A close friend of mine turned 40 today. He and his wife emigrated from the UK to here in .au a couple of years ago
and I've become good friends with both of them. Royston is heavily into reggae/dub and hip hop and when he came
over to my place for the first time and saw my blaster collection he was in heaven.
Over the last few months we've employed him to paint and renovate our house so I get to see him a lot. He has a real
passion for the radios as we do, and when I tell him I've a new one on it's way he's almost as excited as I am. This for me
is a HUGE novelty, as none of my other local friends are interested in my hobby outside of saying 'that's cool' or 'you
aren't carrying that to work, are you??'. I share my passion almost exclusively with you guys on here as I know what it's
like dealing with people who have strong passions about things you aren't interested in, only so many polite nods can
happen until you start wishing you could change the subject of the conversation. I'm very aware of this, so I'll rarely spout
off about my radios unless someone asks and sounds genuinely interested.
Anyway, Royston LOVES boomboxes and being able to share my love unabashedly and unfettered in his company is
always great fun. He also always recounts the horror story of throwing all his tapes out before they emigrated and it pains him
every time to think of all the great and rare reggae he's lost. Last year at his 39th birthday I said I'd get him something
special for his 40th, and he said 'If it's portableand has a tape deck it'll be special enough!'. So for the last year I've been
working on getting him something. I was hoping to be able to score an M-70 for him, but one never came up on ebay in
my price range. I'd always pay attention to which ones he really liked in my collection and worked out the features he
liked most. First he loved the size of the big onepiecers, then he really loved the 'guards' on the speakers like the big Lasonics.
Then he eventually let on that he prefered needlemeter VU's to LED's. For the last couple of months I was working out what to do.
Very little cropped up on ebay that I found good enough, so I started looking to my collection. The labouring over
which one I could realllly live without took quite a while.. I wanted this to be special, and I wanted to make sure it'd be
one he'd genuinley fall in love with. The winner? My Sharp GF-9000. This has all the features he loved, as well being
recently serviced and had had new JVC speakers recently put in her, so she sounded very nice indeed.
So today was the day for Royston's birthday. I recorded a great compilation of Garnet Silk's best tracks onto a nice quality cassette,
cleaned up the GF-9000 one last time and carried her over to their house, her last walk with me. It felt very strange! I've never parted
with any of my greatly loved radios before and that GF-9000 had a hell of lot of sentimental attachment, especially to people on here
(That's YOU Retro Addict!). This radio is a GREAT box to carry, excellent size and tremendous volume.. and it was on more than one
occassion on that walk that I thought I should go back home and get a different one for him!!
I turned up and hid the radio from his view and presented him with a card and a couple of new burned reggae cd's I'd made up for him
and told him there was something else for him, I got him to close his eyes and then presented him the 9000 and yelled HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
The combination look of shock and happiness was just awesome. He really wasn't expecting it, and I think he thought I could never part
with any of my big onepiecers. But his face, his face looked just like mine whenever I open a newly received radio, it was right then that
I truly felt like the joy I experience every day with my collection was shared by another.
It was a moment I'll not soon forget, and I'm sure it's one Royston won't either. The rest of the night that Garnet Silk tape got cranked out of the
9000 as it now became the source for the music of the party. All the guests first couldn't believe the size of it, then couldn't believe it still
worked and then finally couldn't believe the sound of it. Watching Royston changing sides of the tape and adjust the volume, carrying her around
and getting her in the the right position for the best throw for the sound was so much fun. During the night we talked a lot about her, he was
gushing over the 9000 at every given moment and he was already talking about getting another one, which i HEAVILY encouraged, of course!
Giving Royston a killer blaster for his birthday made his fortieth that extra bit special, no doubt.
But the joy of being able share in this with him in the way I did is a gift he's given me that is really one of the coolest experiences I've had
in this hobby since I started collecting.
