The Weekend Spin: Introduction

I've been blogging for awhile now and I always feel bad when I don't post something to one of my blogs in a long time, especially when I give a lot of regular attention to another. For this particular blog, I know there are a lot of missed opportunities on my end as well. New records in my collection, interesting listening experiences, and cool collecting news are common occurrences in my life, yet my blog remains silent. 

On one of my other blogs The Grand Emperors: Retro Video Game Blog, I have a series called 8-bit Friday's that I put out on a weekly or bi-weekly basis and covers some of my new game purchases, and game plays that may occur over a weekend. So I decided to maybe try that formula here as well. With the goal being to talk about what records I may have purchased that week, and what listening experiences I've had over a weekend. Unlike my 8-bit Fridays articles where I buy and play multiple games, my goal here is to try to buy, and listen to one record at a time. Of course as I say that I need to indicate that the record being bought is not always going to be the same as the one being listened to. My logic behind this is that a lot of the records I'm looking to buy in the near future I have to order online, so as one is being bought another is being listened to. I'll also put it out there that I have a small stack of records that were given to me that I haven't had a chance to listen to yet, and they may be joining part of the buy or listen list as finds.  

Of course I have a few other issues in this as well, such as the fact that regular weekend listening isn't always possible since my main record player is in my living room, and sometimes the suggestion of listening to a record on a Friday or Saturday night can be hotly contested. My goal was to eventually build myself and amateur audiophiles area in my basement but that has yet to come to fruition. I also have had some fantasy about having friends and neighbors over for a platter parties  in which my living room record player was the center focus, but I know that will never come to be. With all that said once a record is on my troubles aren't necessarily over, since actually listening to the record can sometimes be an issue over household and kid noises. 

Juxtaposed to all that there are benefits too, such as the fact that records can be played during dinner, or even taken in on comfy couches with a few good glasses of wine. As matter of fact red wine and records was once a regular Saturday night occurrence and I wouldn't mind returning to it. That also makes me wonder if I should occasionally throw a wine or beer pairing in as well. 

Anyway, I'm looking forward to this new series and I hope you are too. I also should probably mention that Diary of an Amateur Vinyl Record Collector and The Grand Emperors: Retro Video Game Blog will actually be coming under one banner on a shared website pretty soon so look for that as well. 

The Last Records of 2016, and 2017's Horizon

So here we are well over a month since Christmas, and I'm just now discussing the records I got for Christmas. If your household is anything like mine though, the house remains in relative holiday upheaval until somewhere near mid-January. It's by this time the decorations should be fully down and put away, and that you start to make some connection to where you left off on things before Thanksgiving arrived. To me this meant connecting back with some of my hobbies, including record collecting and the act of just listening to records. So what better place to start all that back up than with my vinyl Christmas presents.

This year I was lucky to get two vinyl items off my Amazon list. The first is Meghan Trainor's Thank You on special edition duel colored 180g. The other was the special edition of Mumford & Sons Babel: The Singles, which is a special collection of the iconic Babel album broken down onto 45's, in all honesty it's only something a fan would collect.

A Brief Review of Thank You

If you listened to Meghan Trainor's debut album Title, then you'll know she primarily went with a modernized doo-wop sound, much like her iconic It's all About That Bass. Intermixed though where elements of genre's such as a bit of modern pop and hip-hop like Bang Dem Sticks, a song destined to be one of the albums deep tracks. In Thank You Meghan Trainor not only choose to reinvent herself with her change to red hair from blond, but also decided to ditch the doo-wop sounds that made her so famous to begin with, and focus on pop and hip-hop elements. The first single to come out of her new sophomore album was NO which had a catchy modern beat and worked well at introducing Trainor's overall new style.  Two months later Me Too was released, again another catchy pop song that served as a summer anthem in 2016.

