Radio
Pondering why I always listen to Kerrang!
Well, not always, I have been known to listen to Radio 4 - when they broadcast The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (second time round, I don't think I was alive for the first time round); and even when I was hospitalised in Bath for the quiz, which is very funny, and a bit like 'Who's line is it anyway?'.
When I was younger I listened avidly, in an angsty-teenage sort of way, to GWR our local station- I could recite the adverts off by heart! I wandered to Galaxy (I shudder at that word now) and I even tried Radio 1 when I was 15 or so, before deciding I disliked it intensely. There came a brief fortnight when i struggled with the static to hear Virgin, and decided that was even worse thus returning back to GWR. Occasionally I realise now, they played decent songs, it's just that I didn't want to hear decent songs back then. I wanted crap. And that was mostly what I got to be honest. I was trying (after a childhood filled with Hendrix, the Stones, B52's, The Who etc) to fit in, to be a normal music-loving teeny bopper. And so I bought Smash Hits, and memorized lyrics to Steps, and Boyzone. I even went through a stage (and I'm so pleased it was a stage) of covering my room in Boyzone pictures to try to fit in. I didn't particularly like them, I didn't think they were good, not as good as Hendrix certainly, but then I figured they had to be good. Didn't they?
Everyone listened to them, everyone loved them. So I wasn' t going to be the 'freak' who didn't!
This was how I spent most of my teens, struggling to fit in, desperately wanting to be 'normal'; not realising that individuality and uniqueness are what makes me who I am; and heck, if I think it's shit, then hey, that's fine.
My realisation came in Lower sixth- yes, it took that long. I was an angsty teenager for a long time. I started listening to 'other' music. Music I found in my dad's collection. (I also listened a lot to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, so much so that I was able to quote more than I should have been able to). I bought a few Beatles Cd's, I got The Rolling Stones 'Jump Back' Illegally copied for me by a fellow geek at school. And then, I bought a Hendrix CD off a second hand stall, and really, really liked it.
The Air Guitar Album mark one was bought for me one christmas, and I did not stop listening to it. But then the real breakthrough came when I went to America.
Oh yes. Who'd have thought the States could show me music, show me my pathway to who I was really.
Those who knew me then, and some who know me now, will have heard of John, or JC. JC changed my life in more ways than one. I owe him for that much.
I remember the day so clearly.
We had been out with everyone- Monnard, Ian, Ellen etc...JC was there. We went to the cinema to see Panic Room (I annoyed JC by predicting a lot of it in his ear!) we were travelling back, and me and Monnard were in JC's car (that beat up red ford with the weird seatbelts) I was in the front, we were travelling down the road, and JC put in a CD. It was Metallica. I remember humming along to 'For whom the Bell tolls'. That was it. I was hooked. When I left, I left with that much changed in me. No more crappy music. EVER. I was going to be me. There were other people out there (albeit in America) who liked the kind of stuff I did, and didn't feel that they had to hide behind pop channels.
Of course without JC I probably wouldn't have realised that I was in a dead-end relationship, going furthermore into the deepening abyss either...but that's another story.
So here I am today, listening to Kerrang! Music I enjoy. Music I like. Feeling good.
Yeah.
It has a feel good effect on me. That's probably why I listen to it. Incidentally just read a chapter in my new Jeremy Clarkson book:
Well, not always, I have been known to listen to Radio 4 - when they broadcast The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (second time round, I don't think I was alive for the first time round); and even when I was hospitalised in Bath for the quiz, which is very funny, and a bit like 'Who's line is it anyway?'.
When I was younger I listened avidly, in an angsty-teenage sort of way, to GWR our local station- I could recite the adverts off by heart! I wandered to Galaxy (I shudder at that word now) and I even tried Radio 1 when I was 15 or so, before deciding I disliked it intensely. There came a brief fortnight when i struggled with the static to hear Virgin, and decided that was even worse thus returning back to GWR. Occasionally I realise now, they played decent songs, it's just that I didn't want to hear decent songs back then. I wanted crap. And that was mostly what I got to be honest. I was trying (after a childhood filled with Hendrix, the Stones, B52's, The Who etc) to fit in, to be a normal music-loving teeny bopper. And so I bought Smash Hits, and memorized lyrics to Steps, and Boyzone. I even went through a stage (and I'm so pleased it was a stage) of covering my room in Boyzone pictures to try to fit in. I didn't particularly like them, I didn't think they were good, not as good as Hendrix certainly, but then I figured they had to be good. Didn't they?
Everyone listened to them, everyone loved them. So I wasn' t going to be the 'freak' who didn't!
This was how I spent most of my teens, struggling to fit in, desperately wanting to be 'normal'; not realising that individuality and uniqueness are what makes me who I am; and heck, if I think it's shit, then hey, that's fine.
My realisation came in Lower sixth- yes, it took that long. I was an angsty teenager for a long time. I started listening to 'other' music. Music I found in my dad's collection. (I also listened a lot to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, so much so that I was able to quote more than I should have been able to). I bought a few Beatles Cd's, I got The Rolling Stones 'Jump Back' Illegally copied for me by a fellow geek at school. And then, I bought a Hendrix CD off a second hand stall, and really, really liked it.
The Air Guitar Album mark one was bought for me one christmas, and I did not stop listening to it. But then the real breakthrough came when I went to America.
Oh yes. Who'd have thought the States could show me music, show me my pathway to who I was really.
Those who knew me then, and some who know me now, will have heard of John, or JC. JC changed my life in more ways than one. I owe him for that much.
I remember the day so clearly.
We had been out with everyone- Monnard, Ian, Ellen etc...JC was there. We went to the cinema to see Panic Room (I annoyed JC by predicting a lot of it in his ear!) we were travelling back, and me and Monnard were in JC's car (that beat up red ford with the weird seatbelts) I was in the front, we were travelling down the road, and JC put in a CD. It was Metallica. I remember humming along to 'For whom the Bell tolls'. That was it. I was hooked. When I left, I left with that much changed in me. No more crappy music. EVER. I was going to be me. There were other people out there (albeit in America) who liked the kind of stuff I did, and didn't feel that they had to hide behind pop channels.
Of course without JC I probably wouldn't have realised that I was in a dead-end relationship, going furthermore into the deepening abyss either...but that's another story.
So here I am today, listening to Kerrang! Music I enjoy. Music I like. Feeling good.
Yeah.
It has a feel good effect on me. That's probably why I listen to it. Incidentally just read a chapter in my new Jeremy Clarkson book:
There is a choice. Obviously Radio 1 is out, unless you enjoy being serenaded by people banging bits of furniture together, and Radio 3 transmits nothing but the sound of small animals being tortured. What about local radio? In London there is Magic FM which broadcasts the Carpenters all day long. Of course, the Carpenters are fine - especially when you have a headache - but between the tunes men come on and speak.
Clarkson, J (2001) We let them get away with murder on radio.
posted by Culinali at 5:05 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home