Fourth of July and Drop C

As I write this, I have just set my guitar down after playing it for an hour or two.

My 2000 Ibby Gio, which I re-tuned and re-set up for Drop-C and Open-F tuning.

As I have noted previously in this blog, I play guitar and sometimes write and record my own music. I haven't written or recorded anything in over a year or two -- just haven't found the time to do it, or had the inclination. But I still play -- mostly rhythm and slide, bluesy hard rock guitar parts. I do it for relaxation, and to keep my ability.

Lately I've been relearning guitar, by exploring the tunings of Drop-C and Drop-D. For those of my readers not into guitars or rock music, this post may get a little tedious. You've been warned. :-)

A pic of my older Ibby (not my GRX40 Gio -- it's an 882 model with Matao pickguard and pickups), and my 2000 Marshall Valvestate amp, a very versatile amplifier that sounds decent through its own speaker and even bigger through a speaker box. The stomp boxes on top of the amp are two of my standbys -- a Boss DD3 delay and Boss CE5 chorus, which I always have plugged into my signal chain. The yellow thing is an old Ibanez Flanger which I was using a lot when I originally wrote this article in 2018, to attempt to duplicate the sounds Andy Summers got in the Police.

REDISCOVERING MUSIC FROM THE NU-METAL ERA

A couple weeks ago I was going through my CD collection and found a slug of discs that brought back memories of the turn of the Century -- mainly the nu-metal years 2000-2001.

It is an era I remember fondly. It was that time period after Y2K and before 9-11 hit. It was actually a heady time for rock music. Sort of it's last big gasp.

After a period in the mid-to-late 1990's where life seemed to be dragging, things were looking up. I remember that the music around 1999-2000 seemed to be on the verge of a new wave of heavy hitting rock -- what is now termed 'nu-metal'. There was a vibrancy and punch to the sound -- including the use of industrial sounds (admittedly used on earlier records by bands like Nine Inch Nails) and detuned guitars -- the guitars usually tuned as low as B or A, and with a lot of heavy power chords mixed with octaves. The nu-metal sound really peaked around Summer 2001.

I think what turned me on to the nu-metal sound was hearing Saliva's hit "Your Disease". It seemed that the music was so upbeat in feel compared to much of what was popular during the 1990's. A lot of the other bands of that era -- POD, Linkin Park, Skrape, The Cult's Beyond Good And Evil CD, Buckcherry, Apartment 26, Sunna, Filter, Fear Factory, Eighteen Visions, Korn, Slipknot, Creed, Rage, Static X, Linkin Park, and the like -- generally tuned their guitars down to D, C, B, and even lower to achieve a boomy growl that when multilayered had a very cool feel to it.

All through the 1990's and 2000's I played my electric guitars almost exclusively in Open G (DGDGBD). Before that I always played in E or E-flat standard, but after a spate of tendonitis in my left ring finger in early 1990 I switched to Open G to keep the tendonitis at bay (Open G lends itself to treat your ring finger more kindly). After re-learning how to play chords, slide, and lead in Open G I stuck with that tuning for years. On acoustic guitar, I messed around with different tunings (DADGAD, EADGAD, EADGBD, etc.), but on electric my guitars were set up for Open G exclusively and stayed that way. The tendonitis went away, but the G tuning stayed. :-)

That was until a month or so ago. I dug out my old 2000-2001 CDs in a stint of nostalgia, and realized that the guitars on those CDs were not only tuned down a couple steps, but they often weren't tuned to standard tunings (D standard, C standard, etc.).

A lot of these guys used "dropped" tunings, where you tune the guitar to a standard tuning (E standard, D standard, etc.) and then you drop the low E string another whole step to DADGBE, CGCFAD, etc.

The 7-string guys (Korn, for example) usually tuned to Low A-Standard (ADGCFAD), but the 6-string guys, like the guitarist in Linkin Park, for example, tuned to Drop-C or Drop-D  -- and sometimes even lower. Slipknot reportedly tunes their 6-strings to Drop-A and Drop-B.

DROP-D AND DROP-C

The Drop-D tuning (DADGBE) has been around a while -- Neil Young used it on the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song "Ohio" in 1970. There's also a YouTube of Canned Heat playing in Europe somewhere in 1969 or '70, and one of the guitarists drops his E-string to D to get Drop-D.

But the grunge bands Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains made Drop-D popular again in the early 1990's, and the sound struck a chord with many bands after that: Rage Against The Machine used Drop-D extensively, for example.

Before this summer, I had naturally heard of Drop-D but never really got into it. It just didn't seem all that useful. Any time I tried it, it just seemed pointless.

After listening to my nu-metal CDs I decided to give drop tunings another try.

As I've mentioned on here before, I have an Ibby Gio GRX40 which is a 2000 model, which was given me by a friend of my mother in 2003. For the past few years I've had it tuned to D-standard for a couple reasons. First, it was tuned that way when I got the guitar, primarily because the strings were thick (.52-.12 gauge). Second, it was my only standard tuned electric guitar, so I decided to keep it that way so I'd have a standard-tuned electric to play.

For a long time I merely did the usual Strat things with it, Robin Trower and similar bluesy, jazzy styles of playing.

I decided a week ago to detune it to Drop-C. This meant I would drop the low E string from D to C. Simple. DGCFAD to CGCFAD.

To do this and have it sound OK I had to re-set the low 'E' string's saddle, to increase the string tension slightly, and re-compensate the intonation after raising the string a bit. To intonate it right I had to file the saddle a bit shorter than it was -- the 2000 Gio was apparently designed for E-standard and lighter strings, and Drop-C is a bit lower than I think it was designed to handle correctly.

After a few weeks of fine tuning, I had to readjust the Low-E string's saddle to where I actually removed the spring. Problem finally solved. :-)

A pic of the humbucking pickup and bridge of my Ibanez GRX-40 Gio. The pickup is a Powersound -- stock humbucker, which I've left on. It sounds best adjusted away from the strings about 4-5 mm. The bridge is adjusted for a mix of playability and string tension... to get the lowest string to intonate right I had to file the saddle short, and then remove the spring, as can be seen. The heads of the adjusting screws were rounded off with a needle file to keep them from digging into my hand when playing. If one does that sort of 'modification', one must be careful, because the hex indents (for a hex adjustment tool) aren't very deep. The string gauges here are 52-11 or 12.

I had already shortened the saddle a bit to get the guitar to tune right in D standard. Dropping the .52 gauge string to C presented a bit more of a problem, especially as I have ten-ton wrists -- years of playing hard rock rhythm (I sound like a fast Malcolm Young or slow Mick Cocks for the most part), even with the Fender thin celluloid and Dunlap Delrin thin picks I use, it is so easy to make a low E string 'wow'.  A string which is at reasonably low tension is going to 'wow' that much easier.

I had this problem in the early 80's when the E string would wow all the time. I took my guitar to Mike Lull, a local luthier, thinking there was something wrong with it. He looked it over, and finally told me to play a few chords. Then he told me "it's not the guitar -- you're hitting it too hard."