Although a third single has yet really hit the top of the charts I will say other songs on the album, like Woman Up, and Champagne Problems have potential. Now, I could say that Trainor's sophomore album is, like many sophomore attempts, proof that the sophomore slump exists with newer artist, but that's hard to say in this case since its not an apples to apples comparison between Title and Thank You. I will say that I was expecting to hear at least a little bit of Trainor's signature doo-wop sound, but with that also said I will say that this is a pretty good pop album even if it hasn't fully caught on. I can't wait to hear what Ms. Trainor will be giving us on future albums.


Babel: The Singles

I actually already reviewed Babel a few years back when I got the 33' for Christmas, you can find the review here. This as previously stated is definitely a fan based set. Here Babel is broken down into 45's giving you that much more involved with the music feeling that only 45's can give you as you flip each over and switch them out on a single song level. Honestly speaking though if there is one album that needs a closer listening to its this one, since it's such a well done and beautiful piece of musical artistry.









2017's Horizon

For me record collecting has has always been a fairly casual pursuit in the way of a hobby, but of course that's just me and I know that there are some folks out there who take all of this very seriously, and that's their prerogative. I guess I have more of a relaxed outlook on it though since I've been part of a generation that has the ability to carry it's favorite music everywhere. This especially includes those not so relaxed places like work, in the car during traffic jam, or even while working out. CD's, electronic formats, and even tape cassettes have in many ways made the past 30 years about hearing music, but not hearing the music. So the return to records has presented me with the ability to stop and listen to music in a setting that is more conducive to actually hearing and appreciating the music more. This is also one of the reasons I now purchase most of my new music (like the above) on vinyl, with the added bonus of the electronic download element.

The interesting part about the return to vinyl, is that as it's had some interesting repercussions on other music mediums recently. A few years ago I wrote and article on this blog called To Old Tech, or Not To Old Tech about how I have debated making a multiple CD player, and tape deck part of my listening room. At the time, now three and a half years ago, I wondered when this old tech would receive the attention that records were starting to receive at that time, as it turns out for cassettes that time is now. On my facebook page for this blog, I posted an article a few weeks back about the surprise increase in demand for cassettes in 2016, or as the article would state a 74% increase between 2015 and 16'. It sounds very impressive but demand for new recorded music cassettes in numbers actually went from 74,000 in 2015 to 129,000 in 2016. Not super impressive when you look at it that way, but this is also where vinyl started a few years back.

So what does all this have to do with 2017 for me? Well perhaps it's too late to make a New Years Resolution for collecting in 2017, but there are a few things I would like to attempt to do before this year ends;

• One is that I would of course like to expand my collection a bit more. 

• Also I would really like to have a choosen night every week when at least a few records get played, of course against the backdrop of a good dinner and a few glasses of wine would be perfect, but we'll see. 

• Lastly, I would like to expand into other mediums ever so slightly. I have some of my original tape cassettes on hand, and to be honest the concept of buying new music on a cassette is a bit thrilling even though outlets for new tapes are understandably sparse. 

My overall objective is to keep this a relaxed hobby that I enjoy, and love to share. 

  

Journey's: Escape

Where were you in 82'?

Have you ever seen Tron: Legacy? Probably one of the best scenes in the movie is when the main character Sam walks into his fathers old video arcade, flips the breaker and all the machines go on and Journeys Seperate Ways comes on the juke box. For a lover of retro games and old vinyl it gets your heart pumping, and really makes you miss the old days of great video arcades and music on a Saturday night. What's really interesting about the use of this song in Tron: Legacy is not just that it was popular when the first Tron movie came out in 1982, but that in this movie about video games Journeys 1981 album Escape had a video game based on it, also in 1982.

Thats right? The early 80's classic filled side to side with great music including songs like Seperate Ways, Don't Stop Believing, and Faithfully had a video game based on it. 

