1966 magazine ad for the Hohner Marine Band harmonica.
The first episode of the Batman TV series with Adam West (Batman) and Burt Ward (Robin) aired on January 12, 1966.
Did you know the harmonica got its start in China? Or perhaps Germany?
Not quite a harmonica.
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1974 magazine ad for Cordovox Electronic Pianos
“Suspiciously similar to the Selmer-Armon in having sliders for the 3 equally dismal sounds.”
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Alas, my summer home is also my fall, winter and spring home.
Aeolian is defined as “relating to or arising from the action of the wind”. If only I had known this word as a child.
The Aeolian Company was once the world’s largest piano supplier, later going out of business in 1985.
A brief history of the pianola, or player piano.
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The True Story of P.T. Barnum and Jenny Lind
The hidden history behind Nipper, one of the most famous dogs in the world
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Let’s get this out of the way right away — “Just slightly ahead of our time.” was a fabulous tagline and they’ve never surpassed it. Not even close.
Bone shards:
Did you know you used to be able to get record players installed in your car?
Have you met The Electric Prunes mentioned in the body copy?
Six Panasonic D batteries will set you back around $15 these days. Last time I checked, at least.
Panasonic made the first bread machine. Who knew!? Well, probably Panasonic.
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During my back half of high school and first year of college in the late-80s, I worked at a strip-mall store called Budget Tapes and Records in Bismarck and Fargo, North Dakota. It didn’t pay much, but was definitely one of the coolest jobs around. When I started, CDs were still sold in “long boxes” and beta videos and vinyl were on the way out. And yes, we also sold tobacco accessories for use with tobacco and only tobacco. Tobacco.
So imagine my surprise when I was flipping through an old Rolling Stone magazine and found a full page ad for an earlier version of Budget Tapes and Records. Full page. Rolling Stone magazine. Daaaaaaamn. Also, it appears they were way cooler back then.
Note: Even though the Eighties-era Bismarck and Fargo stores weren’t as cool as the 1971 stores, they were still much cooler than the Williston, North Dakota store. Yeesh.
Another note: Hey! My old boss (and his brother) made it into Billboard magazine back in the day!
Whew. Lots of memories coming back from this gig, few of which I’d share here. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
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Don’t you hate it when you buy a full-page ad with minimal copy and lots of glorious white space and you forget to proofread the headline?
Fun fact: This record was originally pressed in gold vinyl.
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What a way to celebrate America’s Bicentennial.
Fun fact: Billboard’s #1 song on the Hot 100 around the time of this ad?
Starland Vocal Band’s “Afternoon Delight”.
Another fun fact: Radio Shack sold blank 8-track tapes until 1990.
Fun fact: “Punk rock” didn’t exist as a term before Creem’s May 1971 issue.
Bonus: Check out the short trailer for a CREEM documentary here.
Continue readingI remember the music section of Osco Drug in Kirkwood Mall back when I was a kid. All the audio cassettes were in a sealed wall on one side of an aisle, and the wall of cassettes were covered by a giant plexiglass cover with a bunch of round holes in it. Additionally, each cassette was in an extra security case. You could look through the plexiglass/holes and look at all the cassette spines for a cassette you wanted, then reach in through one of the holes and pull it out of the wall. The holes were big enough for your hand to go in, but not big enough to pull your hand out along with the cassette in its security case. So what you had to do was drop the cassette to the bottom (often cracking the cover), where there was a narrow conveyor belt between the wall and plexiglass. Then you had to get an employee to come over and activate the conveyor belt to move the cassette to the side where the employee could access it, remove the security case and then sell the cassette to you.
Some people get nostalgic for the past, but that was pretty effed up.