Numbers

45′s

How It's Used

"If you are over 40, you know exactly what a 45 spacer is: the plastic adapter doodad you would stick in the middle of a 45-r.p.m. single so it could be played on a regular turntable. (I never knew they had a name, but I sure recognized them.) I nearly squealed with delight when I saw a rack of navy T-shirts with a yellow 45 spacer printed on each. By that point, I knew I had to explain to the boys what they were. Lucky for me, a framed gold record hung on a wall near a rack of albums.

"'You'd stick this thing in the middle of this,' I said, pointing to the 45, 'so you could play it on regular record player.' I remember buying little bags of spacers at Stan's Record Shop, in Lancaster, Pa., often along with 45s, which cost $1.06 each. (That was how I learned about sales tax.)

"Again, the boys nodded politely, probably the same way I nodded when my father told me how his family listened to the Glenn Miller Orchestra on the radio during World War II."

"From a crumbling house on Chicago's South Side to a cardboard box of reel-to-reel tapes in Miami, through a studio space in the Bahamas carpeted floor-to-ceiling in brown shag, and on to the scant evidence of 1970s 'underground Detroit Christian musical theater'—the Numero Group's work to resurrect forgotten soul and R&B is as relentless as it is riveting.

"The Chicago-based label digs through the rapidly vanishing tapes, 45s, and acetates left behind by unknown record labels and overlooked sounds (see 'Belize City Boil Up') and reissues them on vinyl, CD, and MP3. Obscure as the material is, it's not just for hardcore record collectors."

"It was a day of sensational drama inside court 34 of the high court yesterday, as Sir Paul McCartney and his estranged wife Heather Mills exchanged insults and accusations while attempting to settle their bitter divorce...well, either that or it was a day of unrelenting tedium in which the couple exchanged not so much as a glance.

"Since all divorce proceedings are heard in private, and the couple have displayed a discretion that has not always characterised both sides, it is impossible to know what occurred inside the court on the final scheduled day of the hearing. The pair could have agreed to settle their differences by breaking old Beatles 45s over each other's heads and, so long as they had kept the noise down, the world would be none the wiser."

"Uptempo doo-wop 45s make regular appearances at London clubs like Dirty Water, or Soho poker night Stag-O-Lee. The downbeat stuff though, to connoisseurs, will always be the music's heartbeat."

"'It's About Time,' a children's art workshop on making clocks out of old records, will be July 11 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the RHINO Crafts Co. in Canal Place. This is the fifth in a series of Second Saturday Art Workshops. RHINO collage artist Caren Nowak will lead the workshop. Children may bring their own records (45s, 78s, LPs or CDs) or use ones provided.”

Also Known As (AKA)

45s, 45 rpm

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