Get Out Of London

My basement had become the place where everything (and I mean everything) ended up being stored. There had been a lot of stuff in the attic, but when we dormered the house it all ended up in the basement. Anyway, over the last few months I have been slowly cleaning out the basement, throwing away or reorganizing everything that was down there. At least some of the inspiration for all this clearing out comes from this.

Anyway, Friday, I had cleared out enough of the basement that I could take the challenge and set up the old stereo equipment that hadn't been used since we moved into the house, 14 years ago. It had all been down in the basement collecting dust along with our collection of vinyl records. So I took out the receiver and the speakers and hooked them up. Fortunately, I had saved all the old speaker wire so this was easy enough. Then I plugged in the receiver, fully expecting smoke and flames to come shooting out of it but all was quiet. I turned on the receiver and the appropriate lights came on and all looked good but there was no sound. Played with the FM tuner, the volume, and the speaker select button but still nothing. Just as panic started to set in, I noticed that I had hooked up the speakers to the surround sound inputs. Moved them to the correct spot and suddenly the sound of static filled the air.

I couldn't remember how to tune to a radio station (and I didn't have the FM antenna hooked up anyway) so I went and got my turntable and hooked it up to the receiver. Amazingly, the turntable was still balanced correctly and the speed was still synched. The EP, Love Cats by The Cure was still on the turntable so that must have been the last thing I listened to 15 years ago. I took that off, and put on Get Out Of London by Interferon which is a song I hadn't heard since my club days in the mid-80's. I think this was the only song Interferon ever released. Anyway, the song played perfectly without a pop or hiss even after having been stored in the basement for 15 years. (Note for the youngsters: pops and hisses are the noises that LP's used to make when playing if you didn't treat them as if they were made of the finest Ming china.)

So now if you drop by and I'm down in the basement you can expect to find me listening to The Alarm or Heaven 17 or The Suburbs or any of the other great groups that I haven't heard in years. Sometimes, life is good.

I should add that I found the manuals for all the stereo equipment and the remote control for the receiver which still works perfectly. Too cool!