Model a "Functioning" American Record / Music Store

[Anonymous]

Some other "store front"/music playing ideas, a Pet Store "How Much is That Doggie in The Window" playing occasionaly. The church with the choir master playing the organ. There should be an unlimited number of theme's out there.
Will

[Anonymous]

Around here, the record stores were little hole in the wall places.

For pinpointing time periods with a few details -- in the late 60's you could have the jocks from the football team beating up the long haired hippies, with a smug coach looking on. And don't forget a "Keep America Clean -- Get A Haircut" billboard. By the early 70's the jocks had become the long-haired dope smokers. You could have a team practicing with some long hair poking out from under their helmets. I think it was c.1970 that Chelsea High used to have an ambulance parked outside all day just waiting to take the O.D. cases away.

Cheers,
Mo

[AntonioFP45]

Cool Post, Coalminer3,

Lot of good info for detailing store interiors. I remember that from time to time, record stores would also have a radio station playing through the stores speakers as well.

I really do hope someone does put a functional record store on their layout before I do. I still haven't built my layout yet as I've been so busy (wish I were a teen again!). I'd rather someone beat me to the punch and do this, especially since it can be done with a mini CD player or tape recorder with a speaker hidden inside the store.

10-4!

[coalminer3]

Great thread - let's add some more to it.

Record stores I recall were storefront operations; let's see, we started with 78s, then 45s, then 33s; BTW I recall two sizes of 33s (extended play) and LP (long play). Stores in my neighborhood also sold - are you ready for this - "record players" - (there were no stereos until later - they also sold radios, and later TV's (big cabinets made of real wood, with small screens) The windows as some suggested had posters and stuff, but what I recall were neon signs for different companies such as RCA, Zenith, Philco and such). These stores also repaired radios, record players and such because things were built so they could be repaired, not junked (what a concept!); so a junked up repair area would be a great interor detail.

As some have suggested, they also sold sheet music. One thing I remember well is stacks of printed Top 40 Lists produced by local radio stations - these came out every week. Boston area stations such as WBZ, WMEX, WHDH, and WCOP come to mind here - most of these are gone or their formats have been changed to be unreconizable. So make sure there's lots of stuff all aorund the counter area; also, many places had listening booths where you could go and listen to a recording to decide if yopu wanted to buy it or not; sorta like what Borders and some other places do today with headphones, though it's not the same.

Also make sure you have an irascible owner - that seemed to go with the territory although maybe it's because we invaded his store in the afternoons after school - we never had much money, either, so maybe that's what really motivated him to keep chasing us out!

Also, there are several old-time radio sites out on the web which have all sorts of stuff on them which modelers can use including actual sound clips of music, dj's, commercials, etc. - great stuff for period sounds.

If there are any readers who grew up in the Boston area, do you remember "Adventure Car Hop is the Place to Go" Also, as Arnie used to say (with sound effects on WMEX) "Woo-woo for you you"

work safe

[coalminer3]

Great thread - let's add some more to it.

Record stores I recall were storefront operations; let's see, we stared with 78s, then 45s. then 33s; BVTW I recall two types of 33s - extended play and LP (long play). Stores in my neighborhood also sold - are you re

[tatans]

Jetrock: Yma Sumac?? with that 5 octave range, I forgot all about her, I remember listening to rock & roll 45's in the late 1950's at the record store where they actually let you take the records into a booth and play them, we were sort of lucky in Canada as we got the original black recording artists instead of white cover singers(how bad were they???) and we find out today these artists were paid as little as $300 on a national hit, after the record made hundreds of thousands of dollars. By the way this music store was the first store in town to get and sell a thing called T.V.

[bsteel4065]

Oh yeah... in the 40's I think you'll find there would be a pianist who would play the music for you. That was in the days when sheet music was really popular.

[bsteel4065]

Don't forget listening booths! In the 50's and 60's, if you wanted to listen to a record or an album before you bought it, you would go to the counter and ask. The girl behind the counter would then direct you to a soundproof booth (1-5 or so) to listen to it. When I was Art College in the 60's I remember listening to Sgt Pepper the week it when it came out in the UK. Ah, days of genius and the summer of love!!
Anyway... easy to model. There would also be a big chart of the top 20 singles and top 20 albums.

[Anonymous]

I remember Bell records on Grand River in Old Redford (Detroit) small, dark, A big dude behind the counter and 45's for .79 -.99, this is a good idea,

[AntonioFP45]

Re: looking for those little stickers.

Over the years I've discovered that many senior citizens save magazines for years! It's easy to ask some that you may know at Church, work, or relatives. Let them know that the only thing you're interested in are those "pesky" little stickers. Will probably draw some chuckles!

