Low Fidelity

I recently rediscovered an old cassette tape I’ve kept around for over thirty years now, It was recorded in February 1975 and it’s the Soul Show from Radio City, Liverpool. Its packed full of the type of the Soul music that I loved back then and a genuine time capsule for me.

This reminded me of a prized possession I have in my room, it’s a little Philips transistor radio that I bought myself for my 17th birthday in 1974. It was bought with most of my first pay packet from the Ford Motor Company. I’m quite gobsmacked to think, that besides a few diaries, that’s about all I have to show for those apprenticeship years.

This brings me to the joy of such an item when you’re young, I’d sit in my bedroom in the digs in Hornchurch, Essex, where I was living at the time, listening to crackly Radio Luxemborg or Radio Caroline, on the medium wave, well into the early hours of the morning, a couple of batteries providing almost endless mono entertainment for a young lad living alone, far away from home.

Of course, it wasn’t long before I had a few friends, discovered Rum and Coke, Pubs and Nightclubs, full of loud, stereo Soul music with incredible bass and fidelity...

...and of course the dancing girls.

And then it all went to rat shit.