spirit of '76

Lindsey Buckingham is on PBS singing a really old Fleetwood Mac song with Stevie Nicks, who has come out to join him for a few acoustic songs towards the end of his shoot for sound|stage. well my my my he sure looks good. no aging rock star here. he's gotta be in his 50s. this is a nice surprise. no i wouldn't have gone looking for that.

Fleetwood Mac (1975), the first album i ever bought myself.

we had no television when i was a kid. we had a stereophonic radio in the living room. as a tiny child i would lay in between the speakers and listen.

one evening when i was five, my dad arrived home and rapped the brass door knocker persistently and loudly. illuminated by a pair of porch lights, he was standing at the door with a turntable, receiver, and a pair of very tall Bose 501 speakers. the boxes and equipment filled the porch in a display for us that he had set up before knocking. we gathered as a family for the spectacle and celebration and received all this audio gear into our house. my world expanded.

our family's first two records were Jesus Christ Superstar (1970) and Shaft (1971). my dad brought these home with the stereo that night. i learned immediately from my father how to operate the sleek turntable with its diamond stylus and played these albums endlessly. there would be many more musical friends for me over the years.

in 1976 for my eleventh birthday, my brother gave me Frampton Comes Alive. that was the first album all my own. i thought Peter Frampton had purple hair. a few days later i brought ten dollars of my birthday money down to Amber Records. my brother helped me pick out two albums - he worked there. Fleetwood Mac (1975) was the first suggestion & the other album he helped me choose was History: America's Greatest Hits (1975).

i like that, coming back round to the early beginnings.

like my first camera, a polaroid from Lenny's L&L Camera (he's still there in town), also a birthday present. would also be my birthday in 1976 i guess. Lenny took a polaroid of me in the parking lot. i still have that photo somewhere.

and the Fleetwood Mac record, that is on a shelf in the closet back in NY.

the wooden edged Dual turntable, well i have that here with me.