Part of the problem is that slamming the strings the way I do gives me a certain sound, a certain quality of break-up through the amps that I like, and it sounds like me. But with these new tunings, I have to learn to adjust. Over the years I've learned to lighten my touch just enough, and use heavier gauges (.50-.12 usually, depending on the guitar).

With the Ibby tuned to C it only made me have to learn to play even lighter. Let the pick do more of the work than the wrist. Live and learn.

After a week or two of playing in Drop-C, it's a different world. It's like relearning guitar almost completely. My fingers want to revert to either standard-tuning or Open G chord configurations. At times it is a bit frustrating, but eventually the fingers re-learn their positions.

It's kind of cool to get that low growl out of my guitar when I hit a Dropped C chord. I can play along with my Skrape CD and learn the chords (Skrape was one of the second tier of 2001-era nu-metal bands -- it's well worth checking out their Tokyo live video on YouTube:

Skrape live in Tokyo Japan - August 19, 2001 - YouTube).

Lately I've been getting back into Fear Factory, a band I got into in 2001 when their Digimortal CD came out. I love that mix of nu-metal and industrial sound they get. Their guitarist, Dino Cazares, started out detuning his Ibby 6-strings to B or A, and then went onto Ibby 7-strings. He now plays his Ibby 7-string tuned to low B or low A. He only uses a .54 on the lowest string, which presently is usually tuned to B. How he can play it that low without making the string wow I have no idea.

Here is a cool YouTube clip of Fear Factory playing their song "Replica" live at Ozzfest, probably Devore (N. of San Bernardino), California, 1996:

Fear Factory - Replica (Live At Ozzfest '96) - YouTube

DROP-D EXPERIMENT ON MY LOTUS L520 GUITAR

Playing in this new Drop-C tuning has been the highlight here for the past few weeks.

I have also took the liberty of retuning my Lotus L520 (a terrific sounding Les Paul copy) from Open G to Drop D, taking a cue from Pearl Jam, who used Drop D a lot, especially early on. It took a bit of getting used to going from DGDGBD to DADGBE. The fingers have difficulty quickly switching from a tuning I've used since 1990 to a tuning I'm just learning now. So far, with that guitar, it's been little more than an experiment.

My Lotus L520 was an impulse buy in 1996 or so. It was a heavy guitar, and sounded good. It has an ash body, and it's heavier than a Gibson. The wood and (probably Korean) humbucker pickups give it a nice heavy snarl. It's what I call a 'short-tail' L520, as the distance between the bridge and tailpiece is shorter than any of the other L520's I've seen online. Whether this is due to a glitch at the manufacturer, or was a design change near the end of its run, I don't know. Information on these Indian made wonders is few and far between on the internet.

I started out tuning my L520 to E-standard but switched to Open-G after about six months. I recorded it on one song in Standard (a song called "Here Alone", it's the guitar on the right channel). Then I switched it to Open G.

Now I have it in either Drop-D, or Open G, depending on how I want it to sound.

GUITARS DON'T LIKE CHANGE -- 'CHANGE BAD'

One thing I found right after retuning the Lotus was that the guitar didn't hold tune as well. When you have a guitar set up for a certain tuning, and it's set up right, it tends to stay that way: tuned. If you retune more than one string permanently, it will often act up for a little while. The neck shifts a hair, the saddles on those strings may not intonate 100%, and the pickups or pole pieces may or may not need readjusting. The strings themselves probably also readjust to the new tension. And then, your fingers have to adjust as well.

For a few months, I dropped my Lotus to Open-F#, a step lower than Open G -- I was aiming for a heavier, Nu-Metal sound. It worked well after the guitar settled into the tuning. But that tuning wasn't quite so useful, as I'm not much of a Nu-Metal player. I'm more of a blues rock player. So back to Open G / Drop D the guitar went. And when I switched the guitar back up to the higher tuning, it took a while for the guitar to settle back in and stabilise at the higher tuning. This happens.

One thing I've found over the years is that every component of a guitar works together: bridge, string gauge, string tension, nut, height of the strings -- change one component, often you have to adjust one of the others. This also goes with the pickups -- if they're too high and you have thick strings, the strings may act wonky.

"STRAT-ITIS"

With single coils this can be a famous issue ("Strat-itis"). With humbuckers, because of the 'balanced' magnetic field, it's not so much an issue. However, "Strat-itis" can still happen if your magnet is ceramic, and you're using thick strings, as I found to my surprise with my Ibby Gio. One day recently I raised the humbucker a little to beef up the sound of the lower strings, and all of a sudden I was getting weird resonances at the 9th fret when playing a bar-chord. It took a few minutes for me to determine that it was the magnet screwing with the lowest two strings. When I lowered the pickup back down about half a millimeter or so, the problem went away.

Live and learn.

Either way, even when retuning your guitar to another tuning sometimes you have to re-balance the pickups by adjusting the pole pieces, because the strings either get louder or softer due to the change in tension. I have the last two pole pieces removed from my Lotus' bridge pickup to make all the chords sound good in Open G. Fortunately, it still sounds good in Drop-D.

Drop-D in my trusty Lotus actually works well. It just took some time to readjust a few things.

Power chords in Drop-D sound different than they do in Standard or Open-G. They really roar. Technically, there should be no difference -- a string is a string. But it might have something to do with the lower three strings all being the same length when you hit a power chord. They really ring out and project.

The Drop-C experiment has opened up a new world for me on guitar, anyway. I've already come up with a few chord sequences that sound cool in the tuning. I never messed with nu-metal sounds previously, so it's kind of a change to adapt and see what elements of it I can work with and still make them mine. Once I got the Gio set up reasonably well in Drop-C, it really sounds good in the tuning. I suppose it is appropriate, as the guitar was built in some anonymous Chinese factory in January, 2000 -- when nu-metal ruled the rock airwaves and nu-metal bands could fill arenas and even stadiums.

OPEN F -- a C and F drop tuning for SLIDE

After maybe a year of having my Ibby Gio tuned to Drop-C,. I got back into slide guitar (in late 2019), and decided to try the Gio in Open-F, which is a slide tuning -- basically Open-G dropped down a whole step (from DGDGBD to CFCFAC). The guitar still responds much the same. The Drop-C tuning makes it a little easier to hit the crunch chords and rattle them off more quickly -- the Open-F makes it easier to do heavy chord playing as well as slide, and the lower tuning sounds naturally deeper than Open G, which is the tuning I use on all my other electrics.

I'd suggest any slide or rhythm player who uses Open-G to drop it down a step to CFCFAC and see how it sounds. 

FOURTH OF JULY = FLOP OF JULY (2018)

In other happenings, we had our summer here, and the weather overall was decent. The summer, of course, included a holiday: the Fourth Of July.

The Fourth Of July was a flop, basically. Nobody was blowing off any rockets or anything, even on the nearby hills where the skies used to light up quite a bit. Around midnight someone nearby decided to pull out their fireworks and blow off a few rockets, and I managed to get a few photos before they quit about half an hour later.

