Mayor Daley, Christmas Night, Another Loungey Tape, Some Truly Annoying Recordings, and Some BIG NEWS!

 Hello again!

First, I need to acknowledge my most important news of the year. This past Saturday, my wonderful daughter Molly got married to the equally wonderful Sean. Here they are, stepping out into a swarm of bubbles, just after the ceremony: 

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And now, I'd like to do a little housekeeping, or, more specifically, make a few comments and give some belated Thanksgiving thanks to readers and commenters. 

First, to Eric P., who wrote about the fact that I have two near-complete Yankees game radio broadcasts. Eric, the games in question are 9-25-60 and 5-31-61. The former seems to be available, complete, in what I think is the radio broadcast, on YouTube. I cannot find the latter anywhere, so let me know if it circulates in the collection that you mentioned. Basically, let me know if I'd be adding to the available canon by posting either or both of these. Thanks!

Second, to Diane, who admittedly, probably won't see this - I always appreciate hearing from someone related to a person featured on one of my postings. Thank you. For the rest of you, one of my early favorites here were the tapes of Bob Hoppe, one of which can be heard here. That post also links back to an earlier posting of similar material. Well, his granddaughter just commented on that post, and that really made my day. 

And then, finally, thanks! Thanks to Lee D., Vinushka, Larry Z, Snoopy, Timmy and Anonymous, for general encouragement, love notes, additional information and/or specific feedback about what is most enjoyable.

Please know that I read and appreciate every comment. And if I missed anyone, I apologize!

Okay...

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I'll start with something that seems to get a lot of positive reaction around here, Commercials. In this case, a tape that starts with part of a commercial promotion that I found severely irritating at the time, the "Noid" commercials put out by Dominoes in the late 1980's. If this tape solely contained "Noid" ads, I doubt I would be sharing it, but the tape then also contains several minutes of Dominoes production music, which I think is interesting: 

Download: Dominos Pizza - 'Noid' Commercials and Production Music - 11-7-88

Play: 

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Switching gears roughly enough to perhaps end up needing a new transmission, I note that we are coming up on, one week from tomorrow, the 46th anniversary of the death of Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago. As I have never lived more than ten miles outside of the Chicago city limits, this was a man whose name and exploits dominated what little I knew about politics as I was growing up. And his birthday, just days before Christmas, 1976, was a shock to most of us who lived in and near the city. The following day, the hosts and producers of a local TV show called AM Chicago, understandably threw out everything which had been planned for the day, and produced a show entirely about the life and death of Mayor Daley. Here is that show: 

Download: AM Chicago - The Day After Mayor Daley Died

Play: 

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Let's have some happier Christmas memories now. Here's someone's audio letter, recorded on Christmas night, to mom and dad. This seems to be from either 1961 or 1962: 

Download: A Christmas Night Audio Letter to Mom and Dad, from San Diego, circa 1961 or 1962

Play: 

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And now, something that you may well find annoying, and which I find annoying as well, but which also holds a strange fascination for me. I've shared a few of these before, and here's another one. 

Okay, first: I do not understand the practice of recording oneself playing records, and singing along with them. Do people who do this actually go back and fondly listen to themselves singing along with record that they presumably still own, and could listen to, and sing along with, right now, rather than listening to a tape of the same thing? 

And what to make of this practice when the person doing the singing and recording CAN'T SING?!?!?! Here is a fellow enjoying his collection of circa 1956-61 pop records, and doing an astonishingly bad job of accompanying them with something closer to atonality than to tunefulness. 

I remain thoroughly befuddled by this exercise, but, as I said, it sort of fascinates me, too. 

Download: Singing Along Badly with the Hits, circa 1961 (and a few odds and ends)

Play: 

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Here's a fairly short bit of tape, featuring someone testing his microphone and recorder, then recording a few minutes of a station called KAJO in Grant's Pass, Oregon. The Kate Smith record featured at the end of this segment was released in 1965, and the reference to the LBJ administration during the microphone test indicates it has to be from no later than 1968, so that's a fairly good snapshot of the era in which this was recorded. 

