Monday, September 25, 2006
Calming the Savage Beast
The old man, as a regular custom, would have music on for every Sunday afternoon dinner. He had amassed through the weekly mailed harangues from Reader's Digest quite a few shelves worth of boxed sets. Musicals, semi-Classicals, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Romantic Strains, Latin Tinges, and, of course, Nat King Cole. We knew when another boxload of tunes was coming; we heard the mailman cursing 5-6 houses away. Before Amazon, before CDUniverse, there was Reader's Digest Music. To a kid just off the proverbial boat, this music was stunning. Keep in mind that this (thanks to Carniola for unearthing these...treasures) is what was offered in the old country. The cutting edge was quite blunt.The sound quality coming off of this American vinyl, however, was piercing in its clarity; no clicks, scrapings, no unexplained blips. Even the color of the LP was superior, a wet-looking jet black as compared to the greyish matter I'd been used to.
My father would plop on a whole box worth of LP's onto the self-loading record player (this was in the days before they were called turntables but after the days of the Victrolas). Limit was 6 but, Hey!, this was an American-made product, it'll handle 10 (some record labels advertised their product as being "extra lite(sic)" which allowed you, Law of Physics speaking, to stack at least 12 LP's at one time). We knew when we reached our stacking limit when a screach of plea would emanate from the record player as a direct result of the post mechanism weakening and dumping all of the suspended records on top of the needle (they weren't called "stylus cartridges" until there were "turntables" ). Of course, pushing the limits on these record players promised an early demise. One spewed out smoke before freezing up. Another, sensing the stacking methodology in our household early on, refused to allow us to stack more than 2 albums at a time. A third wreaked revenge by blowing out our mutiple-plug wall outlet as it spun its last time. If the record players had unionized I doubt we ever would have had the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th record player in the house. Not without some nasty negotiations and give-ins on our part. "Dainty" and "Music playing" were not a combination heard in my parents' house until I got fancy-dancy and bought my own single play turntable. My father couldn't believe it! Why buy something that did only thing, although admittedly quite well, he thought, when you could have a record player that did many things well, although admittedly not well at all? I tried to explain it to him on multiple occasions. He just laughed and wrote off the arguments to that loser dustbin of Youth. Even when I told him I could hear the albums sanding each other down as they plopped on the record player pad, he questioned the state of my auditory faculties.
But, I've strayed a bit here. The music he tended to favor was the Reader's Digest Glenn Miller Box Set, a clarinet-lover's "I've Died and Gone to Heaven".
If the mood struck him on a particular Sunday, mid-meal he would sweep my mother from her place of serving and dance around the living room while their kiddies would stare from their dinner seats, assured that all Sunday family dinners operate this way. If Mr. Miller wasn't playing Pennsylvania 6-5000, then it was "Reader's Digest Latin Favorites" on the platter. For a chemical enginner, the old man was quite inventive with the feet and the hands.Carrying on the music 'n meals tradition (and the album, well now CD, accumulation tradition), I've found it difficult not having some background music. Usually, it's instrumental, tending toward something like this or this. On occassion, though only he will do. And would you believe that the seeping-off-one's-feet tradition also continues? I'll entice my ever-loving wife to the small dance floor that is our dining room, wrap my hand around hers, and we'll float way to another place.
So, how about yourself? A little night music for dinner? Or is the clacking and clanging of utensils enough background noise? If it's music, what've you got in the background?
Addendum (10/01/06):
Whisky Prajer gives a different interpretation of Spinal Tap's Thin line of Clever and Stupid jag. Only he can throw in ABBA, The New Pornographers, and Van Halen and make sense of it all. His daughters are lucky to have him as a dad.
Alcessa adds an entry about the (old) Yugo tunes her young mind was affected by here. You could spend a good deal of your morning or evening going through her entry as she's diligently added links to YouTube versions of many of the nightmarish musical events.
Still waiting for Cowtown Pattie's dinner music memories as well as Mr. F. C. Bearded. Both are probably polishing off their versions to land on Michael's favoured Elsewhere list, where new blogging stars are born.
Comments:
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That self-loading record player is a handsomer piece of equipment than ours, back in the day. Green plastic, very HI-fi. We could stack as many as three records - any more than that was asking for trouble. Those Reader's Digest sets: remember how their sides alternated to make stacking possible?! If you wanted to play Handel's Messiah, fer instance, you could stack four discs, play them consecutively, then turn the entire pile over and play the other four sides and the whole durn thing would be in its proper order.
Our problem: at four discs, the record loader tended to drop more than one LP at a time, thus screwing up that all-important play-list order. No, we had to get up from the table every 15 minutes to put a new LP on, instead (garbage record player!).
Our problem: at four discs, the record loader tended to drop more than one LP at a time, thus screwing up that all-important play-list order. No, we had to get up from the table every 15 minutes to put a new LP on, instead (garbage record player!).
WP and Sgazzetti, I really miss the days when domicile musical events were more of a mechanical nature. I yearn for that !!!PLOP!!! of the vinyl as it dropped down. The clunk-clunk then !!zzzZZZZ! of the teakwood needle as it tried to gain purchase on the outer lip of the album, like a mountain-climber's chalked fingertips grabbing for an edge. Though I've succombed to an iPod and appreciate its sound quality, the only connection it has with my old domestic music stylings of my past is the clicking sound as you "turn" the wheel for selection. I miss the creaking.
Alcessa Thanks again for pointing out the lack of comment apperance. I am truly a pinhead! Please, tell me...tell us about the dance music in Ole Jugo. If not here, then certainly on your own blog. I'll gladly link to it!
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Alcessa Thanks again for pointing out the lack of comment apperance. I am truly a pinhead! Please, tell me...tell us about the dance music in Ole Jugo. If not here, then certainly on your own blog. I'll gladly link to it!
<< Home Verging on Pertinence Just some more disposable thoughts clogging up the hinterlands