Lately we've had a spate of decent weather -- but it's been hazy, as smoke from forest fires in British Columbia has drifted south over Washington state. When I went to work earlier today I had little bits of ash on my car.

Since then, the haze has continued. Sometimes you can sense it while you breathe -- other times, not so much. It seems to have affected the weather, cooling it down a bit, basically slamming the hammer down on the end of summer. Blame Canada. :-)

The past several days (August 25 and afterwards) the smoke has cleared. Now it feels like Fall outside. Summer is on the way out. Another season passes.

September 11th came and went, and even though it was 17 years ago, it still is a strong memory. I thought about writing a post here, but I've already done that in previous years. Here is a post with my reflections of that day:
https://interrocknation.blogspot.com/2016/09/my-september-11th.html

Soon enough it will be October, and Halloween will beckon. I suppose my next post will be sometimes around then. I hope to decorate for the Halloween holiday early this year. Perhaps I will have some good pics.

Until then, dear readers, Peace.
C.C.
9-19-2018 and 10-7-2018

After over two years with this post sitting unread on my computer, I decided to post it. Hence, the different dates used throughout. I originally intended to include a sound clip of me playing in Drop-C, just for the heck of it. Then I kept putting it off. 

Then I found out that unfortunately, Blogger doesn't have a sound clip posting capability, so I can't post a sound clip of me playing in Drop-C.

Of course, 2018 was a while back, and pre-Covid, and pre- a lot of things. So, I decided to go ahead and just post this article now as is, with a couple additions, and get it out of the way. 

I'm closing this note with a pic of my cat Huggy Bear, who I lost a year ago, in September 2019. He just disappeared. Emails to neighbors resulted in a few sightings over a week or two, but no one who saw him knew that he was a lost cat, so they didn't tell me until well after he was gone completely. Huggy Bear was an independent sort -- he didn't like to respond when called, and loved to hang out at a nearby grassy area that bordered a pond where he hunted mice. It's possible a raccoon or coyote spooked him and he ran into the neighborhood, before disappearing a few days later.

He was a great cat, and a great pal to one of my other cats, who still misses him.

Here is a pic of him, taken a couple weeks before he disappeared.

The last year and a half have been tough, losing three cats.

However, life goes on.

Peace,

CC 12-3-2020


ADDENDUM, 12-8-2020:

I added a small paragraph about "Strat-itis" that is rare, but can still apparently happen with a humbucker equipped guitar, as my GRX40 Gio got it when I raised the humbucker a bit to beef up the low end.

Goodbye Yahoo eGroups -- Hello All-Digital AM Radio

One of my electric Jack O' Lanterns this Halloween.

Here in my corner of the PNW (the Pacific Northwest), we have seen Summer end, and Fall get into full gear. The hills are pleasantly covered in various shades of yellow and orange -- nothing like the Fall colors one sees Back East, but still nice. Halloween came and went -- I had two sets of trick-or-treaters, which was a pleasant surprise. I wore my mask, and poured out the candy bars (from the bags they came in -- I cut a hole in the corner so the candy bars would fall out) into the trick-or-treaters' sacks.

I wish there had been more of them, as it's a great way to interact with neighbors (the parents always come around with the kids -- I give them candy too). But it was the corona version of Halloween, and understandable.

Two of my Jack O' Lanterns from last year, Halloween 2019, both of them electric. Looking back through my folder, I didn't really take that many photos this year, including Halloween. It was easy to find these pics from last year for that reason.

I had my electric pumpkins out; the rest of my Halloween decorations -- save for two scary looking 'pumpkin monsters' -- stayed in the closet.

Life has been plodding along otherwise. I still play slide guitar daily, and I still have been working on fiction writing at night.

I haven't been DXing MW much, as it hasn't been that great. Shortwave, of course, has been basically dead for the past three years or more. It makes me yearn for 2011 and 2012 when it was still viable, but there ya go. Poor propagation, and the aging-out of technology, do not make for a lively SW band.

Radio forums have been a little less active, causing some to fold -- as I'll cover later in this post.

There have been some layoffs in radio lately, due to business factors as well as corona-related financial issues, but the biggest 'news' in radio lately concerns HD RADIO.

ALL DIGITAL RADIO ON THE US AM BAND -- Too Little, Too Late?

The FCC, the United States' governmental entity that supervises radio broadcasting, recently authorized AM / MW radio stations in the US to go all-digital, if they so choose.

The radio forum universe has been abuzz about this 'all-HD' thing for the last couple years -- the period of time that the FCC has been internally debating the idea of letting stations choose to go all digital or not.

A lot of MW radio enthusiasts, and MW DXers (like myself) have followed the idea with interest. I got my first, used, Sony HD radio in 2017 (I have a blog post on that radio: https://interrocknation.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-sony-xdr-s10hdip-hd-radio-new-thrift.html), and HD on AM sounded great on it. Sadly, the two local stations which were HD (via IBOC, a hybrid digital mode that allowed for analog AM to be broadcast along with a digital signal) dropped their HD about three or four months later when they each were sold to new owners.

A lot of MW DXers, of course, hated IBOC. It never bothered me any. I have found that local 50 KW AM radio stations wipe out adjacent channels with analog splash just as much as IBOC wiped out adjacent channels with HD buzz. But MW DXers tend to be a cantankerous lot. A lot of them seem to pray for a 'thinning out' of the AM band, i.e., they actually hope that more stations go off the air, as if that is a good thing.

I find that kind of hope ridiculous. All one has to to is tune across the SW broadcast bands these days to see how awesome it isn't when a broadcast band is 'thinned out'. Right now, I can switch on my SW radios and tune the 31 meter and 49 meter bands -- which even at the beginning of the 2010's, were packed with signals -- and hear next to nothing.

A couple of happy pumpkins carved and set out by a neighbor who lives maybe a block or two away from me, along with a safety line with treats hanging from it. Very few neighbors this year had any Halloween decorations out at all when compared to previous years. Corona really shook up the holiday, as it's done to the rest of the holidays. A few houses had 'safe' trick or treating -- they strung up bags of candy on a line, like in this picture, for the passing trick or treaters to grab safely. A couple had large bowls of candy out front of their yard somewhere, which was a nice gesture to the kids.

That said, the same curmudgeons are now complaining about this new FCC ruling, as if it is going to 'ruin AM radio' -- which it won't.

First off, not all AM stations will go all digital. In fact, I would be surprised if even ten stations nationwide go all digital. Right now, there are very few AM stations using IBOC -- I think KSL 1160 in Salt Lake City is still IBOC-HD, and there may be another station in Portland, Oregon (KKPZ 1330) that is IBOC. I don't know of any others that are in the NW quadrant of the US. Most turned their HD off when the equipment broke down.

Even FM stations are switching off their HD. Local rocker KISW had an awesome HD2 that was called "Metal Militia". It's been off for almost a month, and was switched off for a couple weeks some time last year. HD isn't really the moneymaker that it was envisioned to be when it was devised in the early 2000's. It was a great idea, but wasn't marketed well.

So that brings us to the FCC's decision: what will it do, really?