Rock On.
and I've become good friends with both of them. Royston is heavily into reggae/dub and hip hop and when he came
over to my place for the first time and saw my blaster collection he was in heaven.
Over the last few months we've employed him to paint and renovate our house so I get to see him a lot. He has a real
passion for the radios as we do, and when I tell him I've a new one on it's way he's almost as excited as I am. This for me
is a HUGE novelty, as none of my other local friends are interested in my hobby outside of saying 'that's cool' or 'you
aren't carrying that to work, are you??'. I share my passion almost exclusively with you guys on here as I know what it's
like dealing with people who have strong passions about things you aren't interested in, only so many polite nods can
happen until you start wishing you could change the subject of the conversation. I'm very aware of this, so I'll rarely spout
off about my radios unless someone asks and sounds genuinely interested.
Anyway, Royston LOVES boomboxes and being able to share my love unabashedly and unfettered in his company is
always great fun. He also always recounts the horror story of throwing all his tapes out before they emigrated and it pains him
every time to think of all the great and rare reggae he's lost. Last year at his 39th birthday I said I'd get him something
special for his 40th, and he said 'If it's portableand has a tape deck it'll be special enough!'. So for the last year I've been
working on getting him something. I was hoping to be able to score an M-70 for him, but one never came up on ebay in
my price range. I'd always pay attention to which ones he really liked in my collection and worked out the features he
liked most. First he loved the size of the big onepiecers, then he really loved the 'guards' on the speakers like the big Lasonics.
Then he eventually let on that he prefered needlemeter VU's to LED's. For the last couple of months I was working out what to do.
Very little cropped up on ebay that I found good enough, so I started looking to my collection. The labouring over
which one I could realllly live without took quite a while.. I wanted this to be special, and I wanted to make sure it'd be
one he'd genuinley fall in love with. The winner? My Sharp GF-9000. This has all the features he loved, as well being
recently serviced and had had new JVC speakers recently put in her, so she sounded very nice indeed.
So today was the day for Royston's birthday. I recorded a great compilation of Garnet Silk's best tracks onto a nice quality cassette,
cleaned up the GF-9000 one last time and carried her over to their house, her last walk with me. It felt very strange! I've never parted
with any of my greatly loved radios before and that GF-9000 had a hell of lot of sentimental attachment, especially to people on here
(That's YOU Retro Addict!). This radio is a GREAT box to carry, excellent size and tremendous volume.. and it was on more than one
occassion on that walk that I thought I should go back home and get a different one for him!!
I turned up and hid the radio from his view and presented him with a card and a couple of new burned reggae cd's I'd made up for him
and told him there was something else for him, I got him to close his eyes and then presented him the 9000 and yelled HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
The combination look of shock and happiness was just awesome. He really wasn't expecting it, and I think he thought I could never part
with any of my big onepiecers. But his face, his face looked just like mine whenever I open a newly received radio, it was right then that
I truly felt like the joy I experience every day with my collection was shared by another.
It was a moment I'll not soon forget, and I'm sure it's one Royston won't either. The rest of the night that Garnet Silk tape got cranked out of the
9000 as it now became the source for the music of the party. All the guests first couldn't believe the size of it, then couldn't believe it still
worked and then finally couldn't believe the sound of it. Watching Royston changing sides of the tape and adjust the volume, carrying her around
and getting her in the the right position for the best throw for the sound was so much fun. During the night we talked a lot about her, he was
gushing over the 9000 at every given moment and he was already talking about getting another one, which i HEAVILY encouraged, of course!
Giving Royston a killer blaster for his birthday made his fortieth that extra bit special, no doubt.
But the joy of being able share in this with him in the way I did is a gift he's given me that is really one of the coolest experiences I've had
in this hobby since I started collecting.
Rock On.
= 
I would say your passion for this hobby exceeds that of anyone else on this board. And THAT is the reason you need to come to either a Sunshine Mix or future Boomfest. 
