Music in Taxis

So, what have you heard in taxis? Do you have any taxi music or dispatcher stories?

My mom and I took a ride back home (from a visit to Japan). I was playing a Fluxus CD, I think. Although listening with headphones so not to annoy anyone, the driver could still here some strange sound. He thought something was wrong with his car. My mother had to explain I like weird music.

On the way back from the train station today, we had some Gary Numan. Not interesting, I know, but...

I used to get taxi drivers who were listening to the BBC World Service; these drivers probably were better informed on world affairs than I was. Nowadays all the drivers I get are yakking away on cell phones throughout the trip.

the last time i was in a taxi was maybe a month and a half ago in providence. i was tired and heartbroken, and in no particular mood to talk. we had a bit of a drive ahead though, so, in order to break the awkward silence, the driver asked a question in a very thick new england accent. "hey, you like the rock and roll music?" "yeah, i like the rock and roll". "you like that band Yes?". i was no particular fan, but didn't want to dissapoint the guy. "Sure, i like Yes". "Last night i saw Yes for the twenty-sixth time". "That's incredible". "No. THEY were incredi

This actually happened to my cousin, not me, but meh.

Trying to get home from a party one night, she called for a cab from her friends house. When it arrived everything seemed normal. They got into the car, and it drove off.

"Welcome to the lounge," said the driver, and leered at her suggestively.

Then, after a brief pause, he thrust what looked like a restaurant menu into her lap. "Please choose your music."

Not knowing quite what to do, she scanned down the (rather sizeable, aparrently) list and just asked for the first thing that caught her eye: "Err.. Could I listen to The Jimi Hendrix Experience?"

"Most certainly," said the cabbie, as he pulled out a massive CD wallet and selected the appropriate disc.

About two minutes into Foxy Lady, the driver leaned over and asked "Do you mind if I pick up a mate?"

"Umm..."

"He's on the way, and I'll give you a discount."

"Err... okay."

So they pull up somewhere and pick up this guy who's wearing one of those floppy white cricket hats and is looking a bit odd. Almost as soon as he gets into the car he starts banging things in time with the music - the windows, the ceiling. Nothing agressive, just really strange.

They arrived at her destination, and she got out and paid a normal fare (with mate-pickup discount).

Werid.

This reminds me of a non-musical taxi story. I had a taxi and was picked up by a Pakistani driver. (He told me this at one point. In fact, if I recall correctly I think he described himself as a crazy Pakistani.) He said he was on the way to pick someone else up, but I should get in the front seat. He stopped once, rolled down the windows and told some people waiting at a bus stop that the buses weren't running. "Ha ha, they really are running," he says after we drive away. We got to where he was going and before we checked for the people he was supposed to pick up, he radioed in and said, "These people aren't here. I'm going to just turn my radio off and take my chances driving around." Then we picked them up. He says to them, "This is my friend here, in the front seat." The man lied practically from the beginning of the ride to the end of the ride. When I got out of the cab I underpaid my fare and said, "I know you don't know like to take money from me [your friend.]" I wish I had had the guts to just say, "Hey, since when do you charge your friend?"

for some reason i love getting in a cab and hearing reggae. no other place tho, just cabs. maybe it has something to do with the fact that every other cab i'm in i try to smoke weed.

Reggae in cabs in good, I agree. (Revive.) I was just thinking again about cab dispatchers.

TV in taxis is where it's at today though.
Upon leaving my beloved 20-year old Audi GT at the scrap yard to renounce driving altogether, instead of the usual POS the ride I called turned out to be a brand new black A8 model, with creme leather and a captivating live tennis final inside. I went from "fuck a car" to "I need one of those" in about 30 seconds.

Musically I do remember disco-like cabs tricked out with gadget lighting blasting cheap rave music in Santo Domingo, around 1992.

Every cab I seem to get has smooth jazz on the radio. To the point where I thought it was some sort of unwritten rule amongst taxi drivers. Maybe it's because the only time I take them is when I'm going to the airport, and the driver figures anyone going to the airport appreciates (or at least can tolerate) airport lounge music.

I noticed that while Pakistani and Haitian drivers in NY tend to listen to the music of their homelands, Russian cabbies (in my experience) almost unifromly blast lite-house megamixes that last the entire ride. Like with Dyson and reggae, a taxi is the only place in the world where I tolerate that shit.

"uniformly"

Mambo Taxi!
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