00
are Yeah, early 50s for us and a little bit later
7:02
50s for Al so puppies and dinosaurs. Yes Wayne,
7:08
you and I were just two or three months shy of
7:10
our 11th birthdays when the Beatles first appeared
7:13
on the Ed Sullivan show in February of 1964.
7:17
Now you would have been in kindergarten, but
7:18
still around nonetheless. And I bring this up
7:21
because the appearance on Ed Sullivan, it seems
7:23
to be to me that when I thought to myself, you
7:25
know what, that's my music. I mean, my folks,
7:28
they had record player before I even heard of
7:30
the Beatles. I can remember my folks, especially
7:32
my dad playing the music of crooners like Frank
7:35
Sinatra and Johnny Mathis, Andy Williams. They
7:39
had soundtracks from Broadway musicals like West
7:42
Side Story. My parents had Learns Well. Learns
7:45
Well, yeah, South Pacific. So I knew all these
7:47
songs to these movies. I'm seven years old, but
7:50
I know some Enchanted Evening or something. It's
7:52
funny. And it's good stuff, good music, obviously.
7:55
But, you know, in 1960s, when we were like 10
7:58
years old, I started feeling brave enough to
8:02
actually go up to my folks radios. They had one
8:04
in the kitchen and one in their console stereo.
8:06
And I changed the channels, you know, like to,
8:08
what were the pop stations that we listened to?
8:12
KDWB and WDGY. Yes, yes. They were the top 40
8:15
stuff. Oh yeah. And they immediately changed
8:17
it back to CCO when they'd heard enough of the
8:21
stuff on the radio. But I just remembered that
8:23
that's when they kind of said, that's, that's
8:25
music started for me you know so what started
8:28
it for me was mom and i were walking up to the
8:32
water tower to watch fireworks the heights water
8:35
tower yep yep and it was not fenced in at the
8:38
time so you could just walk up it yeah and i
8:41
had my little transistor radio not that big yeah
8:45
and uh i'm came surfing bird by the trash trash
8:50
trash man And my mom heard about two minutes
8:56
of that and screamed, turn that off, it's terrible.
9:01
In that case, she was pretty much right. Well,
9:06
what I want to do guys for the boomers is I want
9:08
to list the categories that kind of arbitrarily
9:10
chosen these, but they're categories that think
9:12
encompass most of the music that we heard as
9:15
we were growing up. So I'll go through them one
9:16
at a time. The first category I've got, I'm calling
9:19
it the Beatles and the British Invasion. Besides
9:22
The Beatles, think of some of those early British
9:25
bands that they played on the radio all the time
9:26
in the early 60s. The Animals, The Hollies, The
9:30
Rolling Stones. The Kinks I had looking up. Dave
9:35
Clark five. Yeah, Chad and Jeremy. Yeah. Who
9:38
could forget Herman's Herman. Herman's Herman.
9:40
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, a lot of British stuff.
9:42
I just remember it was popular. Okay, the next
9:45
category, I'm going to call it the pop and early
9:47
rockers and maybe more to be more precise, pop
9:50
and early rockers who weren't British. The American
9:54
response like the birds. Yeah, that would work.
9:57
I had the Beach Boys. Jane the Americans. Yep,
10:01
Jane the Americans. And then I can remember hearing
10:04
Pretty Woman by Roy Orbison. Sure. That came
10:06
out. And Elvis obviously had been around. I was
10:08
never that big into Elvis. I know some guys were.
10:10
He was ahead of our time. He was a little before
10:12
it. He was pre -us a little bit. But boy, the
10:15
people who loved him sure loved him. Right, yeah.
10:16
He was popular. I just remember those would be
10:18
kind of the early rockers. The next category
10:21
I've got is the Motown sound. That's when basically
10:25
soul music came into the mainstream. Plus it
10:27
was a record label. Sure. Smokey Robinson. Yep.
10:30
Yep. I had the Supremes. The Drifters. Temptations.
10:34
Yep. Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder. I mean, great
10:37
stuff. I mean, just thinking about that music.
10:39
The next category I've got, I know we're kind
10:41
of going over this fast, but I just want to get
10:43
to all these. It's kind of what I call folk and
10:46
folk rock. I've got like... Dylan, Bob Dylan,
10:50
obviously, Peter, Paul and Mary, Paul and Mary.
10:52
Yep. Simon and Garfunkel. I kind of had the birds
10:55
in that category too, cause they did a lot of
10:57
Dylan covers. They were a rock band, but they
10:59
were kind of a folk rock to me too. They crossed.
11:02
Yeah. I think that would work with both of them.
11:04
The mamas and papas, I think in a great, great
11:07
harmony, great singing that stuff. Then the fifth
11:09
category. I mean, it's very close to Motown,
11:11
but I just called it soul and R &B legends. And
11:15
the first one I thought of is Aretha, Aretha
11:17
Franklin. What is redding ray charles and then
11:22
i want to mention james brown and i'm the reason
11:25
i'm bringing up is i actually when i was putting
11:28
this together i was thinking of a story and involved
11:30
your mother. And I don't think I've ever shared
11:33
this with you since, but it would have been about
11:35
68 or 69. And your mom picked us up from school.
11:39
We were going to Columbia Junior High for some
11:40
reason. And somebody had to go to the library,
11:43
the one that was on 40th and Jackson. And I stayed
11:46
in the car. And I can't remember if my brother
11:48
Dave was with. You were there. Somebody went
11:51
into the library, either to check out a book
11:53
or get one in. And she had the radio on. WDG
11:57
wire KDWB and you're playing James Brown, I got
12:00
the feeling. You're going baby, baby, baby. And
12:04
your mother, she started mocking. She starts
12:07
going baby, baby, baby. And then she turned the
12:09
radio channel off. Now you might have been in
12:14
the library, but I remember it was just hilarious.
12:16
That was a typical parent reaction. Absolutely.
12:19
That would be mom back then. Oh, that was a great
12:23
memory. And I swear it came to me as I was putting
12:25
this together. James Brown. I must have been
12:28
in the library. You might have been the one actually
12:29
getting a book, because I just remember. That's
12:31
hilarious. She's mimicking James Brown. That
12:35
was great. All right. The next category is, I
12:38
would call it rock slash psychedelia. First group
12:42
I thought of was Jimi Hendrix. Iron Butterfly.
12:44
Yes, yes, yes. Inigata DeVita and so on. Jefferson
12:48
Airplane. Surrealistic Pillow. Wow, that's a
12:52
more obscure. Oh, yeah, I remember that and then
12:55
but I think the doors kind of We had a classmate
13:00
Brett. He had a house in his basement. He had
13:02
a strobe light I remember yeah, I kept hearing
13:06
Jimi Hendrix and then strobe lighted be going
13:08
but I just think about that psychedelic era or
13:10
whatever So good stuff, but it was that a distinct
13:13
category and then this category I'm not sure
13:16
how to say to other and call it maybe the later
13:18
years That's when boomers like us became legal
13:21
adults. Maybe not necessarily mature adults,
13:24
but we were adults. But there were groups like,
13:26
you know, we were probably just getting out of
13:27
high school about then, Wayne and I. I can remember
13:30
like some Southern rockers like the Almond Brothers
13:32
and Leonard Skinnerd. Um, the classic rock groups
13:36
like the Eagles and Credence, they had a ton
13:39
of hit songs, you know, after high school and
13:42
Steely Dan and, um, and then singer songwriters
13:45
really became big like, uh, Gordon Lightfoot.
