I could listen to the radio and I had access to books from time to time. Not all the time.
Every time we buy a CD or download a song, the artist is paid for their work. You might not know that this isn't the case when a musician's work is played on the radio.
I'm very aware of what you're talking about as I was involved with the radio in Africa in the same period as I was doing Concrete - I was doing both at the same time.
Country radio went through a time where they were trying to pigeonhole everybody, and trying to make the gap really narrow, and I think that they've opened that up a little bit.
Charles Foster Kane: Don't believe everything you hear on the radio.
King George VI: Is the nation ready for two... minutes of radio silence?
Angus: 'How about it?' How about this? Try and fuck your way out of this one Mark!
Simon: [to his bride, Elenore] Wow. You look like a unicorn... in a negligee.
James Bond: The latest thing from Q branch; called a radio.
Most of the music you hear on the radio today is developed for making money. It doesn't feel true or honest. You can feel it in the music.
Despite whatever commercial kind of success you might have or radio success, I don't want to do something just to get as many people as possible to listen.
With every record I put out, I got a bit more success, a bigger following in cities I would play in, and occasionally a bit of radio play.
I mean, Internet radio, which is basically a guy with his iTunes putting it over the computer, is the only way you're going to get true eclectic music programmed.
When I listen to the radio, I just hear so much music that doesn't even sound like people. The vocals are all tuned, and the drums are all fake.
But in those days - in the mid-'50s, early '60s - there was less than 300 radio stations that were playing country music and a lot of that wasn't full time.
The last time I really got into new music that wasn't heavy metal was probably like... TV on the Radio? I think that was it. That's the last time.
As for radio and movies, I like the movies better, although the work is much harder. The cinema has microphone technique, staging, and glamour all wrapped up into one.
The radio was an improvement on the telegraph but it didn't have the same exponential, transformative effect.
The reason I wrote political satire was because I thought it - politics - was important... that public policy was important. Then I transitioned into books, then into radio.
Quite honestly, I was running from myself. But I knew how to work Top 40 radio.
The goal for me has always been to learn how to express myself in radio and to have fun doing it and work with whatever contingencies arise.
