Did you have a music centre at home? I think we used to call it a stereogram as well, a sort of wooden chest on legs containing a record player and space for albums.
I think the music centre had a cassette player too maybe?
Do you recall yours?
We did, my Mum was keen on a record player. The first was a stereogram, a piece of teak furniture, then a music centre, with a smoked plastic lid. It also had a casette deck with dolby, vu meters and damped eject! I was never into vinyl, I preferred to listen to cassettes in my bedroom!
ReplyDeleteThat line 'smoked plastic lid' brought it all back to me Kev! ha ha
Deletethe stores used to call any music system with it's own wood cabinet a "console". The one that my parents inherited from my grandparents was an enormous thing that also contained a TV set! This was a very fancy and expensive thing in the 50's, and was still working in the 70's, so it became ours.The record player was on top, in a recessed area with a lid.Speakers were alongside the TV screen.8 tracks came along in the 70's and cassettes, which were around about as long, became mainstream in the 80's
ReplyDeleteWow Brian, that 50's console sounds so futuristic for the time! Britain was still in the dark ages then! Do you have a picture of it?
DeleteThat sucker's long gone.Mom might have a pic in the old photo albums.
ReplyDeleteno probs Brian. Me and the Missus had a small cubed music centre in the Eighties. It was made entirely of plastic. I rested a cup of tea on it and yes, it tipped over. The Centre went out with a bang! Shame, it was a cool thing.
DeleteFor my Eighth grade Graduation , My parents bought me a portable stereo cassette player/radio boom box and that was perched on my shoulder everywhere I went for the next several years.Fun, but it ate up batteries something awful!
ReplyDeleteYou must have been one cool dude Brian with your boom box! How old is Eighth Grade
DeleteI was 14
DeleteThat's such a great age! I was 14 Xmas 1974. Back then it was called the 3rd Year in School 'cos we spent 5 years at High School and it was the third year. Nowadays in England its known as Year 9 because its the ninth year in education. Year 12 is the finish line unless you go on to Further and Higher Education.
DeleteMy mum had inherited a music centre avant-la-lettre: a 78rpm wind-up gramophone in lovely wooden box with domed lid, sitting on top of a cabinet that housed the records. Beautiful thing that my brother has now (I got the other 78rpm player with the large brass horn on top).
ReplyDeleteMore in line with your topic is an old Philips centre I found in the street waiting for the dustman, the one shown top-left on http://www.mfbfreaks.nl/folders/1964/1/imagepages/image7.html and where the radio still worked. Wooden cabinet so lovely warm sound. Later came across another in the recycling park, from which I recuped the record player. Sadly the belt driving the frequency regulator went, so i's now temporarily out of commission until I get round to fixing it (almost done with the jukebox :)
Best - Paul
We don't really have that tradition of leaving furniture and ornaments etc out for the bun men. I first came across it in 1980 in Germany where its called Spermuhl. To my utter astonishment i found five tinplate toy cars in a bix chucked out in the street with a load of junk. They swiftly came home with me and included a huge police car and a James Bond Aston Martin! I'm glad to hear you had similar luck with your philips centre, which looks lovely by the way. So can anybody take stuff from the recycling park? How does that work Paul?
DeleteSounds like you had terrific luck there, Woodsy! I hope you hung on to those.
DeleteOther than the stereogram, another good thing found with the "gros déchets" (large waste) was a nice wrought iron garden table sans top. replaced that with a marble plate from a builders' recycling yard and we now use it as a bistro table.
Sadly the 'large waste' is now a thing of the past - you can now drive it to the recycling park yourself -and- pay £25 to dispose of a carful of stuff...
There's no policy at those places I think. If you happen to spot something useful and can retrieve it safely then I don't think they're bothered if you cart it off. You just have to be lucky is all.
Best -- Paul
Our recycling base is made up of about 15 huge concrete pens, with walls round. Theirs no way anyone could reach in to grab anything or else you'd fall in! I just can't imagine how many beautiful board games have been thrown away at tips and recycling parks over the last 50 years!
Deletemy first music centre was a big "ghetto blaster" cassette player,with vu-meters,dolby nr and two-ways speakers.... for neighbours' joy =) ew
ReplyDeleteSounds groovy EW! Do you still have your ghetto blaster?
Deleteno, =( ,it expired many years ago.... i played it too loud......
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