13:47
I remember you had, yeah, Jim Croce, you had
13:49
Gordon Lightfoot. I remember hearing that your
13:51
house and, you know, James Taylor and little
13:53
later, Billy Joel, um, Johnny Mitchell. I mean,
13:57
some, just some really good stuff. Okay, so that's
14:05
we described some of the types of music now Let's
14:07
talk about you know that what we use it to listen
14:10
to this stuff Wayne's got a nice printout He
14:13
brought in just listening some of the kind of
14:15
the evolution of music playing devices If you
14:18
want to just kind of talk about that briefly
14:20
Wayne and it will apply to a lot of stuff that
14:22
we We relied on when we were listening music
14:25
growing up. So basically I divided it into nine
14:28
separate Devices or types. Okay, starting with
14:32
record players to Thomas Edison. I mean, we're
14:35
going back to the 1800s. And that first one wasn't
14:39
even a record, it was a cylinder. Right, a wax
14:43
cylinder. Yes, yes. And then the 33, the long
14:47
playing album, LPs, came in 19, what, about 31,
14:54
something like that. Yeah, that sounds all right,
14:55
yeah. within a short period of time, the cylinders
15:00
disappeared and everybody was using 78 format.
15:05
I've still got a bunch of those. And remember
15:07
the first record players that you could buy,
15:09
they had the speeds, it had 16, 3 to 3, 45, 70.
15:15
The fun part was taking records played at 33
15:18
or even 45 and then put them up to 78. Just you'd
15:21
hear them sound like Alvin on the chipmunks.
15:24
Or you could play it really slow on 16. Great
15:28
stuff. Great stuff. And I think everyone in our
15:31
generation who owned a record player did that.
15:33
Oh, of course. Of course. No exception. Well,
15:37
Vinyl came back. It's still making a comeback.
15:39
I know. I go to Barnes & Noble and I see them
15:42
all the time. They've got records there. They
15:44
sell about 40 million a year. And at its peak,
15:48
there were over 300 million sold. So it still
15:51
hasn't approached that. But it's come back some.
15:55
And even the youngest kids, they love it. It's
15:57
kind of a novelty to them to see record players,
15:59
just to think, wow. Yeah, I've got one. And my
16:03
nieces and nephews come over and have looked
16:05
at it and go, what in the heck? Yep, yep. But
16:10
then it transformed from record players to reel
16:13
to reel. tapes and that was 1928 wow look at
16:20
the list yeah Germany was involved in a lot of
16:23
audio stuff yeah yeah it's true it's true but
16:27
let's see yeah one of the players from the catalog
16:30
real -to -real 179 bucks which about 2 ,000 bucks
16:35
now oh and you've got some other things listed
16:37
here you've got transistor radio We didn't have
16:41
a transistor radio in the 60s. I mean that was
16:44
that was like a rite of passage once you get
16:46
your own radio You could you could sneak and
16:48
have by your pillow at bed at night when you're
16:50
going to sleep and sure I still have the original
16:54
one that I got for my eighth birthday battery
16:57
battery and it still works to this day, and I've
17:02
got two other ones. So it's like, I've had three
17:03
of them, they all work. I can't bring myself
17:06
to get rid of technology that works. I'd hang
17:08
onto it just as a collectible. That let my kids
17:11
have to deal with it when I'm gone. Order. Exactly.
17:17
And it was interesting, I found one website that
17:19
talked about sales of these various things. An
17:24
estimated one billion transistor radios are sold
17:28
worldwide. Wow. That's transformational electronics.
17:32
Yeah. Sony was a big name in that. Then we graduated
17:38
to 8 -Track Tapes. Yep. And if you look at the
17:41
name of who developed it, do you recognize that
17:44
name? William Lear. He invented the Learjet.
17:47
Oh, wow. Yeah. And he also invented 8 -Track
17:50
Tapes. Okay. He was quite an inventor. Any relation
17:53
to Norman Lear, by any chance, the producer of
17:55
All in the Family? Probably not. Okay, wow, William
17:59
Lear, I didn't know that. Did you have an 8 -track
18:01
player? Yes. I had one. I installed it in my
18:04
vehicle. Oh, in the car? Okay, okay. If you look,
18:09
within two years after they're inventing, Lear
18:11
was quite a salesman. He got GM and Ford convinced
18:15
to include it as an option. In their cars. What
18:18
did you have in your 67 Camaro? Was that 8 -track?
18:21
I kinda think it was. Yeah, my 63 I had just
18:25
radio. Yeah, but I thought you had one in that
18:28
67 maybe. Cause I remember looking, always looking
18:32
for eight tracks for you. And it was actually
18:35
to give you good ones and stuff, so. Yeah, wow.
18:39
Eight tracks, wow. Well think about eight tracks,
18:42
the quick thing that always cracked me up was
18:43
you'd be playing a song. And it'd be like right
18:46
in the middle of the song and then you hear it
18:49
click click and it would go to the next track
18:50
so you could never hear the song from start to
18:52
finish. It would get interrupted by clicks. I
18:55
remember I had the Asia album Steely Dan on a
18:58
track and to be playing like a song you know
19:00
and all of a sudden you didn't hear the end of
19:02
it. I kept expecting when I'd hear it on the
19:05
radio I was almost expecting to hear the click
19:07
click on the radio. Plus you couldn't rewind
19:10
it. Right yeah. So if you missed a song Good
19:13
luck finding them. Yeah, tough luck. Eight tracks
19:15
were... I never bought one. I never bought into
19:18
that technology. I just didn't like it. I stayed
19:21
with my albums until I could go to cassettes.
19:23
Yeah, cassettes. Which is next on your list,
19:25
too. And they overlapped for a while, but then
19:30
Sony and their Walkman just took over the market
19:32
and sold 385 million of them worldwide. I've
19:37
got a couple of those sitting around in the basement,
19:39
too. I still have some cassettes. Yeah, I got
19:41
rid of all my cassettes Yeah, I've still got
19:44
all my cassettes. I probably got 300 Wow a lot
19:48
of ones are ones I recorded of albums that I
19:50
had sure sure and I had a I had it I bought a
19:55
Woollen sock which a division of 3m Yeah, they
19:58
tried to get into audio quality stuff, you know,
20:01
they usually did all the stuff that we all saw
20:02
in schools But they all said for a couple of
20:05
years. They had some really high -end equipment
20:09
for audio files. They tried their hand, they
20:12
got into it. And I paid quite a bit to get one
20:16
of those and I was able to, it had two spots
20:18
so I could do tape to tape dubbing. It was one
20:20
of the first cassette players that had Dolby
20:24
and it had Dolby A and B so I'll flip a big toggle
20:26
switch there. And with my friends in the school,
20:30
my coolness rating went up quite high when I
20:32
got that because it was the first person to have
20:34
that. And so I made a little bit of money dubbing
20:39
tapes for people. They'd give me an album. I'd
20:41
make the recording for them. And it sounded good
20:43
and everything. And so that was a lot of fun.
20:45
Yeah. I made a lot of cassette copies on Sunday
20:48
morning. KQRS would play three hours. They'd
20:51
play albums, I remember. Yeah. Entire albums.
20:54
You could just tape them. They'd encourage you
20:55
to. They never said, don't even think about it.