Download: Testing and KAJO Redio, Grants Pass, Oregon
Play: 

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I've gotten a bit of positive feedback from posting loungy acts in concert, and so, for those folks, here is a male acoustic duo with about 24 minutes of performance. They do not appear to have much of an audience. I know nothing else about these performers, the venue or the date: 

Download: Unknown - An Male Duo with Acoustic Guitars, Live

Play:

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Finally, our "Very Short Reel" for the post. Here is a gentleman singing a song which certainly sounds like a show tune, but I have been unable to find any reference to these lyrics online. I've dubbed it "Except When We Tangle With Dames"

Download: Unknown - Unknown Song ("Except When We Tangle With Dames") 

Play:

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VERY SHORT REELS FESTIVAL!!!

 Today I have something a bit different. Every time I go to upload more stuff for this site or my other site, I can quickly get a bead on how interesting the most recent post, and its various parts, turned out to be to readers/listeners. And that's because I can see how many times each sound file has been accessed (whether played or downloaded - it doesn't distinguish). 

So it is that I have, for a long time, known that the most popular - or at least the most visited - part of each of my posts is the Very Short Reels feature. Those segments can get anywhere from two to five times as many listens/downloads as the average file. 

So today, I'm going to offer up nothing but tracks which are under five minutes long, a veritable VERY SHORT REELS FESTIVAL!!! Because this is sort of a massive undertaking (I have to attach each of the files, twice), I'm not going to have much to say about any of them. 

I have so many of these that this would probably be a good idea even if it didn't seem to be my most popular feature. This post features 25 files. I have nearly that many left of this length to share, going forward, and no doubt will be making more in the coming weeks and months. 

And overview: I am not claiming that all of these are from tiny tapes, which is what I usually feature in the segment titled "very short reels". Some of these are the sum and total of what was on a reel. Others constitute something I found interesting on an otherwise uninteresting reel - maybe two minutes from a 90 minute reel, or maybe five minutes from a ten minute reel, or anything in between those two extremes. I'm going to share them pretty much in no particular order. 

And now, let's get started!

1.) Let's kick things off with a recording of a fellow who had a few things to say about Juvenile Delinquency in Indiana: 

Download: Unknown - Speech on Addressing Juvenile Delinquency in Indiana

Play:

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2.) Here are two fellows who are working on an Alvin and the Chipmunks impression, one speed lower than he will play it back: 

Download: Chipmunks Impression

Play:

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3.) And for those of you who don't have the technology to speed that up 100% faster, here's what they sound like, as Alvin and his brother: 

Download: Chipmunks Impression (Sped Up)

Play:

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4.) Here's an ad for a Transmission Shop which no doubt dates from the days not long after Rap Music went mainstream. I find this ridiculous, and ridiculously entertaining. 

Download: Weber Transmission Ad

Play:

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5.) Here's one about about as from the one above as possible: Several takes at doing a promo for a then-upcoming Studs Terkel program. 

Download: Studs Terkel Promos

Play:

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6.) I've labeled this one "Brief, Difficult to Understand Phone Conversation", and that about covers it:

Download: Brief, Difficult to Understand Phone Conversation

Play:

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7.) This next one is heard, as are all the others, exactly as it spools off the reels. But this one is more than a bit chaotic. It would appear that a radio station had some sort of a treasure hunt going on, and someone, from the station or elsewhere, recorded bits and pieces of the daily "clues", back to back to back, sometimes not catching the entire segment. 

Download: Unknown - Treasure Hunt Clues

Play:

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8.) I have several tapes involving someone named Buddy Black, who was a radio personality.... somewhere, at some point. Here is an audio letter, from another Buddy, to Buddy Black, on his 50th birthday, in 1961: 

Download: Audio Letter to Buddy Black on His 50th Birthday

Play:

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9.) Here's are two young children, doing a math problem while recording a message to someone, or perhaps pretending they are on a radio station. I'm certain this was once a longer, and probably quite enjoyable segment, but all but the last 43 seconds of this recording were erased by some other material, and this is what was left. 

Download: "Working on All Kinds of Subjects"

Play:

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10.) All I'll say about this next one is Get Ready To Feel Hungry - YUM!

Download: Magic Marshmallow Crescent Puffs Recipe Ad

Play:

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11.) The title of this one pretty much says it all: "Almost Telling a Story and Singing Along with Sinatra":

Download: Almost Telling a Story and Singing Along with Sinatra

Play:

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12.) And say, weren't you just asking what bands were coming to the larger Chicago area for concerts? Do you want to spend our money on Peter, Paul and Mary or Ted Nugent? 