It will allow the 10-15 AM stations nationwide that may want to use digital to go all-digital if and when they believe it feasible to do so. By the end of the 2030's, most AM stations will probably be off the air, because they won't have an audience, and they won't otherwise be making enough money to keep the power on. Revenues have been dropping radio-wide, both AM and FM, since 2005, and that trend may not improve.

All that said, there may be some few holdouts that can keep an audience via HD over the air. After all, there are ethnic programming stations in every major market that still make enough money in 2020 to stay on the air now, just broadcasting in AM analog. Who knows how the marketplace may go in 15 or 20 years? Internet costs may go up for some reason we don't foresee presently. Or, on the other side of the coin, it may become cheaper and more dependable, and replace all over-the-air broadcasting completely. 

The fact is, we just don't know.

And finally, as long as there is an AM band, there will be analog AM stations on the air, if only because the technology is tried and true, and there will always be millions of AM analog radios in America to listen to them with.

I see the option for stations to go digital as a win-win. If a station wants to do it because they think they can make money at it, let them. Most stations won't use that option.

As for MW DXing, all-digital doesn't splash outside the channel as much as IBOC did. And, like I said above, 50 KW splatter pretty much kills DX on adjacent channels -- even a local 5 KW station (KVI 570) kills 560 and 580 most of the time. I can't see how an HD AM station is going to have any more negative an effect. A lot of DX radios are fairly narrow banded -- my PR-D5 being an example of this, which is around 4 kHz bandwidth or so. There are other Sangeans that cut down the bandwidth even further, to 2 kHz or less.

As long as there is an AM band, there will be something left to DX.

GOODBYE YAHOO eGroups -- ANOTHER RADIO HOBBY RESOURCE DISAPPEARS :-(

I recently learned that Yahoo eGroups are set to disappear this coming December. 

The news brings a bit of remorse, and a lot of sadness. Yahoo eGroups were a terrific resource for radio hobbyists, and other hobbyists as well. Now they will soon be gone completely -- consigned to that vast storehouse we call "memories", as well as the Web Archive, along with Excite, Tell-Them-Now dot com, various rock band websites, and a host of other internet staples that have either completely altered themselves, or otherwise disappeared over the years.

When I first discovered the World Wide Web in the late 1990's, Yahoo was the new, go-to place. By the middle of the next decade (the 2000s), I was on Yahoo daily. I even used their personals / dating site for a while. A lot of people did.

Their news feed was quite good, which it still is today (after a period where it seemed to be dominated by infotainment). Their email was good, they had a search engine that was popular, and their eGroups were some of the first forums that were widely used by hobbyists during the Web era (there, of course, have been hobby forums as long as there has been an internet). Yahoo's eGroups were very popular, and very informative, too.

There were eGroups for every kind of radio or radio hobby out there -- Medium Wave DXing, Shortwave listening, Utility DXing, and eGroups for Sangean, Sony, Realistic, Panasonic, GE Superadios, Ultralight Radio DXing -- you name it: if there was a radio brand or hobby, there was a Yahoo eGroup dedicated to it!

And the people who frequented these eGroups were often experts on the radios or aspects of the radio hobby the eGroup catered to. I was a member of the Yaesu FRG-7 eGroup and there were people there who knew these radios inside and out. The 'files' sections of the eGroups had pictures and schematics and all sorts of information to help guys fix or modify their radios.

I frequented their Sangean, Radio Shack, Panasonic, Superadio, Yaesu, Shortwave, MW DX, and Ultralight DX eGroups, as well as a few other hobby ones not related to radio. There was frequent activity on those groups, too -- usually there were new posts daily. I probably still have some pics of my radios on a couple of those eGroups.

I also was on a railroad eGroup, a guitar eGroup, and a clawhammer / mountain banjo eGroup. There were rock band eGroups -- I was a member of the Screaming Jets' one. Most of the eGroups were easy to join.

In fact, I loved using Yahoo -- but that was before they went purple a few years ago. 

Somehow there was a change made, where everything was now a default purple color. That, in itself, was no big deal, but all those radio eGroups were hard to figure out all of a sudden -- it was hard to find the new postings, if there were any, and -- if memory serves -- just as hard to post something. Moderators complained that they couldn't post a banner with a radio or logo anymore. If your browser wasn't a brand new version, you'd also have trouble navigating and using the groups.

In the next few months, a lot of the radio guys left the radio eGroups because they were so hard to use, and because they were getting less activity. 

It wasn't too long after Yahoo 'went purple' that I also stopped going to the eGroups. It wasn't because I didn't want to. It was just so difficult to use. Then I noticed that whatever activity the eGroups had was now dropping like a rock. First, there was no longer any new activity on the GE Superadio eGroup, the Panasonic eGroup, the DX-398 eGroup (which, I think soon closed), and the other eGroups had less and less activity. You'd log in and see the last post was months previous, which is never a good sign for a hobby forum.

And now the eGroups are disappearing into the ether... Hopefully, they will still be accessible via the web Archive, as there was good information on most of them

IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT.

I'll miss Yahoo eGroups, for sentimental reasons, as well as some practical ones. There really aren't many -- if any -- forums dedicated to just a particular brand of radio, or a particular musical instrument (clawhammer mountain banjo, for example). EGroups provided such hobbyists an easy-to-obtain, easy-to-set-up, and easy-to-use platform for communication.,

There is an old adage in the US: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I surely wish more big companies would adhere to that message.

CORONA RE-DUX :-(

A Coronavirus warning sign from April of this year. The local County took it upon itself to literally close an outdoor trail miles from the nearest city where few people (maybe 100 a day, if that) aside from a handful of locals actually use it. This sign, and this order, didn't last long. 

As I finish this post, corona is beginning to slam the US and other parts of the world with a 'second wave'. Fortunately, the disease is no longer causing mass panic (at least here in the PNW US); people are cautious and hunkered down, but not frozen in fear. And at least in my area of the US the hospitals and other health resources are up to the task of dealing with it.

Thanksgiving was a non-starter here. I had a can of chili and a couple eggs. The extended family decided against having the usual dinner, which was understandable. There were undoubtedly some people who had normal Thanksgivings, but most people kept to their own, or simply discarded the holiday as I did.

Christmas and New Year's will undoubtedly be more of the same. If the new vaccine works, perhaps things will change.

I hope that all of my readers stay safe. I may have another post before mid-December or so.

Peace.

Three cheery faced Jack O' Lanterns from last year again, one electric (on the right) and two which I carved (on the left). This was about a week after Halloween, so the two carved pumpkins were starting to droop, as they will when they wear out. Even though this was in 2019, it is quite a fitting symbol for 2020.

CC 11-11-2020 and 11-29-2020 

NOVEMBER 22nd -- And the Death of JFK

 

Yesterday was, in a sense, a national holiday here in the US. Not an official one, by any means, nor was it commemorated widely. But to many of us who were alive on that foreboding afternoon of November 22nd, 1963 it still probably felt like a type of memorial day. 

