Jazz and Vinyl

I like to say that I can’t imagine my life without Craigslist, but we didn’t even need Craigslist to find this gem. All we had to do was be in the right place at the right time. Turns out the right place was Capitol Hill and the right time happened to be Mark’s birthday when we stumbled upon this lonely piece sitting on the sidewalk begging for a new owner.

A piece of notebook paper was taped to the top, which read “WORKS. FREE.” That was all we needed to hear, so our friend Philip went for his green, ’83 pick-up and we put it in the back. None of the stuff that we’ve accumulated in our 23 or so years include vinyl, so we took a trip to Jive Time in Fremont to see what they had. We ended up with a couple of jazz records and “Abbey Road”, by the Beatles (obviously), which we promptly took home to try. The previous owner’s ad was true in the sense that the player did indeed work, but I certainly can’t say it works well. Mark worked some engineering magic on it to restore one of the speakers and downplay the loud hum that tried to drown out any music, so it definitely works better than in its previous Capitol Hill life. Records still skip occasionally and we (ok, just Mark) are trying to figure out if it’s the player’s fault or the records themselves.

We’ll replace the needle and see what happens, but I think our record player is around to stay. If you ever have a hankering for some old-timey jazz coming from an undoubtedly awesome record player, our door is always open! You’re free to sit on our couch, drink some wine and tap your feet to some Duke Ellington! And if you have any experience with fixing record players or taking care of vinyl, we’d love some advice!