The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

This may sound crazy..... But do any forum members ever host or attend any Victrola parties to listen to music and have food and coffee and tea. Etc.

When I was in college, my music professor gave a concert and I provided Victrola music for the reception afterwards. The school let me use their van to move my VV-IX and a box of records to and from the (on campus) venue.

I've considered doing so, but have not gotten around to it yet.

I HAVE taken my VV 2-55 to a few parties, along with some records...

I used to go out to a local Starbucks that had a nice patio and play records on my VV-2-65 with my Chihuahua doing her best Nipper impression

I've had varying experience with this over the years. Casually interested people lose interest quickly, so that's not a good idea. Record collectors tend to not want to play stuff on vintage gear. And phono collectors often don't want to hear records all the way through, or at all, preferring to discuss the nifty brake or tonearm bracket (or whatever) after a few bars.

And then there's all the damn winding that's usually necessary.

Plus the cost of sending the rest of the family shopping for the day, so you can play anything at home in the first place.

Best success I've had is with having just 2 or 3 other folks with like musical tastes, in a round robin show-and-tell mode where we each play a record in turn for the others.

I have also considered having a picnic with friends in a public park, and taking along a portable or two. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten around to doing this yet, apart from asking for opinions on what to play in the music section of the forum.

I am president of the Golden State Phonograph Society. We have bi-monthly "victrola parties" at members homes. We usually get between 15 and 25 members. That way we get to see other people's collections in their home environment. It's always very successful!

I had some amazing experiences... I was playing a Welsh folk song and an older man came up while it was playing with an astonished look on his face. By the end of the record, he was crying. He told me after the record was over that his father was a Welsh miner and used to sing that song, and he hadn't heard it since he was a little boy.

A teenage boy came up and asked me "What kind of musical instrument is that?" I explained that it was a phonograph. He had never heard of that. He kept looking behind the machine for the plug. He couldn't believe that there was no electricity.

One lady was fascinated by Caruso. It was Christmas time and her arms were full of packages, but she sat down and spent the better part of an hour with me listening to opera records. She asked me to play M'Appiri from Martha twice!

Everyone seems to like 20s dance band records, but few people had ever heard them before.

The rarity of the record or machine doesn't matter to ordinary people. The music does. A record like Long Long Road by John McCormack may be a dollar bin record to you, but to people who have never heard McCormack before, it is amazing. The same goes for dime store dance band records, whistling records ukulele. The stuff that never went over well were the instrumental solos, Hawaiian guitar, and the vocal quartets. I learned to leave those at home.

My wife used to have an art studio and they did special events once a months. One time the theme was Toulouse Lautrec et La Belle Epoche. Guests came in (somewhat) period dress and I plaid music on a Victor II and Columbia client horn machine. To be honest, I did not have too much original french music from the early 1900s, but people enjoyed early jazz just the same. It was a big success. I think a period theme will attract people who are interested and open to early records. Not sure that it would work just as well in a modern setting.

Andreas

While in high school, I would occasionally bring in machines and set them up in the cafeteria, stemmed to attract a fair amount of interest.