Nate Briggs's Blog - Posts Tagged "radio"
The Spirit of Rock (Why Your Parents Should Always Hate the Music You Love)
I knew that they went to bed early, every night, as Godly people should (they’d explained this to me several times). So it didn’t demand a huge effort of self-discipline for me to stay awake until I was reasonably sure they were asleep.
Rain seemed to be a feature of every afternoon in the ‘Springs. But — as it got later that night — the rain stuck around: so I had the sight and sound of it to help me pass the time during my vigil of 45 minutes or so.
My insurgent device was still in its package — which was a stupid thing to do. Opening it was noise that I could have avoided if I’d thought ahead. And, of course, I couldn’t show a light to pick the plastic open. The glow of the streetlight had to do.
Once my Instrument of Satan got unpacked and unfurled, it didn’t seem all that sinful. Wire is wire: and it was mostly wire: the plastic body controlled by a small spindle, which was its only moving part. Otherwise, one wire terminated in an alligator clip, and the other in a generic earphone (suitable for either ear).
As the package said: it was “powered by the forces of Nature” — so there was nothing else in the bag. No battery. No power cord. It was powered by the forces of Nature, by virtue of all that wire — although I couldn’t harness the forces of Nature until I figured out what to attach it to.
I was hoping that there would be a little more information in the instructions. But those seemed to assume that I had prior knowledge of how to work the thing, so I moved around the room: trying one thing, and another: looking to unleash the forces of Nature.
It was my grandmother’s sewing machine that did it. Old-fashioned, solid metal. Solidly grounded. Once the alligator clip bit the edge of the machine the primitive crystal set began picking up the invisible AM radio waves that were raining down on my grandparents’ house: and a roar of static started pouring out of the earphone.
It worked. It really worked.
Once the thing came to life, all that was left was to move the tuner spindle so I could figure out where the frequencies were. There were markings on the tuner “dial” — but they were pretty vague. The DJs had to help me: giving me their call signs as I made my way toward the pure pop powerhouse, KOMA , beaming at all hours of the day and night from Oklahoma City.
Once I had my musical connection, the crystal set supplied enough wire to allow me to climb back into bed: where I secretly savored the dominating signal that covered most of America west of the Mississippi in the middle 60’s, reconnecting with the Spirit of Rock.
It had been only a little over a year since The Beatles had dropped into my life. But, by this time, rock-and-roll was woven into the fabric of how I thought, and lived: to the point that my affection for it was concerning the “authorities”.
With no other important commitments, I had been sent to the ‘Springs to spend two weeks with my evangelical, fundamentalist, Bible-waving grandparents. A visit advertised as their opportunity to “set me straight”: weaning me away from the New, the Modern, the Reckless, the Grubby, the British.
I had been sent to their house to be irradiated with the Gospel, so the tumor of popular culture that had infected me would shrivel and disappear.
The fact that I had a radio, however primitive, meant that I was already edging my way toward Hell: since it allowed me to hear signals from a world I wasn’t supposed to know anything about. If discovered, wire contraption would have been taken away — never to be returned — followed by a sequence of Bible verses intended to remind me that God didn’t put us here on Earth to enjoy ourselves.
What I remember about this period was that it was “music” — or what I kept insisting was “music” — at the center of so many of my struggles with the Bible World. Unlike some, my parents did not consider television to be a Tool of Satan: they tuned in, and tended to enjoy it. As long as the Hollywood Production Code was there to protect us, they were happy to take us to drive-in double features.
It was music that they didn’t “get”: since what I called “music” must have sounded scratchy, loud, crude, lustful, and wildly irresponsible. Civilization slammed into Reverse. And certainly of the Devil: smelling of Global Communism, riddled with drugs, and insisting that there might be something good about sex.
Opportunity here for a short interlude with my Mom, whose recollections — these days — are a lot less vehement than they used to be.
“Oh yes … yes … the Beatles … there were four of them, right?”
“Right, Mom. Four.”
“Whatever happened to them?”
“I guess you could say they did pretty well … all things considered. Only two of them alive, now.”
