Story of our Lives, vol. 0.5, part the first

After reviving the old 'Story' series and trying to reconstruct it in mp3-cd format, I decided to search my memory (and some of my old tapes from junior high school) and recreate what I had recorded off of Q104, 92J, and I-95 (local radio stations) back in the day. Most were the usual hits: Prince, Culture Club, Simple Minds, Cyndi Lauper, etc. However, there were a few gems that might have been more familiar to someone living in a more "hip" town, but in backwoods Alabama, they might have been considered 'punk' (according to the conservative tastes of my peers) or 'strange': Baltimora's 'Tarzan Boy', Bronski Beat's 'Smalltown Boy', Adam Ant. Hell, even Prince was considered a freak at my high school, which had the highest levels of homophobia (which I was half-way part of, since I didn't know any better, and if anyone was gay at our school, they sure didn't tell anyone there) and teen auto fatalities.

Anyway, here's a few files for those who might want to hear what I was playing on my Sears boombox back in '84 and '85.

Night Tracks (late '83-'84; named after the TBS knockoff of MTV; I grew up in the only part of Calhoun County that didn't have cable, so I could watch this via a TV antenna booster on channel 17)

Avanti-Omni (1984; named after the cheap 3 for $1 tapes that I used to buy at Big B drugs before I learned about sound fidelity. At the time, all I cared about was getting the song on tape for my boombox and/or Walkman)

Sony-Nitetime (1984-85; moved up to Sony tapes in '85. Nitetime is named for certain songs that I remember being played on Q104 right before I went to sleep at night. With the lights out, the only illumination was the red led meter.)

Band Bus (these are much larger):
Frosh (1985-86; my freshman year and first year in the marching band. We played music when we went to away games and competitions and my boombox was the loudest we had, so I played DJ even when I was 14)

Soph (1986-1987; sophomore (and last) year in the band.

(track listings in comment section)

Enjoy! If any questions, just shoot a comment.

(I know the Frosh file is big - 226 megs - but if you download anything, grab that one first; the sheer breadth of pop music from '85 to '86 is worth it)