How did you get your first record player?

[John Svensson]

Yeah, our first family phonograph was the GE Wildcat model also, but in Blue plastic! Of course my Grandfather had an electric 78 player with steel needles so I had heard songs like "Begin The Beguine" and "Don't Let the Smoke Get in Your Eyes" since I had any auditory processing facility.....first LP's purchased by yours truly were Al Hirt, Beach Boys "Wild Honey"....and I think I was given a Chipmunks one also!

 

[Quad Linda]

Any more GE Wildcats and we're going to need to change the title of this thread!

There were a few different blue GE Wildcats:







JD Mack, did your Dr. Denton's (footy pajamas) have a trap door in the back?

Jim the Oldbie, didn't you guys realize that when the neighbor girl told you guys to jump of a cliff, it DIDN'T mean she liked you.

John Svenson, I didn't realize that Don't Let the Smoke Get in Your Eyes dated back that far. I thought that Cheech y Chong first introduced it. "Far out, man!"

Yeah, our first family phonograph was the GE Wildcat model also, but in Blue plastic! Of course my Grandfather had an electric 78 player with steel needles so I had heard songs like "Begin The Beguine" and "Don't Let the Smoke Get in Your Eyes" since I had any auditory processing facility.....

 

[John Svensson]

Yep, the first one was ours, we couldn't afford the far out decorations!i
Our Smoke in the Eyes version was Perry Como as I recall.....still find myself humming it occasionally, just like "Ramblng Rose" (Nat Cole)....you can tell where the family's musical tastes lay in those days....I was like 6 or 7.

 

[cupboy]

My first was a Dual 1209, stolen from me while in high school. Purchased at Radio Shack. Yep, they sold Dual back then. I still have a souvenir, part of the box showing the serial number.

 

[hwkn]

My 1st record player was a Show and Tell record player that showed slides[like Lady and The Tramp and Pinocchio] on a screen in the shape of a tv[I was around 3 when I received it for Christmas].

 

[quadsearcher]

My first record player was a portable mono unit, an Admiral perhaps, with a dark brown or purple turntable, my Grandma gave it to me. Played my parents' Belafonte and Pete Rugulo records on it.
First one I bought was a Lloyds with BSR turntable and shoe box speakers, played a lot of Beatles on that. In-between those, a kind babysitter gave me very beat up copies of Meet the Beatles and Introducing the Rolling Stones. Those records got played on anything we or a neighbor had.

I had the Popcorn 45, Hot Butter with Popcorn, At The Movies!

 

[GOS]

My first record player was a portable mono unit, an Admiral perhaps, with a dark brown or purple turntable, my Grandma gave it to me. Played my parents' Belafonte and Pete Rugulo records on it.
First one I bought was a Lloyds with BSR turntable and shoe box speakers, played a lot of Beatles on that. In-between those, a kind babysitter gave me very beat up copies of Meet the Beatles and Introducing the Rolling Stones. Those records got played on anything we or a neighbor had.

I had the Popcorn 45, Hot Butter with Popcorn, At The Movies!

Muy cool!

 

[Doug G.]

My very first was just like the one in my avatar. You had to turn the crank to play records and the little approx. 4" records were green. I was 2 years old and I broke the three spindly supports for the reproducer. I remember very clearly my dad gluing them back together.

After that, my dad wired a Webster 78 RPM changer into a 30s style console radio on which I played yellow Little Golden Records and my dad's 78s. I now wished he had hidden his records from me as I didn't appreciate the fragility of those shellac records and broke quite a few. I still have the remaining ones, however.

And then it was a succession of a couple more record players until I got a VM model 210 for Christmas, 1956 which I had for many years, having later turned it into a "component system" by making a separate base for the actual player and cabinets for the amplifier and speaker.

Doug

 

[JerseyEd]

Parents bought it for me. Late 50's/early 60's. It was mono, and IIRC, I think it was a suitcase kinda thing. I have no idea what make or model it was, but it had this HUGH round thing at the playing end of the tone arm which kinda looked like a sideways UFO, and that had a piece with a thumb screw into which the NEEDLE was inserted. I swear, you could have probably used those things to build a house. You would buy these replacement needles in packs of 10 or more. At times you could see pieces of plastic coming off the records.

