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Music Exposure Part 1: When I Was Little

BeatlesI have a generation gap with my older siblings, particularly with my oldest brother and sister (Kuya and Ate).  Being born the youngest from the brood of eight, my exposure in music is influenced by the different genre where my other siblings belong.

Let me start with, "When I was little" (lol but seriously), my father has this business of buying imported stuff from American people in Subic Base back in the days that it wasn’t yet a free port.  He used to bring home a lot of imported stuff, from food,  kitchen utensils, furniture to appliances.  We smell like Americans I tell yah. LOL!  Calling my father “Hey Jo!” up front was the ultimate dream joke for me and my siblings.  But it remained just a dream joke.  My father, in spite of being exposed to the western people is the typical conservative Filipino father.  He is super strict and disciplinarian.  Kissing his hand (Mano Po) was the “must do” when he comes home from work. 

One day, my father brought home a stereo that made all of us exclaimed “Holy Cow!”  Everyone of us were agape while that “gorgeous huge piece of American technology” is being unloaded from the delivery van.  It was so sophisticated (during that time of course)   that I ‘m not sure if I can describe it perfectly in writing.  I also tried searching for an image from the net but I can’t find an exact one.  The photo below is a bit the same but ours is more sophisticated.  But at least it will give you an idea how it looks like.

an old American stereo.
Ours is more sophisticated, with piano finish top in varnish color and the edges are artfully curved.
american stereo

I don't think that even the richest people in our town own something like this.  It is the kind that you can only find from imported glossy magazines.  It has lots of features including two sliding door compartments.  One for the control panel and the other one for the record keeper. The records during that time is called “Long Playing Album” (LOL). Between the two compartments is a huge speaker that produces the best quality of  stereo sound.

There are lots more unique features this stereo has, but the one thing that really fascinates us and all the people who saw it, is the record player.  It is also the one thing that stuck in my mind and still fascinates me till this day.  The record player has a robot-like function.  It can hold up to ten long playing albums, and then it automatically queues the record one after the other.  Fascinating isn’t it?

LongPlaying
So my Kuya (brother) feasted on this sophisticated stereo.  As you know how the older siblings are in the family, they dominate or set the trend in the house! Yo! Ooops! It was “Peace Man” during that time.  My brother is one proud teener in the hippie genre, owning the coolest sound system in town!  His room was strategically adjacent to the living room where the stereo is displayed.  A mock-up divider separated the living room and my brother's head board.  He will queue a maximum of ten long playing albums to the stereo, go back to his room and sang his lungs out with the Beatles, Bee Gees, Elvis, The Doors, Santana, Black Sabbath, Cat Stevens, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Crosby Stills, Nash & Young and all the 70’s greatest. 

Past forward to present... 

The food - till this day I am not fond of eating those huge jarred pickles, canned goods, chocolate covered marshmallows and cookies and the likes.  I sort of developed a food fatigue on those food stuff.  To think that “PX” was still rare and a real big deal at that time.

The music - all I can say is that I can join the game "Name that Tune" and I promised you I could win the championship in the 70's category!

And this was just the beginning of my “no way out slavery" of listening to music.  Tag along with me as I go along with life saying “Rock on!” 

Photo credits: Google images

Note from the author:
This is originally published from my former blog "The Lucky Blog" .

Comments

  1. yo. Imma tagging along with ya 'ol moma. Now, start rockin' on.

    hihihi

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LOL! Lawrence wala kang kupas! ha ha ha
      Salamat sa suporta!

      Delete
    2. 100% ang suporta ko sayo mommy balut. lapit na takbuhan ak. praktis-praktis na. goodluck

      Delete
    3. THANK YOU ulet Lawrence! tatakbo ka ba?
      actually before Milo may 15K run ako sa July 15 lol

      Delete
  2. Replies
    1. at anong tinatawa-tawa mo dyan sa "Bitols" Marco? relate na relate ka no? ha ha ha

      Salamat sa suporta!