Jouney Escape Vinyl Album and Atari 2600 game. Be sure to check out my vinyl record collecting blog Diary of An Amateur Vinyl Record Collector at http://amateurvinylrecordcollector.blogspot.com/?m=1 or my retro video gaming blog The Retro Video Gaming Blog for the Mid-Core Gamer at http://retrovideogamingblog.blogspot.com/?m=1

The Album

Escape is actually Journeys eighth album, but it was the first to go to number 1 on Billboard. The album was released in July of 1981, and saw its first hit Who's Crying Now before 1981 was out. After that the album would see hit after memorable hit with Stone In Love exiting the charts in 1984. Escape would leave an indelible print on music of the early 80's and on music of the 80's in general, and would also influence the afore mentioned Tron, when Journey would be asked to do part of the original movies soundtrack. 

The Record

This was another eBay purchase that I am pretty pleased with. It was a quick transaction and the record came in exactly the condition described, which is in fantastic. No scratches or any thing else, nice clean play all the way through. Best of all its a great up beat album from start to finish, and really gets your night rolling by putting you in a good mood. As you can see in the photo above the album cover itself is also an phenomenal shape with its original shrink wrap and stickers still intact. It was another great buy on eBay and one heck of a bargain.

Journey: Escape - The Game

Data Age released Escape in 1982, and it was the first video game of its kind to be based on a popular music group and album. The game is actually fairly simple and consist of a black down scrolling screen and of a little man that you must control on the screen meant to represent a security guard trying to help the band to get to their scarab shaped escape vehicle, well also trying to hang onto the $50,000 in concert money. Along the way the little man avoid hearts with legs which are meant to be groupies, bodiless heads with mustaches and shifty eyes that are meant to be promoters, barricades, and flashing yellow lights which are meant to be paparazzi. Along the way you can get help from what appear to be little aliens with antennas but I understand they are actually meant to be roadies who give you the temporary power to walk through various obstacles. Also supposedly there is the band manager who looks inexplicably like the Kool-Aid man and he is also supposed to help you although I have never run across him in my gameplay. Your ultimate goal is to reach the yellow scarab escape vehicle which you probably could pass-by pretty easily if you weren't looking for it,  and to reach it while hanginh onto as much of the concert money as possible. Keep in mind that each obstacle you walk into will take some of the money from you. Every time you help the band reach the escape vehicle a new level starts and each level gets progressively harder where obstacles no longer stay stationary but the begin to move towards you or cross the screen in random directions. The game obviously ends once all the money is taken from you.

As far as the game music the only actual Journey song we hear is Don't Stop Believing in the games intro, during the actual gameplay itself we are given some sort of generic music that is in no way related to anything by Journey.

Gameplay

Without going online and looking at the directions I had a hard time actually trying to figure out what the heck I was supposed to be doing and who was friend an who was foe coming at me. Luckily, I was able to find instructions on Atariage, and after that the game actually became pretty interesting and kind of fun,  and at times even challenging. 

Other then that it's  a pretty good game but there are a few things that I was little let down by. First of all considering Escapes album cover I expected the game to have some sort of sci-fi theme to it. After all the album cover for Escape shows a scarab breaking out of a planet or something into outerspace and then on the back of album shows the scarab zooming off into outer space. Of course that's fairly minor but the biggest letdown is that there wasn't any actual Journey music during gameplay. Sure it's nice to hear Don't Stop Believing in intro but it would have been cool to have actual Journey music throughout.

Overall though I have to say that I am really impressed by both the album and the videogame. Both Escape's are fantastically entertaining, although the album has much more and notoriety and is pretty well remembered, while the videogame lives obscurity. I can only imagine being a teenager in 1982 and feeling like I was on top of the world having Journey's Escape playing on the record player well I played the accompanying game on my Atari 2600. It must've been a heck of a way to waste a Saturday evening back then in what seemed like much simpler times. I have to say I thoroughly enjoy owning this album and I really have enjoyed having a chance to play the game. If you have a chance to buy this particular album on vinyl I would definitely suggest doing so because nothing else sounds the same. And if you have the chance to buy the Atari 2600 game for it do so as well. You won't be let down by either.