20:58
Yeah, go ahead. Go for it. So every Sunday night
21:02
on WDGY. The King Biscuit Flower Hour. or whatever
21:05
that was? Well, they would play the full -length
21:07
version of Inagata De Vito. Oh, okay. Which basically
21:12
let the DJ go out and have a smoke. That's what
21:15
it was, a smoke break. And then what else you
21:17
got listed here? From cassettes we want to CDs.
21:19
Ah, comp. And the big complaint about those was
21:24
the fact that it sounded compressed and tinny.
21:27
And that's what people who liked albums always
21:28
said was had as a more broad based sound that
21:31
it had more depth and feeling. But what they
21:34
always didn't say was that it also had snap,
21:36
crackles and pops and the CDs took care of that
21:39
problem. And so it was a good and the convenience
21:42
that if you dropped a CD, it would still work.
21:45
Whereas with an album. Invented in 92. Okay.
21:54
And by 93, just a year later, they sold 4 million
21:57
in the US. Wow. It was really well accepted.
22:00
Very popular. Yep. Yep. Yeah, the next then was
22:03
the MPEG MP31234. And again, it's invented in
22:10
Germany. And let's see. And the year 2000. So
22:15
Quite a while ago, but could get a basic player
22:18
that would hold eight to nine songs and cost
22:20
you 500 bucks. And then every few days you would
22:25
delete those songs and you'd reinstall some new
22:27
ones. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Then so after that, then
22:30
the iPod came out and you can see the sales amounts.
22:35
$450 million worldwide. Wow. So there's some
22:38
serious money to be paid if you come up with
22:41
the right project. Huge. And then finally, the
22:44
streaming. Napster, which was all sorts of legal
22:48
troubles. Nobody has an estimate on how many
22:53
people are streaming. Pretty much every kid today,
22:59
everybody who owns that equipment. I mean, on
23:02
my phone, I've got Apple. Apple and Odyssey,
23:07
and it's like on the Apple, I've got like 500
23:09
albums on my phone. It's just crazy to be able
23:13
to listen to it, and it represents just a fraction
23:16
of the hard drive on my phone, but it's like
23:18
whatever I'm in the mood for, pretty much can
23:20
hear. I spend a lot of time on my laptop, writing
23:24
and researching and just surfing, but a lot of
23:28
times, if I just want to hear songs, I'll just
23:29
go to YouTube and type in a song. and just come
23:31
up, I can play an album or I mean, you have commercials
23:34
and that stuff that you can skip a lot of that
23:37
stuff. And I don't have to have an entirely perfect
23:40
listen to it. I do get really frustrated with
23:44
and I understand why they're doing it. They want
23:46
to sell their premium services. Yeah. But when
23:48
they pop the commercial in the middle of a song,
23:51
I know that drives me crazy. I wish I wish you
23:55
wouldn't do that. So Okay. Well, thank you for
24:03
that, Wayne. That was good. And I think this
24:05
is going to overlap even when we get to the younger
24:07
kids and we talked about younger listeners, the
24:09
things that they use to listen to as well. And
24:11
I said, I just didn't want to overlook how important
24:14
radio was, especially for our generation growing
24:16
up. I mean, if we didn't have the records ourselves,
24:19
um, you know, listening in the car radio, I mean,
24:23
or having a radio, a portable radio transistor
24:25
was huge. You just, you want to hear music and
24:28
radio radio stations were a good way to do it.
24:31
So You know, today they call it terrestrial radio.
24:35
Like a lot of people don't even listen to radio
24:37
anymore. They listen to, well they go to Sirius
24:39
Satellite or something like that. But I still
24:42
listen to radio stations. I drop Sirius and just
24:45
listen to it. Yeah, I still. I like the current
24:47
for music because you get a broad range and NPR
24:49
news and things like that. DJs used to be really
24:52
important. Oh yeah, yeah. True Dad Blue. I remember
24:56
Rob Sherwood. That wasn't his real name, obviously.
24:59
It was kind of a cross between Robin Hood and
25:01
Sherwood Forest. They come up with some interesting
25:05
names. Wolfman Jack. Yeah, Wolfman Jack. Probably
25:08
one of the most famous. And then you guys, Wayne,
25:12
I was going to ask you guys, the equipment you
25:14
listed, did you have most of these listed? I
25:16
didn't. I mean, I... I never had a reel to reel.
25:19
Yeah, I didn't either. I didn't either. I had...
25:23
And still do have two record players. I've got
25:26
a Pioneer Direct Drive and a couple of other.
25:30
But anyways, I've got that. I had a reel to reel.
25:34
for a very short period of time, basically 24
25:36
hours, because I bought a new stereo. I was living
25:40
down in Minneapolis, and somebody in the neighborhood
25:43
saw us carrying the new equipment in. We left
25:46
the next day, someone had broken into our apartment
25:49
and had stolen all my new stereo equipment. So
25:52
I did own one. After that I didn't. I never had
25:55
8 -Track, but I had... good, that one good cassette
25:58
player. And I bought got a couple of really nice
26:01
CD players. And I've got an iPod sitting around
26:04
so I never had an iPod. I never actually had
26:08
a CD player. Because I didn't have a CD collection.
26:11
I went from vinyl to cassettes. My car still
26:14
has a CD player. Yeah. Yeah, it's great. The
26:18
one that I'm driving has CDs also. And it's like,
26:21
I've got a book with about 100 CDs in it. So
26:24
it's like, in case you want music in your part,
26:26
we do a lot of road trips. So just in case we
26:29
can't find a station that we like, pop in a CD.
26:38
Okay, on to Generation X. These are people that
26:41
were born from the years 1965 to 1980. Which
26:45
means that the oldest Gen Xs are now 60 or 61
26:48
years old, and the youngest are 45 or 46 years
26:52
old. They're not that much younger than us, really,
26:54
are they? And when you talk about younger generations
26:57
in their 60s, it's like, whoa, okay. They're
26:59
just starting to get arthritis. We're veterans.
27:05
Gen Xers are often called the MTV generation.
27:08
After all, the oldest Gen Xers were teenagers
27:10
when MTV debuted in 1981. That's amazing you
27:14
think about that. Gen X listeners enjoy diverse
27:17
musical genres with many popular artists and
27:20
groups that even we boomers are quite familiar
27:22
with and enjoy listening to I'm gonna run through
27:25
some categories and sometimes these might overlap
27:27
with what we said about boomers But I'll just
27:29
go with those categories that I came up with
27:31
the first category for Gen X is I would call
27:33
classic rock And a lot of these groups we were
27:37
listening to when we were kids But like one of
27:39
the first things I think it was like Led Zeppelin,
27:41
but like you think of some of the other ones
27:44
Queen. Fleetwood Mac. Fleetwood Mac, yep, that's
27:47
on the list. You too, I think would be there.
27:51
The Police. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers,
27:53
who I came to really appreciate. I was already
27:55
in my mid -20s, but I really liked him once I
27:58
started listening to it. I wasn't so much into
28:00
my brother Tom, who's younger than us. He was
28:02
a big Van Halen guy. Oh, sure. They were huge
28:05
for many years. There was that long -haired,
28:08
what do they call them? The scorpions and poison.
28:13
They're glam rock and hair bands. Big hair bands.
