VICE J

At 252 Front Street, cartons came before songs. The building housed a radio-cassette import counter; upstairs, a demonstration room contained six sockets and one chair facing the bay. Customers could compare loudspeakers while watching the east bridge, whose immobility offered an excellent basis for comparison. In March 1984, deliveries still crowded the landing. One partition retains their pencilled height marks, measured in boxes rather than centimetres. The room smelled of new cardboard, packing foam and cables freshly removed from their bags. Nobody had yet worked out how to put a price on the view.

Vice J began in that room in autumn 1984, when people started anticipating demonstrations more eagerly than the equipment. The sales counter retreated downstairs; a console replaced the row of tape decks and record sleeves filled the manual drawers. A returned demonstration cassette with a precisely timed running order established the station’s method: prepare carefully, then let the music open the windows. Old “test” labels stayed on unused controls. Sakura’s temporary locker joined the permanent fittings without anyone having to settle the question of its name. The single demonstration chair remained available to listeners who arrived without an appointment.

Heat trapped behind frosted glass was the first enemy. Machines slowed down, the fan supplied its own percussion, and a foam delivery accidentally turned the entrance into an acoustic tunnel. Ventilation improved, the roof cable received protection, and two panels stayed to insulate the control room. In September 1985, the minute recorded at the east bridge became a special broadcast: sixty seconds of horns between two tracks, presented without shortening them. Listeners called to identify their cars. The station kept the call sheet, its first written proof that the surrounding soundscape also had an audience.

Today, the studio overlooks a ribbon of taxis, a piece of sky and the bridge still raised. Drawer fronts close with a gentle click; the Star Child introduction returns every three tracks. Warm paper scents the manuals that nobody throws away. The setting sun turns the frosted glass pink and makes the roof’s waterproofing strips shine gold. The demonstration chair remains in position, facing the bay: visitors may sit without buying a machine, and leaving with a song in their heads is now considered a perfectly satisfactory result for the counter.

LITTLE STORIES

• Manuals are sorted by size, songs by mood.
• An empty box reads “fragile: silence”.
• The chair retains its crossed-out price.
• The fan appears on a percussion specification sheet.
• The returns drawer holds postcards.

THE NEIGHBOURS

• Future Phone : Future Phone at 248 lends demonstration cables, labelled by the station before their return.
• Golden Pawn : Golden Pawn at 244 sets aside tape decks with their complete power supplies.
• Nightshift Finance : Nightshift Finance at 234 keeps a paper copy of the repair budget dry.