KLOS-FM – Bob Coburn – July 1982 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
Two years into it and the 80s suck – you hate everything about it – the music, the hair, the clothes. Everybody is listening to New Wave – New Wave is boring. You want the 60s. Your parents still have the first Jefferson Airplane album, the one before Grace Slick joined. You grew up listening to The Beatles – they broke up when you were four. You don’t remember them – you don’t remember The Doors either, but your mom met Jim Morrison when she was a waitress at The Whisky. They talk about it like it was no big deal. You wanted to be there. But you were born in 1966 and you missed it – missed the whole thing. You ask your dad – he wasn’t crazy about the 60s. Maybe it’s because he was drafted and wound up in the Army. He didn’t want to be in the 60’s. He wanted to be in the 1920s, listening to Bessie Smith records and going to Speakeasy’s. He wanted to make movies – you grew up three blocks away from Paramount Studios. It’s as close as your dad got to his dream. He also missed the 1920’s, being born in 1930, smack in the middle of the Depression. He didn’t want to be where he was then, and you don’t want to be where you are now. It always happens that way – not wanting to be where you are, but being somewhere you missed out on. Lucky for you the Thrift Shops are filled with clothes that have 1960s written all over them. Nobody wears bell-bottoms in the 80s – nobody wears tie-dye – you and your friends practically live at the Goodwill. You don’t have to set foot in 1982 if you don’t want to, even if it says so on the calendar.
Now, if you could just find out where to get some Patchouli Oil . . . .
For a sampling of what most everybody else in L.A. was listening to in 1982, here is an hour’s worth of Bob Coburn from KLOS from July 1982 just to remind you.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
