SHOPPING IN THE 70'S - PART 1

One of my all time favorite hang outs was our local Two Guys Department store back in the 70’s. They had everything there; think of Wal-Mart Supercenter today. You could buy furniture there, clothes, food, even get your car serviced while you went into the pet department and bought a fish.

This is from one of there circulars from the day, check out the 8-track tape deck, and the $279 includes everything record player!

How about those ‘C’ code albums on sale! I loved the record department there, I remember they put there 45’s in these little wire baskets hanging from a wall.

This picture is from the Bluebook 77 catalog where you could buy all kinds of neat stuff. Tape decks and tape recorders everywhere in every color. What a groovy life.

Admit it. Come on. At sometime in your past, either you or your parents had carpeting like this. Or do you still have carpeting like this? My aunt used to have shag carpeted stairs, they looked so soft I threw myself down them one time and almost broke my neck.
We used to have gold carpeting and a yellow vinyl couch. That couch is still in my basement somewhere. Maybe someday I’ll take a picture of it and torture you with it.

Join us again for Shopping in the 70’s – part 2

45'S - THOSE LITTLE PLASTIC DISCS WE LOVE

45’S! How could you not love them? I’ve been buying these things my whole life! In my era these were the most important way for you to discover new music. I used to buy 2 or 3 of these a week, especially on Saturday’s after watching ‘American Bandstand’ on TV. The best thing about the 70’s was the variety of music that would top the charts. You had rock, soul, country, it didn’t matter. A good song was a good song, and the 45 was a cheap and great way to introduce you to a new musical group or artist. The flip side was also a surprise as sometimes it contained a track not available on the album.

Collecting 45’s today is still big, but finding original labels can be a challenge as a lot of them have been reissued on ‘oldies’ labels. However, they are still out there, and finding the original factory sleeve that accompanied the original release is a plus.

A music fan knew the labels. You also knew what artist recorded for what label. For example, The Monkees were on ‘Colgems,’ The Jackson-5 on ‘Motown,’ The Beatles on ‘Apple’ or ‘Capitol (swirl)’ The Guess Who on ‘RCA (orange)’ ect.

How about the versions of the songs? Many oldies CD’s today use the album version and not the edited and remixed 45 version of the song. Some songs were specially mixed for the 45 version making it more up-beat.

If you bought a lot of these you knew that the early ‘Epic’ record releases were on a yellow label, and in the 70’s Epic changed it’s label color to orange – you knew what the ‘Laurie’ records label looked like, how about ‘Roulette,’ ‘Chess,’ and ‘Parrot’ records. The same rules applied to albums however as the CD era crept in sadly the label recognition went away. Most music fans today will have a favorite group and have no idea what label that group records for. There isn’t much of a recognition factor with a silver disc or worst, an I-pod.

This may not seem important; however it’s the stuff that made these records collectible in the first place. When you saw a ‘Colgems’ you immediately thought of The Monkees, it was embedded in our minds. That’s how you remember them spinning on the turntable. Besides, these 45's were little works of art. How cool is the Parrot label? A part of our past, sadly gone and discarded today.

HBO in the 70's

Yes Virginia, we had HBO in the 70’s. As you can see above, we got it in August of 1975. Does anybody remember ‘Martha’s Attic?” HBO used to be on only a few hours a day, mostly at night and would ‘sign off’ around 1 or 2 in the morning. They used to go on the air about 3:00 pm and the selections of movies were few. Believe me, you got to know them well.

It really changed the way we saw television, no commercials, a shock at the time. We had a converter box that allowed us to pick up the normal channels 2 thru 13 then you flipped a switch over and up popped HBO. Sex, violence and nudity, though I saw my first nude shot not on HBO, but on Public Television in 1973. A program called ‘Steambath’ with Valerie Perrine. Yep, became a big fan of Valerie Perrine. Couldn’t tell you the plot of that thing but I remember Valerie Perrine.

But who needs Steambath, HBO had The Towering Inferno. And by December of 1975, there program guides were called On Air.