ENTERTAINMENT - Sony Walkman at 35: looking back at the most iconicmusic player of all time

What's your first Walkman memory?

The Sony Walkman is 35 today

Today, the Sony Walkman turns 35 years old. The Walkman is, therefore just a year younger than I am, and I certainly feel like we've grown up together...

If you weren't there, it's hard to explain just how much those of us who were lusted after the Walkman.

From Sony's first models, through to that yellow one you could take in the shower, the Walkman range was THE gadget of the 80s and 90s, and we all wanted one like the kids want smartphones today. More, even....

It was a very cool gadget though, and you have to remember that the combination of a ghetto blaster at home, and a Walkman for going out, meant that you could now record your favourite songs off the radio and take them with you. This was life changing for youngsters of the day.

We were the first generation to be able to do this, and it's not overstating the issue to say it changed music, and how people listened to it.

It also scared the willies out of the music industry, which for the first time was facing a threat to revenues from kids with dual-deck home systems making bootleg copies of albums while also recording the Top 40 off the radio to avoid having to buy singles.

http://www.techradar.com/news/audio/sony-walkman-at-35-looking-back-at-the-most-iconic-music-player-of-all-time-1255616

MY LIFE - Remembering the 90s! Ugh!

ENTERTAINMENT: Hundreds of John Peel shows for streaming!

For fans disappointed that the online debut of the late John Peel’s record collection didn’t feature actual music off those platters or broadcasts by the legendary British DJ, here’s the real deal: a streaming collection of 458 episodes of Peel’s show, presumably digitized off cassettes, that totals 846 hours and spans the years 1967 to 2004.

http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2012/09/11/john-peel-archive-stream-458-shows/

ENTERTAINMENT: The Mix: The Songs Of The Summer, 1962-2012

http://m.npr.org/story/155132353?url=/2012/06/20/155132353/the-mix-the-songs-of-the-summer-1962-2012&ps=freshair

MY LIFE: Trivia Games Of The Mind

I don't know about you, but as I get older, I find my mind playing more and more trivia games with me. And, of course, rude mind that it is – and my mind can be very rude! - it doesn't even ask me if I want to play.

So I was sitting there innocently at work doing quality control on data entry – yes, I know, exciting work. Which is why I have to have my music with me. If I forget my iPod, I take a 9 o'clock lunch to go get it! But that really has nothing to do with our story. Just an exciting tidbit of my exciting life I was throwing at you. I swear, if I wasn't getting a sex change, I'd be one of the most boring people on this planet!

Anyway! I'm at work listening to music, when I was trying to remember some of the punk rock and alternative rock I had on my old hard drive before it died. And for some reason, I remember this song “Last Nite”. I can kind of remember how it goes and some of the lyrics, but I can't remember the name of the band. I know they're The S-something.


Now normally, I would just google this, but our work has a really strict policy about internet usage. Almost any site having remotely to do with social networks is blocked. Even a local TV channel's site is blocked because we were picking up too many viruses from there. Of course, these rules don't stop me from using the internet, just careful about when I do use it.

And I wasn't ready to use it yet. I still had a couple of other resources.

And I turned to one of my cubicle mates. He was one of the trio of trivia experts in our department. I being another, and a data entry tech being the third. The third member of the trio wasn't a huge music fan. He liked well enough and could answer some general music trivia questions, but he wasn't one of the people you go to about music.

Now, my cubicle mate was into music quite a bit. Not as much as me of course, but more than almost everybody in the department. And as I said he was part of the trivia trio in our department.


So I tap his shoulder, he takes off his headphones, and I say, “I need help. I can't remember this name of a band. I know they had a song called “Last Nite” and it's spelled N-I-T-E. And their name starts with an S. They're The S-Something. They're a guitar-oriented alternative band from the 90s.” They're actually from the 00s, but anyway....

Then more information came to me. “And part of the lyrics was 'last nite she said'. And there's something about grandma doesn't know and UFOs don't know. And on their second album they sing something about the end having no end. And they've had 3 albums that I know of.”

“Oh, and I think their first album is called “Last Nite”.” It wasn't. If my mind is going to play trivia games with me, I wish it would play fair with accurate information.

My cubicle mate thought for a while. “Those lyrics sound familiar. Could you sing part of it?”

I smiled. “Um, I could, but you still probably wouldn't recognize it.”

He smiled back. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

Then he added, “Well, dang, now I want to know who it is.”


Fortunately, I still had another ace up my sleeve. We have a second music fanatic in our department. But don't worry, she's about 25 years younger than me, so there's little overlap between us.

In fact, a couple years back, I was tried to impress her, show her that I didn't just listen to music from my time, the late 70s to mid 80s. I rattled off a bunch of "new" bands i was listening to.

And she said, and I quote... and yes, I can quote her because I'll never forget what she said! “Oh, yeah, the 90s, that was good music. I listen to some of that stuff when I was a kid.”


So anyway, I went to her cube but she wasn't there. So I left a note. Fortunately for once, I thought ahead and let her know what it was about, so she wouldn't worry and wonder why she was being summoned to the quality control cubicle. Figured she'd be a bit annoyed worrying about why the q.c. people to see her and find out it's just to name a band.

Well, I couldn't wait any longer. I broke company rules – shhh! - and looked up the lyrics on the internet. The band's name came right up.

The other music fanatic showed up shortly after that. She was kind of laughing. She asked if we figured it out and said we had, but gave her the information I had anyway.

And right away she said, “The Strokes?”

“Yep. Where were you when we needed you?”

She just smiled and kind of shrugged. And I just kind of shrugged at my slowly deteriorating mind and its stupid trivia games.