For the last couple of years I had been
thinking of buying a portable turntable but had never quite managed to press
the buy button. This was partly because of the price .v. the variable reviews
and partly because I wondered how much I would use it – I haven’t been an avid
record fair visitor to date and to use a portable at a charity shop or car boot
just doesn’t seem right, or practical. But I have been thinking lately that my
buying pattern may start moving more towards quality than quantity and so record
fairs maybe the way to go as far as physical digging is concerned. So when this
one (an ION LP2Go) came up at only £30 including postage (almost half price) I
couldn’t resist.
Last weekend it had its first outing at
the local small R&R slanted record fair. In truth I wasn’t looking to spend
much money as quite a few records have already dropped through the letterbox this
last few weeks, but I looked on this outing as an exercise in getting familiar
with the ION. I always dig for soul, but
at this fair there is very little I haven’t seen before. I may have seen the
records before but I hadn’t heard them. So my new toy allowed me to run through
the rest of the vaguely interesting ones – and in most cases discount them for
good.
At one point there were four or five of us all in a line sat
down hunched over our portables with a stack of records in front of us. The
portables were all shapes and sizes. Design wise the ION is based on the original classic of its type - the Soundburger. I thought it was funny - there I was a somewhat
ageing has been with my new piece of kit and next to me was a young gun with
his girlfriend, and what looked like an original Soundburger. His girlfriend
seemed to be looking at me, and my ION, quite a bit. I guessed she was inwardly
scoffing at my uncool, and admittedly in comparison somewhat clunky looking, bit
of hardware. I did notice though that after an initial spin the Soundburger
wasn’t getting a lot of use. Showing its age and reliability problems creeping
in maybe. I know, that’s a comment that can also easily apply to me! But as far
as the portables were concerned perhaps
I could at least have the last laugh.
With
the Soul cheapie bins finally exhausted this portable is now going to allow me
to start exploring some of the other records for sale at this fair i.e. R&R,
early R&B especially, and even maybe some Hillbilly! I am no expert in
these genres so in the past taking a punt was not really an
option but now I’m all tooled up!
This bit of technology may turn out to be
a costly purchase: on the one hand it will stop me buying average or worn records,
but on the other hand it has effectively opened up whole vistas of old records
in new (to me) genres. I made a brief start on a box of cheapie early R&B
and was happy with this 1961 release from the, at that time, prolific Hank
Ballard & The Midnighters. This record I will forever remember as the first
one ‘found’ with the help of my portable turntable. For that reason I think I
may call it Hank.
And to my ears the even better B side….
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1 comment:
The B-side just tremendous, and one that might find its way onto this laptop. Of course, being on King, it just has to be good.
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