My OperaAnother day at the seaside
Monday, April 6, 2009 10:48:28 PM
There's one thing I always do when we go to the seaside, and that's page through all the radio channels on the car radio. The sea is great for carrying radio signals.
So there I was, flipping, and I came across a radio station that we agreed seemed to be playing the perfect music for a hot, sunny, slightly seamisty day. Unfortunately I'd tuned in almost at the end of the record, but before I could mutter "Oh well" and retune, a strangely similar record came on.
After a few minutes of listening whilst we devoured our ice creams (Or 'isis crims' as I will insist upon calling them in homage to The Marx Brothers) it became apparent that this was Radio Similar-Records we were listening to. Every track they played was a basic rhythm section of bass, drums, and electric keyboard. They all had Latin percussion, but it mostly sounded like it was generated electronically either by a machine or a tape loop. Over this there would sometimes be other instruments, like a guitar or another keyboard, and on top of that there'd be something else. Sometimes it would be a sax tootling at random, or a vibraphone tootling at random, or a voice tootling at random. The voice would always be talking in a quiet, relaxed sort of way, but never said very much that made sense, unless the ones who spoke in foreign, which I'm not very fluent in, were making some kind of sense.
The tootler on top was left to do his or her thing, but all the elements providing the background, which was always a repeated riff with just a few of the records having a bit of variation towards the end of the track, being faded in and out by some idiot with a mixing desk and nothing better to do.
After a while it got hypnotic and we got giggly. "The percussion's gone!", "The pecussion's back!", "Yeah, but the drums have gone now..."
Mum thought the station sounded Portugese, I don't think, even with all that water, that a signal could travel that far that well, I also couldn't establish exactly why it sounded Portugese, but what the heck, wherever it came from it kept us entertained just wondering who it could possibly be aimed at. Who'd want to listen to this stuff? As we drove off and the signal quickly vanished we suddenly realised.
It was aimed at us.
So there I was, flipping, and I came across a radio station that we agreed seemed to be playing the perfect music for a hot, sunny, slightly seamisty day. Unfortunately I'd tuned in almost at the end of the record, but before I could mutter "Oh well" and retune, a strangely similar record came on.
After a few minutes of listening whilst we devoured our ice creams (Or 'isis crims' as I will insist upon calling them in homage to The Marx Brothers) it became apparent that this was Radio Similar-Records we were listening to. Every track they played was a basic rhythm section of bass, drums, and electric keyboard. They all had Latin percussion, but it mostly sounded like it was generated electronically either by a machine or a tape loop. Over this there would sometimes be other instruments, like a guitar or another keyboard, and on top of that there'd be something else. Sometimes it would be a sax tootling at random, or a vibraphone tootling at random, or a voice tootling at random. The voice would always be talking in a quiet, relaxed sort of way, but never said very much that made sense, unless the ones who spoke in foreign, which I'm not very fluent in, were making some kind of sense.
The tootler on top was left to do his or her thing, but all the elements providing the background, which was always a repeated riff with just a few of the records having a bit of variation towards the end of the track, being faded in and out by some idiot with a mixing desk and nothing better to do.
After a while it got hypnotic and we got giggly. "The percussion's gone!", "The pecussion's back!", "Yeah, but the drums have gone now..."
Mum thought the station sounded Portugese, I don't think, even with all that water, that a signal could travel that far that well, I also couldn't establish exactly why it sounded Portugese, but what the heck, wherever it came from it kept us entertained just wondering who it could possibly be aimed at. Who'd want to listen to this stuff? As we drove off and the signal quickly vanished we suddenly realised.
It was aimed at us.