When I visited my uncle a few years back in New York, I was amazed that he had magazines dating back to the 1950s that he had bought new or had subscribed to them.

10-4!

[Jetrock]

Columbia House hasn't sent me anything since I got their free tapes (yes, cassette tapes) back in 1987 and then I didn't buy any records from them. But then, 1987 was a dreadful, dreadful time for popular music.

Not a bad idea about using the little stamps for posters...I suppose for a period layout it wouldn't hurt to hunt around for old magazines appropriate to the era in used bookstores to salvage (they ran ads in popular magazines, I think as early as the late 60's.)

[AntonioFP45]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CPD95

Have you ever gotton one of those deals in the mail where you join some music club and you have to paste those little stamp sized pictures of groups/album covers to the order form then send it back? Well, those little stamp thingys make GREAT posters!!!! Never did join but they keep sending them. And they are pre-pasted!! Can't beat it!! Look inside the envelope next time before tearing it up![;)]

CPD95 you're the man!!

I've thrown so many of those things away! Majority of these come from
"COLUMBIA HOUSE". Often can be found among your "Junk Mail" which we often toss away.

Great idea!

[Anonymous]

Have you ever gotton one of those deals in the mail where you join some music club and you have to paste those little stamp sized pictures of groups/album covers to the order form then send it back? Well, those little stamp thingys make GREAT posters!!!! Never did join but they keep sending them. And they are pre-pasted!! Can't beat it!! Look inside the envelope next time before tearing it up![;)]

[Jetrock]

Tower Records is kind of an anomaly--each store has a "store artist" whose job it is to make those giant graphics. The original Tower Records was about half a mile from where I'm sitting now...of course, it was actually a drugstore.

I'm not sure yet if I'll actually have a record store--I'll have to do a little research and see if Records on K Street was around when the trolleys were still running in these parts. But music will play some role on my layout...

[darth9x9]

That would be cool....a record store with Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon coming out of it.. hee, hee, hee, hee, hee.

[Anonymous]

Many of the old record stroes in LA (Tower Records comes to mind), had huge posters depicting actual album covers. With today's computer technology it is probably easy to scan a CD cover reduce and print a miniature poster of your favorite album.

[AntonioFP45]

Hey Jet!

Gotta say you've got a well rounded and impressive background in the music area! BTW: I'm a big Herb Alpert fan too!

Do you think that you'll be modeling a record store? It's defintely on my "to do" list.

[Jetrock]

My dad introduced me to a lot of non-Americanized latin music when I was growing up--he was an embassy guard in Central and South America in the early Sixties and that's what he listened to.

There is/was a whole subculture of modern lounge enthusiasts who are very into the sort of thing you mention--fans of folks like Esquivel, Yma Sumac, even Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass (I recently DJ'd for a midnight-movie series at a picture-palace theater here in Sacramento and made much use of my copy of "Whipped Cream and Other Delights"!)

One of my local-history missions is to find out what sorts of bands played in Sacramento (the city I live in and model) during the early sixties, and find flyers and posters for them to stick on lamp-posts and store windows (in HO scale form.) I may make some up--for folks like downtown Sacramento icon Bobby Burns (who died recently) used to play drums with various jazz legends as well as folks like Sinatra, or for local Sixties garage-rock bands like Public Nuisance.

If it's not obvious, I am just a little into music.

[AntonioFP45]

Jetrock,

In the 60s? I could see that in the early 50s .

As pointed out on page one of this post, using a few "steroetypes" helps identify an era almost immedietly when viewed. I prefer a "typcialy mix" of people. Teens, workers, business people, seniors, etc, since all tend to like one or more types of music.

One thing not mentioned previously is that in the 60s, "Americanized" Latin Jazz was also very popular with the over 30 crowd in some of the urban areas. These tunes often served as background music for a lot of the Hollywood movies during the early 60s. Beats were fast, so some of the younger crowd also listened and danced to it.

Some of you might remember the "Capio"drink commercials of the 1990s. The background music was a 60's Latin Jazz tune from Ray Charles (r.i.p).

10-4!

[Jetrock]

QUOTE: Originally posted by AntonioFP45


I laugh sometimes when I remember my dad. A wonderful sweet guy who absolutely couldn't stand to see all that hair on a man!! Goes without saying that as a kid, crew cuts and slacks were the "norm" for me, though I was taught to treat all others with respect! I can't complain though, I pretty much adopted his solid conservative values though today I occasionally grow a beard.