Download: WKQX and WDAI Concert Line

Play:

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13.) As I may have mentioned in the past, I was gifted with about a hundred tapes from a fellow in Kingsport, TN, about 20 years ago. Nearly all of these were recordings of local classical concerts, but here's a neat little segment of local radio, including part of a neat Pepsi ad, from one of those tapes. 

Download: Brief Segment of WKPT, Kingsport, TN, Newscast and Pepsi Ad

Play:

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14.) Here's something I greatly enjoyed: from an otherwise fairly faceless and dull tape of a live performance recording by a small combo, here's a moment where they start "Bye Bye Blues" with the sax player introducing the tune in a different key than the rest of the band. The goofy part is less than a minute long, but I've left in the entire performance, in order to give a flavor of the rest of the tape. There are also a few spots here where everyone is not quite on the same beat of the measure. Both the wrong key issue and the beat issue are mentioned in the comments at the end.

Download: Unknown Combo - Bye Bye Blues (In Different Keys)

Play:

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15.) Well, after that, perhaps you'd like a Rheingold Beer: 

Download: Rheingold Beer Ad

Play:

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16.) This one I labeled "Weird Short Tape". The speaker here appears to have been using a tape recorder which ran at a variable speed, based on how much tape was on each side of the three inch reel. I've come across this phenomenon on three inch reels many times. I think it was probably a small dictation style machine that only handled three inch reels. Usually, the voices seem to get closer and closer to what their actual voices sounded like as we get towards the end of the tape: 

Download: Weird Short Tape

Play:

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17.) I have previously shared short tapes of Firestone Tire ads. Here is another one, not previously shared, from May of 1969, featuring four ads, as detailed on the box: 

Download: Four Firestone Tire and Rubber Company Ads - To Start 5-5-69

Play:

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18.) Someone named Larry Ferrari had a program of organ music, somewhere on some TV station. His show was followed by "You Asked For It". Here is a tape with a short fragment of the end of Larry's show and the beginning of "You Asked For It": 

Download: The Larry Ferrari Show & You Asked For It (Fragment)

Play:

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19.) Here's a 1982 Dentyne Ad: 

Download: 1982 Dentyne Commercial

Play:

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20.) And a 156 second tape containing some unlabeled production music. This actually seems to be the same track, twice, and the tape box, indicating a length of 65 seconds, probably confirms that:

Download: Unknown Production Music

Play:

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21.) Aside from the sped-up Chipmunks recording, this next one is the shortest of the batch, at 22 seconds. Here, someone promos a foreign policy special, to be hosted by someone named Dancy. Or perhaps Dancy is doing the promoting. Maybe the tape box will make it more clear to one of you than it does for me: 

Download: Unknown - Three Takes on a News Headline

Play:

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22.) Here's all that's left of an audio letter. What's heard here is the end of the first side (the rest erased by something else), the very start of the second side, then the end of the second side (again, the majority of the second side having been erased. It's a little choppy, but I hope that makes sense. 

Download: Short Fragment of an Audio Letter

Play:

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23.) Another segment from those Kingsport, TN tapes. This is a fairly creative and interesting ad for a used car lot. Nothing in the first 40 seconds gives ANY indication as to what this ad is promoting. The tape continues for a moment with part of an ad for a pharmacy. Too bad we didn't get to hear any of that stomping Tex Beneke music. 

Download: Scott Motors Used Car Lot, Kingsport, TN

Play:

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24.) I made an exception for the randomness of this presentation, due to the just passed 4th of July Holiday. The last two items have patriotic themes. First is a Public Service Announcement for safe driving in Astoria, Oregon, another one of more than a dozen tapes from a station in that town, which I bought more than a decade ago, and which I have featured here multiple times. 

Download: House of Chan 4th of July Safety PSA, for KAST-AM

Play:

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25.) And finally, from the "What the Hell Was That, Man?" file, comes a reel I've named "Weird Stars and Stripes Forever Tape". If you don't listen to any of the other tapes here, I really encourage you to listen to this one. It's pretty out there, as out there as 53 seconds can get, anyway. 

