JUKEBOX

( Photo 1 ) A jukebox similar to this one, but not the actual one.

CHAPTER 55

JUKEBOX

Early to mid 1980`s

Plough and Harrow # 7

It was a Friday night at the Plough and Harrow pub in Monknash.

It was early in the evening, just after 18:00/6pm.

The pub was slowly filling up, you could hear the arrival of one or two bikes pulling up outside every few minutes.

I was already in the backroom, so to beat the other guys to the jukebox, and put my own choice of song on before anyone else does, I walked over to the jukebox which was just on the left side of the small bar and squashed in-between the Jacobean cupboard furniture and the bar, I scanned the record collection like I had done hundreds of times before, I didn’t really need to look at the selection as the play list in the jukebox had not changed for ages.

The small slips of paper that had the name of the songs and the artist printed on them were very faded, some slips were handwritten other were the original printed ones that came with the jukebox when it was new, the printed slips had fared much better than the written ones,

Some of the titles were impossible to read, but nothing had changed with the selection for a very long time, but this was not a problem as we knew where all our favourite songs were, we knew them by the combination of letters and number which was the way we selected the records.

This mechanical music machine had round well-worn clunky buttons running down one side on the upper right-hand side, to the left of the buttons the internal mechanism of the jukebox could be seen quite clearly through a flat plastie/glass window.

The plastic glass was scratched to hell and back from years of people touching the glass, and people sitting on it, the plastie/glass was tough, it had to be, it had to put up with numerous pint glasses placed on to it on a daily basis and smashed over the top of it, and far too many fag burns to count, the glass showed all the scars it had to endure for the many years it been in the backroom, the body of the jukebox had numerous dents caused by a pool cue being accidentally poked into it during a pool game, more than one person had scratched their initials into the plastie/glass, even though the glass was fogged with age and scratches, you could still witness the jukebox mechanical mechanism work.

There were two sets of buttons, one set had numbers and the other had letters of the alphabet, the most popular of the buttons had the image of the number or the letter worn completely away from constant use.

The wear and tear on the jukebox was from constant use, it was easy to guess what buttons to press to obtain your chosen record selection, the buttons were lined up in two parallel rows in an organised manner from 1-10 and A-k.

I dropped my coins into the coin slot provided at the top part of the jukebox and heard the falling coins clink onto the other coins that were already in the little tin collection box hidden somewhere deep inside the machine.

I pressed the letter and the number buttons required for my selection which in this case was ( C and 4 ).

The jukebox quietly came to life, first there was a series of clicks and then the whirring of some spinney thing in the depths of the machine, and then without warning as if by magic a mechanical arm slides across under the glass and picks up the selected record from the rack of lined up 45 singles, the selection spins around and expertly places the 45 rpm single onto the record turntable and then this automated magic kicks in again and the stylus arm picks itself up from it’s resting position and quickly in one motion smoothly moves across the top of the record and pauses for a brief moment, only for a fraction of a second and then carefully lowers itself down on to the outer edge of the record, and then over the built-in speakers or one single speaker, a soft hissing noise can be heard before the music bursts from the now much alive jukebox.

The music began to play, the problem was that it was not the record that I had selected, it was a song I was not familiar with, in fact I had never heard it before, at first I was little puzzled, I knew I had pressed the correct buttons, but I had no idea what song was playing, the track turned out to be ( I can never go home by the shangri-lars ) whoever the fuck they were, I had no idea if it was an old record or a new one or even if it was a B side or an A side of a record, all I knew it was not the one I had chosen to play.

I was standing directly in front of the jukebox with a puzzled look on my face, and just staring at the record spinning around and blasting the music out into the room.

I said loud enough for everyone to hear ( What the fuck is this shit ).

Someone in the room shouted at me from the table behind me “ What the fuck is that record playing “ mimicking my very thoughts exactly.

I tuned to face the room and said to no-one in-particular “ I don’t know, I didn’t pick this fucking record, I didn’t even know this bollocks was on here”.

There were a number of negative responses made about the song playing, the general consensus was it was not a popular record to the rest of the assembled bikers.

I walked over the short distance to the small bar in the corner of the room and lent over the bar and shouted for Beryl or Harry to come to my assistance, eventually Harry turned up, walking very slowly, I’ve seen three toed sloths move faster, by the time he arrived at the small bar the record had finished playing, thank god, as I was not enjoying the undeserved ridicule that I was receiving from the rest of the room.

( Photo 2 ) . Some of the boys at a Christmas party we had up the plough sometime in the 80`s, Brian on the left is leaning on the ( newer jukebox ), from left to right Brian, Galen, Wobble, Dai Parrot, Lawson, Simon and Joss with Caroline with her back to the room, i was behind the camera once again, all the guys are standing in front of the small bar in the corner.

Harry just stood there, staring right at me and simply said “ yes “ with no expression whatsoever on his face, I said “ the jukebox is playing the wrong records, I didn’t pick the one that just played “, Harry replied again in a very disinterested way, he had no interest in what I had just said “ and what do you want me to do about it”.