28:18
The next category, and I think of my brother
28:21
too, I call it hard rock slash metal. Mean, that's
28:25
when just a lot of guitar stuff those distorted
28:27
guitars of Def Leopard Iron Maiden Motley Crue
28:33
Yeah, Metallica is another yep. I never guns
28:36
and roses I remember he talked about them a lot
28:38
too. That was that was a big part of Gen X the
28:42
next one I this one I liked better than Metal
28:45
and that's I guess you call it grunge slash alternative
28:48
rock Nirvana REM cure In excess. Yeah, yeah,
28:56
yeah. Smashing Pumpkins, I remember some of those
28:58
groups. No Doubt with Gwen Stefani. Stefani.
29:02
Yeah, she was in No Doubt. That was, like I said,
29:04
I like that category. The hip hop, I'll be honest,
29:08
I never did get into it. I can't listen to it.
29:10
Tupac, Biggie, Beastie Boys, Dr. Dre. I don't
29:13
mind some hip hop, because I get exposed to all
29:16
this stuff because of the mic. my kids i work
29:19
with so it's like i listen to what they listen
29:20
to yeah yeah luckily they like a lot of old stuff
29:23
and like i've made playlists yeah and they'll
29:26
play those and they like our generation stuff
29:28
yeah and a lot of their current stuff i really
29:30
like but some hip hop i don't mind but the regular
29:34
hard rap i can't can't wrap around mine i remember
29:36
i took my daughter she was in eighth grade and
29:39
She took one of her friends and went to Canterbury.
29:42
And KDWB had something that was called the Last
29:44
Chance Summer Dance. And it's actually a pretty
29:47
good mix throughout the day. There's some rock
29:49
groups and some vocalists, but then they had
29:50
some hip hop. And I remember Diddy was like the
29:54
main attraction. And they said, I just didn't
29:56
grow up listening to that stuff. And it just
29:58
wasn't my cup of tea, I guess. But another category
30:01
from Gen X that I liked is, I guess I'd call
30:04
it New Wave slash Pop. Um, I liked the cars a
30:08
lot when they came out. Yeah. Yep. Um, uh, Michael
30:11
Jackson, Madonna was huge. Prince Janet Jackson,
30:17
Cindy Lauper, Duran Duran. Uh, yeah, a lot of
30:22
good groups. And then there was some R and B
30:25
and soul that was also big for that time. Stevie
30:28
wonder kind of cross generations. Uh, earth,
30:31
wind and fire was big. I remember, uh, in the
30:33
seventies and eighties. Marvin Gaye, his music
30:36
got played a lot. James Brown crossed over. He
30:39
was still big. I remember he had a song that
30:41
was in one of those Rocky movies, one of the
30:43
Rockies, three or four or something. He had that
30:45
Living in America song. That was a big song.
30:49
Whitney Houston, TLC, some of those groups. It
30:53
was a big part. Eddie Murphy did a wonderful
30:56
version of James Brown. That's right. Hot tub.
31:07
Now now that I would think the devices that the
31:10
Gen X's were using were very similar to what
31:12
we had But I can think of a couple that were
31:15
I remember they came out in the early 80s and
31:18
one was a boombox Exactly The portable CD players
31:26
got real popular And the MP3 player started getting
31:30
popular and you know as they got older and as
31:34
we did to it, you know smart phone streaming
31:36
became popular among them as well. So are there
31:38
any other things that you can think of guys that
31:41
kind of started with Gen X? One thing that we
31:44
had and with myself, we get a lot of my all of
31:48
my sons and their friends together, and we'd
31:50
all go play baseball. So we get like 1516 young
31:54
guys and then one old fossil who would pitch
31:56
me. And one thing that we had was a big old boombox
32:01
that was gigantic, but you could put your phone
32:04
in it. You could connect your phone into it.
32:06
So you get up all of the things that you had
32:08
on your phone. You could play through the boombox.
32:10
Oh, nice. And that really worked good because
32:12
someone would say, hey, play such and such or
32:14
you know, we need this or no more of that old
32:16
guy music. It's some stuff that we want. You
32:18
could quick change to it. So it was really a
32:21
convenient format. So it's kind of a combination.
32:23
But boy, that was nice. Yeah. Yep. I did have
32:26
a boombox. I never carried it on my shoulder
32:28
to lie down on the street. But it was actually
32:32
nice because I used it for business as well.
32:34
I had a really good recorder and I could interview
32:38
people and it recorded in stereo and it came
32:41
out really nice. It was on a cassette and it
32:43
had an AM FM radio which worked nice and I played
32:46
tons of music on there with cassettes. But the
32:49
recorder itself was nice and I had that thing,
32:52
God, it might still be at the house. that I sold
32:56
to my kids. I don't know, but it worked like
32:58
a charm for a long time, so I definitely got
33:00
my money's worth out of it. Well, it's just a
33:03
fancy portable music player. Slightly larger.
33:06
And bigger, yeah. Yeah, there's the tabletop.
33:10
cassette players that weren't big enough to qualify
33:12
as a boombox. I've got one of those that I still
33:15
use. I'll pop in a CD or a tape when I'm painting
33:17
or something. That way, if I spill some paint
33:19
on it, I don't really care. So it's got spatters
33:22
and stuff. But I get to listen to music while
33:24
I'm painting. I don't want to have my phone exposed
33:26
to the paint. So it works good. OK, the next
33:35
generation, the Millennials. These are people
33:38
born between the years 1981 to 1996, which means
33:43
the oldest Millennials are now 44 or 45 years
33:46
old, and the youngest are 29 or 30. In other
33:49
words, guys, this is the generation of our kids
33:52
and our nieces and nephews for Wayne. And Millennials,
33:56
they really are diverse as far as musical taste,
33:59
or I found. I mean, I can relate. with my daughter,
34:03
but she likes a lot of stuff that I liked. I
34:05
can remember she used to listen to my radio at
34:07
home, getting ready for work or school and she'd
34:10
have KQ on. She goes, I like dad rock. But she
34:17
also has music from her generation. She liked,
34:20
I can remember hearing Gwen Stefani and no doubt
34:22
all the time. And, uh, Oh God, she played a lot
34:26
of musical stuff too. She was really into the
34:28
musical Wicked. They've made some movies out
34:31
of it now, but it was about the Wizard of Oz,
34:32
but it was a Broadway play, and she had the soundtrack
34:35
for that, and I heard that all the time. Who
34:38
are some of the other? Oh yeah, this singer's
34:43
probably one of the biggest among the pop rock
34:46
for millennials. I'll give you a quick hint.
34:49
She's engaged to a guy that plays tight end for
34:51
the Kansas City Chiefs. Taylor. Yep. Taylor Swift.
34:56
I guess she's done it right for herself too.
34:58
She's a gazillionaire by now. She's no Ringo
35:01
Starr, but she's okay. Yeah, I mean, I've got
35:07
a couple of nieces that actually have seen her
35:09
in different cities. So do I. I mean, they saw
35:11
her here, but they were in Seattle or someplace.
35:14
It's like, she's just huge worldwide. That last
35:17
tour she had must have made billions. You know,
35:19
it's just amazing. But I remember too, that's
35:22
a category for Pop Rock. There were some pretty
35:25
big names that I remember Beyonce was huge Lady
35:28
Gaga Justin Bieber Bruno Mars. He's been in a
35:32
couple Super Bowls playing Katy Perry pink Coldplay
35:38
and big names and then there's another category
35:41
hip -hop got real big with Millennials, too Do
35:44
you remember the guy that played the halftime
35:47
last year's Super Bowl? It was kind of controversial,
35:49
I guess, because a lot of this stuff you couldn't
35:51
really play on the air. His name was Kendrick
35:55
Lamar. He was the halftime show. I mean, visually,
35:59
it was really something, because I saw it. I
36:01
didn't recognize any of the songs he was singing.
