Back in 1974, this Wurlitzer Americana 3800 did what jukeboxes do best — swallowed quarters and started arguments in a bar somewhere in Wisconsin.
Decades later it was handed down to our family in St. Louis, and in April 2026 it made the long haul to a lakefront bar in central Illinois. It now holds court between the pool table and the water.
It sounded glorious for exactly one night. Then the amp started having opinions. Enter Bill Bickers, who rebuilt the amp from the guts out and handed it back its voice — and honestly, it sounds better now than it has in fifty years.
Today it spins around 300 different 45s, and here's the fun part: we haven't labeled a single selection. Punch a letter, punch a number, and you're playing musical roulette. Nobody in the room — us included — has any idea what drops next. Neither will you.
One night at the bar, watching the carousel swing a record onto the platter, somebody said what everyone was thinking: the world needs to see this. All those gears, arms and levers doing their little mechanical ballet behind the glass — too cool to keep to ourselves. So we wired it up.
Here's the high-level version: a camera peers inside the machine at the mechanism itself, and we tap the audio straight off the rebuilt amp. That all runs into a tiny Raspberry Pi bolted nearby, which mixes it together and streams it live whenever the lights are on.
The lights are on, the needle's down, and the next record is anyone's guess. Grab a stool and watch the carousel spin — live.
Watch It Spin More history loading as we dig it up · got a tip on this machine's past? Let us know.