I replied ” I want my money back, so I can pick the record I want to play”, the record I wanted to hear was ( Under pressure by Queen “, harry said “ others have complained about the wrong selection over the last few days, the machine has been playing the wrong records for the last couple of days or so, and I will tell you the same thing I said to the other people that complained, and that is I sell beer not music”.

I let him finished and then I said “ can I have my money back then”.

Harry sighed and answered my request with “ I don’t do music “ and then turned around and walked off without another word, I watched him disappear into main bar out of sight.

I though “ for fuck’s sake “.

In the meantime while I was speaking to harry someone else tried to a pick a track on the jukebox, and going by his reaction the record playing was not the one he had chosen.

I turned around and looked into the room, and shock my head and said to no one in particular “ he is a fucking law unto himself “, nobody was listening to me, there was no point in me calling harry back, he would just ignore me again, so I headed to my seat and just sat down with the rest of the boys under the only window in the room, the girls were sitting on a different table, I was sitting by Fat Mike and he had a stupid grin on his face.

I said “ what’s so funny “.

Mike said, still smiling “ Jukebox not playing the right records then” and then he started laughing.

I said “ What’s so funny about the wrong record being played ”.

Mike smiling like he did, and at what he just said, I clicked on that something was going on that I was not aware of.

So I said “ ok what’s going on, you know something ”.

Mike said, That Tony Dog had told him a few days earlier that someone came and emptied the jukebox of money, which only happened around once every six weeks or so, and the jukebox man had neglected to lock the jukebox back up after he had removed the takings.

Some of the regulars from the bar took the advantage of the jukebox being unlocked and swapped the records around, and then locked the jukebox back up as if nothing had changed, this was all done during the day time before any of us bikers turned up normally after 18:00, we all had jobs so the evenings were our time in the pub, Tony Dog worked for Bridgend Council as a painter and decorator and normally would Finnish early from work, and Tony would never miss the opportunity to have a few pints.

Mike also said Tony did not tell him who played this prank on us, but he had an idea who it was, but enjoyed the fact that he was not going to tell me.

Mike seen the funny side of the prank, so did I, there was no malice intended just a joke being played out, it was a little annoying but it made the jukebox more interesting, and gave the opportunity of hearing a record we had not heard before, some good, some bad.

Some of the 45`s were badly scratched and worn out from constant play, and the stylus needle would skip and jump across the whole record, we did complain to Beryl and Harry about the state of the records and how old some of them were, but nothing came of our whinging, nothing was ever done, Beryl was always pissed up to remember anything that was said to her, and Harry didn’t do music, and generally didn’t give a shit about us, I think Harry would have been a lot happier if we all left the pub and never came back altogether, so he could have a quite country pub back, and not filled up with noisy boisterous scruffy bikes smelling of motorcycles, lucky for us Beryl wore the trousers, and she liked having us there.

The jukebox stayed all mixed up for many months, we all got used to the misplaced selections and worked out where they all were, we learned the new button selection and everything was OK with the world once more, and then without warning a brand new second hand refurbished jukebox appeared out of nowhere.

OK, it was something new to look at and at the time of its arrival we were hopeful that it had more of a modern selection of records.

We soon checked out what was on offer in this magical music machine, and we found that the same records from the old jukebox had been transferred to the new jukebox with a small number of newer different 45 records that came with the new jukebox.

The old records had been transferred, but whoever did this transferring did not bother to match the records with the title selection, so chaos reigned once more, when I say the records were modern, the best description would be that they were newer records, there was nothing in the jukebox that was in the current music charts of the time.

This new jukebox apart from playing the wrong song selections, also played the obscure B-side of the 45`s, that normally no-body ever listened too.

The usual general response from the room was ( For fuck’s sake, what’s this shit again ), but to be fair it did make us all laugh when some unknown tracked played, it became a bit of a guessing game to who the artist was and the name of the song being played, we also neglected to inform anyone who was unaware and unfamiliar with the selection progress on the jukebox, well, we had some fun out of it, watching their confused expression on their faces when their record played.

The selection problem on the jukebox was always funny to see peoples reaction when the record played.

The newer jukebox had flashing lights and if no-one selected a record for a little while, it would suddenly burst into life, and automatically play a random 45 single, just to draw attention to itself, it did become a bit of a guessing game with what records would be played next and even what decade the songs were from, just a normal night at the Plough.

It all added to some of the bizarre events that happened up at the plough, it made the Plough and Harrow special to us all, the little things like the burnt firework on the picture hanger shelf that ran around the room, that had been there for years, the dead crap, it’s 700 plus years of history and the very room that we called our own being used as a temporary morgue for drowned sailors for many centuries etc, I can go on forever with the things that made the pub special.

( Photo 3 ) . A photo of a similar ornate cupboard that was on the left side of the jukebox and the small bar to the right of the jukebox, so the jukebox was sandwiched between the cupboard and the bar, and our cupboard was far more ornate then the one in photo.