Download: Weird Stars and Stripes Forever Tape

Play: 

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Well, that's my show for today. I hope you found something - and maybe even several somethings - to enjoy! Please let me know if you'd like to see this feature repeated. 

Happy Birthday, Sweet 16, The Ups and Downs of Radio Work, Some Live Music, and Other Wonders

Welcome back to my archives!!!

I have very little time this week, so I will be far less verbose than usual. 

First up is a tape I've owned, and loved, for decades. It comes from Lake Forest, IL, and features two different recordings from the 1957-58 school year of a bunch of girls who were, apparently, mostly High School Juniors that year. Nearly the entirety of both tapes is made up of the girls singing, which I enjoy mightily. 

Here is the relevant (i.e. the marked-up) part of the tape box: 

First up, with have Joan's 16th birthday party, wherein the girls sing a number of fight songs, including some lyrics to the Notre Dame song - about drinking - that I've never heard anywhere but on this tape. They also sing the songs of a couple of nearby high schools, including ones that no one in Lake Forest would have attended, which seems a little weird. Throw in some current pop songs, including the utterly wonderful "Just Between You and Me", originally by the Chordettes, and you have an irresistible little segment. 

Download: Joan's 16th Birthday Party, 9/19/57

Play:  

Immediately after this is what's listed as the "Junior Luncheon", which does feature, as the box indicates, an unfortunate hum. I've tried to minimize this hum, but have been unable to do so without also impacting the sound of the recording. Here, again, there is a bunch of singing, although it sure sounds to me as if they are wishing the Senior Class well as they leave the school - why that would be the subject of a Junior Luncheon I'm not sure. But I'm guessing - hence the date - that this happened later in the school year, probably the Spring of 1958. 

But the kicker for me here is that all the songs sung have new lyrics, each of them about a specific girl to whom they are singing. I just think this is a great deal of fun. 

Download: Joan's Junior Luncheon, Lake Forest, IL, Likely 1958

Play:

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Let's switch gears here pretty radically and listen to six and a half minutes of production material recorded for radio station WEEP in Pittsburgh, in January of 1976. 

The box has this sticker on it: 

These short little segments are all over the map, and nearly all of them are pretty entertaining, especially if you ignore the John Denver concert promo. Another fun little tape. 

Download: WEEP, Pittsburgh - Radio Productions -January 1976

Play:  

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So that last sampling was a lot of fun. From about as far away as you can get and still be (I think) in radio, here we have someone I think is practicing being a DJ, or perhaps trying to make a demo tape, or... well, I just don't know. 

It seems pretty half-assed, or perhaps even quarter-assed, but it is incompetent in a fairly interesting way, so I'll just share it here and see if anyone out there has a better idea what's going on. 

Download: Unknown - Possibly DJ Practice

Play: 

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And in case you wanted to hear some early Randy Travis, guess what I.....

Oops, sorry, this isn't Randy Travis. It's Travis and Randy. See: 

And if you'd been one of the what sounds like no more than five people who were at the Ramada Inn in Tucson, on 10/29/71, you could have heard this little set of music (and probably a lot more, but this is all that was on the tape). 

Download: Travis and Randy at the Ramada Inn, Tucson, Arizona, 10-29-71

Play:  

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Now it's time for our "Acetate of the Month". In this case, someone named E. Frederick recorded four songs on the accordion - two on each side of a ten inch acetate, way back on November 27th, 1940. The two sides of the record look like this: 

And they sound like this: 

Download: E Frederick - Dizzy Fingers & Two Guitars - 11--27- 40 (Presto Acetate)

Play:

Download: E Frederick - Nola & Beautiful Days - 11-27- 40 (Presto Acetate)

Play:

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And finally, a VERY short example of a "Very Short Reel", and an enigmatic one at that. I'll let the track I've titled "Can You Hear That There?" speak for itself. 

Download: "Can You Hear That There?"

Play:

The 1954 Indianapolis 500, The Hits of 1952, More from Germany, Some Pizza, and Then Some!

What a cornucopia of sound we have to enjoy together on this Memorial Day. 

To start, because it's topical, here's a tape I bought at least 35 years ago - I remember listening to it when I still lived with my parents - digitized at least 20 years ago, and forgot about until yesterday, when I was watching part of the Indianapolis 500. 