 

Unique "Records"

January 17, 2014

There are a lot of "unique" records out there, one that comes to my mind is a Transformers record I had as a kid. I remember conning my sister into buying it for me at Woolworth's for $3, and now I see it on eBay for $40, yikes. Anyway there are a lot of records out there with unusual music and/or subject matter, that would classify them as "unique".

But there are "unique" records, and than there are unique "records" today I found the latter on trip through a local thrift store.

That's right this is a yellow transparent record. The album itself is a show tune compilation Best of Old Broadway from the early 50's. 

It wasn't something I was looking to buy but after I saw the actual record I had to have it. Of course the cute redhead showgirl on the cover, and the fact that it is a fairly pleasent collection of music made buying it a bit easier. 

This is also the first record I have had a chance to play on the new record player I got for Christmas. 

So the record looks really cool on the record player, and is in really good shape meaning the beat up cover has done its job well the years. 

I also managed to pick up two additional 45's today as well. 

To feed my need for Bond songs I added this 45 of For Your Eyes Only by Sheena Easton. Side A is the actual song while Side B is the instrumental version. What surprises me is that considering it was the key song in a Bond film there is nothing on this 45 or sleeve to indicate that. If this record where to be sold now days it would come with markings all over it to market the single in connection with the movie and vice-versa. 

The song itself For Years Eyes Only is a bit of a snoozer and had my wife recollecting the days of easy listening stations while stuck in the back seat of her parents car on long trips. I had to agree this song was an 80's easy listening station standard, and hardly gets the heart pounding like the more modern Bond songs like Adele's Skyfall, or Garbage's The World is Not Enough. Overall though the 45 is in good shape, and allowed me to test my new records players ability to play 45's. 

The next 45 is Dionne Warwick's I'll Never Love This Way Again / In Your Eyes. I bought this one confusing it with I'll Never Fall In Love Again an early Dionne Warwick song I actually did like. I wonder if her Pyschic Friends told her I would be writing a blog about this single? Anyway these are familiar songs as well that definitely recollect those days of your parents easy listening stations in the 80's. The 45 itself is in good shape here too, becuase imagine it wasn't listened to a lot. Oh well, you win some, you lose some, but at $.50 I'm ok loosing on this one. 

But you know writing this particular blog posting a few interesting questions popped into my head that I would like to ask you my readers. 

1. What is the most unique "record" that you would ever found and/or may have in your collection? If you would like to go ahead and repost a picture with this that would be awesome, because I'd love to see what kind of strange and wacky vinyl items are out there.

2. What truly good songs did your parents easy listening station ruin for you?

Feel free to go ahead and add your comment to this post I love to see what everybody's answers are to these questions.

First Buys of The New Year

Saturday, January 4, 2014

With my $110 worth of gift certificates in my hand I wondered into the music store to hopefully get a few the records I really wanted. However thanks a certain time constraints and the fact that I wasn't able to get to the record store until about half hour they closed things didn't quite work out as I planned, especially with my youngest crying his head off in the car with my wife and my oldest feeling very anxious and pushy.

To say the least the $110 worth of gift certificates went untouched today, and the grand total of my record purchases came out to less than $10. But I did manage to make some pretty unique and also very nice selections in the little time I had.
 

My first selection was The Pretenders Learning to Crawl. In my personal opinion I believe The Pretenders are probably one of the most underrated bands of the 1980s. For the most part there music has always been upbeat, and delivered clearly and articulately, so as to allow you to enjoy the lyrics as well as the melody. This album had some truly great and memorable songs like Middle of The Road, and Back on the Chain Gang, as well as a few other hits. The rest of the album has non-stop great music on it, which makes it a pleasure to listen too. It was my favorite by today.