36:02
I saw it too, by the way. It's like, wow, what
36:04
a production. But there's a guy named Drake.
36:08
In fact, I think those guys are enemies. Like
36:10
I think half that half -time show, he's ripping
36:12
on Drake, but Eminem is still huge with millennials.
36:16
You know, he's the grandfather now, but he's
36:18
a big rapper. Kanye West. Who to me is a no talent
36:22
guy. Don't even get me started on that, that
36:25
guy. Lil Wayne was part of that group. Alicia
36:29
Keys. There's R &B as well as the hip hop. Yeah.
36:34
Yeah. Right. Usher too. And then they had some,
36:37
um, I guess rock slash alternative groups. Remember
36:41
hearing a group called the killers? Yeah, they
36:44
had some good music. And then the kid that or
36:47
the guy that used to be in Nirvana, Dave girls,
36:50
the the Foo Fighters. That's a really good. They
36:52
had some really good songs from that area. So
36:56
and then some really good vocalists that came
36:57
out that were popular with millennials because
37:00
I used to hear them at home and my daughter played
37:02
them, but Adele British singer. Amy Winehouse
37:06
was a great singer. Great blues singer. Yeah,
37:09
unfortunately she joined that 27 club. Yeah,
37:11
exactly. With Hendrix and Joplin and Jim Morrison
37:15
and Kurt Cobain and all that. So that was too
37:18
bad, but she had a good voice. Then they also,
37:20
they were big into nostalgic. My daughter really
37:23
loved the Beatles. Michael Jackson was big among
37:26
the millennials. It's funny when My daughter
37:28
was going to Immaculate Catholic School in Columbia
37:31
Heights. I go to parent -teacher conferences
37:34
and the Franciscan nuns there were going, how
37:38
does she know so much about the Beatles? And
37:40
I go, well, she heard us playing it when she
37:43
was growing up and she just became a real expert
37:45
on it. I mean, she knows more about the Beatles
37:47
than I do. And I think I know... quite a bit
37:50
about them, but she's really immersed herself.
37:52
She's watched anthology over the years and she
37:56
has all the albums and likes playing that stuff.
37:58
So yeah, yeah, good, good, good, good taste in
38:01
music. So now my kids who fall into this category.
38:05
Yeah. Yeah. What are they like? They're millennials.
38:07
Yeah. And they all are very much into music.
38:10
I go to a lot of concerts like I do and everything,
38:12
but it's like, John, I can remember him when
38:15
he was young. He liked the old stuff. I mean,
38:17
I remember him one time walking out of his room,
38:19
singing at the top of his lungs, Dean Martin's,
38:22
that's Amore. And then two days after that, I'm
38:26
having an argument with him because he's blasting
38:28
out Linkin Park, which was on the Do Not Playlist
38:32
around my wife. And so I mean, he likes everything.
38:35
Like right now, loves Pink Floyd. And I mean,
38:39
all of my kids love Pink Floyd. They know the
38:42
lyrics to every Pink Floyd song there is. And
38:45
so do we. So they like the old stuff. And right
38:48
now, all of my kids love the Lumineers. Now John,
38:52
oldest he really likes the pixies that's his
38:54
favorite group okay and I keep on telling him
38:58
every time they come down I'd like to go see
39:00
him with you because I like them too yeah I remember
39:03
going to a couple of concerts with them where
39:06
we saw imagine dragons together we actually we
39:09
actually met the band they were really seriously
39:12
cool guys yeah so we've seen a lot of that and
39:16
this one of groups that we've mentioned already
39:18
but the Lumineers are definitely my daughters
39:21
favorite. Are they a local group? No, they're
39:25
not local. I don't know where they're from. I've
39:29
heard of them, but I'm sure they have a really
39:30
strong following nationwide and worldwide. And
39:39
as far as devices, imagine a lot of the, you
39:41
know, the streaming is very big. I mean, that's
39:44
how they get a lot of their music now. And they
39:46
love, they were the first generation I remember
39:48
that had the wireless earbuds. I mean, they were,
39:51
we had headphones, but they had the earbuds.
39:53
They were the first ones to use that, that I
39:55
can recall, so. And like our cell phones for
39:58
sale in there. Oh yeah, yeah. And working, working
40:02
with four of my five kids. Yeah. they've got
40:06
different music players on the computer and then
40:09
we've got a network of speakers throughout so
40:12
it's like hey Siri play blah blah blah all the
40:15
way around or station four or whatever and so
40:19
you can hear it and you know through the speakers
40:21
and with the computer you just tell it what to
40:23
play or you can find what you want with the playlist
40:25
it's so convenient it's like anything you want
40:27
literally at your fingertips yep yep Okay, next
40:37
generation, Generation Z, or Gen Z, they call
40:40
them. These people were born during the years
40:42
1997 to 2012, which means the oldest Gen Zs are
40:47
28 or 29 years old, and the youngest are 13 or
40:50
14. And like Millennials, they grew up with diverse
40:53
musical tastes, and we'll take a look at some
40:55
of those. The modern pop category, you still
40:58
got Taylor Swift. Have you ever heard of Billie
41:01
Eilish? She's real popular, I guess. Olivia Rodrigo?
41:05
I couldn't name a song, but I know who they are.
41:08
And then the hip hop thing is still big with
41:10
the kids, you know, Kendrick Lamar and Drake.
41:14
Then some groups are just, there's a group called
41:17
a rapper named Doja Cat. If you say so. Eminem
41:25
is still popular. Grandpa Eminem, they like hearing
41:28
him do his stuff. I remember seeing a movie with
41:31
him in it. It was called Eight Mile. They got
41:33
roads in Detroit that just go by how many miles
41:36
north of a certain eight miles a road and that
41:39
was a movie about him. He lived in a like a trailer
41:42
park with his mother who was played by Kim Basinger
41:45
but he was a rapper and he got in a like a contest.
41:50
a rapping contest and was sort of like a rocky
41:53
movie for rappers. I mean, he kind of came out
41:55
of nowhere to win a contest, but Eminem was that.
41:58
That was over 20 years ago. I saw that with my
42:00
daughter. So you ever heard of music form called
42:03
EDM or electronic dance music? Oh, yeah. Where
42:06
they mix all these songs together. I guess it
42:09
sounds cool when you put it all together. It
42:10
must be big at dances or discos or. My son, Joey,
42:13
has a friend who worked as a radio DJ locally
42:17
for a number of years, and he. Distracting it
42:21
does the DJ stuff at weddings as a song. Oh,
42:23
right. Okay, sure He puts together all sorts
42:25
of really amazing playlists and stuff. Yeah EDM
42:29
they call it. Yeah, and I guess the one of the
42:31
superstars of EDM is a guy named Marshmello But
42:34
it's spelled M -E -R -S -H -M -E -L -L -O like
42:38
Marshmello his real name is Christopher Comstock
42:41
if you ever Ever asked that at a bar trivia question.
