Technology

I didn't like the music on commercial radio so I would listen to community radio which would either forget to back announce or would play such long brackets that I would lose count so I would call the DJ to ask about that special song. Then to buy the song...

I had to catch a train from the suburbs into a city import record store. Often they would not have what I wanted so I would put down a deposit for a vinyl record which would be ordered from overseas then I would return a week or two later to pick it up.

It was expensive so whenever a friend had a birthday I would buy a record we mutually wanted but make a cassette copy for myself first.

For the first listen-through I would set aside an hour, undisturbed, liner notes in hand, getting up half way to turn the album over.

Am still into obscure music so...

Now I pirate-download music to play on a net radio station I run with overseas friends where we also play ambient electronic music we make over the Internet with laptops.

I would rather get together to jam with musicians in real life but now that technology lets musicians make music on their own they don't bother collaborating, and besides, too few local people my age have time to get together in person to make music just for fun.