It is that very same race, as called and broadcast on the radio just a short 67 years ago, in 1954. It's not the entire race - there are sections that were not recorded, but it runs nearly two hours (the race itself lasted almost four hours). 

The only other things I'll add is that it starts with a very softly recorded introduction, but the sound gets better after about 30 seconds, and that at the very end, there is another very brief section (another 30 seconds perhaps) containing a moment of a baseball game. I don't think there's a lot more to be said, as it pretty well speaks for itself.  

Enjoy the greatest auditory spectacle in racing, 1954 style!

Download: The 1954 Indianapolis 500

Play:  

(By the way, on the same date, I also bought a tape of the 1953 broadcast, and if anyone's interested, I can share that one, too.)

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Last time around, I played an interesting audio letter from the family of an Army man in Germany, talking about a variety of things, but largely about their visit to the Berlin Wall. As promised, here is the second of three tapes I have from this family. As you can see from the tape box (below), the receiving family was in Warren, Michigan, but I wasn't looking at the tape box when I digitized these, and as the family mentions Detroit a few times within the tapes, that's what I called the tapes. 

I also labeled this as being from the soldier and his family, but it's not - it's just the Major himself. Also, the sound gets downright weird about halfway through, just before side one is finished. 

Here is that second tape. 

Download: Audio Letter from an Army Man in Germany to his Family in Detroit

Play:  

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Next up, here's a short segment (about half, I think) of a broadcast of "Your Hit Parade" from the fall of 1952, which was not exactly the pinnacle moment of 20th century pop music. An interesting side note here is that there is a small group of people (half) listening to this show, wherever it was being recorded, and they can be heard having conversations at points during the broadcast. 

Download: Your Hit Parade (Segment), Fall, 1952

Play:

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The Dominos Pizza "Noid" commercials were aggressively annoying - and for some reason have been brought back. Here is a tape - unmarked - that I found featuring some "takes" of a "Noid" ad being made, as well as some production music. 

Download: Dominos Pizza - "Noid" Commercial and Production Music - 11/7/88

Play:

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Continuing on with my "Acetate of the Month" series, here is an acetate I found which features The Fisher Family, on February 4, 1941, with a tiny bit of music and general good fellowship on the very brief first side, and, on the slightly longer second side, a bit of chat about what the visiting family (from Grand Rapids) thought of Miami, where they appear to have been visiting at the time of this recording. After a bit more merriment, the recording is over. 

Download: From the Fisher Home, 2/4/41, Side One

Play:  

Download: From the Fisher Home, 2/4/41, Side Two

Play:

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And finally, my other series, the Very Short Reels. Here is the box for today's Very Short Reel, which says just about everything you need to know: 

I do find it curious that a series of PSA's from The American Heart Association contains a spot about warning signs of stroke, don't you? 

Download: Four American Heart Association PSA's - Summer, 1981

Play:

"JANITOR" - Two Hours of Silliness! - Plus a Jamboree and a Birthday Conference Call

Greetings!

I have not alluded to this in any way before today, but the things I have posted to this site, and the majority of what I posted to my "reel to reel catacombs" series at WFMU, tended to be things I came across in my ongoing purchasing and perusal of tapes - things I had heard recently, or had actively put aside for use on this site later. There were major exceptions - things I had owned for years, and which I knew I had to share, such as the Merigail Moreland material, some of the "voice talent" advertising compilations and the Larry Taylor tapes - but mostly I've been putting aside things as I heard them and populated this site with items I had put into my "digitize" stack - relative recent "finds". 

However, for some time, I've thought that I really needed to dig into the large number of tapes I collected during the 20 years before I started blogging for WFMU, because there are dozens of wonderful finds there, which have gone unheard outside of my home, things I heard before I had any way to share them on a large scale. 

So starting today, I'm going to try to share at least one of those tapes per post. For the most part, these should be quite stellar items, as they were the tapes I "kept" during the years when I was able to pick over my choices at the late, lamented ALS Mammoth Music Mart (i.e. it was easier to look at tapes and see which ones seemed promising, than it is on eBay...). 

So....

So it was that, last week, I went looking for a tape I recalled hearing perhaps 25-30 years ago, which I had labeled "JANITOR". After listening to this tape anew, and at the risk of underselling it, I think it's actually a somewhat inauspicious debut for this new phase of my site, as the tape is not quite as engaging or entertaining as I recalled. And yet....

