freeform goodness

“…The disco hot spots hold no charm for you”

heh… anyone else remember the South Park episode where the boys (or at least Cartman, IIRC) dropped Asia’s “Heat Of the Moment”?

Brent Simmons’ nifty post about 1982 prompted me to try to remember what was going on in my life then…

I was a high-school sophomore.

I was already into music. I liked that Asia single, but I thought the album was wholly ass, because I already knew (and owned records by) Yes and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, and I knew even then that the album was watered down poo constructed to appeal to a radio market that was lapping up stuff like Journey, Styx, and REO Speedwagon.

My favorite song that year was “Senses Working Overtime”, which I had on a 7” single backed by “English Roundabout”. I loved the hell out of that record, but I couldn’t afford to buy the album (English Settlement)because it was an import double LP, which means that it cost over $20 in 1982 dollars, and I was only bringing home about $11-$14 a week from my paper route. There was a single album US version, but even in ‘82 I was enough of trainspotter not to want any part of that crap.

That was a great year for singles anyway. It was the year that MTV really started to make an impression, and early on it meant that a lot of highly visual new wave bands got airplay. Some more singles I loved: “Shock The Monkey” by Peter Gabriel, “Space Age Love Song” by A Flock of Seagulls, “Rio” by Duran Duran, “I Want Candy” by Bow Wow Wow, “Six Months In A Leaky Boat” by Split Enz, “Mesopotamia” by the B-52s, “Save It For Later” by the English Beat (three cheers for getting this past the censors, who never quite figured out the subject), “Invisible Sun” by the Police, and a fat stack of others.

When I wasn’t listening to music, I was playing games on my Odyssey², playing classics like Pick Axe Pete! and K.C. Munchkin! (note that the exclamation points were integral parts of the Odyssey² experience, and are never to be omitted.)

I didn’t have a computer at home yet, but there were a pair of Apple ][+’s that we wee geeks in the Aquinas High Computer Club had access to. I wouldn’t have a home computer for another year or two, and I’ll fully visit that in another entry. 1982 was also the year I first played Dungeons & Dragons, and our (Catholic, yet!) high school was immune enough to the alarmist hype being spread in the press at the time that we had a school-sanctioned D&D club (complete with a teacher/moderator who secured a classroom for us) that met once a week. Computer Club and D&D club (somehow I dodged Chess Club, though I had some friends who managed to hit the loser trifecta… and beyond, we had a drama club and A/V club too!) — is it any wonder it was a full two years later before I went on a real date with a girl?

:: Dave Walker 11:27 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

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