My folks taught me to treat people with respect, and while they may not have approved of what I did with my hair and clothes, they figured that was part of the whole respect thing. In my younger years I found that, if one had, say, bright blue hair and a leather jacket, being cheerful and courteous confuses people much more than being rude. I don't dye my hair anymore (it petulantly stopped growing on the top, which I attribute to genetics rather than hair dye) so I just keep it shaved off. I still try to be nice, though.

Which brings us back to model railroaders...who, despite some of the reactions one sees on this forum, tend to be a very courteous and nice bunch.

And back to the topic...one could have an equally interesting 60's era record store scene called "Square Records" with a group of nattily-dressed youths outside in crew-cuts and cardigans, with a little piped-in Lawrence Welk audible on the hidden mini sound system...

[Anonymous]

Looks like the "For Lease" signs in my latest DPM store will be coming down!
Thanks for a great idea.

[Dbcxyz123]

...Why?

[Dbcxyz123]

Oh......................................no?...

[Anonymous]

Great Idea !!!! I am listening to the beach boys right now . Kokomo to be exact. Oh man this saxaphone insturmental part rocks !! anyway, since pretty much all I listen to is oldies (despite the fact that I am 12 [8D][8D] ) and some contemperary christian. I don't mind gospel either. I need to build somthing like that !

[AntonioFP45]

JetRock,

O.K, now I understand. You've brought up a good point!

Sometimes in order to capture the "atmosphere" of a model scene you have to use stereotypes! I can put a couple of teens with 3ft long hair or huge afros around the record store!

I laugh sometimes when I remember my dad. A wonderful sweet guy who absolutely couldn't stand to see all that hair on a man!! Goes without saying that as a kid, crew cuts and slacks were the "norm" for me, though I was taught to treat all others with respect! I can't complain though, I pretty much adopted his solid conservative values though today I occasionally grow a beard.

Cheers with an E7 in Run 8!

[Jetrock]

QUOTE: Originally posted by AntonioFP45

Hey Jetrock,

I remember the flourescent posters. One thing though, there were "flower power" and "hippies" here and there, but not really in great concentrations as many people today speculate due to "Woodstock". It was more of mostly typical young people dressed casually (jeans, tee shirts, and leather vests). Every now and then you'd see the "extreme" ones with the full flower decals on their cars, "peace symbol" trinkets around the neck, giant bell bottoms, psychedelic colors, and either the long hair or huge afros! Saying "yeah" to an adult was considered very rude. Just typical youth in that time period. For me, it does seem like yesterday!

That's why I said a couple of them, rather than a mob scene.

I know that not everyone dressed like that, but if one seeks to set a mood sometimes one must resort to stereotypes. Not everyone in the Fifties wore a black leather jacket and drove a hot rod, but when modeling a Fifties layout it certainly helps set the mood to have a few DA'd delinquents sitting around their vehicles.

Of course, a Fifties record store could also feature a few beret-sporting beatniks. A 1970's or 80's (or 90's to modern) record store could benefit from a few spiky-haired punks (just modify your greaser miniature a bit with some squadron putty and some dabs of silver paint) or grab a few Vespa scooter miniatures, slap on some natty lads in suit jackets and ties and you have a gaggle of Mods for the outside of your record store, perfect for 1960's Britain or 1980's urban America.

[AntonioFP45]

Hello Cacole, - Wow! You really want to get into detailing.

Good question. One thing to consider; nearly all the records in a store are in "square shaped" carboard or paper sleeves to protect them from becoming scratched. I guess in HO this would be very tiny. In detailing something like this I imagine this would involve having several tables along the walls and in the center area. Standing vertically could be, many tiny, square shaped paper pieces of various colors lined up in rows
to represent records.

In my case, since the store's front window would be covered with pictures and posters, I'm not going to worry about interior decorations other than a dim, white light. Music will be heard through the open doorway.

Cheers!

[cacole]

A record store sounds like a good project -- but where are you going to find them tiny little records in HO or N scale to put on the shelves <g>

[wd45]

Along this same line, I've thought about putting a radio station on my layout (set in the 1970's) and perhaps recording some airchecks from airchecks.com, which features oldtime top 40 jocks from the 50's - 70's.

[AntonioFP45]

Fec,

I think Glenn Miller and Duke Ellington music would be very appropriate for the 1940s. 

The idea is basically to play a CD "LOADED" with a bunch of songs that record stores played during the time period that the modeler is basing his/her railroad on, not an individual song here or there. On a single day, the old record stores could easily play 40 to 50 songs, while repeating only the top hit singles several times a day.

It's so easy today to just "burn" a CD with songs we want to fit in our modeling era.

Cheers and 10-4!