“Did the others die of drugs?”
“No. One of them had cancer. And the other one was shot.”
“A drug deal gone bad?”
“No. It was a deranged fan.”
“I’m not surprised. That music always seemed so … out there. All those women screaming.”
“Well … it wasn’t a woman who shot him exactly….”
Because the KOMA signal filled up the Midwest, and because I was going straight to Hell for listening to a station like that, it became my “home” for several years: even though, in my humble opinion, they weren’t playing enough Beatles cuts. (And didn’t play the Beatles at all after Lennon remarked that the boys were “more popular than Jesus”. You can’t say something like that in Oklahoma and get away with it.)
Ignoring all Biblical insight from my grandparents, I laid in bed that night — hearing the rain with one ear — putting up with I Got You, Babe twice an hour and enduring tired, repetitive commercials because what was being offered over the radio was helping me define my identity as someone who was Not My Parents.
Which is the important part of music when you’re a kid.
Breaking the parent-child bond — especially the one between mother and daughter — is an operation that generates a lot of noise, dust, and smoke. Often it requires a hammer and chisel, and (occasionally) demands a diamond-tipped blade.
Music that parents hate is that diamond-tipped implement. It plunges ruthlessly into the granite of the parent-child relationship to the point where the younger piece just has to break off. It’s the fierce sounds that tell you it’s working.
Tattoos, piercings, strange clothes, and strange friends are all tools that adolescents use to make the point: I’m not them! I’m not my parents, and I never will be!
Yet we come back to music. Music as the primal means of separation: because there's something so visceral about it. Reaching, as it does, into our secret hearts: reminding, inspiring, identifying, unifying, dividing.
I can assure you that nothing would have complicated my life more, at that time of my life, than to discover that my parents liked the Beatles, the Dave Clark Five, or the Beach Boys.
It’s a staggering thought, even now: since it would have pushed everything I loved right out of reach. Hearing my mother doing her version of Please, Please Me in the kitchen would have been a dark and disturbing moment for me: forcing me into a complete re-examination of my life’s meaning.
Driving me, relentlessly, to show tunes perhaps (my God!), or … (I can barely bring myself to type it) ... classic opera.
Rain seemed to be a feature of every afternoon in the ‘Springs. But — as it got later that night — the rain stuck around: so I had the sight and sound of it to help me pass the time during my vigil of 45 minutes or so.
My insurgent device was still in its package — which was a stupid thing to do. Opening it was noise that I could have avoided if I’d thought ahead. And, of course, I couldn’t show a light to pick the plastic open. The glow of the streetlight had to do.
Once my Instrument of Satan got unpacked and unfurled, it didn’t seem all that sinful. Wire is wire: and it was mostly wire: the plastic body controlled by a small spindle, which was its only moving part. Otherwise, one wire terminated in an alligator clip, and the other in a generic earphone (suitable for either ear).
As the package said: it was “powered by the forces of Nature” — so there was nothing else in the bag. No battery. No power cord. It was powered by the forces of Nature, by virtue of all that wire — although I couldn’t harness the forces of Nature until I figured out what to attach it to.
I was hoping that there would be a little more information in the instructions. But those seemed to assume that I had prior knowledge of how to work the thing, so I moved around the room: trying one thing, and another: looking to unleash the forces of Nature.
It was my grandmother’s sewing machine that did it. Old-fashioned, solid metal. Solidly grounded. Once the alligator clip bit the edge of the machine the primitive crystal set began picking up the invisible AM radio waves that were raining down on my grandparents’ house: and a roar of static started pouring out of the earphone.
It worked. It really worked.
Once the thing came to life, all that was left was to move the tuner spindle so I could figure out where the frequencies were. There were markings on the tuner “dial” — but they were pretty vague. The DJs had to help me: giving me their call signs as I made my way toward the pure pop powerhouse, KOMA , beaming at all hours of the day and night from Oklahoma City.
Once I had my musical connection, the crystal set supplied enough wire to allow me to climb back into bed: where I secretly savored the dominating signal that covered most of America west of the Mississippi in the middle 60’s, reconnecting with the Spirit of Rock.
