Sunday 15 June 2014

It's Ponderous, Man, Ponderous... just Fucking Ponderous



As a music loving pre-teen kid growing up in Sydney in a house with bugger all money, buying records (singles/45's) was a luxury I couldn't afford.  I listened to the radio. It was free.  And on Sunday nights, on AM radio, 2UW I believe, we'd get American Top 40, followed by the Australian Top 40. Or was it vice versa?  No matter. 
 
I'd sit there and listen, and eventually, when I had saved up enough, was able to afford a Radio Cassette Recorder, and used to record the songs that caught my ear, so I could play them back. Over and over and over and over...  This, kiddies, his what downloading looked like in 1975.
 
I did that till i was about 16, when I had a job, and was able to buy my own fully fledged stereo - complete with turntable and hi-fi tape deck, and so break free from the chains of radio station music programmers.
 
However, way back then, like the rest of the kids in school, we all knew who Casey Kasem was. His intros to the songs, and "long distance dedications" were part of the magic.
 
When I moved to New Jersey in 1986, and started listening to Howard Stern on WXRK, part of Howard's intros was a tape of Casey Kasem, swearing his nuts off at some of the ridiculous back announcements he was asked to make: Syndicated American Top 40 being aired at 2am! Long distance dedications to a dead dog! 
 
All that stuff can be found on Youtube clips, one of which I present to you, below.
 
I'm pretty sure if the big man needs a DJ, then he'd be giving Casey Kasem the gig right about now.


 

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