Four Radios

In my room (well one is in my bathroom) I have four radios that have been with me for over 30 years. 

These two belonged to my beloved grandfather. The blue one was his mobile radio and transmitted countless Phillies games while he puttered around the house and worked in the yard. The black one sat on his dressing table and broadcast KYW every night as he readied for bed. Now it joins me in the powder room every morning while I listen to Sam Clover also on KYW. All news. All the time. 

This sleek model sat in the middle room upstairs at my Grandparents house on Cherry Street. On sundays after dinner I would sneak upstairs to listen to the Psychedelic Psunday Psupper with Michael Tierson on WMMR. It was on this very machine I first heard two of the great music loves of my life. The Velvet Underground (Song: I Can't Stand It) and The Mothers of Invention (Song: Hungry Freaks, Daddy). Now it sits on my bookshelf. It no longer works. I need to find someone to fix it.

This one was all mine. I think I got it when I was 8. I would take it outside with me to listen to WMMR while I did chores in the yard. Later I would listen to the Phillies, the Flyers (who beat the Nashville Predators tonight) and old radio shows on nights when they were off. I heard the Grateful Dead at the Spectrum on it in 1984 and never missed Metal Shop on WYSP at midnight every saturday. Now I listen to crackpots call in to AM radio in the middle of the night and espouse conspiracy theories.

Can't Hardly Wait for Thursday at the Tower, 1987

It was the kind of night that 80's films are all about. The whole Pottstown crew had waited a week, and also their whole teenage lives to see their scruffy kindred spirits.

We spent the whole summer listening to Pleased to Meet Me. It was a breath of fresh air. We had worn all of their other records down to nubs. We woke up to Stink, we spent the day with Hootenanny and had great nights with Tim. 

What did Pleased to Meet Me mean to a bunch of indie punkers in Pottstown? 

When you are a teenager you can be sure of one thing. High emotions, kind of like an exposed wire near water. 'The Ledge' perfectly in its concise four minutes encapsulated our head right out of the water trying to figure out these feelings about girls, the fact that we had lives that might extend past high school and our new need to blow off steam. 

The Replacements were our voice. Sure, we loved Black Flag, The Misfits, Husker Du and Minutemen and they all had their great place.

But the Replacements were basically our Kinks or Ramones. They were the guys who weren't from the mean streets, they came from our safe place but still understood that we also were bucking the system.

Almost all of us came from good homes and cozy lives and from space, seemed pretty well set. At the end of the day the Replacements gave us what Elvis and the Stones did for our parents. A place to rock out and be ourselves.

So on that night, November 19th, 1987, the whole Pottstown crew lit out to see them. 

Me, John, Heather, Mare, Jason (RIP), Tim, George, Tom lit out to Upper Darby. The whole Pottstown crew, before the blue route.

My memory is fuzzy but I know we got there in plenty of time and parked in a garage.

The flyer states that Guadacanal Diary played. But they didn't. The opening band before the opening band was the Brandos. 

I remember digging them because they name checked the movie 'Blue Velvet' when they came on but my buddy Jason, whom I sat next to, was annoyed that they seemed 'Dressed for church'.

After a while the Dead Milkmen came on, it was right after they had released 'Eat Your Paisley' and they did quite a few things from that. My buddy Jason was very excited to see them.

There was a lot of time between the Milkmen and the Replacements and we had squirred in a weeks worth of stolen beer and had to hit the head.

In the bathroom I had my first ever, at 17, geek out moment with a fellow music lover. A fellow had a Fall t-shirt on and we spent 5 minutes crowing about how great the fall were and our favorite records. At the time I said goodbye. I wonder if am facebook friends with him now.

We got back to our seat and the Replacements appeared. They opened with 'Never Mind', they were wearing matching mechanic jumpsuits. They were hammered. Paul and Tommy nearly gave each other a concussion during 'I Don't Know'. All of us went nuts when they did 'Color Me Impressed'. I think John got up and slow danced with Heather to 'Waitress in the Sky' and they closed the show with 'Can't Hardly Wait'.

We left the Tower beaming. We had just seen our heroes. Not our parents heroes, but our own goddamn, dyed in the wool, guys who spoke our language. I grabbed this on the way out. It was tough to go to school the next day. We had just learned that we had a little bit of freedom. We had just stood at the alter of Rock and Roll.