      Delete
    2. Ay naku, autistic talaga yang si Mark, tumatawa lagi mag-isa.. char! makasali lang sa usapan ng iba, haha..

      Delete
    3. aha ha ha okrayin ba naman si Marco :P

      Delete
  3. I remember seein a lot of that kind of stereo back at my younger days i also grew up listening at some old song

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hala MEcoy kaedad ba kita? lolz! wish ko lang na-picturan ko yung stereo namin :(, but i was too young then.

      next time share ka dito about old songs ha ;)

      Delete
  4. Hi Natasha THANKS for reading!

    Actually my father's very strict especially with us daughters. He's more lenient with the boys :(

    "Kissing the hand" of our parents and elderly is one great Filipino culture that expresses respect.

    Again, THANKS for passing by. I've been to your blog - it looks awesome :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Touch naman ako sa story Mo. Dami nyo pala and Nice getting to know you more. It is like a roman I am reading, waiting for the susunod na kabanata:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. THANKS Joy! ha ha ang dami nga namin ano. naku lalo akong mai-inspire to write about it :)

      Delete
  6. Lumaki rin ako sa old songs, actually hanggang ngaun puro old songs pa rin nasa play list ng mudra at pudra..

    Si Papa ko strict na discreet, yun kunwari dedma siya, pero yun pala pinapagalitan nya si mama pag pinayagan ako umalis or gumala, haha..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ay good! share ka dito minsan ng favorite old music mo ha :)

      Ganyan yata talaga mga "fadir" sa mga daughters nila eh :(

      Salamat sa dalaw :)

      Delete
  7. beatles is great!
    tw maybe u mind to fllw each other?
    jessillesilv.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah right! Great!!!

      Yes of course :) I visited your blog and followed you. hope u follow me back :)

      Delete
  8. Hi Lucky!

    We have this stuff in our old house..:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh wow good! Do you have a photo? I hope that you can share it through your blog ;)

      Delete
  9. Hello po... nice stereo... parang ganyan din ung dating TV sa bahay ng parents ko... parang cabinet with sliding doors to reveal the TV itself and then ung dalawang sides nya speaker... classic na classic! hehe!

    i also grew up with my Ate's and Kuya's songs... we are 8 in the family and i'm the youngest... 16 years ung gap nmin nung sinundan ko... so sobrang iba tlg ung songs na mga natutunan ko sa knila... iba pa dun ung mga mas old songs ng Tatay ko na twing Sunday dapat sya lang ang mgpapatugtog ng radio nya... hehe!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. HI anne THANKS for sharing your story na mukang pareho tayo ng exposure :)

      Meron din kami nung TV na ganun, parang closet di ba? lol

      Thanks also for passing by and following me here ;) appreciate it much!

      Delete
  10. Wow! Do you also have the tv that looks like cabinet? ☺

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes Myke we also have that. but that TV model was released much later than our classic stereo :)

      THANKS for dropping by :)

      Delete
  11. So cool! I'm your newest follower and I would love it if you could follow me back! xx

    Hitchcockesque blog

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Ingrid THANKS for the follow! I followed you back :)

      Been to your site and you've got one great style and fashion - I'm loving it :) See yah around!

      Delete
  12. Kumusta Balut?

    Wow, what an awesome post and a really awesome stereo console! That brings back nostalgia for me on many levels. Like you, I was the youngest of the brood (5 of us kids in all), and being born in 1969, that album, Let It Be, was very popular in our house during my formative years, along with many other of my older brothers' and sisters' albums and a good number of Christmas albums my parents had from the mid-60's.

