Round Robin: The Way We Listened

For the Round Robin Challenge: Old Tech, New Tech, I asked to see pictures that showed a contrast between old and new technologies for doing the same thing. I don't know about you, but I'm old enough to remember a fairly long progression of ways to listen to music. My first recordings were mostly 45 RPM kid's records, mostly on the Peter Pan, Disneyland and Little Golden labels, but I distinctly remember one or two 78 RPM records in the mix. When I was a little older, the family record player had four speeds, and I used them all - on the same record! It was the last of my kiddie records, The Poky Little Puppy. Meant to be a 45 RPM single, it told the story of a puppy who "just pokes along and he looks at the breeze." Played at 78 RPM, the puppy was much livelier. At 33 1/3 RPM, he really poked along, and at 16 2/3 RPM - yes, there was such a speed! - he turned into a slow-moving oinker. Unfortunately, I don't have the record any more, or I'd show it to you here.

About the same time I was putting the Puppy through his paces, I was buying my first two LPs: More of the Monkees and The Monkees Headquarters.  Soon after that came my first Beatles album, Revolver, chosen because it cost a dollar less than Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band from my brother's record club. Some time after that I bought my first two "adult" 45s: Hair by the Cowsills and Dizzy by Tommy Roe. About five years after that, as I started working on collecting all the Beatles LPs, my brother was very proud of his 8-track tape collection. I'm happy to say I never went down that route!

Me at Rockarama circa 1982

When I was managing a used record store in the early 1980s, I was delighted to take home a 78 RPM single of Little Richard singing Long Tall Sally. The stereo we had at the time must have been one of the last ones that still played that venerable speed. At the time we used to drive from Columbus, Ohio to other major cities in the midwest to sell used records, imports, posters, buttons, etc. at record shows. On the way we listened to music - on cassette tape, of course! Eventually we had to close down Rockarama and I went to work at someone else's record store. I stuck around long enough to sell a few copies of mostly classical albums in a revolutionary new music format: Compact Discs!

I doubt that I still have that Little Richard 78. The vast majority of our LPs are inaccessible in crates in our storage room, and we don't have a turntable set up anyway. But we do have a few stacks of "to be gotten rid off--probably" LPs in our front room.

John left almost our entire cassette collection outside a year and a half ago, where it promptly got rained on in a huge storm. The few cassettes I still have are mostly either audio books or Doctor Who related, such as this novelty single cassette:

And we still have some treasured 45s.

And less-treasured 45s:

I still buy the occasional CD, but only Doctor Who-related ones. Here's my latest purchase:

Mostly, I listed to music on my iPhone, or occasionally my iPad. I don't even know where my iPod is any more. My Halloween music last night was courtesy of Pandora. Two years ago I played a CD on a boombox.

Still, there are some things that remain the same, more or less. The 1963 Beatles may sound better through an iPhone on a dock than on a mono HiFi, but it's still great music. Ditto the 1969 Beatles. And I still love to listen to them!

Now let's see what other old and new tech our Robins have come up with!

Linking List
as of Saturday, November 2nd, 2013
12:34 AM MST

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/mavarin

Ellen - Posted!
Ellen's Phlog
http://ellensphlog.blogspot.com/

Jama - Posted!
Sweet Memories
http://mummyjam.blogspot.com

Karen