I remember vividly that afternoon. I had just started grade school, and at the time I loved going to school. I got along with all of my classmates, and it was fun learning to read, and life itself was a new adventure.

It was late that moderately grey morning that we were in class, and the school secretary walked in to the room. She was visibly upset about something. She said something to our teacher, Mrs. Shull, and then left. Mrs. Shull suddenly looked upset. Then she announced to the class that President Kennedy had been shot.

Immediately, school was dismissed. Many of us in the school bus, riding home early that day, knew something was haywire -- it was not normal news for the President to be shot. But back then politics weren't on the front burner amongst kids the way they are apparently placed there now. All we knew was that the big man in the White House was shot and his life was in danger. I don't recollect much more about the bus ride aside from that.

My mom at the time was a housewife, so she was already home. My dad worked at Boeing. He came home early.

As soon as dad was home we turned on the TV. We were glued to the coverage, which -- although not live in the sense of today's instant news cycle -- it was still actually live coverage via satellite, which was unusual back then. At first, they were talking about President Kennedy being taken to the hospital, and his being operated on by doctors. Things seemed hopeful.

About an hour or so later came the final announcement: President Kennedy was dead.

It was the first time in my life that I felt this clearly palpable emotion of severe loss -- that I had absolutely no control over the destiny of a person close to me, or someone I looked up to.

My dad and mom were nearly in tears. It was the first time I felt that sock in the gut that one gets if a death occurs to a close person, or someone in the family. I realise that to many of my readers, this may seem unbelievable, as the President is just a politician, albeit a powerful one. But this death was palpable to many Americans -- JFK was more than just a politician to us. He was someone we looked up to.

And it was especially so to a second grade kid who had not previously experienced serious loss.

See, President Kennedy was more than a President. He was a hero in a sense. He was the big guy, the guy who ran the country. My family revered him. My great-aunt used to pride herself in combing my hair so that it would look "just like President Kennedy". Looking back at pictures of me when I was a kid, she was right -- it did look like his hair at the time.

It may have been because my grandma and great-aunt, both of whom were elderly, were Catholics, and a lot of Catholics looked up to President Kennedy because he was the first Catholic president. Or it may have been because they voted for him. But there is no doubt that John F. Kennedy had charisma, and that he was well liked by many. 

Besides, he had two little kids, who at the time were my age, and they were all such a happy looking family. The news outlets of the day -- which were less openly biased than they are now -- didn't call the White House "Camelot" for nothing.

It is somewhat ironic that within four months of JFK's death, the Beatles appeared in America, their happy, bouncy, exciting music almost being a medicine for the depression. Obviously, their music couldn't cure all the ills. 

All that seems distant now, but every November 22nd, I still remember. The photograph at the top of this article was a jar-candle, which I had set atop my mailbox post as a sort of memorial the evening of November 22nd, probably in 2013 or 2014. At the time I had lost a calico cat, from old age. It was a horrible time emotionally as it was. 

RIP PUDGE THE CAT

This November, I lost another cat. I don't want to go into any of the details, but it hasn't been an easy time.

I can't put out the jar-candle anymore, in my cat's memory, or JFK's, for that matter -- I am not sure where the jar went, and there no longer is a post to place it on, as the mailbox was run over by a truck about a year after I had placed the jar-candle on it. This blog post will have to suffice, I guess.

November is turning into a blah month. Here in Seattle it is raining, as it has been doing all month long. Coronavirus is kicking in again, causing people to cancel one of our major holidays, Thanksgiving. It also looks like Christmas will be cancelled, as well as New Year's.

I keep up my own thoughts by writing, and playing slide guitar. It is my own form of maintaining sanity. I realise that I have no control over a lot of things -- just as the second grade version of me could not keep President Kennedy alive, I can not keep a cat alive, or stop a virus so that life can go back to 'normal', whatever that really is. There are certain things that are beyond our control. Who needs holidays, anyway? In the big picture, it's just another day.

With this, I'll close this note and post it. I have another post I wrote up on the 11th that will be posted here as soon as I work up a couple photographs for it, which are all it really needed to finish it.

Until then, Peace to all, and stay safe.

C.C. 11-23-2020

...And More of Our Heroes Pass: Eddie Van Halen dies at 65

I usually check into Facebook once a day. I try to avoid most of the politics, which I generally keep to a minimum in life in general, for a bunch of reasons -- but FB is a great way to keep track of my friends.

And this evening when I checked my FB feed I got a shocker. It was in a post made by one of my guitar heroes, Billy Duffy (of The Cult): Eddie Van Halen passed away yesterday, after a long battle with throat cancer.

Eddie Van Halen's passing hits me on a couple levels. On one level, he was an awe inspiring guitar player. I think of all the guitarists out there -- especially rock guitarists -- and he was the apex of the craft, the absolute master. Of course, when talking about guitarists, it's all apples and oranges: I'm sure that BB King aficionados would say I'm wrong in what I just said, but all that aside, I think there is no doubt that when the first Van Halen album came out in 1978 it was more of a game changer than any previous rock band's efforts, just on the guitar work alone.

On another level, Eddie's passing hits me closer to home, as my father passed away after a short fight with lung cancer in August of 1984 (he obviously had it longer than the three months he fought it). 

Cancer is a horrible killer. They say much of it is preventable -- hopefully much of it is. But sometimes it hits people without warning. Dad smoked, so I suppose he loaded the dice in the wrong direction. Of course, his generation, that served in World War Two, weren't aware of connections between smoking and cancer. Either way, it's a horrible punch in the gut to see your family member die from it, and my heart goes out to Eddie's son and wife and his brother and the rest of his family.

One thing we can learn from Eddie Van Halen is persistence, and the art of honing your craft. It's said that he was constantly practicing on his guitar. I've seen interviews with him where he was noodling on one of his Franken-strats while either talking to an interviewer, or others in the band were talking to an interviewer, with Eddie just doing his thing -- playing guitar, even unamplified, with a smile on his face.

It's like he always wanted to have a guitar in his hand, and he loved practicing. He took it that seriously. It's one of the things that made him good -- he loved to practice.

I have been playing guitar for over 35 years and can say that only recently have I loved actually practicing. The rest of the time I was just going through chord work, getting good at rhythm... With lead licks I would work at it, but looking back I didn't work on it enough. I wasn't really practicing methodically and lick for lick with an intensity the way Eddie Van Halen did, or Eric Clapton apparently did -- going over each and every movement until it was perfect. It's one takeaway from Eddie's craft -- he worked and worked and worked and worked and worked to get it right.

And he did. :-)

He also was one of the rock guitarists who built his own guitar from parts, and changed music with it. Before Eddie Van Halen came on the scene, guitar players would buy guitar after guitar (unless they got lucky and found one that spoke to them) until they got the right one. Sometimes they would modify them (Eric Clapton took the pickup covers off of his Les Paul; Mick Ronson sanded the face of his Les Paul Custom) -- but Eddie took them all a step further: he literally built his main guitar, just before Van Halen recorded their first album. And it was his chief guitar for 20 years.

