Piece Comment

Review of The Wire Episode 1: Hallo, Hallo


Good Look Back and Forward. Your mention of your 45 RPMs on the shelf makes me think of a few 78's I still have with nothing to play them on. Even one of the modern radio stations where I have been recently asked to do some work, no longer even has a turntable -- not to mention a reel-to-reel recorder (what's that? some may ask) but does have a couple of cart machines in Studio Z on the back lot.

I hope that a lot of stations in the United States will air your series. It seems to be not only good nostalgia for those who have been around for awhile, but good background, a good history for those born in the digital era to hear something of the progression of how audio was and is now captured.

You call your program, interestingly, "The Wire." I remember as a child actually seeing and hearing (faintly -- it wasn't that great but it did work) an old wire recorder. It was an analog recording device that actually recorded on, and played back from, a moving wire that wound from reel to reel much the way magnetic tape was later used moving past a recording/playback head. The wire was standard old thin-guage wire like you would see at many a farm (not the barbed kind -- the smooth, round single-strand steel wire). Very good job you're doing here!