The carousel at Great America has a Wurlitzer band organ (dunno what
model), but don't bother running to see it -- it doesn't work. The music
has been piped-in (heh!) for as long as I can remember. The thing is
looking pretty sorry too -- the brass horn bells looked more like warped
vinyl 45's, last time I took a gander at it. I even went as far as to
go to the Park office and volunteer to clean it up. As you might guess,
their answer was along the line of "Who wants to do what to who when?
Uhhh Duhhh?"
I'd recommend driving down to Santa Cruz (about 80 miles south of San
Fran) and go to the Beach Boardwalk. The Ruth organ they have playing at
the carousel there is pretty nice. It's behind a glass wall, but you can
see the whole works. Just DON'T buy the cassette they sell of it -- it
was recorded before a bunch of locals volunteered to completely rebuild
the ol' Ruth. In the recording the organ is a quite a bit out of tune
and poorly balanced.
After you check out the Boardwalk, take a drive up Highway 9, toward
Felton. There are literally tons of antique stores along the route.
Many of the stores have MM stuff here and there. I've made some pretty
great finds around there...
Rocci Cirone
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