n***@gmail.com
2009-04-25 19:32:32 UTC
These things were always "Ghetto Blasters" to me
A Eulogy For The Boomboxhttp://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103363836
All Things Considered, April 22, 2009
Before there were iPods, or even CDs, and around the time cassettes
let break dancers move the party to a cardboard dance floor on the
sidewalk, there were boomboxes. It's been 20 years since the devices
disappeared from the streets. It's high time to press rewind on this
aspect of America's musical history.
Back in the day, you could take your music with you and play it loud,
even if people didn't want to hear it. Fifty decibels of power-packed
bass blasted out on street corners from New York City to Topeka.
Starting in the mid-'70s, boomboxes were available everywhere, and they
weren't too expensive. Young inner-city kids lugged them around, and
kids in the suburbs kept them in their cars.
They weren't just portable tape players with the speakers built in. You
could record off the radio, and most had double cassette decks, so if
you were walking down the street and you heard something you liked, you
could go up to the kid and ask to dub a copy.
They were called boomboxes, or ghetto blasters. But to most of the young
kids in New York City, they were just a box.
And the manufacturers noticed, says Fred Brathwaite, better known as Fab
5 Freddy.
"People that were big fans of music at the time were into
higher-fidelity, better-quality sound — bass, midrange and treble,"
Freddy says. "So [the manufacturers] listened to what the consumer, what
the young hip kid on the streets of New York, wanted. We wanted bass."
The Rise Of The Big Box
The boxes had to be big, to make that bass boom. The speakers in early
boxes had extra-large magnets to push all that air around, and they were
housed in heavy metal casing to deal with the vibrations from all the
bass. Fab 5 Freddy says they got pretty big.
"I remember some boxes so big, they required 20 D-size batteries to an
already heavy box," he says. "So these boxes were so heavy that some
cats that would carry their boxes all the time, they would develop
massive forearms and biceps."
The boxes were part of a style that included white Adidas and big gold
chains. Freddy was a filmmaker and a graffiti artist at the time, and he
says he took his box everywhere.
"I traveled with my massive boombox," Freddy says. "That thing moved
with me, you know. I remember, like, being on the plane — it couldn't go
in the overhead bin, but that was my baby. It traveled first class right
along with me."
But the trappings of this new culture were secondary to the music. This
was the dawn of hip-hop, and it might not have happened without the boombox.
"A big part of this hip-hop culture in the beginning was putting things
in your face, whether you liked it or not," Freddy says. "That was the
graffiti, that's like a break dance battle right at your feet, you know
what I'm saying? Or this music blasting loud, whether you wanted to hear
it or not."
Moving Indoors
As the '80s wore on, cities started enforcing noise ordinances. The
Walkman became popular, and it was lighter and cheaper. Gradually,
people stopped listening to music together. The rap world eventually
left the corner and moved online. People still pass songs around, but
now it's on file-sharing sites and blogs. Headphones are universally
accepted, and eye contact is frowned upon.
These days, you don't see or hear many boomboxes, except at Lyle
Owerko's house. He collects them. He keeps most of them in storage,
taped up in bubble wrap to, as he says, preserve the domestic bliss. His
favorite is the GF9696.
"It's absolutely my most mint box," Owerko says. "It's incredibly shiny;
it's 40 watts. The speaker grilles detach, which makes it look really mean."
Owerko's collection of 40 boxes includes Lasonics and Sanyos, JVCs and
Crowns. He photographs them and blows the prints up to make the boxes
look even bigger than they are in real life.
Though Owerko grew up far from the city, in western Ontario, even there
all the cool kids carried boxes. The only difference was that they were
blasting Led Zeppelin and Ozzy Osbourne.
The Impression Of What's Real
Boxes didn't stay cool forever: They started to be made from plastic and
decorated in neon colors and flashing lights. They were sold to people
who didn't care about sound but just wanted to look like they were down.
Owerko says the transition wasn't surprising.
"Towards the end of any culture, you have the second or third generation
that steps into the culture, which is so far from the origination," he
says. "It's the impression of what's real, but it's not the full
definition of what's real. It's just cheesy."
Today, he uses his collection as props on photo shoots, and he says the
sight of them sends everyone from models to art directors down memory
lane. Vintage boomboxes sell for upwards of $1,000 now, so those who had
one back then can kick themselves for not holding on to it.
Fab 5 Freddy misses his box, too, but at least he can go visit it — it's
on display at the Smithsonian's Museum of American History in
Washington, D.C.
The nostalgia for boomboxes isn't just about a trend in stereo
equipment. When the music was loud and unavoidable, we had to listen to
each other. Maybe we miss boomboxes because when we're wearing
headphones, we can't talk to anyone else. Which makes it hard to help
each other out, and makes it hard to party.
