Shove a Sock In It.

eL eSs Vee

Think about the iPod and all that it can do; hold and play thousands of songs, through earphones so that no one around you is disturbed, even play videos.

Now consider the photo I submit below: It's a close-up of a late 1940s portable Victrola record player. It only plays 78 rpm records. It has to be wound up before every song. The needle has to be replaced after just a couple of plays. It has no volume control, other than inserting some fabric into the sound box: Hence the term, "Shove a sock in it."

The record is Der Fuehrer's Face, by Spike Jones and his City Slickers. No electronic keyboards, drums or even guitars: Every gun shot, belch, bottle tap, cowbell and hiccup was recorded as it sounded, put onto wax and then shellac. Then, a few years later, the shellac was replaced by vinyl. You had to carry this suitcase-sized record player and a box of records around with you to enjoy them outside of the home. Now-a-days . . . you just plug in.

Convenience has made these items obsolete. But, I can tell you from experience; there's nothing quite like hearing vintage music as it was heard the day it was released.

Dogdots

Ahhhh....the good old days. I have a cabinet full of old records and no player to play them on :cry

Really nice photo of something from the past. I also like your story from then to now

adbsgicom

Spike Jones was my mom's favorite when she was a young adult. Her and her girl friends had sort of a karoke group that would perform and dance to his music. Alas, no pictures seem to exist of this... :cry

Dogdots

adbsgicom wrote:

Spike Jones was my mom's favorite when she was a young adult. Her and her girl friends had sort of a karoke group that would perform and dance to his music. Alas, no pictures seem to exist of this... :cry

Mom's have reasons for photos to not exist sometimes

adbsgicom

Dogdots wrote:

Mom's have reasons for photos to not exist sometimes

My daughter's school does a project in 4th grade where they create a narrated slide story about what it was like for one of their anscestors to be 9 or 10. My daughter did my mom. I learned quite a bit about her; amazing what grandmothers will tell their only granddaughters....

Dogdots

adbsgicom wrote:

My daughter's school does a project in 4th grade where they create a narrated slide story about what it was like for one of their anscestors to be 9 or 10. My daughter did my mom. I learned quite a bit about her; amazing what grandmothers will tell their only granddaughters....

So true

rwells

Lee,

Thanks for the story and the image. I can remember playing with one of those in my grandma's basement. I think they were ahead of their times with this. It's the ORIGINAL portable player! No Batteries Needed!!!

black mamba

Hi Lee,

Another super shot to spark the nostalgia within me. I remember very well sneaking into my grandfathers garage and playing with his old Victrola. I'd give anything to have that old thing today.

Take care,

Tom

Nikolai

Lee,
you forgot to mention iPhone (or any other smart phone for taht matter) can also take pictures and, as I heard , make calls and provide other data connections. So technically you could take this very picture while playing that very song and send it directly from that device as an attachment to this forum. Now imagine a conglomerate of a grammophone, view camera (wet process no less), a telegraph (for text messages) and early Edison-time phone apparatus... If somebody at the time dared event to speak about something like that he'd be put into psychward faster than he'd get to explaing how google maps work :-)
Gosh, we moved ahead during a 100 years. I wonder what the next 100 will bring...


Oh, and did I mention I like both the pikcha and the story? :-)