DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL

DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL

Maybe It’s Time For A Jukebox

by Rodney Evon

I think it’s time, I was saying the other day, to buy a jukebox. For $150, you don’t have to change the record every three minutes; that’s a lot less than you’ll pay for just an amplifier (though of course it won’t be stereo, blah blah blah — who cares?). And you can look around a little, find a reliable oldies shop — I’ve lived in some pretty jerkwater communities that had stores which carried a healthy selection of old and new 45s, though that too might be changing — and start to build a collection. Even at $1.29 (the new industry price) a crack, 45s are still a bargain; you pay extra to avoid dealing with the dross that accumulates on albums that, once again, are being made up from one hit single and filler. (This time, though, the filler is “art,” the “true expression” of the singer’s innermost feelings . . . haven’t we been through all this before?)

But I don’t have a jukebox (yet; it wasn’t an idle threat). And I still get most of my music off the radio, principally a car radio, and damn little of that is old style FM. (There isn’t any good FM anymore, anyway; when’s the last time you heard a truly imaginative segue, or heard a disc jockey take a chance with FCC regulations, community standards, station management — risk anything at all, including maybe his exorbitant salary?) But I have a feeling I’m going to give in, stop listening to radio entirely, or maybe, just listen only to the oldies and all-news stations which occupy an increasingly disproportionate share of my driving time.

It’s time to admit that the whole radio game is awful. I don’t know what the matter is — maybe lazy radio programmers, or just as likely, not enough good singles to go around — but I do know that it makes it nearly fucking impossible to write this stupid column. The dial has lost its touch; there isn’t any focus, no way to tune into it in general. What can you say of a time when Paul Anka’s No. 1 — what do you need to say?

Of course, “Candy Man” was a big hit in 1972, which was the best year for AM music in the last four or five. You could pick any year, and blame it on the MOR tripe that is always there and whether or not you included Mary Hopkin singing “Those Were the Days,” you’d still miss the point.

The point, I guess, is that you only notice the bad stuff, or yelp about it, when there’s not enough good records surrounding it. Conversely, singers you could never stand — Roberta Flack, for instance — sound pretty good in a time like this. “Feel Like Making Love” would probably be tedious if it was up against “Backstabbers” or “That Lady” or “Let’s Get It On” but when its. principal competition is a Rufus rip-off of Stevie Wonder and Blue Magic’s “Sideshow,” it looks like one of the best records around.

Now this isn’t true everywhere, I don’t think. I took a friend of mine to Detroit a few weeks ago, and her conclusion about CKLW was the same as mine always was: “God may have hated Detroit, he may have made it ugly, but he made up by giving it a great radio, station.” I felt the same way for a weekend, even though I had the awful, eerie midnight experience of hearing Cat Stevens’ “Another Saturday Night” for the first time, which is a little like coming home to find your records melted by a vampire who’s just converted your entire family to Guru Maharaj Ji.

But while back in Motown I did learn to love “Talcin’ Care of Business” by Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and “Waterloo” by Abba. Minor pleasures, but pleasures, nonetheless. And Dionne Warwicke, totally dominated by the Spinners, singing “Then Came You.”

Still the summer’s biggest disappointment remains the Rolling Stones. “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It)” is a good idea gone wrong, although I must admit that such an authority as Jon Landau maintains that it is a great record, especially (says he) the drumming. Greil Marcus is more to the point when he says it sounds like BachmanTurner Overdrive, which is not what we had in mind, is it?

Meanwhile, I continue to drive on, pushing buttons less aimlessly than those in the passenger seat think, looking for the big hit. Every so often, it happens: driving out of JFK Airport, I was thrilled to catch a medly of “Locomotion” and “Like A Rolling Stone," but then I would be. I’ve been looking for that medly for five years, and now that I’ve got it, I wish something would happen — a “Backstabbers” or “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” or “Brown Sugar,” goddamn it, even an “American Pie” — to make me forget about it.

But I’m not holding my breath; I’d rather start saving pennies for my jukebox, and eliminate the middleman.