My second buy is Elvis Presley's, Blue Hawaii. This is one I actually bought for sentimentality since it was one of my mothers favorite albums as a teenager, and served as the center of a humorous story about her and her little brother. Its not a bad album but not one of Elvis's finest, and keep in mind its from the movie soundtrack for Blue Hawaii. The best song on it of course is also one of Elvis's finest "(I) Can't Help Falling in Love (With You)", so in a way the $2 I spent on this is worth it just for that.

Last but not least is Sammy Davis Jr at The Coconut Grove. What a fantastic buy! This is a two record set from as you may guess a live performance at the famous Coconut Grove nightclub in LA. I love the albums with these type of covers because you always know your going to get a truly intimate performance that could only be delivered in those old nightclubs. I'm not going to go into what songs are on it but its traditional Sammy Davis Jr faire. For me personally this album goes best with a quiet dinner at home over a steak, and a good glass of red wine, and with the lights dimed in my dining room its almost like being there.
 

Overall, these are some pretty good selections and I look forward to the year ahead with collecting new records.

By the way if you are reading this on Wordpress I would like you to know that I will be putting this same blog posts on Blogger as well at http://amateurvinylrecordcollector.blogspot.com/. I am will continue to post my blogs here as well since I have readers here in Wordpress, but if you have a hard time viewing my blog due to the backgrounds please head over there.

The Record Record: Ending the Year I Started collecting

Happy New Years! Well, close to it today's the 30th, so two days more. 

This being a New Years themed posting I wish I had a Guy Lombardo record to talk about with a recording of Auld Lang Syne on it. It's funny back during the summer when I was hitting the thrift shops for vinyl I must have come across a hundred Guy Lombardo records. Being summer though who thinks about New Years Eve, or that prime Nat King Cole Christmas album I passed up. Sorry for digressing! 

My journey this year starts off with me pulling my old Sony record player out of a box in the basement back during the Spring, with one 33 and a small collection on 45's, then having to hunt down an adaptor to connect it to my receiver. Now here I am at the end of the year with a small and growing collection of records including two new releases, and a new record player. 

When I started collecting I wanted to do it casually, picking up a record here and there and really getting to know that record and what separated it from the CD and/or electronic versions. For the most part that has been something I have been able to do, yet at the same time even on a casual basis vinyl collecting has been overwhelming. There are so many good records out there from so many genres waiting to be experienced in their true form.  So in a way I feel over my head, yet I am enjoying all the potential. 

As this year draws to a close I'm happy to have had the chance to get into vinyl records, as well as having the chance up write this blog, and experience some of the passion that comes with vinyl record collecting. So with that being said I would like to thank all of you who read this blog, and for the likes and the comments. I wish you all a Happy New Year, and I hope you watch for some of the new posts I will be adding next year.

Going Retro in More Then One Way

Do you have more then one hobby? I do, I have several, and sometimes I wish I didn't so I could just be really awesome at one in particular. But, sometimes I'm glad I do have more then one, because sometimes your hobbies teach you something about yourself especially when you have a few of them. 

What I find most interesting though is that two of my hobbies interconnect in a way I never thought they could. In a way dabbling in both of them is about reaching the same end, and appreciating what once was. And what are these two hobbies that can do this? Vinyl record collecting and retro gaming.

 

I know its odd to connect the two but you will see what I mean in a bit. See I got into vinyl record collecting back in late spring, but I had an interest in it for a long time. For me Vinyl record collecting is about really listening to the music. It's about the analog sound, the sound that represents analog music made by musicians going to my analog ears. Not perfect and corrected by clear digitalization, but true and imperfect with a real sound. 

You see that's what the vinyl movement is all about. I mean sure in theory digital sounds better and is clear and crisp, but it lacks that connection of the artist at work. Even the record itself seems so much truer and realer then a CD, and that tangibility is definitely much more satisfying then electronically downloaded music. A record and it's cover just seem to be so much more. There is this whole unexplainable experience and nostalgia about it that you have to go through to truly understand and appreciate it. 

