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What the Cabinet Speakers in The Club Looked Like by moyomongoose

What the Cabinet Speakers in The Club Looked Like

moyomongoose

This is one of the two cabinet speakers on opposite ends of the back wall of The Club mentioned in the story link below;
https://www.weasyl.com/~moyomongoose/submissions/1501955/moyo-mongoose-dreaming-of-old-times

The setting is in the year 1934, on the south outskirts of the city of Eldoret in the Western part of British East Africa (known today as Kenya).

In about the late 1920s, a cozy, not so small, night club spot, simply named 'The Club', opened for business on the southern outskirts of the city of Eldoret . It's main attraction was a highly polished, wooden dance floor. It also had a cafe' counter and dinning area where patrons could get meals, snacks, coffee, tea, or socialize over a cocktail or other mixed drink. Recorded dance music was played through two large, amplified, wooden cabinet housed speakers installed on opposite ends of the back wall.
By the early 1930s, The Club had that aura of being that special place of fellowship where it's patrons have been friends for years. The Cub had that same kind of social atmosphere that one would expect to find among longtime patrons of places such as well known roller skating rinks and bowling alleys in a small town...Everyone knew everyone.

When Aluna Tatazu Mongoose was going on age 18, she and Makori Jais Mongoose had been in love with each other for some time. On many evenings after work, "dat sweet Kikuyu mongoose boy" as Aluna called Makori, would ride his old ragged bicycle, with no tire on the front rim, from his mom and dad's rural, mud and thatch home to the wood and tin shack in the farm workers shanty town where Aluna still resided with her mom Saura Binturong, her dad Nangwaya Mongoose, and her younger siblings Ohon (m), Lusala (m) and Sadika (f).
On some Friday nights, Makori and Aluna would get a ride out to The Club with someone who had a car. In fact, it was at The Club, on a Friday night in August of 1934, while dancing to the song in the following link, that Makori proposed to Aluna, and Aluna accepted Makori's proposal.
Rudy Vallee - Confessin' (That I Love You) 1930
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwYkFyl2xHk

Makori and Aluna are Moyo's Mom and Dad.


Here's a cool thing to try:
Open another tab, then pull up this Youtube link below on on that tab.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBchpVvrLX4 This is the sound of a crowd at a pub.

Then open on more tab and pull up this posting on it, then scroll down to the music play list in the description.

Have the crowd video playing turned down kind of low a little.
Have any song off the playlist in the other opened tab playing turned up lively a little.
If you view the pic of the speaker cabinet in The Club while the crowd video and a music video are playing, it feels like you are actually there and like the music is coming from the speaker on the wall.
Between songs would be when the DJ is changing records...Could be either the European pine martin or the cheetah, depending on who is running the DJ's stand that night.
These songs might seem really old, but this would be the music played during the time era of the 1930s and 1940s.


Paul Whiteman Orchestra - Get Out And Get Under The Moon (1928)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEnepj9RZnE

Jack Hylton And His Orchestra - Did You Mean It - 1936
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhwnvUzy01c

Mrs. Jack Hylton & Her Band "Heaven" (1936) Crown 149 vocalist Jimmy Miller
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e5oju2WWlE

Radio Melody Boys (Harry Hudson) - "With a Song in my Heart" (1930)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXHpOk2Tgg8

Cling To Me - The BBC Dance Orchestra directed by Henry Hall 1936
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZRWTeVmpL0

You started me Dreaming, Henry Hall, 1936
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2vmEpA0MoA

Mrs Jack Hylton & Her Band Love, Just Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yWCCLXgeXI

The Blue Lyres (at the Dorchester Hotel, London) - My Silent Love - 1932
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul6-a1PAeyQ

Did you ever see a dream walking - Henry Hall and his BBC Dance Orchestra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIxLe9Xk9ec

1933, Toujours L'amour, Barnabas von Geczy Orch. Hi Def, 78RPM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRbjNWmmJX8

Tonight Or Never - Harry Hudson's Riviera Dance Band - 1932
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSTJD0Fd99Q

You're Twice As Nice As That Girl In My Dreams - Nat Star & his Dance Orchestra - 1931
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7HqKsXbdWY

1935 Mantovani & his Tipica Orch. - Red Sails In The Sunset (George Barclay, vocal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouwL-drebbU

Brian Lawrance "Stay As Sweet As You Are" (1934)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kborbL6Noiw

Everything I Have Is Yours - Harry Roy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOT6iz97CNg

Jay Wilbur - Just As Long As The World Goes Round and Around
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxSonyDkeY4

Jay Wilbur, On A Steamer Coming Over
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvkukDV81yc

Old Sailor - Jay Wilbur and his Band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab661WrZ3Zc

A Rendezvous With A Dream - Tommy Kinsman's Fischer's Restaurant Dance Band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FtS7KZlMR0


Of course there were those occasions when one of The Club's DJs, a European pine martin, would play a really rambunctious song, during which everyone had fun making lots of noise and getting the place hoppin' by clapping paws, stomping feet and thumping the wooden cafe' chairs on the wooden dinning area floor, all to the rhythm with the music.
The following three video soundtracks played on three opened tabs while viewing the pic of the speaker gives a feel of what that is like;
Eric Borchard - Bugle call rag.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr9CrIqcq4Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-BQtrpXbyA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFTcS18hSn0


You may have noticed the "Electro-Armature Speaker" nomenclature on the Magnavox emblem. Electro-Armature Speakers were common in the 1920s (during the time era The Club purchased their two cabinet speakers).
Instead of the permanent magnet with a moving copper coil design of today's speakers that was developed and patented by RCA-Radiola in 1925, electro-armature speakers have a component behind the sound cone that looks in appearance very much like a big electric motor, which is not a motor, but contains a vibrating armature to generate the sound...Those were a vast improvement over the older 'horn speaker' design.
Electro-armature speaker systems also contained several gas tubes and vacuum tubes along with various other electrical components like what the old radios back in the day use to have.
That was also back in the day and time when wiring was typically insulated with resin impregnated paper. Some of which was jacketed in a woven cotton sleeve, which was sometimes tar impregnated (rag wire). Such wiring was commonly used in the manufacture of appliances, including cabinet speakers and radios...some of it also containing asbestos.
After The Club closes for the night, the music equipment is also shut down for the night. The cabinet speakers upon being shut off, make a short hum-n-skip sound;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-vv1aL-JHU
...followed by a brief, falling, tone oscillation;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNPQTAofMmg
...which were common tube sounds of music and communication equipment powering down back in those days.

In the drawings, the electrical feed cable to the speaker, fastened to one of the wooden wall planks, is depicted as heavy gauge, rag wire without the tar impregnation.

Music from the present day and time...Oh, even say like one of those Furry rave music videos could be substituted, depicting that The Club is still around for future generations of anthro-animals to enjoy since it opened it's doors for business in the late 1920s about 90 years ago (the way it would sound in the 21st Century...No fancy light shows in that old place though. Now days, any animals wanting that would have to travel to a big city like Nairobi to find a dance club with all that modern high tech stuff).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCvGyaWuDMM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZYoTUtyFLw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW_mRJVk7lE

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