Welcome to the Future?

[Travis]

During the early '70s when I was a regular participant on the Mason Dixon Line, the subject of music came up. Mason asked, "What would music be like in the future?" At the time, artists were beginning to experiment with electronic sounds in their music such as those produced by the moog synthesizer. There was even a popular series of albums with titles like, 'Switched on Bach, Switched on Mozart, Switched on this... that and whatever.

Of course, we scratched our heads and thought about what life would be like by the year 2000. Flying cars, space age designed homes, robot servants, colonies on the moon and/or other planets. We were inspired by the science fiction writers and visionists of that time (or in my case... The Jetsons! DOH!!!).

So what would music be like in the future? Most of us thought of the moog synthesizer and speculated that all music would have a futuristic sound much like the 'Switched on Bach' records. It was all that our imaginations could envision back in 1971.

As Mason Dixon closed the show, possibly by playing Zager & Evans' 'In the Year 2525', little did we realize that the music which would play some 34 years later would be the same old tunes that were playing right then and there. We just did not foresee the aging of the baby-boomers as creating a market for the oldies & classic rock that's all over the radio these days. Welcome to the future.

[Max]

Yes, the music that WAKY conveyed to listeners 30-40 years ago stands stories above hip-hop, rap, and so called Top 40, which is nothing more than these two genres. Borrowing the title of a Styx tune, we really did live in the Best of Times, didn't we?

[RJC]

The only kind of music I can stand today is hard rock, and even that's starting to get stale. I mostly listen to talk radio anymore, and get my music from the net.

Oh and Travis, I just downloaded the last Mason Dixon show, and I heard a caller named "Travis", would that be you?

[Travis]

Guilty as charged, RJC. I can also be heard on the final Weird Beard program trying to talk like a professional pro-nounce-ker (as Gary Burbank would say). I nearly fell out of my chair the first time I heard it. And that was 34 years later after Mike Griffin found the tape and submitted it to John Quincy for this site. I was 17, with a terrible cold that night, and those were the first words that I ever said over WAKY without having done so over a telephone. That's why Weird says, "I can hang up on him now" after I do the break. I can still see that AKG microphone with its grey oval shaped windscreen pointing right in my face. It was a bit overwhelming, a bit frightening, certainly awful, but a major highlight in my life.

[RJC]

I just wish I could have enjoyed Mason's show when it was actually on, being born in 68', that just wasn't possible(classic case of being born too late). I became a Mason Dixon fan in 1991 during the WKLO reunion, and was happy when he wound up on KISS 104's morning show. I really would like to see him have a show somewhere now, Mason deserves to be on the air right now.