It had been only a little over a year since The Beatles had dropped into my life. But, by this time, rock-and-roll was woven into the fabric of how I thought, and lived: to the point that my affection for it was concerning the “authorities”.
With no other important commitments, I had been sent to the ‘Springs to spend two weeks with my evangelical, fundamentalist, Bible-waving grandparents. A visit advertised as their opportunity to “set me straight”: weaning me away from the New, the Modern, the Reckless, the Grubby, the British.
I had been sent to their house to be irradiated with the Gospel, so the tumor of popular culture that had infected me would shrivel and disappear.
The fact that I had a radio, however primitive, meant that I was already edging my way toward Hell: since it allowed me to hear signals from a world I wasn’t supposed to know anything about. If discovered, wire contraption would have been taken away — never to be returned — followed by a sequence of Bible verses intended to remind me that God didn’t put us here on Earth to enjoy ourselves.
What I remember about this period was that it was “music” — or what I kept insisting was “music” — at the center of so many of my struggles with the Bible World. Unlike some, my parents did not consider television to be a Tool of Satan: they tuned in, and tended to enjoy it. As long as the Hollywood Production Code was there to protect us, they were happy to take us to drive-in double features.
It was music that they didn’t “get”: since what I called “music” must have sounded scratchy, loud, crude, lustful, and wildly irresponsible. Civilization slammed into Reverse. And certainly of the Devil: smelling of Global Communism, riddled with drugs, and insisting that there might be something good about sex.
Opportunity here for a short interlude with my Mom, whose recollections — these days — are a lot less vehement than they used to be.
“Oh yes … yes … the Beatles … there were four of them, right?”
“Right, Mom. Four.”
“Whatever happened to them?”
“I guess you could say they did pretty well … all things considered. Only two of them alive, now.”
“Did the others die of drugs?”
“No. One of them had cancer. And the other one was shot.”
“A drug deal gone bad?”
“No. It was a deranged fan.”
“I’m not surprised. That music always seemed so … out there. All those women screaming.”
“Well … it wasn’t a woman who shot him exactly….”
Because the KOMA signal filled up the Midwest, and because I was going straight to Hell for listening to a station like that, it became my “home” for several years: even though, in my humble opinion, they weren’t playing enough Beatles cuts. (And didn’t play the Beatles at all after Lennon remarked that the boys were “more popular than Jesus”. You can’t say something like that in Oklahoma and get away with it.)
Ignoring all Biblical insight from my grandparents, I laid in bed that night — hearing the rain with one ear — putting up with I Got You, Babe twice an hour and enduring tired, repetitive commercials because what was being offered over the radio was helping me define my identity as someone who was Not My Parents.
Which is the important part of music when you’re a kid.
Breaking the parent-child bond — especially the one between mother and daughter — is an operation that generates a lot of noise, dust, and smoke. Often it requires a hammer and chisel, and (occasionally) demands a diamond-tipped blade.
Music that parents hate is that diamond-tipped implement. It plunges ruthlessly into the granite of the parent-child relationship to the point where the younger piece just has to break off. It’s the fierce sounds that tell you it’s working.
Tattoos, piercings, strange clothes, and strange friends are all tools that adolescents use to make the point: I’m not them! I’m not my parents, and I never will be!
Yet we come back to music. Music as the primal means of separation: because there's something so visceral about it. Reaching, as it does, into our secret hearts: reminding, inspiring, identifying, unifying, dividing.
I can assure you that nothing would have complicated my life more, at that time of my life, than to discover that my parents liked the Beatles, the Dave Clark Five, or the Beach Boys.
It’s a staggering thought, even now: since it would have pushed everything I loved right out of reach. Hearing my mother doing her version of Please, Please Me in the kitchen would have been a dark and disturbing moment for me: forcing me into a complete re-examination of my life’s meaning.
Driving me, relentlessly, to show tunes perhaps (my God!), or … (I can barely bring myself to type it) ... classic opera.