Eddie Van Halen playing his 'Frankenstrat' in the 1980's, after he repainted it.

As for his greater legacy, I'll sum up how I found Van Halen, and how I think their music changed rock and roll:

I still remember the first time I heard Van Halen. It was a late night at the student newspaper at a local college, and one of the guys, the chief editor TM Sell, had a boombox (this was before boomboxes were common, actually), playing FM. I think the station was KLAY Tacoma (who dropped rock years ago).

While we were editing and working on stories this spacey guitar sound came out of the boombox's speakers -- we thought it might be Montrose, or something similar, as KLAY played a lot of stuff that the Seattle stations didn't play. It turned out the song was "Atomic Punk", by Van Halen.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_qwtPLiy6o

This was when the first Van Halen album was out in the stores, but no one had really heard it yet. The band looked like a cross between Aerosmith and a punk band (the stripes on Eddie's guitar), just going by the cover alone. After hearing Atomic Punk, of course, I went out and got the album. Once I heard Eruption I knew that the way we looked at rock guitar had changed. 

I never saw VH play live, unfortunately, except on the 'Tube, which rules for that. 

I still think they were probably one of the best live acts historically: the amount of sound they got, and the upbeat, have-fun attitude. And the guitar, of course.  

All one has to do is pull up the 'Largo' show on the 'Tube, and you get an in-your-face treat of the best rock America had to offer the world in the 1970's and 1980's. Tight drumming; awe inspiring rock guitar; thumping, tight rhythmed bass; a singer who loved to entertain; and all around fun!

For anyone interested in how rock reached an apex when Van Halen ruled the airwaves, this vid of the entire Largo concert is worth checking out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV1jp-0Ydqo

Like probably everyone, I'm saddened by Eddie's passing. 

To me, it's similar to when when Chris Cornell died, except of course the circumstances are different. Even so, when one of your heroes passes, it's never a good feeling. It reminds me that we have to value every day above ground. Life is precious. 

Rest In Peace, Eddie. You gave us an earful of awesome guitar work and many, many cool songs, and inspired nearly any guy or girl who picked up a guitar. 

Eddie playing his Frankenstrat when it was still white and black... the guitar that changed rock music.

JOHNNY NASH, THE SINGER WHO BROUGHT REGGAE TO AMERICA

On a related note, American soul, pop, and reggae singer Johnny Nash died earlier today. 

American R&B and reggae-pop singer Johnny Nash

I first heard Johnny Nash when he had his hit "I Can See Clearly Now", and I got the album, and loved it. It was my introduction to reggae.

It turns out that Johnny Nash was the first singer to bring reggae music to American pop, as his hit "Hold Me Tight" pre-dated Desmond Dekker's "Israelites" by at least a couple months.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x79a2qB5L-Q

2020 has been a pretty sucky year. I don't like seeing years that way, but they do tend to be either good years, poor ones, or just neutral. 1982-1986 were good years for me. So was 1991 and 1992. I especially miss the years 2000-2002, for a bunch of reasons. 2012 had its highlights, as did 2014. A lot of them are related to music, other years just reflect points in my life that bring better memories than others.

2020? The jury has already reached a verdict on this one. If we get to 2021 without more tragedies and bad news, I'll be happy.

Still Alive And Well

Sammy the Cat.

The title of this post is actually the name of an album by famous 1970's blues and slide guitarist Johnny Winter, but the phrase seems to fit my blog right now... I've been absent from blogging for a while due to life getting in the way. And Johnny Winter comes to mind because I've been boning up on slide guitar over the past several months, especially when work was shut down and there wasn't much else to do because of the coronavirus.

That aside, I have had about three new blog posts in the works, but two of them require sound files, and transferring sound from my Tascam digital recorder to my computer is a more complicated process than it should be (the input doesn't work the way it is supposed to work), hence the delays in getting anything useful onto my blog.

Also, I haven't really been doing much photography lately. I know that in the past I had solstice pics up nearly every June 21st or so, but this year I didn't bother taking the pics. I've been taking care of a sick relative, and it's taken up a bit of my time lately, and a lot of time I'm just too tired to take my camera and go take pictures.

Here in Seattle we're still dealing with the coronavirus, just as the rest of the world is dealing with it. We also had some protests and riots about 3 weeks ago over the George Floyd killing, but luckily none of the violence occurred anywhere near my suburb. Our state is slowly opening up for business, but it is not certain that it will stay that way.

The weather is nice outside during the day, but I really haven't been able to get out and enjoy it much. My radio hobby is mostly non-existent.

I still listen to MW at night most nights, as I still do my creative writing. Most of my listening is to the Sikh music I hear on KVRI 1600, a MW station about 100 km / 90 miles north of here. I didn't know it was Sikh prayer music until I had a chance to talk to a very pretty Sikh nurse who told me what sort of music it was when we had a conversation about it. She apparently listens to similar music online.

All that said, Summer is upon us, and before long it will be Fall, and it's very odd because on sports radio there really is no talk about actual games and performances -- all of our sports leagues are on hold because of the coronavirus. I don't follow baseball much, but I do like to listen to football games on the radio and they're not really sure we'll have an NFL football season this year.

Anyway, I do monitor my blog at least 2-3 times a week, and finally learned how to reply to comments and have the replies actually post, which is nice, because when a reader takes time to comment I like to let them know I actually read the comment or question.

I hope all of you who read my blog are doing well, and stay safe. Hopefully I will have some new posts later on this month, or early next month.

Peace.

CC 6-26-2020

PANIC in Corona World

As I write this, I share the experience of millions of other Americans, and millions of others in the world (Europe and India, much of Canada, and parts of other countries like Australia and New Zealand). I am stuck in lockdown.

We can still shop for groceries, and a few other necessities, but most of us in Washington State have been told to "Stay Home, Stay Healthy". In essence, we all are under a form of quarantine.

Social Distancing, they call it.

When I first hear of this COVID-19 Coronavirus, I was like probably most of the rest of you -- a bit apprehensive, but there was so little knowledge of the virus, and so little indication that it would spread across the world in the way that it did, and as fast as it did, that a total lockdown like I am experiencing today seemed a world away.

In fact, up until now, things like virus-related national emergencies, quarantines and lockdowns were the thing of disaster movies like I Am Legend, 28 Days Later and World War Z. 

Now, lockdown is reality.

No, there isn't a total curfew, and no, there is no martial law -- Thank God. But it's a scary new world we live in.

And the scariest thing for me right now isn't the fear of catching the virus -- I am in good health, and I have had the flu before in my life, so I know what it does. I also take my supplements -- so although I realise that does not make me bullet-proof, at least my chances are good enough there is no reason to live in fear.

What scares me more is the panic. That is so much like what I've seen in every disaster movie from War Of The Worlds to 2012 to Miracle Mile to The Day After to most of the other movies I mentioned above. Then you have the fact that "social distancing" -- keeping people apart from each other to keep the virus from spreading -- is so much like what happened in M. Night Shyamalyan's movie The Happening. The panic, the apprehension, and the fear are the scariest things about coronavirus for probably most of us. For those who have lost family members, of course, it is much, much worse.

