I've been banned

[downfader]

From listening to classical music at work.

I like it. I dont see what their problem was, but 4 people threatened to make an "official complaint" about it to the Boss. Charming. Its not as if I play it loud, or play offensive music. I'm even out of the way of everyone else in a potwash area.

My colleague who came down to break the news to me said she's been told to retune the radio station to something "more local." She puts on Wave106 (I think its called) and theres that Rihanna chick singing "ride it, ride it, ride it COWBOY!!"

Err yeah..? How is that NOT offensive?

 

[montage]

wave 105 you mean?


Complain about it. If you can't hog the radio, nobody can, muwhaha

 

[Glow worm]

She puts on Wave106 (I think its called)

Now that really is offensive! My barber insists on inflicting a thing called Star 107.1 on me whenever I go for a haircut- I'm thinking of doing him for assault!

 

[dan_bo]

I can borrow you a couple of roy harper CDs if you want. That will fry their chocs.

 

[Night Train]

We get local Lanchashire hissssssshhhhssssshhhhssss kkkkkkkkhissssssssshhhhhhssssssssskkkkk kksksisisusshkkkkkhhhhissss radio.

It annoys the heck out of everyone but it is always on!

 

[downfader]

105, yeah thats it. Would listen to R2 but cant always get it (too much steel and concrete in the building I think)... they're going to be sooo annoyed when the digital switch comes. Their radios are all analogue, we cant get a digisignal there either. No one is going to spend £30 on a radio either

EDIT: had to remind myself who Roy Harper was.. blush.

 

[Fab Foodie]

downfader I'm with you, our Lab radio was always blaring Heart FM-shoot, so is the car radio and often the kitchen radio. Oh, turn on R3 or Classic FM for 5 mins you get abuse.
I'm working from home from time to time now and I have R3 on in the background ... Bliss.

 

[longers]

In our last workshop we ended up with Classic FM or R3 as a good compromise, can't see it happening at this place.
Shame really as it was pretty relaxing to work along to.

 

[jonesy]

In our last workshop we ended up with Classic FM or R3 as a good compromise, can't see it happening at this place.
Shame really as it was pretty relaxing to work along to.

Don't let srw know, you'll get an outraged harrumph of disapproval!

I've become quite a fan of Classic FM, especially while working at home. Relaxing and not distracting, and as I'm sadly very uninformed about classical music I've found it a good way to get into it.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Don't let srw know, you'll get an outraged harrumph of disapproval!

I've become quite a fan of Classic FM, especially while working at home. Relaxing and not distracting, and as I'm sadly very uninformed about classical music I've found it a good way to get into it.

It's easy to be sniffy about Classic FM, it's the 'easy-listening' end of Classical music, pleasant, relaxing, not too challenging. It's great to fall asleep too. On the positive, it'a gateway station and once smitten you can move onto the more hard-core R3.
Problem is that so few people have any appreciation of Classical music at all, and that's a bad thing, there's much beauty, power and raw emotion in Classical music which makes Heart FM shoot appear so insipid.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

We used to have a guy at the factory who buckled under the weight of Radio 2 every now and then and insisted on some classical music. It's quite a surreal experience to walk out onto a manufacturing shop floor and have Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake blasting out.

 

[downfader]

I was always raised to beleive that music is "the music of the people", and thats how I feel about classical. It wouldnt have existed for 400 years had it not been for normal people liking it. Just lately there appears to be a bit of a thing on the telly that classical is somehow elitist. I'm working class, old-school Labour supporting family etc. To me I dont see the elitist thing at all. If anything is elitist its the pop music in places like Radio 1, pigeon-holing kids into genres and groups and labelling them as failures when they disagree.

Music should be for everyone.

I really like Classic FM. Not so much R3. I have some esoteric stuff at home already on CD (Prokoviev, Shostkovic -sp?, Glass and so on)...

 

[ColinJ]

I worked a night shift in a factory for a year while I was saving up to go back to university. One of my fellow workers had a very small selection of tapes*** to play on his ghetto blaster large portable stereo system. I had to listen to his choice of music droning away in the small hours and that included the entire Bat Out Of Hell album played three times every single night ...

I want you
I need you
But there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you
Now don't be sad
'Cause two out of three ain't bad

[media]
]View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8JA9Qs2Mho[/media]


Aaargh, I'm having flashbacks now, and it is nearly 30 years on!

Finally, I decided that it was time for a change so I took some of my tapes in. I played some Joy Division for the lads, followed by an interesting Soft Machine album. I thought that The Mahavishnu Orchestra played loud might boost their sagging energy levels at 3 am. There were rumblings of discontent. I stuck Terry Riley's A Rainbow In Curved Air on and went to the canteen to make myself a mug of tea.

[media]
]View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVc2tJUjeZU[/media]


When I came out, Bat Out Of Hell was playing again ...

One of the older men came up to me with a paper bag in his hand. He waved the bag at a rather large piece of industrial machinery - "That is a 10 ton press. These are your tapes. We don't want to hear them again!"

I hate you
I loathe you
And there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you
Now it's driving me mad
'Cause three times a night's real bad!



*** a (cassette) tape was a small electromechanical music storage device once used by very old people before the internet was invented, way back in the days when if you wanted to find out what your friends were doing you had to get on your bike and actually go and visit them!

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

I remember having to listen to a Dean Martin tape about 16 hours a day aboard a ship for several weeks until I cracked and hit a 18-stone motorbiker on the nose. Said biker had previously had a serious accident that had left him with no nerve ends in his face, so he didn't even sway when I hit him. It was the last person I ever hit. Not feeling it kind of upset the promise of release.

But if you ever play a Dean Martin tape to me in a confined environment I may lose it again...it feels just like a personal physical assault.

I love classical music but hate opera singers. I have to trade off falling asleep to something soothing and serene with being woken up in the dark of night by some Diva pushing her voice somewhere where god never intended it to go. My hatred of opera is so deep that I end up listening to the eternal gabbling talky-talkiness of the BBC World Service at night.

 

[brockers]

back in the days when if you wanted to find out what your friends were doing you had to get on your bike and actually go and visit them!

Further to ColinJ's factory floor music reminiscences, I recall* dreadful night shifts on the snack egg line at Pork Farms in Nottingham in the mid eighties. Radio Trent Playing Frank bloody Ifield's 'I Remember You - oo' seemingly every hour for twelve hours, six nights a week, for three months. I start to twitch if I hear it now.

*....the thrill of it all...