Culture
Watch Two DJs Rock The Club With Ridiculous Antique Phonographs
These New York DJs are as old school as it gets.
Do you worry that the art of vinyl DJing is being ruined by the digital explosion? Well spare a thought for Michael Cumella and Mike Haar. They’re two DJs for whom shellac records are the DJ medium of choice, 78RPM is their preferred speed and the phonograph is the only turntable that matters.
The two New York selectors spin music from the very early years of recorded music’s history: ballads, military marches, jazz, blues, country and early R&B. It makes what we usually think of as vintage seem extremely “high-tech.” Direct-drive? Try a 100-year-old manual crank system! Cumella’s phonographs are even housed in custom cases that date back to 1905.
Cumella has also taken the art of phonographic DJing to the airwaves. He starting spinning 78s on his WFMU radio show “The Antique Phonograph Music Program” in the mid-’90s. Scroll down to see the duo in action. To learn more about this unique form of DJing, click here.
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Read more: Watch a documentary about the birth of the record industry