Over the past week and a half I experienced some of that panic. My local Walmart store is usually packed, and usually very, very busy. Wednesday night of last week I went in, and it was like a ghost town. There were few people, and the parking lot was spare.

Aside from those two factors, things seemed normal, except when I went to the paper goods aisle, as I had heard there was a run on toilet paper at stores, and I was curious as to whether Walmart had any.

Imagine my surprise when I saw the entire paper goods section -- about 100-120 feet long (30-40 meters) -- completely empty, aside from five or six freshly supplied and unopened cases of what appeared to be paper towels.

OK, I thought to myself. I guess people are afraid of running out of toilet paper and paper towels.

Then I went to the canned goods section. A huge swath of it was empty -- devoid of cans. That never happens.

That really scared me. Food shortages are the stuff of disaster movies to most Americans. Here was the definite evidence of panic.

The local supermarket was nearly devoid of paper goods, hand cleaners (and any other anti-viral or anti-bacterial body or hand wash, including liquid dish soap). There also was a run on eggs right after our governor declared the lockdown.

This past week the stores are stocked, but hand cleaner, toilet paper, and paper towels are generally missing. At the local Safeway I went to the paper goods aisle a couple days ago. A young couple were standing nearby. We were shaking our heads at the massive, empty shelves. The couple looked at me, and I looked at them.

"Panic," I said. It was the only word that needed to be said, and really -- it was the only word that described everything we were seeing. The couple agreed.

Another sign that we live in crazy times.

All is not lost, however. This Coronavirus crisis has sort of brought people together. When I was in Walmart a second time, Friday of last week, the initial shock of virus deaths had passed and people realised they had to live life, but live it a new way. I went into the bathroom and when I was done, I was washing my hands a long time, as authorities say we should. A guy next to me was also washing his -- and he was taking a long time, too -- much longer than any of us would have done before the Coronavirus crisis.

"Twenty seconds!" I joked. He smiled.

"If you hum Happy Birthday twice over in your head, that's twenty seconds," he said.

It was a pleasant interchange between human beings -- we were all in this debacle together.

Along with the run on toilet paper, paper towels, canned vegetables and eggs, there was a run on pain killers like aspirin and paracetamol. Why? Because. People were afraid that they would not be able to get the things they need, and when one is in pain, they need pain killers.

I then went through the store to get some things. It was pleasantly packed with shoppers, although people were keeping distance from each other, and there were a handful of people wearing masks. I had to pick up a prescription for a relative and in the line at the pharmacy I struck up a conversation with another guy who was also waiting to get his prescription. We had a nice chat. We both agreed that this coronavirus crisis was a wake up call to society -- pandemics can and do happen. Just because it's the 21st Century doesn't mean it can't happen.

Before the state lockdown kicked in at 6 p.m. Wednesday, I did some shopping before a lot of the local stores closed. Our governor in Washington State has mandated this lockdown, statewide, for two weeks. Only grocery stores and a few other stores (like drug stores) will be open. Everyone else is to stay home. This lockdown is a first in the history of the State of Washington, which was established as a state in 1889.

I went by the bank, as I had to make a deposit. When I got to my car a blonde woman pulled up, and she went up to the ATM machine. When she walked back I opened my window and shook my bottle of disinfectant.

"Need some?" I said.

She smiled. "I'm fine! I keep some in my car, too!"

Once again, it was a pleasant exchange between two strangers, both of whom share a common problem: fear of catching the coronavirus.

How about some Easter bunnies to lighten your day? Will things be halfway normal by then? Who knows?

I think that no matter which way this pandemic goes, life won't be the same. People will be forced to realise that they must wash their hands, and they have to be careful when touching things like ATM machine and debit/credit keypads, touchscreens, and the like. People have to wash their hands when they're done in the bathroom. The US government -- and probably other governments, too -- need to have systems in place to deal with pandemics.

Hopefully, this panic, fear, and apprehension many of us feel will fade as life returns to normalcy.

I really feel for the people in Europe, which has been extremely hard-hit. Over here in the US, news from Europe is scarce -- barely covered in the national news networks. But I'm aware that Europe is getting slammed. I have some friends over there -- in Scandinavia as well as Germany and Central Europe, and I really feel for them and their countries. I hope that they are able to contain this virus so that fewer people get sick and die.

My thoughts are with you, Europe. May we all come out of this pandemic healthier, a bit wiser, more prepared for such pandemics, and optimistic about the future. As American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said in 1932, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Super sized stuffed animals, hopefully to make some children somewhere happy.

In other life, the vestige of the normal one, I've been creative writing and practicing slide guitar. The weather here is typical for Spring: between 38-60F (4-12C) and partly sunny, with a lot of rain, too. I have still been riding my ten-speed bicycle on the local trail, about a 5 mile trip (6-7 km) total -- which I usually take during night or early morning. The last couple mornings I have started to hear the frogs.

I listen to my MW radio nightly, although I don't DX much -- conditions haven't been all that exciting, and I haven't done much more than listen to South Asian music on KVRI 1600, a 'border blaster' station about 100 air miles north of here. Early mornings they play a lot of cool music, which a woman from India told me is Sikh prayer music apparently.

Aside from all that, life goes on, as much as it can. The news is full of coronavirus stories, and unfortunately on social media things get a bit too political about it for my taste. I don't think anyone in any government (Federal, state, or local) really expected something like this to happen. If they did, they would have been prepared. The only ones who were trying to tell us that it could really happen apparently was Hollywood.

Either way, I hope this finds all of my readers healthy and safe, and particularly my readers in Europe, which really has gotten hit hard.

Until next time, Peace.

CC -- 3-26 and 3-29-2020

THE SLOW DEATH OF RADIO

The radio is on -- but is it real or AI? Today it's not much of an issue -- 10 years from now, who knows? Pic from 2016. The station I was listening to when I snapped the pic was KBRE 1660 AM Merced, a rocker from Central California.

As many of my readers probably understand, radio has always been a part of my life. I write about radios, radio listening, long-distance radio listening ('DXing'), and the like. I worked in radio for much of my life. When I was a kid I dreamed of being a DJ, which I was for about a month and a half.

Just a couple weeks ago -- in mid- to late-January -- the radio industry saw a shakeup that may still have yet to finish: the largest radio company in the US laid off about 10% of its employees, including DJ's and sports announcers at highly rated radio stations. The company in question, IHeartMedia (formerly known as Clear Channel radio corporation), owns 850 stations nationwide. They are one of several large conglomerates that influence the rest of the industry, if only because of their large imprint on it.

In their announcement, in which they referred to the laying off of employees as a "displacement", the IHeart company referred to changes in the media and radio landscape, and how they had to adjust to such changes. They are going to concentrate more of their efforts in digital media (i.e., online delivery, and the use of AI and other computerized technologies in running their network of radio stations). They plan on centralizing their operations, using digital delivery from central sources to their stations in various cities across the U.S.