In a way though that same thinking isn't all that different from that of the retro video gaming movement. As matter of fact there are many parallels between the two. For retro gaming its about experiencing games as they once where, about the nostalgia, and about the feeling. The cartridge or disc, and the feel of the controller of whatever type it is, all produce an experience new games can't give you. Retro games like vinyl are about the experience, and what memories those experiences can produce. 

There are even those times when the annoying things bring you joy. Like when a record skips, or a needle gets stuck, or when you have to blow into an NES cartridge to get a game to work the right way, or keep taking out and putting back in an Atari cartridge. 

That is the thing about these two hobbies the memories, the nostalgia, and the wholeness that the real deal of the sights and/or sounds can put before you. The sensation of the controller in your hands or the vibration of those imperfect analog beats hitting you body, produce a sense of reality that is almost like a time machine. 

In a way that's what a record player or an old video game console are, time machines. Mechanical devices that have the ability to transport you back to someplace you use to be, even if it is just figuratively and for a moment or two. 

That's the other thing, for me it's not just about collecting, it's about actually playing and enjoying both games and records. I couldn't just gaze at a video game in its original box, or a record in its cover sealed up. I believe those things need to be enjoyed, and there would be no way I could just leave them alone on a shelf. 

I'm posting this on both my vinyl record collecting, and Retro video gaming blog and I would encourage you to visit this blogs counterpart. 

Diary of an Amateur Vinyl Record Collector

http://amateurvinylrecordcollector.blogspot.com/?m=1

The Retro Video Gaming Blog for the Mid-Core Gamer 

http://retrovideogamingblog.blogspot.com/?m=1

Return of the Record Collector: The Interesting Find

Ok, I'm back after a frustrating last few weeks. But I have managed to pick up a few more records and even found an interesting piece of audio history. 

I stopped by Goodwill a few weeks back dodging the rain. I found some nicer finds there before, and unlike some other stores they don't have two foot tall stacks on a bottom shelf to sort through. But on this day I found something really interesting.

This is a Juliette multi-function audio system. On the top a three speed record player, and a recordable cassette deck. On the front an 8-track player, and AM/FM stereo with all the extras. 

So I bet your asking, did you buy it? No! The reason being is that Goodwill wanted $125 for this system. For a piece of equipment from I'm guessing the late 70's, from a company I never heard of that is a bit too high. Although they would have found a buyer in me at $40. 

As for the company, Juliette I never heard of them. It occurred to me that it may be an old in-house Montgomery-Ward brand, but as I looked into it that is not the was not the case. 

What I found most interesting about this system is that its an interesting piece of transitional technology. Seeing both 8-track and cassette on the same system is kind of unique, especially considering cassette replaced 8-track as a portable audio media. As you look at this system it seems as if the 8-track and record player are the stars of the show, but it's interesting to think that a system like this would have allowed a user to create mixer tapes or just straight out copies of records and 8-tracks. So that tape player hidden on the record deck would as time went by, become the true star of the show or that is until CDs. 

As you know from my previous posts I do have an interest in old audio technologies, and this system peaked my interest in 8-track. To be honest it was ever so slightly before my time, and I had known it more as the butt of many jokes. I had to wonder though what did 8- track sound like? Luckily my brother in law came to the rescue, with some fairly fond memories of 8-track and of having 8-track and cassette at the same time. From what I understand 8-track audio was was actually superior to cassette, since 8-track was a descendent of 2-track a.k.a. Reel to Reel tape. 2-track was actually considered to have the highest fidelity, and was and in some cases still is, used by the recording industry to make the masters that everything from vinyl to nowadays electronic formats are based on. It was explained to me once how the "tracks" work, I forgot a lot of it but most of what I do remember is very technical and a bit more then I want to add here. 

To say the least I will continue on record shopping for now, and leave 8- track for another time. But I still have to admit this system was an interesting find.

