Been a DJ since I left school in 12th grade .. did it for many years .. my own business evolved for a while into doing stage effects for weddings and such and I've had to take on board new technologies to stay in the game ... some of it has sucked.
A few years ago when my great Grandma died .. my Uncle invited me to help him (basically con job me into working for free) to clean up my old grandma's house for resale. When I arrived he had already thrown tons of stuff into a big skip to be dragged away and disposed of. I noticed a weirdy old wooden decorative box in among the pile of shit and quizzed him on what it was. He said abruptly .. it's all crap ... she was a fucking hoarder ... and continued to throw stuff onto the pile.
I curiously lifted that box and took it to my car and put it on the back seat. I then kept an eye out for possible other curiosities that might be linked to it (stuff like a weird handle ... a waterlogged bag of old shellac records under the house etc)
Cut a long story short .... I got that old machine working again after many youtube videos and tutorials and perseverance ... and I developed a love for old antique records. As a DJ for many years it was like discovering a new experience and I ended up buying from antique dealers two 1920's Gramophone players that wind up ...and I started being one of those annoying flea market cunts that haunt second hand junk tables and I started collecting a lot of really old crap 78's (they are heavy like dinner plates and crack like biscuits) and I collected and collected .
I got a weirdy idea (after doing twenty years of weddings) that maybe I could go out and set up an antique console and spin antique records and so I did .. It became a word of mouth thing and I never really got the idea properly off the ground ... but the few gigs I did raked in some decent money and I'm still thinking about maybe taking the idea to the next level and marketing myself as some kind of - I dunno - 1920's DJ and spin old shellacs (I had to retro fit a small microphone onto the inside of the platers to get the sound amplified) and keep those fuckers winding with a handle LOL but they were some of the greatest gigs I ever had in my entire DJ history.
I don't know a damn thing about old 1920's music but I'm learning - and my idea of setting myself up as an old 1920's DJ in a suit and top hat paid me tripple what I normally would get from a 21st birthday or similar .. AND the gigs are shorter

maybe one hour or two then I pack up and fuck off.
Anyway that's my story relating to old shellac records - they whizz around at 78rpm and cracle like a bushfire .... but they are beautiful things .. I absolutely love'em ...and when I muck around with them I feel like my Nana is in the room with me.
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