In radio circles, the layoffs were referred to as a "bloodbath", and I suppose if you were one of those laid off, it indeed was. It's like the old adage -- when your neighbor loses his or her job, it's a recession, but when you yourself lose a job, it's a depression.

As I follow several radio industry web forums, some of the quotes from laid off staff were seemingly boilerplate ("Looking forwards to new possibilities"), and others were almost heartwrenching -- written by people who had been living out their dream, even if they weren't making lots of money.

The idea of being behind a microphone and reaching out to thousands of people while playing music was a dream job that was suddenly shattered due to a corporate decision to replace them with automated, AI generated music and voice tracking.

I myself worked in radio for 20 years. I got my first internship in radio in Fall of 1987, after which I did a three year stint at Seattle's KCMU, the station that first played Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mother Love Bone, and numerous other grunge era bands. Then I worked at a company that serviced over 1200 radio stations with music -- on tape, CD, and computer hard drive. By the time I was laid off (due to corporate centralization) in December 2006 we were preparing to deliver music online.

I understand the pain of many of those who were laid off. Also, I understand the fears of those who have said that they don't think they will work in radio again. I know that I didn't.

That said, as a bystander in the industry, I worry that what was once a thriving medium is slowly fading in importance. See, the unstated facts behind these job cuts in radio are that revenues nationwide just aren't happening. The radio industry took in $20 billion in the early 20th Century. This past year the entire industry took in $12 billion, and that number is apparently dropping.

Even since 2000, radio's revenues have dropped, as have the number of listeners, and the amount of time listeners actually listen to radio.

For years, I heard radio experts state that radio is fine, it "still reaches 93% of America", yada yada. But since the IHeart situation cropped up, the reality is finally being revealed: that those "93%" do not listen to radio as much as they used to.... That the younger, "money demos" do not listen to radio as much as the over-45's who advertisers are apparently loathe to reach... That clusters of stations in some large US cities pull in half the revenue they took in in the year 2005.

In San Diego, for example, a radio company sold several stations (including AM talker KFMB 760) to another media company. They then laid off a lot of staff. It turns out that one of the problems with San Diego radio was that in 2005 the market combined took in $220 million. Last year all those stations only took in $141 million. Undoubtedly that drop in revenue in just 15 years affected the value of KFMB and the other stations in its cluster.

You can read about it here:
https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2020/jan/28/ticker-look-san-diego-radio-casualty-list/#

The problem with radio is complex -- consolidation (thanks to the Telecom Act of 1996) didn't help things much, for example. But it's not the main problem. Some guys say "homogenized radio" and "too many commercials", or "not enough DJ's" are the problem. But those issues, while they may have some merit, aren't the problem. Revenue is the problem. Advertisers (the large ad agencies, in particular -- at least according to some radio industry veterans online) do not support radio the way they used to. And advertising is the mother's milk of radio. Without that money coming in, the lights are going to go off.

And this revenue problem may be tied to the rise of the internet. Advertising dollars can go elsewhere, and if radio is losing listeners to online streaming and other media choices, radio appears less valuable to advertisers.

Either way, what we are seeing, with the layoffs, the revenue drops, the frenzy of automation, and the reduction in listeners, is the Slow Death Of Radio.

Although it pains me to see the industry dying, and it's painful to hear the testimonies of people in small and medium sized markets who got laid off, and had their dreams crushed, Radio -- after all -- is a business. The stations can't run on air. It takes money to make it all work, and succeed.

Even though radio media giants like IHeart have made some questionable decisions in the past, they are feeling the revenue pinch just like smaller stations nationwide are undoubtedly seeing. Combine that with the drive to make a profit, you get layoffs, more consolidation, more computers replacing people, more AI, more centralized operations. Eventually, some believe, radio will all be online, and by 2050 there may be no stations on the airwaves.

It's very sad for someone who grew up with the medium, and lived and worked in it for a 20 year swath.

If anything, it makes me appreciate the fact that when I switch on any of my radios, I'm actually hearing something coming out of the speaker -- be it sports, news, talk, or music. I'm certain that radio will still exist in some form during the rest of my stay here on this Earth. But it won't be the same. It really isn't the same now.

Tonight I'll fire up my Panasonic RF-B45 -- a terrific MW performer, probably my best -- and tune it to 760 KHz. Most nights I hear at least a whisper of San Diego's KFMB, and sometimes it comes in loud enough to kill the splash from 750 KXTG Portland and local 770 KTTH.

San Diego holds a place in my heart, albeit a bittersweet one: My dad was ill at UCSD Hospital there in 1984, and he also died there.

But while visiting the area to see him before he passed, I got a taste of the SoCal experience. Seeing the surfer dudes out on Mission Beach. The women wearing makeup at the beach (something one never saw here in Seattle at the time). The bright, balmy sunshine. Ice plants. An overall atmosphere of happiness. Sometimes when I hear KFMB phasing and wafting over those thousand miles of ether those memories come back -- of a sunny place, where all seems OK.

Of course, that may not be the reality -- after all, I don't live there. But it's usually in the back of my mind when I hear a lot of the SoCal stations on my radio, including the few I've heard from San Diego.

Some day the MW band will be nothing but static. I know that some of my DXer friends are inadvertently hoping for this: they say "the band needs thinning out." With this round of layoffs, cuts in revenue, and with AM stations cutting power and even going off the air, those who wish for "the band to be thinned out" are apparently starting to get their wish.

As for me, I'm just going to continue to listen as I have in the past, glad that there is something to listen to. There is nothing I can do to turn back the clock to 2005, or earlier. Life goes on. You learn to count your blessings.

= = = = = =

MEANWHILE, IN THE REAL, NON-RADIO WORLD... SLIDE GUITAR
In non-radio related things, life had been fairly standard since my last post here on my blog. I notice that the Blogger comment function is now working better -- I can reply back to those who take the time to comment about my posts. I do appreciate comments from readers, and try to reply when I can.

I have been aiming to finish a couple older posts that I never published. They will come later this year.

My main guitar, which I set up for Open-G and stability back in 1996 or so. Ironically, at the same time I had inadvertently set it up as a perfect vehicle for slide guitar playing.

I have been creative writing, working at my job, and also playing a lot of slide guitar, something I started learning in earnest in 2011 or so, and since then I've been trying to improve at it and build on my library of standby riffs -- relearning old lead riffs of mine, listening to slide guitarists like Mick Taylor (and non-sliders like Alvin Lee and Eric Clapton). In December I had an opportunity to try out for a local band, which was a fun experience. In the meantime, I have started recording my own stuff again, and some of my newer songs will have slide guitar on them, as I stopped playing lead, for the most part, in 1990.

For those interested, a large swath of my music is on my Soundcloud, ChrisCampbellRock. On my Soundcloud are excerpts from all of my four demo CDs, and a few tracks that didn't make it to any of them. There's rock, pop-rock and acoustic stuff, a little bit for everybody. Here is the link:

https://soundcloud.com/chriscampbellrock

All of them should be available for downloading.

Until later, my friends, happy 2020. I hope this new decade is even better than the last one.
C.C.
February 2nd, 2020