--
Civis Romanus Sum
Said boxes were used mostly by jigaboos.A Eulogy For The Boomboxhttp://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103363836
All Things Considered, April 22, 2009
Before there were iPods, or even CDs, and around the time cassettes
let break dancers move the party to a cardboard dance floor on the
sidewalk, there were boomboxes. It's been 20 years since the devices
disappeared from the streets. It's high time to press rewind on this
aspect of America's musical history.
Back in the day, you could take your music with you and play it loud,
even if people didn't want to hear it. Fifty decibels of power-packed
bass blasted out on street corners from New York City to Topeka.
Starting in the mid-'70s, boomboxes were available everywhere, and they
weren't too expensive. Young inner-city kids lugged them around, and
kids in the suburbs kept them in their cars.
They weren't just portable tape players with the speakers built in. You
could record off the radio, and most had double cassette decks, so if
you were walking down the street and you heard something you liked, you
could go up to the kid and ask to dub a copy.
They were called boomboxes, or ghetto blasters. But to most of the young
kids in New York City, they were just a box.
And the manufacturers noticed, says Fred Brathwaite, better known as Fab
5 Freddy.
"People that were big fans of music at the time were into
higher-fidelity, better-quality sound — bass, midrange and treble,"
Freddy says. "So [the manufacturers] listened to what the consumer, what
the young hip kid on the streets of New York, wanted. We wanted bass."
The Rise Of The Big Box
The boxes had to be big, to make that bass boom. The speakers in early
boxes had extra-large magnets to push all that air around, and they were
housed in heavy metal casing to deal with the vibrations from all the
bass. Fab 5 Freddy says they got pretty big.
"I remember some boxes so big, they required 20 D-size batteries to an
already heavy box," he says. "So these boxes were so heavy that some
cats that would carry their boxes all the time, they would develop
massive forearms and biceps."
The boxes were part of a style that included white Adidas and big gold
chains. Freddy was a filmmaker and a graffiti artist at the time, and he
says he took his box everywhere.
"I traveled with my massive boombox," Freddy says. "That thing moved
with me, you know. I remember, like, being on the plane — it couldn't go
in the overhead bin, but that was my baby. It traveled first class right
along with me."
But the trappings of this new culture were secondary to the music. This
was the dawn of hip-hop, and it might not have happened without the boombox.
"A big part of this hip-hop culture in the beginning was putting things
in your face, whether you liked it or not," Freddy says. "That was the
graffiti, that's like a break dance battle right at your feet, you know
what I'm saying? Or this music blasting loud, whether you wanted to hear
it or not."
Moving Indoors
As the '80s wore on, cities started enforcing noise ordinances. The
Walkman became popular, and it was lighter and cheaper. Gradually,
people stopped listening to music together. The rap world eventually
left the corner and moved online. People still pass songs around, but
now it's on file-sharing sites and blogs. Headphones are universally
accepted, and eye contact is frowned upon.
These days, you don't see or hear many boomboxes, except at Lyle
Owerko's house. He collects them. He keeps most of them in storage,
taped up in bubble wrap to, as he says, preserve the domestic bliss. His
favorite is the GF9696.
"It's absolutely my most mint box," Owerko says. "It's incredibly shiny;
it's 40 watts. The speaker grilles detach, which makes it look really mean."
Owerko's collection of 40 boxes includes Lasonics and Sanyos, JVCs and
Crowns. He photographs them and blows the prints up to make the boxes
look even bigger than they are in real life.
Though Owerko grew up far from the city, in western Ontario, even there
all the cool kids carried boxes. The only difference was that they were
blasting Led Zeppelin and Ozzy Osbourne.
The Impression Of What's Real
Boxes didn't stay cool forever: They started to be made from plastic and
decorated in neon colors and flashing lights. They were sold to people
who didn't care about sound but just wanted to look like they were down.
Owerko says the transition wasn't surprising.
"Towards the end of any culture, you have the second or third generation
that steps into the culture, which is so far from the origination," he
says. "It's the impression of what's real, but it's not the full
definition of what's real. It's just cheesy."
Today, he uses his collection as props on photo shoots, and he says the
sight of them sends everyone from models to art directors down memory
lane. Vintage boomboxes sell for upwards of $1,000 now, so those who had
one back then can kick themselves for not holding on to it.
Fab 5 Freddy misses his box, too, but at least he can go visit it — it's
on display at the Smithsonian's Museum of American History in
Washington, D.C.
The nostalgia for boomboxes isn't just about a trend in stereo
equipment. When the music was loud and unavoidable, we had to listen to
each other. Maybe we miss boomboxes because when we're wearing
headphones, we can't talk to anyone else. Which makes it hard to help
each other out, and makes it hard to party.
--
Civis Romanus Sum
en
http://www.resist.com/ Resistance