Stereo Town

January 11, 2021

It’s Summer, 1978 and you’re standing in the showroom of swank audio retailer “Playback, The Electronic Playground” with several hundred “lawn-mowing/fast-food job” dollars burning a hole in your pocket.

It’s time to take some JBL, Infinity or Harman Kardon speakers out for a little proficiency run, with smooth sales associate Ron Johnson looking on (“Here at Playback, we call them loudspeakers.”)

What would be some of your album go-to track(s) to drop the needle on, and ensure that those Advent Model 3s are cherry? Here are the purely hypothetical choices of one such 14-year-old hepcat:

• Jeff Beck, “Blue Wind” 

• George Benson, “Breezin’”

• Herbie Hancock, “Chameleon”

• Steely Dan, “Deacon Blues”

…And if Salesman of the Month Ron has 13 more minutes to spare: Pink Floyd, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” (Parts I-V).

In ’78, I would pedal my Schwinn Traveler the 4.7 miles to reach my local Karma Records and check out the latest offerings by Wings (Back to the Egg? Nope, London Town). There the elitist 19-year-old clerks would silently pass judgment on my purchases at check-out. If I saw these individuals on the streets of my hometown today I would recognize them instantly. Such was their power.

This was back when listening to music was communal, not a private act conducted through your own device and earbuds. In those days it also was crucial to persuade someone you liked to listen with you. And you had to have (loud)speakers.

Record reviews mattered then. The critics who wrote them mattered. The entire in-store experience mattered. This was long before all 11-year-olds were handed unlimited access to all the music ever recorded.

You had to make an effort to find the friend who owned the albums you wanted to hear. Otherwise your only alternative was to roll the dice and drop $7.99 of your lawn money on a 3.5-star review you read in Rolling Stone

At Playback I dug deep and purchased the awesome Pioneer SX-580, the glorious PL-516 turntable and a (loud) pair of Pioneer HPM-60s.

I had arrived.

So which album tracks (or full albums) would you take out for an audio-store spin on a such a rig?

• Real estate purveyor and all-around raconteur Brent — without doubt the biggest audiophile to this day that I count among my circle of friends — said he’d probably test the bass response with ZZ Top’s “Waitin’ For The Bus & Jesus Just Left Chicago” off the band’s 1973 Tres Hombres LP. 

Long-time buddy Barclay, who plays bass and guitar in different bands when he isn’t doing financial work, selected “The Real Me” by The Who for bottom and “Year of The Cat” by Al Stewart for dynamic range and clarity. 

My journalist friend Mark said he’d go with Led Zeppelin IV’s “Misty Mountain Hop.”  “If they let me stay in the store for a whole album,” Mark wrote, “it would be Hearts of Stone by Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, my pick for the most underrated perfect album of the 1970s.”

Chris, a stellar bassist in his own right who grew up in the Toronto suburbs, said:

• “From Sheer Heart Attack, I was thinking specifically about “Now I’m Here,” of which I couldn’t get enough at the time.” 

• Chris fondly remembers the first Toto LP as seeming so well-produced that he and friends cranked it way up. Same with the whole Tubes’ “Completion Backwards Principle” album.

Rhythm guitarist and software exec Bill went with full albums — Dark Side of the Moon and then Led Zeppelin II — leading me to conclude that he definitely owned a black light and a few Roger Dean posters back in the day.

My fraternity brother Dave, who works in healthcare, weighed in with:

“We Came to Play,” by Tower of Power (produced by Steve Cropper)

“Songs in the Key of Life,” Stevie Wonder

“That’s the Way of the World,” Earth Wind & Fire 

Dave adds: My first stereo system, purchased with funds earned during my first full-time summer job in 1979 working on a small concrete construction crew:

• JVC receiver (went for the “full” 50 Watts!)

• Belt-drive JVC turntable with Grado F-1 cartridge

“I later added a Sony cassette deck with those cool LED meters so I could make cassettes for the car…yeah, baby!” said Dave, before also sharing he forgot the brand of his first speakers.

To wrap up this highly subjective exercise, my ex-roommate, Jeff, told me that back then, he was listening to a Soundesign all-in-one that he’d bought with lawnmowing/babysitting cash.  

“I don’t remember my Dad buying music, and my Mom was all ‘showtunes/soundtracks and crooners,’” he says. “Being the oldest, I was on my own to discover music. I stuck with the rock stations, so I would have gone with Dire Straits‘ self-titled LP, ChangesOne by David Bowie; and in ’79 the brand new, mind-blowing, AC/DC, Highway to Hell.”  

The point of any list is to judge and be judged. So have at it, dear reader.