[Dixielandjazz] Needles and gramophones

Fri Nov 11 11:17:07 PST 2005

Yet another and maybe even most important reason to always always 
INSIST upon listening to LIVE MUSIC and it oughta be a Law that 
everyone else does too.

"Save Live Music Burn all your records and tapes and CDs"  and while 
you are at it Shoot a DJ,  :))

AND THIS FROM A GUY WHO USED TO HAVE A QUANTUM OF RESPECT FOR A REAL DJ 
that knew his place, "On the Radio playing Live Musicians Recordings"   
Not going out and replacing them at dances and clubs, not to mention 
the new age ones scratching phonograph records and destroying them as 
well as countless needles and turntables.   The worst ones are the 
clowns who now make their own CDs with their picture on the cover of 
compilations of Recordings of their favorite selections from their 
Radio broadcasts.   You can find these for sale in the racks of many 
major retail record shops competing with real musicians titles.

Where the Hell is ASCAP and BMI on these matters,   oh I know, I 
forgot, collecting royalties for the songwriters,  yeah right. !
The Check is in the mail.

Sick I tell you just plain Sick  !!!   :))

Cheers,

Tom ("Bring 'em back Alive") Wiggins

-----Original Message-----
From: Ron L'Herault <lherault at bu.edu>
To: 'DJML' <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 12:03:53 -0500
Subject: RE: [Dixielandjazz] Needles and gramophones

   Ooooo Nooooo!

If you ever looked at a needle tip before and after one play you would 
see
that the rounded tip is shaped into a sharpened "V" Turning a needle is
really tough on the records. If I can find them, I can send Scanning
Electron Microscope images of a used-once steel needle to interested 
parties
who e-mail me off list.

Ron L

-----Original Message-----
From: dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com
[mailto:dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com] On Behalf Of Snogpitch
Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2005 10:35 PM
To: DJML
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Needles and gramophones

I started laughing when I read this paragraph, as I remembered back in 
my
college days, 1981 or so, I took my console Victrola (1923 model 215
http://pages.prodigy.net/snogpitch/vic.html ) along for the school 
year.  It
was a chore lugging approximately a couple hundred 78's up 4 flights of
stairs, but I was a couple decades younger then.  Once I got my 
Victrola in
place in the dorm room, my roommate looked at me and asked what I 
planned to
do with that?

I proceeded to look for some Al Jolson 78's in one of the boxes, put in 
a
fresh needle on the reproducer, then sat the record on the turntable.  I
asked my roommate "How loud do you think this will play?"  He just 
shrugged
his shoulders.  I turned back around, gave a few cranks on the windup,
opened up the doors to the horn, and placed the needle on the edge of 
the
record.  Let me tell you, he was blasted out of the couch, as the 40's 
style
recording played louder than we normally would play our electronic sound
machines.

The next door dorm mate came over to investigate the noise, and poked 
his
head in our open dorm room door.  "Hey guys", he yelled, "could you 
turn it
down a bit?"

I smiled and yelled back, "come on in and see if you can find the volume
control, I can't seem to find it!"

Needless to say, he came into the dorm room, looked all over the console
opening shut doors, but never shutting any.  After the song finally 
ended, I
went over to pull the tone arm over to it's resting place.  At this 
point,
he looked at me and asked, "OK, where is it?"

I told him that it was a non-electric machine, showed him that I needed 
to
crank up the machine for the next record, it had no volumne knobs, and 
he
just shook his head and walked out of the room.  At that point my 
roommate
had a devilish grin on his face.

No one complained after that!  :)  I guess the word spread quickly 
around
the dorm.

BTW, I could hear my roommate playing that same recording the next day 
as I
was walking down the hall on my way to the college green.  I just 
started to
laugh and continued on.  It seemed he loved those 40s Al Jolson records.
Normally, I gravitated to the quieter 20s danceband recordings (Isham 
Jones
Orchestra, Benson Orchestra, etc) of my collection.

And to keep it on-topic of needles, I would rotate the needle a 1/3 
turn in
the reproducer after each side.  Each needle would only go for 3 record
sides, then get thrown away, or get used to tack up a new poster onto 
the
dorm room wall.  I had learned early on that you could not play both 
sides
of a record on this Victrola using the same needle and not rotate it in 
this
fashion.  Call me a thrifty college student, but it seemed to work just
fine.

On 11/10/05 7:22 PM, "Anton Crouch" <anton.crouch at optusnet.com.au> 
wrote:

>
> Hello all
>
> Tom's scenario of his record player being left in the street reminds 
me
> that that was how I acquired my wind-up gramophone. It's a late 1920s 
HMV
> "Mahogany Grand", in lovely condition and it came full of 78s and 
boxes of
> steel needles. My uncle found it, literally, in the street and gave 
it to
> me. It's one of my party tricks to carefully wind it up, play a 
record and
> demonstrate the use of the doors as a "volume control".
>
>
> All the best
> Anton
>

--
Snogpitch

snogpitch at prodigy.net
ICQ: 4989342
Webpage: http://pages.prodigy.net/snogpitch/

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