Earbuds not included.
It’s the day of the week that you probably didn’t know was named after the Norse god of muzak, another melodic Monday! That means it’s time to worship another unholy earworm that long ago got sacrificed on the altar of lost musical psalms we like to call the Dusty Vinyl Archive! Our High Priestess of the Old School DJ Scratchy’s ready to summon another ancient tune from pop purgatory, while the Sponkies have fun knocking over all the candles like Sting. It’s time to please the gods of classic rock…
I have obviously been doing a lot of reflecting over the weekend… and when I think back on the events of my life that first got me interested in popular music, one of them would have to be that day sometime before Christmas in 1983 when my Dad brought home one of those dual cassette boomboxes that would become an icon of the decade. Sure it may have weighed about 80 pounds, but you could not only listen to the radio at a volume loud enough to wake up the entire neighborhood… but you could also play cassettes and even RECORD music off the radio without having your gabby sisters ruin the recording!
Dammit! Shut up! I’m trying to record Quiet Riot here!
Recording music off the radio back in 1983 meant pushing both the RECORD and PLAY buttons on the one cassette deck that allowed for recording, which seemed like too much unnecessary work. And since the buttons were made out of titanium or something like that, it wasn’t easy for 8 year old fingers to exert enough pressure to get both buttons to depress at the same time… but somehow I did manage to make a mixed tape or two back in the day, including a number of the songs on our radio station’s year end countdown… which didn’t have a whole lot of agreement with Billboard’s chart since it was a rock-oriented station that played a lot of local hits that were never big on Top 40 radio. There was one thing they had in common, though…
Both Billboard and KWK agreed that this schlock was the #1 song of 1983.
But on the day Dad brought the boombox home and set it up with a fresh cassette, we pushed play on the very first song that passed through its speakers… and I still remember what it was to this day. It was one of my favorite songs as a kid… from a band you all know and maybe love, but you likely don’t know the song itself because it was never a hit and might not even have been released as a single. But KWK played the hell out of it 24 years ago, and now the DVA is gonna dust off that cassette and play it again in 2017! From their 1983 album Keep It Up (Which spawned the hit “Hot Girls in Love”), here is Loverboy’s “Strike Zone”…
It still sounds as good to me today as it did back then….. maybe even better since antenna reception and battery power no longer makes it sound like it’s emanating from a drive thru speaker…
I’ll be back with another lost song that was backed by the power of D batteries next Monday…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
oh I remember my first dual cassette boombox… it was from toshiba and I worked the whole summer (2 weeks) like a coalminer (in a library) to get the money together… I was as proud as a king (or queen) and it was our companion at the public pool (for 20 minutes till the batteries died from rewinding to play the favorite song, Laura Branigan Self Control). Thanks for sharing Loverboy… how could I forget them?
I’d imagine “Gloria” would have drained the batteries in only 10 minutes!
This one ought to fire up any baseball team that’s for sure! 🙂 It’s only 7AM and I usually don’t “rock out” in my desk chair at that early hour but this one had me going.
Pam
Any batter who is literally standing in the strike zone is probably going to be very ticked off at the home plate umpire!
LOVERBOY?! LOVERBOY?! Have I died and gone to heaven? Loverboy’s music use to give me hope at a time when my life was pretty miserable. Great beat, great vocals, and I could be transported to a better place dancing away the sadness. Thanks for a wonderful musically look back at a favorite group. Bravo…gold star for this one.🌟
I was SHOCKED that some of their better known songs were minor hits or non-hits at the time they were released. It seemed like they were pretty popular in the day. Definitely one of the better arena rock bands of the time…
And didn’t have the Dee Snyder damaged hair. 🙂
I don’t remember this song, or really any songs from this band. Sounds cool, though. I do remember taping songs from the radio. I did a lot of those year end ones, and half the time they’d ruin it by talking over the music!
I always hated that! Why did DJ’s think it was perfectly OK to talk over the entirety of the intro music…. so long as they shut up before the first words were sung? This might be why some songs started off with the first verse!
ody N biskit; lover boy, we rememburr…thiz song….gonna hafta ta listen two it when de FSG
comez home; de titlez knot soundin familiarz two uz !!! ~~~ ☺☺♥♥
It wasn’t a hit for them, but once the guitars start up, you can tell it’s Loverboy. “Strike Zone” definitely has their signature sound…
Boomboxes. You know, they still make them, though they wouldn’t call them that. Now they are “out door speaker systems” and they come with parts you can put all over you backyard. Then you turn it up and voila, every single neighbor is listening with you. Hating you. Planning your downfall. It’s so good to have neighbors!
Those “outdoor speaker systems” aren’t boomboxes any more than a smartphone is a telephone. If you couldn’t look totally cool by lifting it up on your shoulder and letting it blow out your eardrums, it wasn’t a boombox…
My first boom box was pink, if I remember correctly. I don’t remember the song I first heard, though.
This one sounds familiar…great memory to have. 💕
If it wouldn’t have been a song I liked, I don’t think I’d have remembered it. I have no idea what the first song I heard in my car was after I bought it, but I was listening to an 80’s station at the time so it had to be in that timeframe somewhere….
Love in an Elevator?
Did you make this comment before you saw my comment on Jackie’s blog, or after?
After. 🙂
I was about to suggest you try getting a job as a phone psychic…
Call me now for your free reading!
Classic rock is, has always been and will always be my first love in music even though I listen to a little bit of everything depending on the mood. If I could just find a way to ignore the feelings and memories that accompany some of the songs… *sigh* ❤
Sense of smell may be the sense everyone says is most closely related to memories, but hearing music has to be right up there with it…
Ahhhh, Loverboy! Yes! 1982 darn great year especially that summer, tall dark and blonde, sand in the toes …..anyways, you get the picture! lol.. I still have my Ghetto Blaster, dual cassette, still use it once in a while! 🙂 Hope your doing ok Bill?? 🙂
I wish I still had a classic like that, but somehow we managed to destroy just about everything that entered our house when I was a kid. I am doing just great, thanks for asking!
Ah, the bread and butter sound of the early 80s. I remember the days when we actually had to put in blood, sweat and tears to produce a mix tape, rather than copy-paste…
I have never even tried to download music off of the internet before, so I’ll still need that cassette tape and machine with big clunky buttons. Funny how hard it is to buy either at a store these days…
Back then I had a light blue Sanyo dual deck… So long ago, I was a kid and I used to record on used MC from my dads business conferences. To be able to use them I had to put some adhesive tape to re-create that little plastic thing on the top… thanks for the article – nice vintage memories 🙂