The earliest records I recall having were a "Howdy Dowdy" double album that had sides 1 & 4 on one disc, and 2 & 3 on another. Didn't figure out why until much later. Then there was "Famous Monsters Speak". This was performed by Gabriel Dell, a one time Bowery Boy. One side had him speaking like Dracula, and the other side as Frankenstein's Monster. The cool thing about that album was that it had a lot of sound effects. These effects came in handy years later when my friends and I would act out the Mad Magazine TV or Movie satires on a tape recorder. The BIGGEST cool thing about these effects were that I heard them used on the Soupy Sales show. Speaking of Mad Magazine, I also had a record put out by Mad Magazine which contained "It's A Gas" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J-LvMxKvFY and "She Let's Me Watch Her Mom And Pop Fight" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asaN8GWPsRA, both of which were originally flexi-discs included in the magazine. And speaking of Soupy (am I getting too off topic?) I had "Spy With A Pie" and "Do the Mouse...". Singles I remember getting were "Walk Right In" (Rooftop Singers), "Can't Get Used To Losing You" (Andy Williams - STILL my all time favorite use of strings on a record), "The Twist", etc. The first rock album I bought was "HELP!" by the Beatles.

Side to Linda... I too have an original copy of "Stand Up" with the pop up center.

 

[Quad Linda]

My first copy of Stand Up was a cassette. No Stand Up. My second was a later LP pressing. Same story. My third was an original CD. Still no Stand Up. My fourth was a MoFi Gold CD and it STOOD UP! The fifth one was a US expanded CD. Again, not standing. My sixth is the UK expanded. It, too Stands Up. IMHO, it always needs to Stand Up.

MILTON SOUPMAN!! (aka Soupy Sales) His syndicated 60's and 70's shows still run on JLTV (DirecTV ch. 366).

My favorite Soup bone clip (from the New Soupy Sales Show):

[video=youtube;gIuI_oDWe00]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIuI_oDWe00[/video]

 

[Quad Linda]

The Mouse (from Hullabaloo 1965):

[video=youtube;SfO2J6Tun5I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfO2J6Tun5I[/video]

Koward Kaplan (Kaylan) of the Turtles talks about hanging out with Soupy Sales:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoiQLcUgRNM&spfreload=10

Now back to the Record Player Cherry thread!

 

[TVB]

My first record player was in a combo Panasonic 8 track record player system from Team electronics. Of course I would look at all the separate turntables, speakers, amps etc in the show room and marvel how one loudspeaker in the showroom was the same price as my entire panasonic system. That panasonic record player had a ceramic cartidge, which trashed records and delivered no high end. A few months later I traded in the system for a pioneer SA 7100 integrated amp (couldnt afford the SA 9100 amp). I ordered my first real turntable (magnetic shure cartridge and BIC 960 table) through the mail and my first high fidelity system was in place. The turntable came several days before the cartridge so the wait to set up the table was intolerable. I had to settle for some generic speakers because I couldnt afford jbl centurys. My first few records were from Gibsons discount store for $4.44 each. Bread- ..Guitar man, CSNY -deja Vu, David gates -First and Cat Stevens (the album with morning has broken on it). I remember pointing the speakers out of my bedroom windows so I could listen while doing my yard work. I loved to go to Gibsons and figure how much money I needed to buy all of the records I wanted (the doobies were next on my list). It didnt take long for me to get tired of those first few records.Those were really magical days!!

 

[JerseyEd]

The Mouse (from Hullabaloo 1965):

[video=youtube;SfO2J6Tun5I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfO2J6Tun5I[/video]

Koward Kaplan (Kaylan) of the Turtles talks about hanging out with Soupy Sales:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoiQLcUgRNM&spfreload=10

Now back to the Record Player Cherry thread!

Ha Ha. Back off topic for a second... when I saw your first Soupy clip I immediately thought I should post the link to the Howard Kaylan/Soupy story. Scrolled up and there it was. You beat me to it.

 

[Jim the Oldbie]

IMHO, it always needs to Stand Up.

Hopefully it will continue to do so for some time yet...

...My favorite Soup bone clip (from the New Soupy Sales Show:

Hahaha!! That dog was a pointer!

-- Jim

 

[Jim the Oldbie]

Girlfriend's dad gave me his after a conversation about vinyl. After we broke up, she asked for it back, but her dad insisted I keep it, because I had better taste in music and more records!

That was an unusually cool girlfriend's dad there, by the way.

 

[DuncanS]

I didn't get my very own turntable until my first week at University when I spent the money I'd earned that summer on a stereo system - built an SQ decoder in my 2nd year! My first music 'system' was a mono portable cassette recorder I got in 1970 for my birthday.

