The Measure Of A Fan
I’ve been a music fan since the day I was born. My parents always had the radio on and we would dance to the transistor radio in the kitchen all day long.
One day my father showed up with this square shaped spaceship looking THING. It was the biggest piece of furniture in the lounge. He was so chuffed! This new fangled “STEREO” had FM frequency and we could set up to three records to drop and play one after the other. Until my siblings discovered the television, this monstrosity was my Mecca. I would dj to an empty room, switching off between Patsy Cline, The Herb Albert Orchestra, Procol Harum, The Beatles, Herman’s Hermits and The Platters.
To avoid fights, my parents eventually bought me one of those portable stereos that I could store under my bed. Everyone would dump all their 45’s and old albums my way. This is how I discovered Bob Seger, Alice Cooper, David Bowie, Rod Stewart, The Osmonds, Edgar Winters, and thousands of others.
My father then bought a car that had an 8-track player, which was a life saver considering it only had AM radio. John Denver, Tanya Tucker, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rodgers were favourite albums on long boring journeys through the country in the middle of the night.
At the age of 9, the awful truth hit when my brand spanking new Grease soundtrack was destroyed by our electric blue boogie monster. The FM still worked though, so we kept it. Besides, I still had my pink, tiger skin patterned turntable. I had to stick to being demoted to a smaller venue (my bedroom) when performing dj duties to my adoring invisible fans.
When I was 11, my teachers, finally frustrated with my stuttering, recommended that my parents get a tape deck so I could record myself reading and, hopefully, fix the stuttering myself. It never did work; I still can’t read out loud without sounding like a jackhammer on crack. In their infinite wisdom, my parents got me a boom box and headphones. This way, they wouldn’t have to listen to my choices in music that now included Blondie, Patti Smith, The Who, Mickey Gillis and The Irish Rovers, as I sang my wee heart out.
My father was always kind of cool. He clearly agreed with me that cassettes just weren’t the same as albums. He had a few that he hadn’t listened to in 5 years. He went out and got the newest hi-tech hi-fi Technics stereo. It was just like the ones that the djs use at the radio stations.
All I cared about was that I was back in business. Drokka’s 4-7pm rock show was the best in the land. Queen, Prince, Bob Dylan, Duran Duran, The Ramones, Motley Crue, Status Quo and Metallica all made appearances, as did their predecessors. It did manage to create a hullabaloo though. My parents weren’t impressed with my decision to spend all my money on music. We fought. A lot. So, I moved on.
At 15, I hung out downtown with the local bands. Befriended them, did sound, lights, cooked, laundered and took photos for them. I criticized their work, wrote articles and did interviews with them. I met some big deal dudes as they blew through town. I quite simply couldn’t, wouldn’t, and still cannot function without music, whether live or recorded.
I now own, or have access to several music mediums, including band/musician websites. I choose the web sites I belong to based mostly on how their music affects me and how the message board communities conduct themselves.
I resent it when I’m referred to as “a new fan” of the band on these message boards. According to the “old fans”, I’m not as worthy as them because I have just joined the band’s website. Just because I didn’t join the site when it first opened does not make me a lesser fan. It might suggest I am now getting comfortable with the Internet. It may mean I didn’t have the time to devote half my life to a specific website. Hell, it may also mean I didn’t have a friggin’ clue there is a website.
Being a long time board member does not give anyone licence to extol ownership of an artist. It also doesn’t prove devotion, loyalty or even remote knowledge of the artist’s work. It simply means one has become part of a community that supports said artist.
Being told that my criticisms are invalid because I’ve only been a member for a short period of time and “I don’t know what the artist has done or been through” is an insult that I can’t possibly be expected to simply sit and do nothing about. Of course, replying only succeeds in my being deemed a trouble maker/troll or whatever similar esoteric term “x” site uses.
I don’t know if these artists use website demographics or not. I would hope that they would use sales figures to judge their fan base, because quite frankly, the country club attitude on their websites is not doing a hell of a lot for them.
I still know the lyrics to all the songs I spun as a kid, the tapes I wrecked by overplaying, the CDs that oxidized as they aged and yes, every now and then my dad and I chill back with the 8-tracks he still owns. I have no idea what happened to my turntable. I think it got passed down to a cousin or something, probably met its fate in a rubbish bin. I used the body of the boogie monster as a book shelf for years. Eventually, it was replaced by more practical shelving. I still have all my old albums, 45’s, tapes and CDs. I have a sweet little compact stereo and my computer at work has CD capability, so I’m set.
I’m still a fan of all those bands, embarrassing as some might be to admit. Even more embarrassingly, I still have the best 4-7pm dj gig in the world, old fans be damned.
Respectfully submitted,
d~
by
drokka
