DJ 78's

[dave walsh]

Just completely by surprise I came across an episode of DIY Chateau [CH 4] at 11-40am [it started at 11-30 and runs for an hour!] Buried within and not flagged up at all, this chap was showing his vintage equipment and putting it together for some sort of gig. He is a DJ who specialises in 78's apparently. It looked quite interesting. He was explaining that he has a medical condition the means his fingers aren't as nimble these days but he was managing to wire things up. I'm going to watch/record it on CH4+1 at 12-30pm and thought it may be of interest to others!

Dave W

[Techman]

The 78 DJ lives in a village in my area.

Here he is performing just up the road from John Birkett's shop in Lincoln back in 2018.

The main gramophone has a mic in its horn which is then fed into a PA for maximum noise!

If you look closely you can see his business cards - The 78 DJ, available for bookings!

Dancing in the street to the 78 DJ...last picture!

[Uncle Bulgaria]

In Sheffield in the 2010s 78 nights (on acoustic gramophones) were not unusual DJ events, with a lot of dancing going on!

[Cruisin Marine]

Wonderful, up the hill a bit (I think) from memory was a crackin' pub used to sell a nice pint of real ale.
Going back a few years now.

[ben]

A friend and I have done this in Madrid, but not with acoustic gramophones. There's no way I'd put my rare blues, jazz and swing discs near those steel needles tracking at 100g. You'd only be able to do a few dozen gigs before you'd end up with more surface noise than music, plus changing needles on two 'decks' after each disc would not make for a very smooth mix!

[Techman]

Originally Posted by Cruisin Marine

Wonderful, up the hill a bit (I think) from memory was a crackin' pub used to sell a nice pint of real ale.
Going back a few years now.

Yes, probably further up the hill on the left. It featured in the 1962 film 'The Wild and the Willing', with Ian McShane, John Hurt and many more who you'll recognise. I have it on DVD and I see it's also on YouTube and I've linked to it below. The pub is called the 'Labour in Vain' in the film and is shown in the first 10 minutes, where possible racist remarks made in the pub mean that you'll not see this film shown on modern day TV anytime soon. The pub is shown again around 23 minutes in and again at around 28 minutes, with a very drunk John Hurt coming out and vomiting in a nearby doorway just down the hill from the pub. In the shots of when they come out of the pub and down the street you can see down to the spot where the 78 DJ was performing in my pictures - only 56 years between the two shots! If you look closely you'll notice that people walking past outside the frosted windows from inside the pub, are actually walking on level ground and not up or down a hill, hence all the inside scenes being shot in another pub further down in the city - it was the old 'Theatre Royal' pub that I think they used. A lot of it was shot where I was a student doing my City & Guilds in Radio, TV & Electronics back in the 70s.

First pictures below are of 'The Wild and the Willing' DVD about to be viewed on the TV seen in my avatar and then a view down from where the 78 DJ is performing, showing firstly on the right, just below and next to the shop called Modern Classics (now gone) is John Birkett's first shop and where he lived immediately above it. Then, further down on the left where the large white sign saying 'The Strait' is on the end if the building, that's the main double shop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0bj...nel=NickTaylor