Been meaning to post this for a while and forgot every time. This was my original submission for the book. It got heavily edited, but the fact anything of it made it in there makes me a very happy man:
For a kid growing up in a coastal town in Australia in the late 70s and early 80s the breakdancing and ghettoblaster culture from the U.S seemed like eons away.
From seeing this urban culture for the first time I was captivated. Even from a very young age pop music had a big effect on me, and when I first saw a kid carrying a big portable stereo blasting Sugarhill Gang I thought this, and this generation, was going to be important and different to anything before.
I was young and impressionable though and it was no easy task to try and live this kind of musical lifestyle in my little town. The wave of this new street culture was peaking however and the worldwide rap/breakdance phenomenon was already washing into the bigger cities of Australia. All of a sudden it was a part of the usual 'talent quest' style shows to have skinny kids in track suits poppin' and lockin' to the awe of the studio audience. This wasn't me though, I was the fat kid in the school with the unathletic disposition and beyond introducing the moonwalk to my primary school class, this was as far as I would indulge in that side of the culture.
It was the music that was the spark for me. This incredible new sound. Unlike anything I'd heard previously, it just blew my mind and this part of the culture became my passion. For the first time the machine playing the music was in a perfect symbiotic relationship with the music itself. A big radio for even bigger beats. The power of the music with the power of it being broadcast. On a personal level this concept was the real essence of what appealed to me.
The idea of the ghettoblaster was something I wanted to be a part of. It struck every chord in me about what music and experiencing what that music was all about. I wanted to share these new sounds with everyone and had dreams of walking the streets of my town blasting the latest and greatest hip hop and electro tracks. This was to be only a dream for a long time however as my youth and lack of any income were two massive hurdles to overcome.
This was to change when I began to get part time summer work and managed to scrounge and save just enough for a low spec, but still great looking no-name 3 piece radio. It was just over $100 and it was my pride and joy. This was my first big purchase of anything in my life and it was my leap from buying Star Wars figures to buying music. The sound out of my first radio wasn't great, and it took far too many batteries for me to be able to run it outside as often as I'd like, but this was my 'connection'. This was my most empowering moment as a kid; to be able to give my passion for music a voice that I could share.
That radio got used day in and out, I spent hours reconfiguring the speaker placement for the best stereo separation, then reassembled her back together to take over to a friends house for sleep overs and recording the American Top 40 late on Sunday nights when I should've been fast asleep. I wasn't living the urban street culture I'd idolised for years, but I was incorporating it into my life as best I could. These times introduced me to The Beastie Boys, Run DMC, Grandmaster Flash, Rock Steady Crew, LL Cool J, Paul Hardcastle, The Fat Boys and many, many others. I found myself finding more obscure music shows on independent radio stations that had incredible new music every week and began making tape compilations of my favourite mixes and artists that I'd share with my friends. It was a great time and my expanded working hours after school meant I got to upgrade to a bigger more powerful ghettoblaster.
My new Philips Compo, with Dolby, soft touch buttons and a dancing LED meter became my new partner in the summer of 1985. My father bought me a turntable that year for my birthday, which was my most favourite birthday present ever. I started buying vinyl and making more mixes. I bought a cheap 4 channel Radio Shack mixer and attempted to do crossfade mixes of my favourite songs, usually with very little success. But these were exciting times. The music and the ghettoblaster were one for me. It was like a symmetry of sound, vision and function.
I grew older, began taking on more teenage interests and grew up a bit along the way. The Philips Compo died after a couple of years of intensive use and the music changed. I discovered heavy metal in high school and went down that path, eventually being vocalist for my city's first death metal band and being a part of the global demo tape trading scene. New music came and went, and the older I got the less any new music began sounding new anymore; I'd always go back to that period in the early to mid 80s when the music was so new and innovative.
I guess the older you get the more you appreciate what influenced you when younger and what you let become part of you. The older I became the more I wanted to recapture and reignite those times and began to try and get back to what it was all about. It was always about the ghettoblasters to me, they were always the ultimate marriage of music and audio player. Thanks to the internet and the boombox community on Stereo2Go.com I have managed to live the dreams I wished when I was younger. My collection of ghettoblaster grows and they make their way into my daily life. Carrying them to work blasting the now classic hip hop and electro I grew up with seems to have completed the circle nicely indeed, and every time a young kid asks me what I'm playing and why I'm not using an iPod I always love telling them what the musics all about.
Rocking On In Belmont Australia
I thought I'd post it here before I forgot again as I thought some of you guys might get a kick out of it.
Rock On.
. Well, since I was early, they were a bit early and I got to open my present before my B-day (which is tomorrow).... Point being, I just saw this question, Bobby. You were right about the 60mp camera. 
Lyle was using a $40,000+ 60MP medium format camera. I believe it was this one here: 
