Bewitched Stove Figurine

Saw this this other day in my neighborhood. Does anyone know the history behind this cool figurine of Samantha and her stove? Click to enlarge pic.

Making of the Greyhound Jingle 1963

Here's a promo disc from 1963 with the making of the Greyhound Bus jingle. This was given out to employees and vendors of Greyhound. Listen to part 1 here, and part 2 here.  And special bonus, the orchestra is led by the great Raymond Scott!

PAMS Winston-Salem My Hometown Record

Listen to or download "Winston-Salem My Hometown"

Here's a slice of retro for you. PAMS jingle company in Dallas made this generic song available to local radio stations around the country in the 60's. The station would find a local sponsor, write some lyrics, and presto!, a local hit.

There were over a hundred localized versions of this record, all recorded in Dallas. Radio Use Only blog has an amazingly complete story for you to read.

Bonus retroness: Thalhimer's Department Store was the local sponsor for this record through the local Top 40 station 1380 WTOB. Here's where you might have stumbled upon this record back then.

3M Tape Bias Settings

Because, you know, you might forget.  

The Wrecking Crew Documentary

The Wrecking Crew was the nickname for a legendary group of studio musicians in the 60s. They were the band playing on thousands of records made then, including the 5th Dimension, Byrds, Mamas & Papas, Beach Boys, Tijuana Brass, and more. Denny Tedesco, son of Crew member Tommy Tedesco, showed this film last month at the Nashville Film Festival. I got a last minute ticket, and I'm glad. It was one of the best music documentaries I've ever seen. Denny interviewed Crew members like Carol Kaye and Plas Johnson, who showed how they came up with the killer licks on hits by Sonny & Cher and others. According to Denny, there are 123 songs in the film, and 147 musical cues. If you have any interest in 60s music, you've got to find out more about this film. Go to the Wrecking Crew Documentary website and sign up to be notified of a DVD release. The more people sign up, the sooner the DVD will come out. Glenn Campbell says, "Do It Now!"

Transistorize Your iPod!

I never went anywhere as a kid without my transistor radio. As I grew up, I didn't hear my favorite songs on the radio anymore, so I began to collect them. But hearing "Monday, Monday" on giant stereo speakers didn't pack the emotional wallop of hearing it on the 2 and a quarter inch speaker. When the iPod Shuffle came out, it hit me. Now I could hear what I wanted the way I did in the 60s. Here's how you can, too. Click any pic to enlarge it.




Gather an old transistor radio, and some basic tools. Hey, this IS like the 60s. What we're going to do is wire the output of the iPod to the volume control audio input on the radio.



Open up the old radio and do some disassembly. Stick the tiny screws to a piece of tape for storage. This speaker has a hole in it that causes buzzing when you turn up the volume, but here's an old trick - layer rubber cement on until the hole is covered. No more buzz!




Now, prepare the plug that goes into the iPod. Solder a wire to ground tap, and a small 3.3K resistor to each out channel. This converts the stereo output signal to mono. I put a piece of paper inside the plug to prevent shorting, and screwed on the top of the plug.




Drill a hole in the back of the radio case for the wire. At this point, thread the wires from the plug to the radio. Now solder the ground wire and the hot wire to the two exposed tabs on the radio's volume control. Attach a 9 volt battery to the radio, plug the plug into the iPod, and turn both on. The sound should be coming through the radio speaker. Make sure the volume control on the radio is working properly. If turning it up makes the volume go down, reverse the two wires you soldered on the volume control.



Carefully replace the radio and the new wires into the case, and reassemble the radio.

I hung the iPod on the back of the leather case because I can still take it off to go to the gym, but if you have room, you could build it into the top of the radio case in place of the ferrite antenna. My radio already had a broken antenna wire, so I left it alone.



Now go to www.reelradio.com or www.airchexx.com, and grab some vintage airchecks from your favorite childhood station. I've loaded Bill Berlin WKDA Nashville, Dr. Don Rose from WQXI Atlanta, and various jocks from WKBW Buffalo, WEAM Arlington VA, and WOWO Fort Wayne IN. Make an iPod playlist with airchecks, your fave songs, and some old commercials.



Load it up and enjoy! Even the old school earphone works! Will Apple build these for us oldsters? I hope so, but why wait around?