And yet, it's a singularly weird and idiosyncratic recording, a solid two hours plus of a few friends performing skit after skit, sketches and fake funny phone calls and tons of low and fairly-low humor. The folks who made this tape clearly spent a lot of time on it, and that someone gave it up, and that it found it's way into my hands is remarkable. I suspect there's a considerable amount of "You Hadda Be There" to this - and having myself been part of dozens of recordings that I adore, where you probably "Hadda Be There", I can appreciate the tape for that aspect, too. And these people are having a good time, which is often worth hearing just for itself.

While the tape box gave no hint of its contents, inside the box was a ridiculously detailed list on a small, yellowing piece of paper. Side one is their presentation of "JANITOR: Going Places and Picking Up Things", and it is documented simply enough with eight bullet points, describing eight sketches heard on the side. Here is part of that document: 

But the other side of the tape is identified, starting on the flip side of the same piece of paper, is given the title "Laughs, etc.". Part of this side of the paper is in pencil, and is hard to read, but most of it is written in pen, and that side of the paper identifies over twenty sketches/bits. Here is that side of the paper. 

What's more, the first side of the paper, doesn't simply contain those few segments labeled "Janitor". Upside down from those listings, it contains the rest of the contents of side two, with over 30 separate bits documented. Here is what that side looks like from that orientation (please note the "Janitor" material (as scanned above) documented upside down at the bottom):

That's 50-plus bits in just over an hour. I have not separated out the two sides, and this download/play option features the entire 125 minutes of both "Janitor" and "Laughs, etc.". There is a 40 second gap at the 62 1/2 minute point, and that's where side one ends and side two begins. 

When is this from? Well the tape box is the pretty much standard Scotch mid-'50's design, so my guess is, mid to late 1950's. But that's just a guess. 

Download: "Janitor" and other Silliness

Play:  

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Next, here's a neat little Audio Verite recording, made at some point in the 1962 or 1963 at a Boy Scout Jamboree, in Raymond Maine at Camp William Hinds. Among other things, you'll hear a song in tribute to the camp, a conversation with a visitor from Sweden, some more songs (almost group shouts, really), a performance of an old-style ballad of the "Dasterdly Dan/Helpless Maiden" genre, and a bit of a badge-awarding ceremony.

Download: Boy Scout Jamboree at Camp William Hinds, Raymond, Maine

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From a few years later on down the line - August of 1966 to be exact - comes something unique and very much of its day and age - essentially, the equivalent of a Zoom call in 1966. For here we have a group of friends offering happy birthday and best wishes to their friend Paul, on a conference call. Here's the tape box: 

Paul's not actually on the call - the call was done in advance, in order to send the tape to Paul on his birthday as a surprise. (And not only Paul - everyone was to get a copy!) 

And OH, the work that went into this! The person who set this up (Howard) is heard first calling the "conference call" operator and giving all of the phone numbers for the call, and when the call is to be made, a process which takes the nearly the first quarter of this 30 minute tape. Then there's the actual connection being made for the call, and finally, after nearly 8 1/2 minutes of audio, the conference call begins. From there on out, it's largely what you'd expect, and again, not terribly unlike a zoom call with everyone's cameras being turned off. A short bit from someone who couldn't be on the conference call is heard at the end. I hope Paul appreciated this. 

Download: A Conference Call for Paul's Birthday, 8-22-66

Play:

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And finally, our "Very Short Reel" for the day. This three inch reel (which is barely 1/5th full of tape) has a box labeled as follows: 

Okay, so I'm guessing that's "Welch's" as in the Fruit Juice company, rather than "WELCHS", but what is that second word? "ARCHIES"? "ARCHLES"? ARCH1e3"? I dunno. But what the tape contains is some uninspired production music, a piece of less than a minute, utilizing blues chords, complete with count in, applause and whooping at the end as if the participants think they just did something really special, and the briefest moment of conversation before the tape cuts off. A cute, and intriguing 40 or so feet of recording tape.  

Download: "WELCHS"

Play:

February 9th Potpourri: Joe Gerossi, His Friends, and More!

I see by the calendar that it's February 9th. This marks the 56th anniversary of the Beatles' first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show - can you believe it?

And as I have no particular theme for today's posts, I'll label it a potpourri.