RIP Jason Garnett. You will always be one of the spokes in my cassette deck. #JasonGarnettneverforgotten.

The Ghost on Saturday Night

I bought ‘The Ghost on Saturday Night’ at a book fair in 1978. I can pinpoint the germ of many of my obsessions to the moment I finished this book. My fascination with post civil war America, séances and spiritualism, hucksters and snake-oil salesman all began here, a fact that never occurred to me until I pulled this book off my shelf today.

Published in 1974 by the prolific and quirky Sid Fleischman, who was part of A great late 60s and early 70s renaissance of innovative kids book writers. If you dig Fleischman, check out the work of Daniel Pinkwater, Tomi Ungerer, and Barbara Emberly.

The Ghost on Saturday Night is the tale of young Opie who lives with his curmudgeonly Aunt Etta. Opie has his heart set on saving up for a saddle for a horse his aunt will provide once he has the dough. Opie has carved out quite a niche for himself in Golden Hill, California. Seems his elevated olfactory and aural skills come in quite handy in a town plagued by sight reducing fog. One night a Professor Pepper comes to town bringing his ghost-raising act for one night only. In exchange for leading him to his hotel after a haircut Professor Pepper gives him and Aunt Etta free tickets to see him raise the ghost of the nefarious Crookneck John from the nether world.

I am not going to spoil the ending for those of you who want to seek out this spooky classic.

Read it for yourself, or turn on the 7 to 12 year old in your life to a great ghostly tale.

Through the Creaking Door into the Inner Sanctum

Somewhere around 1982 I was turned on to the magic of old time radio by my Grandfather and WCAU-AM. On nights the station wasn’t broadcasting Phillies games they would fill the 8-10 slot with rebroadcasts of shows from radio’s golden age. 

Upon first listen I was hooked. Every night the great 80s fightins’ weren’t playing I was glued to the radio. This carried through to the fall and the winter and over the course of the next 5 or 6 years.

The program list was quite eclectic. They played comedies (‘The Aldrich Family’, ‘Fibber McGee & Molly’), costumed crime-fighters (‘Superman’, ‘The Shadow’), detectives (‘Dragnet’, ‘Sam Spade’, ‘Nightbeat’) and Variety shows (‘The Jack Benny Show’, ‘The First Nighter’).

But the ones that really captured my imagination were the horror series.  The standard template for a horror series is much like the horror movie host template on Television, which followed a short time later in pop-culture history. A colorful host with a great big personality would introduce the tale, sometimes with a few bad puns, or deadly serious and then show up at the end to remind (or threaten) you to tune in next week.

Some shows were monsters and vampires and werewolves (‘TheHermit’s Cave’, ‘The Witch’s Tale’, ‘Dark Fantasy’) some were jet-black noirs (‘The Whistler’, ‘The Mysterious Traveller’). But my favorite contained elements of both style shows and the best host (‘Raymond’).

From 1941 to 1952, over the course of 500 episodes, Inner Sanctum escorted us through the creaking door to all manner of terror and chills. Serial Killers, demons, reincarnated animals, murderous spouses, just plain hard luck Joes and many many more poured out of the speaker and into your unsuspecting living room. Scary guys like Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre and Claude Rains regularly stopped by.

It was also a series of films in the 40's for Universal starring Lon Chaney, Jr. All six of which are great fun and well worth your time. 

Although 500 episodes were broadcast, only 200 survive, all of which I now have on file. Contact me if you’d like to hear more.

My favorite episode of them all was ‘Only the Dead Die Twice’. It tells the story of Johnny Brice, a hapless hearse driver whose longing for a better life and the sexy Vera Craig lead him through a downward spiral that ends in a midnight graveyard.

Here’s the whole episode.

Enjoy and pleasant dreams….hmmm?

What's All This Then?

Hi Everybody, I'm Greg Trout

For over 40 years I have been trolling yard and garage sales, rooting around at flea markets, whistling past the graveyard, and aimlessly roaming cities on both coasts.

During that time I have collected some artifacts and arcana. Some of it tangible, some merely ideas.

It's high time I share the 44 years in the attic and basement with you. 

Enjoy and feel free to email with questions, stories or ideas.