    I hope someday you can find a photo online of the exact model (that's a bit hard to do, I know!). I am sure that was a top-of-the-line one; at my parents' house in the States we just had a circa 1957 mono RCA hi-fi that was much narrower (less than 1 meter wide) but taller, with one speaker but nice sound. Back then they had vacuum tubes rather than transistors, and I suspect yours probably did too - ever smell the inside of it while the records are playing? I think it's a mix of the smell from the vacuum tubes (before transistors) which yours probably still has, as well as maybe some smell of the needle going into the grooves of the vinyl albums. My parents-in-law have a long console stereo unit still in Mindanao that my wife would listen to when she grew up (she's 2 years younger than me), but it's not nearly as nice as yours and I think it might be a couple years newer.

    I don't know if your family still has this stereo, but if they do I hope they will continue to hang on to this wonderful piece. Many of the "high-end" audiophiles swear that vinyl has better sound than CDs, although I'm not that discriminating of ears to know if that's true or just opinion LOL. But it would be a great conversation piece and a family heirloom if they still have it, not to mention a beautiful piece of furniture.

    Thanks for your kind comment on my blog, by the way!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mabuti naman ako Buzz. I'm really glad you fund your way here in my other blog. Kumusta ka na rin?

      Wow! I'm glad to know we're coming from the same memory lane, I've got one generation pal with you here ha ha.

      You know I haven't stop looking online for a photo of our stereo, but I'm not succeeding yet. That would be really great if I found one and I'll be sure to post it here. We may have some photos of that stereo back home in the province but that would be a lot of diggings to do ha ha.

      I so love your perfect description of the stereo from your parent's house, including the "smell". I hope you could share a photo of that if you have and also the one from your in-laws house.

      And aaaw that's the sad thing, we don't have the stereo now. It got damaged from a flash flood back then. But I remember that it was still in one piece though not working. Then I lived in the city and really not sure what happened to that stereo along with our other antic stuff :(

      I won't mind bringing it here in the city if it's there, but...

      Oh wow, I enjoyed replying to your comment! This is one good sharing :) Thanks again for taking some time reading and commenting here. Till next stories:

      Delete
  13. madam. may hulog barya ba kayong jokbox? hehe,

    ReplyDelete
  14. natuwa naman ako sa sterio... may naalala lang ako.... katulad sa TV namin noon na parang ganyan din ang looks niya...

    masarap din makinig ng mga old songs.....

    musta na... hugs ^^

    ReplyDelete
  15. Same pala tayo, i'm the youngest in the family din at labo-labo ang music na alam ko.Mas di ko ata alam lalo na yung latest ngayon. Pero I'm glad na familiar ako sa mga old songs and media player.

    I can say mas iba ang lyrics at himig ng mga old songs especially yung mga 70s and 80s sa love songs. 90s for bands and dance able ones.

    interesting yang stereo na yan.

    ReplyDelete
  16. good that nasa between ako ng generations hahahaha i love the old songs i also love the new songs. naabotan ko pa ang mga stereo na yan hahaha mas gusto ko pa ren ang mga old times kaysa ngaun hihihihi

    haymisshyooouuu miss balutt

    ReplyDelete
  17. I love you yeah yeah yeah :) that album tape player sis its epic :) i remember we used to have that before and plays Mamang Solbetero and Matayog ang lipad ng Saranggola ni Pepe ha ha! I miss you too sis sorry super busy now lang nakapag blog hop. Thanks for stopping bye I do really appreciate it! Stay safe

    ReplyDelete
  18. Hulaan ko Ate B, meron pa rin kayong naitatabing mga Vinyl records until now :D

    80's and 90's music naman ang malapit sa puso ko :)

    ReplyDelete
  19. Heh, I didn't really have much experience with any of this stuff.

    I mostly got into music when it went digital.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Meron kaming ganito kalaking stereo nun na pinapatungan namin ng tv na ang brand ay marikit hihihi. marami rin kaming vinyl records pero lumaki akong radio tapes na ang aming gamit. Fave namin ang name that tune dati na Music game show, mas mahihilig yata kasi sa music dati kaysa sa tv at movies ano

    ReplyDelete

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