42:45
What's his real name? But he's like the superstar
42:47
among the EDM and EDM community. Go figure. When
42:52
I think electronic, I think going back into Kraftwerk
42:55
and things like that. Oh yeah, yeah. The old
42:57
things like that. Audubon. Yeah, Audubon. Yeah.
42:59
Romstein. That goes into the metal category.
43:02
Yeah, yeah. Although we did dance to it. I got
43:06
another group of music here called Indie Slash
43:10
Alt Rock. Have you ever heard these groups 21
43:13
pilots? Yeah, okay Imagine Dragons is that you
43:16
mentioned? Yeah. Yeah, I've seen it. I've actually
43:19
seen them twice. Okay, they're good. They're
43:21
very good Okay, yeah that song radioactive that
43:24
was on the radio several years ago. That was
43:26
them. Oh, okay That was that was their big hit.
43:29
Okay. Have you ever heard of a group called tame
43:31
Impala? No, I knew guys who drove it lame Impala
43:38
I had a 63 in Palo. I had a lot of fun in my
43:41
parents' 77 in Palo. We won't go there though.
43:46
Another category. I know this because my granddaughter
43:48
took a class. It's after school activity. It's
43:51
called K -pop. It's like Korean pop Korean pop
43:54
stuff. Yeah, and there's a group called BTS which
43:57
stands for something in Korea that translates
43:59
in English to Bulletproof Boy Scouts and you
44:02
know what? They're coming out with their first
44:04
album in four years BTS. Yes. Okay. Okay That's
44:08
K -pop. Okay. One of the bands, they had to take
44:11
a temporary hiatus. They're hugely popular, but
44:13
all of them had to go into their compulsory one
44:16
-year military service. So they had to put the
44:18
band on hold, go do their military, then go back
44:20
into it. So the whole nation was in an uproar
44:23
because they were coming back. I'm trying to
44:26
think of like an American group from the sixties
44:28
that would have done that. They didn't, but like,
44:30
what if all of a sudden Crosby, Seals and Nash
44:32
had to go, are we? We're done for a while. Her
44:40
Van Halen all in the military. Oh gosh. And then
44:45
we mentioned her before Olivia Rodrigo was big.
44:48
And then there's a singer, I've seen her, she's
44:49
a cute girl, her name is Sabrina Carpenter. Got
44:52
blonde hair, but I wanted to tell a cute story.
44:54
I saw this, and maybe you've seen this as I start
44:56
talking about it, but she and Paul Simon. We're
44:59
going to sing a song, Homeward Bound. It was
45:03
SNL's 50th anniversary TV special, and Paul Simon
45:07
was on the stage with Sabrina right next to him,
45:09
and he said, you know, before we sing this song,
45:11
I just want to mention that I sang the same song,
45:14
Homeward Bound, with George Harrison in 1976
45:18
on SNL. And I'm sure they wrote this line for
45:21
her, but she goes, I wasn't even born in 1976,
45:26
and neither were my parents. She was like 25
45:32
and he was 83, you know, but Simon was gracious.
45:36
He says, well, I'm glad you're, they'll get a
45:38
chance to hear it again tonight. So it was cute.
45:40
And it was a thing you can catch on YouTube,
45:42
but they sang it together and it was, it was
45:45
nicely done, but that was Sabrina Carpenter.
45:47
So, and then the Gen Z is also like, uh, uh,
45:50
nostalgic music. They like to listen to stuff
45:53
that their parents and grandparents listen to.
45:55
So they've got good all around taste. What's
45:59
funny is that her age didn't want to listen to
46:02
the parents. Oh, no, no, it was almost like you
46:04
kind of had to search your authority. Like, I
46:07
want to I want to I want my music. And conversely,
46:11
our parents did not want to listen to our music.
46:14
Right. The number of times my mother would hit
46:17
the wall and say, shut that stuff up. Yes. Except
46:21
she really liked Genesis. That was the only time
46:25
she'd go and knock on the door when I was still
46:26
living at home and I had Genesis on. She'd go,
46:28
turn that up. Nice. Oh, that's cool. That's cool.
46:34
I've tried to stay with my kids. It's like, if
46:36
you're playing this, I want to listen to it and
46:38
learn. I try to learn. I try to listen to a song
46:40
from a different group every day, just to keep
46:43
exposed to it. And my kids are really good about
46:45
pointing out groups and stuff. Hey, try this
46:48
one out. Try that one out. You know, we could
46:50
almost do a sociological podcast as to get some
46:54
sociologists or experts but it's like our generation
46:57
there were more like boundaries or distinct boundaries
47:00
you know the greatest generation and the silent
47:03
generation and stuff but our generation boomers
47:05
it's like we just we just wanted to stay young
47:08
even when we got old. I think we were the first
47:11
generation where they actually made a big deal
47:13
about teenagers, where advertisers were distinctly
47:17
creating commercials and stuff for teenagers.
47:21
And as we grew up, we kept saying, let's keep
47:24
this going, even if we're older. And I think
47:26
that's probably what we've been more open to
47:27
music because it's still rock, you know, it's
47:30
different generations playing. But I think we're
47:31
more open to that than say our folks were. That's
47:34
a good call. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting about
47:37
music in general. I would imagine some of the
47:41
devices to that they probably tweaked them gotten
47:43
more refined as these kids are listening to stuff.
47:46
But the one thing that I thought was fascinating,
47:49
maybe you guys know about this, and I just been
47:50
under rock. But I didn't realize that you can
47:53
get There's a brand called Bose, B -O -S -E.
47:57
Oh, yeah. They make glasses that have speakers.
48:00
They're like sunglasses. And they're ridiculously
48:02
expensive. Yeah, they're like 250 bucks or something
48:05
to get them. But the music comes out of your...
48:07
You know the boat the bows of the of the glasses.
48:10
Yeah So there's no wires, right? Yeah, and you
48:13
can get prescriptions So I always say well, I
48:15
can't wear sunglasses. I need a prescription,
48:18
you know, but you can get prescription bows And
48:21
walk around in your music by your place I've
48:23
got a Bose system downstairs in my basement hooked
48:26
up to all my gaming systems. Okay. Okay. Yeah,
48:29
they make a really quality product They always
48:32
have very extensive. Yeah, but what if it Yeah,
48:35
it's amazing the technology, the electronics.
48:38
That's why this is such a great idea, Wayne,
48:40
just talking about how you listen to music, how
48:42
it's changed in 50 -some years or 60 years. And
48:46
I still go downstairs and pop an album on. Yeah.
48:49
I do, too. Yeah, I've still got them sitting
48:51
in a box. My Bang and Olufsen turntable is sitting
48:54
front and center with all of my other gaming
48:56
components and everything else. That still gets
48:58
pride of place in the dead center. How many albums
49:00
do you have? I, unfortunately... had a couple
49:04
of boxes disappear during one move years ago,
49:08
but I still probably have 300 albums. I've probably
49:12
got 2000 CDs sitting downstairs. That's amazing.
49:16
I've got a lot of CDs. I've got 500 albums. I
49:19
know you've got a bigger collection than I do,
49:23
but it's still got quite a few, but I lost a
49:25
couple hundred albums and it's like, I don't
49:26
know what happened to them. Unfortunately, I
49:29
sold a bunch back in college. And I did have
49:32
a cat eat a couple of my albums when he was teething.