But first - as some of you know, I also write a blog which is largely about the wholly American side-show to the music industry known as song-poems. And I am happy to announce that I have been invited to be part of yet another podcast, this one focusing on 25 of my own personal favorite song-poem and song-poem related records. This has been in the works for over six months, and the podcaster, Brian Kramp, and I finally did the interview late in January. The podcast can be heard here and here, and if you want to see the list of songs, it can be found here (the list is in reverse order, from 25 up, with a section near the top of a handful of song-poem related discs (which are not actually song poems). It's all explained in the show.

But let's get back to the reel to reel thang:

My prime offering for the day is something of a potpourri all on its own. And while I found it strangely entertaining, I can certainly understand if others tire of it quickly, or even gradually. It's a home recording (well, at least parts of it seem to have been recorded in a barber shop, actually), featuring a handful of people speaking, complicated at times by both a.) repeated decisions to erase existing recordings, often mid-sentence, and b.) even more so a poorly functioning reel to reel machine.

The dominant speaker for much of the tape is a barber named Joe Gerossi, who seems to have fashioned himself as something of a dry wit, and you can decide for yourself how accurate that is. After a bit of speaking, we get to hear some homey (and homely) music for the next eight minutes or so, although a short discussion of how long a soldier has to be stay in the army pops up near the end.

After a moment with a small child, Mr. Gerossi interviews a client of his barbershop, then we enter a lengthy section where he attempt to interact with a Myna Bird, with virtually no success. The disorienting thing here - and which makes it sort of fascinating to me - is that he is recording over a previous attempt to do the same sort of recording, and it would appear that his machine wasn't working well, because the old recording is bleeding through, sort of like a fun-house mirror version of what we're listening to. It also helps that every now and then the speed of the recording falters. There is also, regrettably, some harmonica playing here and there. A very odd segment.

Then, at about the 24 minute mark, another voice takes over, not identified, doing some extremely ineffective sounding fast-speak hypnotism. And again, this is rendered fairly disorienting because Joe and his monologues about the Myna are three-quarters erased but still audible behind much of this five minute portion.

Someone sings "Chantilly Lace" (perhaps dating this tape to 1958?) and then Mr. Gerossi returns, getting a couple of responses from the Myna Bird, but not much. All too soon (or perhaps far too late) the tape ends just beyond the 32 minute mark.

Download: Joe Gerossi and Friends - Various Recordings
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Switching gears so severely as to be essentially in a completely different type of vehicle, here's a short hunk of tape containing multiple attempts at getting some opening and closing music JUST right, for a show called "Stars in Action", which multiple sources tell me aired on CBS during the 1958-59 TV season. It was, oddly, a program of repeats of a CBS show from earlier in the decade, shown under this new title, and part of CBS' fall lineup for 1958. I wonder if that's been done before or since.

These largely sound interchangeable to me - in fact, these sound canned, rather than live - but clearly they had something specific in mind. My favorite moment is the little moment of confusion and slight laughter at about 3:03.

Download: CBS Film Services - "Stars in Action", Main and End Titles
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Next up, more Beautiful Music. Last month's posting of some vintage elevator music programming got a few responses, and by chance, I happened across another tape of the same sort of thing a few days after posting that segment. In this case, it's from a then-hugely popular station, WCLR here in Chicago, which sometimes called itself "W-Clear". This reel - both sides of a 1200 foot tape are heard - seems to be from the very earliest days of January, 1972, based on a few of the references to college football and the business stories of 1971, among other things. The most interesting parts of this for me are the breaks for commercials and business (and other) news. There is a brief break at the change of tape sides, and at least one other spot where the person recording this material turned the machine off and back on again, missing a short bit of the broadcast.

Download: WCLR, Chicago - Beautiful Music Circa January, 1972, Side One
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Download: WCLR, Chicago - Beautiful Music Circa January, 1972, Side Two
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And finally, it's time to enjoy another of my myriad "Very Short Reels". Here's a 1998 ad for Ed Schmidt's Used Car Superstore, in Perryburg, Ohio, an ad titled "Regional Used Car Selloff". This aired on station WBUZ, which was a station in nearby (and tiny) Delta, Ohio at the time.

Download: Ed Schmidt - Regional Used Car Selloff
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