reminiscences....

Well, this is the danger of occasionally lapsing into one of those periods when I think about all the great people I knew and all the fun I had in commercial broadcast radio back in the eighties... I start to miss it all. Strangely enough, at the moment, what I seem to miss the most (although they're actually still around these parts packed in a box in the attic or something) is... well... don't laugh... my HEADPHONES.

They weren't just ANY headphones... from the time I found them at WLCS in Baton Rouge in the Summer of 1984 right up through MOST of my work at KAJUN 103 FM in the early 1990s, I faithfully and lovingly used the same bloody set of cans.... a big, beautiful blue pair of Stanton Dynaphase Sixty headphones... that were TRULY to die for.

Largely, the "dying for" part consisted of the fact that they felt like they weighed a few metric tons on your head (laugh again). But the Dynaphase Sixties were beautiful-- basically, small home speakers with separate high/low frequency cones that were strapped together over the top of your head with a reenforced metal strap that felt like it could hold a strafed battleship afloat. Now those were the days when someone knew how to make headphones for the professional radio market. Often, I discovered at WLCS (where the jock had his/her back to the entry door to the studio) that people were afraid to try to sneak in behind me when I wore them because if I was startled and flung my head too quickly around, the Stantons-- always my friends and protectors, as they drove thousands of decibels of beautiful, pristine, crystal-clear sound into my music-addled brain-- would FLY off my ears and attack them with the ferocity and damage that only a good 20-pound-or-so pair of headphones or a pit bull could accomplish.

I just finished visiting the Stanton website for old times' sake, and they, like every other headphone company in the world, have decided that lighter is better. And I suppose these days, you really can get a better speaker in a lighter 'phone that most really wimpy-weenie girlie man DJs appreciate. But as for me... well... I am decidedly old-school on this point, friend. Put me in front of a board that has round pots as opposed to sliders and analog vU meters instead of the digital kind. Give me carts... or at the most, CDs... so that I can HOLD the music and the spots I'm playing instead of telling a very impersonal computer what digital file I wish to play next.

Then, watch as I put the Dynaphase Sixties on my head, feeling as if I have just been crowned King of England and Defender of the Faith because of the friggin' weight of the damned things. And it doesn't matter HOW loudly I turn them up to make my ears bleed, because their ear insulation WILL NOT feed back over the mic. Guaranteed. And then give me a few tracks from Billy Idol, Dio, Scorpions or one of the other staples of my foolish and decadent DJ days... and stand back. I'll take it from there. :)

"Give me a wheel of oaken wood... a rein of polished leather.... a heavy horse and a tumbling sky.... brewing heavy weather."

(bonus points if you can identify the lyric) :)

'Til next time!

Zeb