49:36
He thought it was really fun. The covers, you
49:38
mean? Oh, no, not just the vinyl. I actually
49:40
have a couple albums. I have a Rush Permanent
49:43
Waves album. It has some really cute little tooth
49:45
prints in it. But no, he got into the actual,
49:48
he liked chewing on the vinyl too. Wow. So I
49:50
had to stop leaving. So the needle hits that
49:52
bone. Oh, yeah. Just cute little tooth prints.
50:02
Let's get to the last generation we'll talk about,
50:04
and that's generation alpha. These are the very
50:06
young people compared to us boomers. They were
50:09
born during the years 2013 to 2024, which means
50:14
the oldest alphas are 12 or 13 years old and
50:17
the youngest are one or two. Some of my clothes
50:20
are older than 12 or 13 years. And from what
50:25
I've researched and just seeing my granddaughter,
50:28
they... Their music tastes are very diverse and
50:31
global as well. K -pop is big. Pop is big with
50:35
them. Depending on the type of hip -hop, they
50:39
like the beat to that. Even some country, if
50:42
their moms and dads like country music. I know
50:45
my granddaughter loves soundtrack music. You
50:48
know, all the Disney animation stuff. I was going
50:50
to say, any second now we'll be talking about
50:52
Elsa and let it go. Well, you can see Frozen,
50:55
Aladdin, The Lion King, Little Mermaid, Coco.
50:58
I mean, whatever Disney, they've got that Disney
51:01
Plus channel. So whatever movie they'll put on
51:03
for her, she'll be, she knows all the songs.
51:11
And they're very comfortable with technology.
51:14
They're not intimidated by smart phones. My granddaughter,
51:18
and I'm sure your grandkids the same way, they
51:19
can hold that thing. They seem to know how to
51:22
take pictures and look up stuff. It's almost
51:24
scary. It is. When my granddaughter, who at the
51:27
time was three, when I hand her the remote and
51:29
she gets the TV going, it was like, OK, I'm no
51:32
longer needed here. Yeah, it doesn't intimidate
51:35
them at all. It's just amazing. Our listeners
51:38
can't see this, but over to my right here, you
51:40
guys can see I've got a turntable. My daughter
51:42
and son -in -law gave that to me for Christmas.
51:44
But when Audrey comes over, my granddaughter,
51:47
one of the first things she does is go, let's
51:49
play records. I've got some down here. I have
51:51
a lot. But she loves to actually lift up the
51:53
cover and turn it on. Put the album on the platter
51:57
and then have the needle come down on the edge
51:59
of the record and play it. And then she'll start
52:01
dancing. She just thinks it's so cool to have
52:03
that. She likes the new or she likes the old
52:07
school stuff. There are some things very satisfying
52:09
about actually physically putting the album on
52:13
the turntable. And like my Pioneer is a manual
52:16
one where I actually, it's a direct ride. So
52:17
you have to actually put it. put the needle in
52:20
and drop it down. The Bang & Olufsen is an automatic
52:23
turntable, so you just push a button. But either
52:25
way, putting it on there, there's something special
52:28
about that. Yep, that's cool. And like I said
52:37
earlier in this podcast since Generation Beta
52:39
just started last year We'll wait a while before
52:42
we start talking about the musical taste like
52:44
I said in 2040 when Generation Gamma starts that's
52:47
what we'll get back to talk about Okay Right
52:57
now guys what I want to do is I want to go back
52:58
to um talk a little bit about Radio Shack itself
53:01
since you brought the the Catalog over Wayne
53:04
you said you found it cleaning up a bookshelf
53:07
or something, had been sitting around. I think
53:10
maybe as far down as Generation Z might remember
53:13
Radio Shack. Maybe the stores were still open
53:16
in early 2000s, so they might have gone in the
53:18
store with their mom and dad, but they were all
53:20
over the place. Apache Plaza, a shopping mall
53:23
where we grew up by, had it, but it seemed like
53:25
every suburb had one in a strip mall. They were
53:28
just everywhere. Well, it was convenient because
53:31
if I'm mistaken, Wayne, wasn't Radio Shack really
53:33
named, it wasn't actually applied to like ham
53:36
radios more than like radios that you'd listen
53:39
to music on because you were a ham radio guy
53:41
for a while, weren't you? Yeah, I still have
53:43
my license. Okay, yeah. But but Radio Shack would
53:46
be a store where you could buy like parts or
53:48
equipment for that stuff. This one especially
53:51
because of the size of the catalog. Yeah, it's
53:53
a thick one. phone book for a summer like you
53:56
know just pretty good size and you can buy parts
53:58
individual transistors and you know resistors
54:01
for people making their own gear yeah stuff like
54:03
that and that that's kind of change oh hasn't
54:05
i mean now it's like is there such a thing as
54:07
a tv repairman anymore i doubt when it stops
54:09
working you throw it out and you get a new one
54:11
or recycle it i mean you wouldn't need the parts
54:13
to buy for it because you just get something
54:15
else if it doesn't you know it doesn't work but
54:17
but they had catalogs just devoted to having
54:19
parts and tools so you have out the battery of
54:22
the month club yep Battery of the Month Club
54:25
at Radio Shack, huh? Yeah, great stuff. And like
54:28
I said earlier, or I don't know if we set it
54:30
off before we started recording, but Radio Shack,
54:34
there is a website, radioshack .com, and you
54:38
can find items that you could purchase, I guess,
54:41
but neither of you have done that, right? I haven't
54:44
gone and done that either, so. Do you remember
54:46
the last thing you bought at a ReoShack? Actually,
54:49
yes, a few years, several years ago when one
54:52
of my older kids was still in elementary school.
54:57
And I found out that I had been elected to help
55:00
with their science project, like fifth grade
55:03
or whatever. And we ended up going and buying
55:05
a bunch of switches and copper wire and everything.
55:09
And we did these. electromagnets oh and so it's
55:12
like you had the switch you could do it on and
55:14
off and then we did a couple other projects with
55:16
a couple of the other kids so yeah i did buy
55:17
some of that stuff they had everything you needed
55:20
for the for doing a project like that yeah part
55:24
of the electronics class that i took in high
55:27
school for four years because i was going to
55:29
be an engineer right yeah yeah you would have
55:31
been a good one too yeah but i ended up building
55:35
a fuzz stone Because I had an electric guitar.
55:38
Yeah, and you can make that distorted sound.
55:41
It actually worked. It's not like Keith Richards
55:43
or something. And here I thought you were just
55:45
really bad. I don't know. Wow. Well, Radio Shack
55:54
was a big part of our culture. I can remember
55:56
TV commercials during football games. They were
55:59
big, and I wanted to bring this up, and maybe
56:01
you've seen this before too, but it was a Seinfeld
56:03
episode. and Jerry and George and Kramer were
56:07
in the coffee shop. And Jerry had mentioned,
56:10
he was complaining, he had gotten bumped from
56:12
a speaking engagement at his old junior high
56:14
school. They were having a career day, and he
56:17
was going to talk about becoming a, if you understand,
56:20
a comedy. You know, it's a possibility, a possible
56:22
career. He's complaining, he says he got bumped
56:27
because the lizard guy from the zoo went too
56:30
long. And then George, you know, being very supportive,
56:34
goes, you got bumped from career day? And then
56:38
Jerry says, it was a mix -up, I'm sure. And then
56:40
Kramer, he goes, you're just screwing with your
56:43
head. And Jerry's going, now why would a junior
56:45
high wanna screw with my head? To which Kramer
56:48
replied, he's about to light a cigar, which is
56:51
prohibited in that restaurant. He goes, why does
56:53
Radio Shack ask for your phone number when you
56:55
buy batteries? I don't know. A tribute to Radio
57:03
Shack after all those years. But that is true.
