The Jams

The Boy and the Girl are being raised on a steady diet of The Jams and Daddy's other incorrigible anachronisms. Mamma's too, though her anachronisms are sometimes different from mine. Recently, this has manifested itself in the purchase of the children's very own record player:

Spotted by Mamma and purchased by Daddy, it's a heavy old "portable" thing in a cute vintage wrapper.

But it's no toy, don't let the monkeys and elephants fool you. Fully equipped with a heavy duty handle, sturdy latch and metal corners, it is as well built as any of the vintage amplifiers my friends have played in my many various bands. The animal print is even in Tolex....the real stuff used to cover amps.

Under the cover we find a killing old self contained mono record player...

Replete with serious big fat heavy duty analog nerdy type details...

It plays records in four speeds. You thought a 78 was rare? When was the last time you saw a 16?

Complete with instructions printed under the lid in full blast design nerdy Helvetica circa 1968...

Even that logo is a design geeks dream. I'm on overload here.

Maybe you remember these, only in black. Hamilton Electronics made this kind of stuff specifically for schools. AV equipment, headsets that plugged into booths in the library, and record players for the teachers to use on Friday afternoon along with a slide show. Remember when your teacher wheeled in a bunch of heavy analog and sent one of the kids to close the shades for a "film strip". I do. That's what this thing is.

So I set it up in the kids' room, and showed the Boy how to use it. It was a real rite of passage for both of us. He could barely believe that he was allowed to touch it, given the fact that contact with the "Big Record Player" in the living room by anyone but Daddy carries the penalty of death. I showed him how to turn it on, change speeds, place the needle gingerly and handle a record properly. It's a big deal, my way of teaching that some things are important and special, and deserve to be treated with reverence and care. Then I told him, and the Girl, that for today they could listen to my records, and we had a dance party in the kids' room.

Today, I took them record shopping. For me, it was like bringing them to a cathedral. I almost cried.

We rode the subway to Harvard Square. Our first stop was Audio Lab, so Daddy could spend $39 on this teeny tiny thing for the "Big Record Player". Worth every penny.

Followed by the world's best pizza at Pinnochio's for lunch...

And then a trip to In Your Ear, a full blast claustrophobic crazy dusty little record store in a basement, packed to a fire code defying level with more musty music than you can imagine. My kind of place, I've been a customer there since high school...

The "down below in a secret cave" aspect of the place did not fail to impress the children.

We poked around and I let them each pick a record to buy, with a smidge of minimal guidance based on what I know they like. They both hit home runs:

"piano jazzy jams" for the Girl...

"robot music" for the Boy.

In told the boy he was probably the only kid in school with his own record player in his room. He said "In my class?". I said "No, in the whole school." I told him a lot of kids don't even have a record player in the house. When he asked me why, with a tone of surprise that anyone could live without one, I thought "because most kids parents live in the present". But I didn't say that. I just smiled.

Perfect.