It all started in 1982 with the purchase of a jukebox, a Seeburg AY160 160 from 1961. I, Ernst, have always loved music and stuff from the past, my father Frits liked to overhaul the electronics. Shortly after I ran into a 1955 Seeburg V200 and started collecting jukeboxes.
It soon became apparent that there was a lack of repairers of the old technique and that a number of parts could hardly be found anymore. Frits started overhauling and making new instruction glasses.. In 1983 the idea was born to send an information leaflet under the name “The Jukebox Fanaat” followed by a cozy get-together in February 1984 in our barn. This was repeated in June. Around 200 enthusiasts already came to this meeting. They brought vinyl records, parts and all sorts of other items to trade or sell. There was also live music from Big Jeff & the Hurricane Rollers. People started talking about the “jukebox club”. The meetings in our barn were increasingly visited and the jukebox became more and more popular as a living room item. At the end of 1987, the 150th interested person registered for the information leaflet of the Jukebox Fanaat. In 1988 the meeting moved to the Autotron car museum in Rosmalen and was named “Rock around the Jukebox”. There were ± 300 jukeboxes for sale and with a huge number of visitors this was immediately the largest jukebox event in the world!
In the early morning of November 14, 1989, fate struck: in a devastating fire, the barn went up in flames with the entire collection of vintage cars (12), jukeboxes (32) and other items from the Frits and Ernst collection.
Till 2023 Rock around the Jukebox, to which a big musical program was linked the last decades, was organized by the Jukebox Fanaat (now Ernst and Marij Aalders) with their partner in business Autotron.
From January 1st 2023, Autotron will take over the entire organization of the Rock around the Jukebox Events.
Under the name ‘Jukebox Fanaat’ we will keep on publishing the “Memory lane” magazine.