57:06
I can remember when I go there and say, what's
57:08
your phone number? And it's like, what do you
57:10
care? Their whole filing system was based on
57:12
that. It was a marketing thing. Maybe that's
57:14
how they got you into mailing this and sent you
57:15
their smaller catalogs or something. I don't
57:17
know. But it just cracked me up going, why do
57:19
you need my phone number? It seemed so intrusive
57:22
at the time. But that was Radio Shack. Okay,
57:33
one last thing guys There's been a huge transformation
57:36
of music and then the devices of course that
57:38
we listen to it on Do you have a favorite or
57:41
maybe the most unique? Electronic device that
57:44
you ever owned. I'll tell you what I'll tell
57:46
you I'll share mine with you and then if something
57:48
comes to mind This was in 1980 and maybe I bought
57:52
it Radio Shack could have been Target or musical
57:54
and I don't know But it was called a bone phone
57:58
Two words, bone and then phone, spelled F -O
58:01
-N -E. It was literally a wearable radio that
58:04
you draped around your neck. It was almost like
58:07
a scarf or a workout towel. This is a picture
58:10
of me for the benefit of our listeners. I was
58:12
in Colorado. You had hair. And I had hair and
58:15
a beard, but I had the bone phone around my neck.
58:18
And the music would come out of these two speakers.
58:20
You had your little controls on here. You could
58:22
change channels and adjust the volume. But the
58:25
music would almost kind of vibrate off your neck.
58:28
I've never heard of that. I've heard of it, but
58:30
I never saw one. It was cool. I mean, it sounded
58:34
nice, but there were a couple of things wrong
58:36
with it being comfortable to ride. You could
58:39
kind of tie these two ends together, but they
58:41
kind of dig into your chest while you're riding
58:43
your bike or something. And then If it got really
58:46
noisy, like if you were in a heavy traffic area,
58:48
it would drown out your music. And it's like,
58:50
well, this is defeating the whole purpose because
58:51
there was no headphones. You know, so if it was
58:54
perfectly quiet, then it's fine. But otherwise,
58:56
if it's annoying about here, yeah, yeah, yeah.
58:59
Well, the speakers would be closer to your. Neck,
59:03
okay, and then it would come out it would sound
59:05
kind of cool because it would actually vibrate
59:07
if you're going but these were very short -lived
59:09
maybe a couple years and then Walkmans or portable
59:13
cassette players became a lot more common and
59:15
they were more practical you could have headphones
59:17
and you could listen to Stuff and you'd shut
59:20
out the rest of the world while you're doing
59:21
that stuff So it was short but sweet but boneful.
59:25
I just remember that was that was the one I remember
59:30
My favorite probably was just my first stereo
59:34
that I bought in 72 where I had the BSR 510 turntable,
59:39
a Sherwood receiver and two ultra linear speakers
59:42
and then a couple weeks after that I got that
59:44
cassette player. Got that out at Brookdale at
59:49
Shock Electronics. Shock, that's right. Yeah,
59:53
they had commercial lingo language, S -C -H -A
59:56
-A -K, shock. I remember that. Yeah, they were
59:59
kind of competitors to Radio Shack, weren't they,
1:00:02
for electronic devices? Well, Radio Shack was
1:00:04
less at the time, they were less audio. It was
1:00:08
audio king and shock electronic were the two
1:00:11
competitors in our area. Okay. Okay. Okay. Radio
1:00:14
shack was more electronic. And then they got
1:00:17
into computers and calculators. And then they
1:00:19
did some audio stuff eventually, but they didn't
1:00:22
start out that way. Okay. Okay. What was the
1:00:25
favorite thing you bought Wayne electronic device?
1:00:28
Probably my first computer. Ah, got a tempo one.
1:00:33
Okay, it was about 2000 bucks back in. Yeah,
1:00:37
they were expensive, weren't they? 6 ,000 bucks
1:00:40
now. Yeah. And now you can buy a computer for
1:00:43
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's one thing that's
1:00:45
actually gone down some of it with the technology
1:00:47
by really, they have the receipt in here for
1:00:51
the receipt for the computer. Oh, okay. Okay.
1:00:56
This is a 69. Why don't you find that spot, Wayne?
1:00:58
It's a catalog from Radio Shack. Oh, okay. Sure,
1:01:02
you had the big monitor. Oh, yeah, that definitely.
1:01:06
Yeah, when they said desktop model, it took up
1:01:08
the whole desktop. Absolutely. And who'd you
1:01:14
buy this through, Wayne? A mail order. Oh, mail
1:01:17
order. Okay, okay. Wow. My first computer was
1:01:20
a zeos which was manufactured right here in Minneapolis
1:01:23
and at the time they were the number one ranked
1:01:25
computer for quality and everything Wow, I paid
1:01:28
four thousand bucks for and that was in the late
1:01:30
80s Barb and I just got married I think and it
1:01:33
was like she thought I was nuts or spending that
1:01:36
much. I can read that dial -up internet and Well
1:01:45
you guys, this has been fun just talking about
1:01:47
this stuff. It was a great idea Wayne to come
1:01:49
up with this idea to talk about changes in music
1:01:51
as well as what you use to listen to the music.
1:01:54
So thanks for the idea. I'll give you last words
1:01:57
since you brought up the idea. What types of
1:02:01
music do you listen to now and what kind of devices
1:02:03
do you use to actually listen to music? You kind
1:02:06
of alluded to it but just... Like when you're
1:02:08
home now and you're not streaming some TV show
1:02:11
and you want to hear music, what's your first
1:02:12
choice? I have a Bluetooth player and just my
1:02:16
phone connects to it, so you can hear it all
1:02:18
over the house. It's a classic rock, for the
1:02:23
most part. Some classical, some very little country,
1:02:28
but once in a while. How about you, Al? I've
1:02:32
always got my phone with me so I listen to a
1:02:34
lot on my phone but like my computer we've got
1:02:37
a couple of them that I'll hook up in the house
1:02:39
and then like downstairs if I'm doing anything
1:02:41
I'll have my the actual stereo going there as
1:02:45
far as the music I listen to it's probably 50
1:02:48
% classical 40 % prog rock you know Genesis yes
1:02:53
Peter Gabriel solo stuff and all that and then
1:02:57
the remainder is just You know heavy metal and
1:03:01
some old some new whatever a little country,
1:03:03
but i'm still predominantly prog rock and classical.
1:03:07
Okay. All right Well, this has been fun guys
1:03:15
Thanks again for uh the topic Wayne the topic
1:03:18
is Justin and now thanks for all your input You
1:03:21
guys both had a lot of great stuff to add to
1:03:22
this. I really appreciate your coming and help
1:03:24
So thanks again for coming right? Thanks for
1:03:26
having us And again to our listeners, thanks
1:03:31
for hanging out with me, Bob Edholm, and my guests,
1:03:34
Wayne and Al Damro. We hope you join us for the
1:03:37
next episode of Hanging Out with Bob, wherever
1:03:39
you listen to your podcasts. And until then,
1:03:41
bye.