 

[Jim the Oldbie]

My first record player was in a combo Panasonic 8 track record player system from Team electronics. Of course I would look at all the separate turntables, speakers, amps etc in the show room and marvel how one loudspeaker in the showroom was the same price as my entire panasonic system.

Team Electronics! We had one nearby as well. I was constantly in there bugging those guys as a nerdy teen, and I don't think I ever actually bought a single piece of gear from them. I'm surprised they didn't bar me.

That panasonic record player had a ceramic cartidge, which trashed records and delivered no high end.

My early vinyl fared better, mostly by sheer stroke of luck. A few years before I acquired my own dream Garrard,* our mom saved up a month's salary (she was a music lover too), and our little family went shopping for our first stereo system.

I was maybe twelve, just getting into all this stuff and didn't know much yet. Our main purchase criteria was to make sure that it could get all the way through "Whole Lotta Love" without skipping! (Remember that, folks?) So there we were at the local TV & appliance store: Me with my pathetic little white-boy afro, big sis with her ironed-straight long hair and hand-sewn suede fringe jacket, and Mom, god bless her, standing there with her head held high, getting the task accomplished, while Robert Plant's GROANING, HEAVING, ORGASMIC SCREAMS echoed across the linoleum sales floor!

I can still see our salesman. Dude looked exactly like Jack Webb: White shirt, black tie, crew cut, sour puss. The poor guy damn near had steam coming out of his ears. But here's the thing: The Zenith console stereo we were trying out had the then-ubiquitous VM 2-knob record changer, but the production tonearm had recently been upgraded. Cartridge was still ceramic, but it tracked at an honest 2 grams. Compliance must've been improved too, because it got through that original-pressing Led Zeppelin sex slalom without a glitch, and Joe Friday got the sale!

We also started using a Discwasher religiously pretty early on (even Mom!). As a result, all my old vinyl is in remarkably good condition. So thanks for hanging in there with us, Joe, wherever you are!

-- Jim

*CHRIS WOOD! God bless him too.

 

[peterzach]

My first record player was a whole system and was a graduation present from my parents back in 1977.
I think it was a Pioneer model number forgotten and Shure cartridge, Luxman amp and Bose 301 speakers. Not sure why its only the speakers that I remember the exact model number and sorry Linda(didn't know back then that Bose is crap), well even if it wasn't the best setup it was my own and many enjoyable magical moments in discovering music through the years on that simple system. First albums to played on the system where Pink Floyd-"DSOTM" and ELO-"News of the World" as they were on sale for 2.99 each at Kelly's record store and were bands I liked and those were first albums I purchased.
Next started getting albums by Queen,Yes,Genesis,Rush,Led Zep and hundreds of other albums until discovering the newfangled compact disk player and that more or less put an end to the record player even though to this day I still remember that even though compact disk's were the cool new thing it did have a sterile cold sound to it compared to the record's I listened to on that first record player but the convenience of cd's won me over and I got rid of my whole system including turntable and replaced with Yamaha receiver,Sony cd player and Kef 104.2 speakers.
Fast forward to past few years and aren't we super fortunate now as now many of these classic albums can be listened to in lossless stereo and amazing lossless surround.

 

[Jim the Oldbie]

...Bose 301 speakers. Not sure why its only the speakers that I remember the exact model number and sorry Linda(didn't know back then that Bose is crap), well even if it wasn't the best setup it was my own and many enjoyable magical moments in discovering music through the years on that simple system.

Those were the ones with the little adjustable flaps in front of the tweeters, right? I always thought they sounded pretty good, especially for their size.

-- Jim

 

[Quad Linda]

Bose 301's were still better than lots of "no-name" stuff back then.

KEF 104.2's!! Now you're talking some really nice speakers. I sold those and Bose 301's.

My first record player was a whole system and was a graduation present from my parents back in 1977.
I think it was a Pioneer model number forgotten and Shure cartridge, Luxman amp and Bose 301 speakers. Not sure why its only the speakers that I remember the exact model number and sorry Linda(didn't know back then that Bose is crap), ...the convenience of cd's won me over and I got rid of my whole system including turntable and replaced with Yamaha receiver,Sony cd player and Kef 104.2 speakers.
Fast forward to past few years and aren't we super fortunate now as now many of these classic albums can be listened to in lossless stereo and amazing lossless surround.