1980s Top 40 nostalgia....

[Barry]

ghastly era

Musically, it was largely a crap decade - but for some reason I do have a soft spot for the '80s.

[Spectral Morn]

Friday Rock Show programmes from 1980

https://m.mixcloud.com/TheFridayRockShow/

[Spectral Morn]

For Neil:





Marco.

RIP Cozy Powell

[Marco]

Indeed.... Love listening to all this stuff, and also remembering how I use to make up tapes on my system [had a pretty decent one in the bedroom of my parents house in 1987] to play on the stereo in my uncle's or dad's car!

Marco.

[Pharos]

I loved the 60s, though too young for much of the later political stuff, the 70s, and the 80s, which despite much criticism did have some very good virtuoso performances, brilliant electronic rhythm sequencing, and make some exciting statements.

I also liked the 'new age' stuff.

For me the 90s, after some lovely black female chart stuff, saw a deterioration near the end, and the 'Britpop' era left me cold and resentful of the exhibited egotism. Since then chart and pop seem to have become vapid inane and egotistical to me.

Currently we have very formatted types; female chirping cherubs, affectedly American male vocals, ('riding shotgun', and 'leave the lights on'), with predictable drum patterns and sine wave bass sweeps, all of which leave me wondering what the yound are so engaged in when wearing phone connected buds.

[Spectral Morn]

Indeed.... Love listening to all this stuff, and also remembering how I use to make up tapes on my system [had a pretty decent one in the bedroom of my parents house in 1987] to play on the stereo in my uncle's or dad's car!

Marco.

I started off doing that with a mic and a mono flatbed tape recorder, recording from the radio, then graduated to using my Dads Akai system, playing the recordings back on the music centre I had. First thing I recall recording on the flatbed via a mic was Hawkwind - Masters of the Universe. Think it was the Friday Rock Show.

The thing I recall most was the sense of excitement, discovering new music, what would I hear next. I haven't lost that sense of wonder, but the new discoveries seem to come less often these days, and mostly from You Tube. Most recent a Spanish group called Medina Azahara, random finding on YouTube. Early music is lovely complex prog, though later music is more hard rock.

[Marco]

I loved the 60s, though too young for much of the later political stuff, the 70s, and the 80s, which despite much criticism did have some very good virtuoso performances, brilliant electronic rhythm sequencing, and make some exciting statements.

I also liked the 'new age' stuff.

For me the 90s, after some lovely black female chart stuff, saw a deterioration near the end, and the 'Britpop' era left me cold and resentful of the exhibited egotism. Since then chart and pop seem to have become vapid inane and egotistical to me.

Currently we have very formatted types; female chirping cherubs, affectedly American male vocals, ('riding shotgun', and 'leave the lights on'), with predictable drum patterns and sine wave bass sweeps, all of which leave me wondering what the yound are so engaged in when wearing phone connected buds.

Completely agree, Dennis, on most of your points. I don't remember any of the 60s, as I was only born in '65, but these days love 60s music! However, I'd never have listened to it as a teenager during the 80s, as I was too much into chart music then, and whatever was fashionable at the time (I have the complete opposite attitude now, though). I was big into The Human League, Depeche Mode, OMD, Ultravox, Gary Numan, Howard Jones, Thomson Twins, etc.

Loved a lot of the music during the 70s, but as I was very young, it was mostly the disco stuff that was popular then (was big into the Bee Gees, Sister Sledge and Chic, among others), then latterly got into a bit of punk, with Sham 69, Sex Pistols, UK Subs, etc. A lot of the classic rock bands, which I love now largely passed me by, although I loved Queen, UFO and Pink Floyd. The 90s largely passed me by, as I was working all the hours under the sun building up my business, so didn't have much time for listening to music, and a lot of it left me cold.

Anyway, you used to work at the BBC, as a technician or some such, did you not? If so, do you remember any of the equipment that the BBC radio stations then used for broadcasting? I have a particular passion for that, especially the turntables used, when vinyl was the primary music source. I mentioned earlier the BBCs use of Gates turntables/Grace arms and Shure SC53C cartridges (among others), during the 70s, and here's a snippet of such, as used then by Tony Blackburn at the Radio 1 studios in London:



How a radio station should look! Not like the control centre of NASA (as is the case today)... Let's also remember what the 'D' stands for in DISC jockey!!

Did you have any involvement with that stuff, in terms of preparing equipment or procedures for broadcast, or did you ever see inside some of the studios and the type of equipment used? Any info/memories you have along those lines, from the 'golden age' of radio broadcasting would be greatly appreciated

Marco.

[Light Dependant Resistor]

Completely agree, Dennis, on most of your points. I don't remember any of the 60s, as I was only born in '65, but these days love 60s music! However, I'd never have listened to it as a teenager during the 80s, as I was too much into chart music then, and whatever was fashionable at the time (I have the complete opposite attitude now, though). I was big into The Human League, Depeche Mode, OMD, Ultravox, Gary Numan, Howard Jones, Thomson Twins, etc.

Loved a lot of the music during the 70s, but as I was very young, it was mostly the disco stuff that was popular then (was big into the Bee Gees, Sister Sledge and Chic, among others), then latterly got into a bit of punk, with Sham 69, Sex Pistols, UK Subs, etc. A lot of the classic rock bands, which I love now largely passed me by, although I loved Queen, UFO and Pink Floyd. The 90s largely passed me by, as I was working all the hours under the sun building up my business, so didn't have much time for listening to music, and a lot of it left me cold.

Anyway, you used to work at the BBC, as a technician or some such, did you not? If so, do you remember any of the equipment that the BBC radio stations then used for broadcasting? I have a particular passion for that, especially the turntables used, when vinyl was the primary music source. I mentioned earlier the BBCs use of Gates turntables/Grace arms and Shure SC53C cartridges (among others), during the 70s, and here's a snippet of such, as used then by Tony Blackburn at the Radio 1 studios in London:



How a radio station should look! Not like the control centre of NASA (as is the case today)... Let's also remember what the 'D' stands for in DISC jockey!!

Did you have any involvement with that stuff, in terms of preparing equipment or procedures for broadcast, or did you ever see inside some of the studios and the type of equipment used? Any info/memories you have along those lines, from the 'golden age' of radio broadcasting would be greatly appreciated

Marco.

Unsure about the BBC, but from personal experience the station I ran from home, we used a Thorens TD124mk2 with a Ortofon cartridge , a Pioneer SA5300 as a phono preamp. Our console had a passive pre. A Bournes pot ( no LDR's that I knew about, back then ) We had Sony 5 Disc CD players and Minidisc, and a very old computer running Musicmatch. Also a Video Recorder we used for PCM recordings The transmitter was built by using a car radio in reverse that is using the intermediate frequency stage- we would set it up on 88.6 and be broadcasting 10.7 Mhz higher at 99.3. Our antenna was a Discone
on the roof ( i got on well with Dave next door ) - it could faintly be heard over 40km away