Reuniting with a Record Recollections

August 14, 2013

Well today a text came into me on the way home from work "A package came for you. What's in it?". What was it it was my first record purchase off eBay, and a long lost record set. I finally had gotten the entire set my grandparents had given me that, had been given away with my Fathers records. 

In a previous posting I mentioned that I had record 6 from this collection, as my sole survivor patiently waiting in the record player when I found it. Well now I have two of those, plus record 2 which was missing from my grandparents set. 

To say the least I must have played three of the records right away. It drove my family a little nuts, but man was it good to hear those records again.

Rummaging through Resale for Records

August 10, 2013

Earlier in the week my eldest son and I ran in and out of a local thrift shop in search of records, and we where in luck. Four stacks about two feet high of vinyl, but hard to tell what was in them. One record I did dig out was a Louis Jordan album, it had a lot of good songs on it, but pressed for time again I put it back and we left just as quickly as we had arrived. 

Finally today on a Saturday with nothing to do we got back there. My eldest son was there mainly because he wanted to get out of the house. But he was helpful in sorting through the pile that had now become six stacks. But my goal of grabbing that Louis Jordan record was dashed, either someone bought it of it was moved in the creation of more piles. 

Being a late Saturday morning the store was crowded making it hard to look at the records, especially since they where stacked horizontally in such tall piles on a shelf closest to the floor. Feeling my wife's annoyance about going there I put a cap on myself to spend no more then $5. 

Sons of the Pioneers although an odd choice for me I figured would have a unique sound on vinyl. I kind of always dug the old timey Cowboy Music they sang and figured on vinyl something would be added. On vinyl it actual does sound unique, but this release can from the group as they where older, probably in the late 1950's early 60's. So although its all the classic songs of theirs, that element of Sons of the Pioneers in their prime ala the late 30's into the 40's is lost. 

I also grabbed the original Broadway cast recording of My Fair Lady. One of the reasons I grabbed it was because it was one of the records my parents had on their collection (perhaps this is that very same record????). I remember my sister loved this record and would put in on many a Saturday morning while doing housework. The other reason is that it is a great album and Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison are phenomenal in this, I must admit though I do prefer Audrey Hepburn as Eliza though. 

 

Lastly, I found some record sets towards the bottom of the piles. One of the ones I pulled out was a 6 LP, Dean Martin set. Ok, I will admit the cover looks very sappy early 60's, but there are a lot of great songs on the set.

The Record Player

July 28, 2013

It was crazy how quickly I found the record player. I thought for sure the box it was in was buried under a pile of boxes in the basement and it would take me several weeks to find it. Somehow though in my wife's hurry to move things out of the way to light the hot water heater she moved things and the box with the record player ended up on top of a stack of plastic containers. So all I had to do was open it and there it was.

For some strange reason I had it in my head it was a Panasonic or Technics record player, since I have a love for Panasonic, but the turntable is a Sony. As I got it upstairs and on to my kitchen table I realized the belt was loose. I popped off the rubber pad, and the metal turntable, and the belt was rolled into a ball in the corner. I was a little freaked out, I had no idea how to loop it or if it was broken. I gave it a shot to see if I could figure out where it went with no luck. 

I turned to the Internet looking for some instructions, and found virtually nothing that could help. Then I turned to YouTube, no luck for Sony turntable belts. Finally, in desperation I dropped the Sony part, and finally I caught a break. There where several videos and even though the one I watched was for a JVC turntable the idea was the same. The belt loops around that metal turntable and was an easy fix, thanks to the video. 

Now for my next dilemma. The receiver even though it was from 1999 still had a RCA jack for a phonograph no big issue. The turntable though has jacks that only stretch about a foot out of the back, and I need at least three feet of cable to make it to my receiver. I need RCA female to female connectors, I thought I had a pair but I can't find them. It's already late on a Sunday night so my dreams of hearing that staticky-ness of vinyl music will have to wait.