Lots of Unknowns! Radiation and Calculator Demonstrations, Some Asian Television, Letters From and To Howard, Hoagy Carmichael, Safety & More

A bit of housekeeping to start: 

Thanks for all the comments on the Gary Owens tape. That's a keeper. Thanks also for the guesses as to the purpose of the "Mood Music", as well as the observation that they made have been recorded from acetates. Also, I'm informed that the anonymous "Journey Into Sound" that I posted is a famous album which was featured on a seminal hip-hop track. I had no idea. 

And with regard to the fragment of Illinois Basketball that I featured a month ago, during March Madness, Eric Carlson offered this: 

Very appropriate basketball recording as George Wilson of the winning Marshall High team went on to the University of Cincinnati which twice won the NCAA championship and just missed by two points a third in his time there. He was also on the 1964 Olympics gold winning US basketball team. He passed away last summer.

Thanks for all the comments. They consistently make my day and help make this project worthwhile. 

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There has always been a sense of mystery to some of the things I post here. I regularly attribute the performance or speaking heard on tapes to "unknown" or "unknown (this) or (that)", and now and then someone is able to chime in and give a name or a title to that unknown person or people. 

For today's post, it struck me that, by chance, most of the items I was choosing feature someone (or a group of people) that I cannot identify at all. There are exceptions, but this group of items is sort of dominated by those unknowns. 

If anyone is able to identify anyone heard on ANY of these items, I'm going to guess it's most likely that the man heard on this first piece of tape will be the one who gets identified. It's a peculiar bit of tape, listed on the box as being "Radiation - G.E. Class". See?: 

I suppose this might be Mr. Wizard - the presence of an adolescent assistant makes that more likely, I guess. But if that's the case, why doesn't it say "Mr. Wizard" (who had his own show), and not "Radiation - G.E. Class". And I checked - G.E. was not Mr. Wizard's sponsor. Regardless, it's an interesting little piece of tape, and I hope neither of the participants was harmed by radiation exposure!

Download: Unknown - General Electric Class on Radiation

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Now here's something I can hardly give you any information about at all, but maybe someone out there can decipher the piece of paper from the box, scanned below, or can understand the language here and tell us all what this is. I'm guessing this is a Japanese program, but if not, it is certainly a broadcast containing speaking and singing in some Asian language. I suspect this is a variety show. 

The rest of the tape was also in what appears to be the same language, and was almost certainly a recording of a television broadcast of a movie, but this section, at the beginning of the reel, was separated by two minute-long segments of white noise, before and after it. Then followed the movie broadcast. 

Here it is!

Download: Unknown - Unknown Asian Show

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Here's the card. The material above was on the side marked "B" (the A side was a very badly recorded concert)

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Here's a tape that doesn't fit the general theme (and again, this wasn't pre-planned, just something I noticed about almost everything I grabbed). And I could have sworn I shared this fun little tape years and years ago, but I can find no record of actually having done so. If it is somewhere out there, on this site or WFMU, maybe someone can let me know. 

Anyway, this is a direct line-in tape of a show that was broadcast at some point on the radio, a children's show hosted by someone named Larry Payne, titled "Safety Quiz". This show, as you'll hear, from schools in the Lenawee County area of Michigan, with this particular episode coming from a school in Hudson, MI. And I think that's all I need to say. 

Download: Larry Payne and Kids - Safety Quiz

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Now here's someone who is only slightly less unknown. His name is (or was) Howard, and in this Audio Letter - the beginning of which was erased, so it starts mid-thought - he makes some comments about being in the Armed Forces, and issues he is facing, and then goes on to discuss some of his favorite recent records. He then further goes on to share some of those records. This includes the fact that he is particularly taken with Louis Jordan's new style, and compares and contrasts Jordan's previous style and a somewhat more recent record, from 1952. However, other records he plays, including "Unchained Melody", pretty well date this actual letter and sharing of music to 1955. The sound quality is less than pristine here, but it's still worth a listen. 

Download: Howard Sends an Audio Letter About Being in the Armed Forces, Then Shares a Few Records

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On the flip side of this same tape is a brief audio letter back to Howard. It sounds like the recipients of the above tape responded to him using the same tape. The sound quality is decidedly better, and the lengthy is just about half of that of the above and this one is dated, confirming the 1955. As is so often the case on these early audio letters, there is considerable discussion of the actual recording of a tape and tape machines in general, before moving on to more general subjects. Another man speaks for a few minutes, and then the first man tests the microphone and sings a bit. Then it's over. 

Download: Brief Audio Letter to Howard, 7-24-55

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AND NOW!!!!

For all of you who have been waiting to hear a tape recording of a presentation in which a man demonstrates the wonders of a Mechanical Calculator - and I KNOW you're out there - here is just what you've been waiting for! This tape even has the benefit of having some interference by another recording at another speed, for the first 30 seconds or so. I'm sure I've made your day. You're welcome. 

Download: Unknown - Demonstrating a Mechanical Calculator

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Now it's time for our "Acetate of the Month". And this one keeps up the general theme of "lack of information". I again know nothing about this record, aside from that it was an unlabeled Audiodisc acetate, recorded at 33 1/3 RPM (which is fairly unusual for the acetates in my collection - most are 78s), and that it features a man with a British accent offering two bits of commentary, one called "A Cognac in the Morning", and the other, "The Gentle Art of Croquet":  

Download: Audiodisc Acetate - English Man Speaking - A Cognac In the Morning

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Download: Audiodisc Acetate - English Man Speaking - The Gentle Art of Croquet

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And finally, our "Very Short Reel" for this posting. And yet again, I've chosen something which has an air of mystery about it, in this case, the entire thing is a mystery. This short tape (just under three minutes) contains an unidentified woman singing a pompous, pretentious song, one which is also unidentified. She is singing to God about all the failings of man, and beseeching the Lord to.... well, I'm actually not sure what she is asking for.... The performance is full of spoken word segments, and the whole thing sounds like nothing so much as a Halmark label song-poem, the likes of which I have featured many times on my other blog - here are my Halmark label posts. 

Maybe someone out there knows who this is, and perhaps even the backstory. Whoever the people behind this are, they did manage to make a recording that does have something Godlike above it: It's Godawful. 

Download: Unknown Singer - Unknown Song

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