Some Suspect Gold Records, 1958 News, An Odd Audio Letter and Moonlight Madness

Good Day, Ladies and Gentlemen, 

Before I get to today's offering, I wanted to respond to someone whose name was listed as "OldRadios90", and who responded to another post, asking me about sharing other vintage recording mediums here. I answered his comment from three weeks ago with a comment of my own, on that post. But I didn't know if it would be better to answer here, and others reading this might be interested, as well. 

Specially, I wrote that I have often thought of expanding this site into Acetates, of which I have many, many (although I've sold some in recent years), and may do so, but I barely find the time to post what I do share at the moment. Still, maybe this will light a bit of a fire under me! As to the other recording mediums you mention, I do not own any of those, although I've always been fascinated by wire recorders. To anyone reading this: if you have anything of this sort you'd like to contribute, I'd welcome having you host a post here. 

~~

A few months ago, I came across this most odd little recording. WVVX was a fairly peculiar station in the far north suburbs of Chicago. It had a tiny signal - probably not reaching very far beyond the north boundary of Chicago - and it was a bartered station (various interests bought time on the station, making for a hodgepodge of programming in various languages), for much of the day, it was a sort of esoteric oldies station, playing a goodly amount of what you'd expect from such a station, but featuring, in heavy rotation, such things as "Rock and Roll is Here to Stay", rather than its predecessor hit "At the Hop", and Cliff Noble's and Company's largely forgotten (even then) instrumental hit, "The Horse".   

I'm not exactly sure what the time frame was for WVVX as an oldies station. I know this tape is from around 1979 or so, and they were still doing the oldies thing when I briefly drove a cab in 1982 - I listened to them all the time during that period. More information about WVVX (no known as WPNA) can be found on this Wikipedia page. 

In this segment, two deejays explain the meaning of a "Gold Record", and also explain that some labels never accepted the accounting that the RIAA would require in order for a record to be certified as "Gold". They then play a medley of moments from he "hits" they believe, after some degree of research (I guess) qualified as Gold Records, over the years, in roughly chronological order. 

The problem here is that their research methods seem to have been lacking in, um, research. A few of these records were never even singles, and a fair number of other ones were mid-charters at best, and quite unlikely to have sold enough to have gone Gold. 

An odd project, and odd results all around.

Download: WVVX Plays the Records They Think Were Gold Records

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Next up, here are the remaining fragments of two different recordings from a Washington D.C. radio station, made at two different points in early 1958. The first segment was at the very start of the tape, then was erased by something of far lesser interest, and the second segment was what remained at the end of the tape, after that erasure and less interesting stuff. There is a brief break between the segments. There is an interesting "looseness" to the entertainment report that I have not generally perceived in news broadcasts of that era. 

From the stories told during these segments (the first a newscast, the second a light entertainment report), dates can (sort of) be determined. The first segment is from January 22, 1958, while the second is a bit confusing. It is probably from later that week, as it mentions a film starting on January 27th. Yet it also mentions two films playing in town which, per IMDB and Wikipedia, didn't open anywhere until February of that year. Ah, well. 

Download: WASH, Washington - Two Fragments: News and Entertainment Reports, Early 1958

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And now we come to something a bit peculiar. This is a audio letter sent from someone named Dick Kenny. It would seem, based on the opening comments, that he is sending this tape to someone he doesn't know well. 

Mr. Kenny clearly considered himself quite the cut-up. Much of the tape is made up of him speaking in the third person, portraying people talking about him, first in impersonation of Amos and Andy, and later - for much of the tape - in a series of phone calls to people involved in sound recording. I assume these calls (and the other material on the tape) were meant as humor, but they are god-awful - dry, repetitive, painfully dull and devoid of anything that has ever worked for people who've made a buck via "Funny Phone Calls". He also beats to death his own (fake) concept of a recording term, "Faggacycles".

I will add that Mr. Kenny seems to have considered himself quite the skilled audio man, and if the sound recordings/effects he offers up (early in the tape) are real, then I would have to agree with him on that, but I have no idea if these were just yet another "bit". A weird tape, to be sure. 

Download: Dick Kenny - A Tape from Dick Kenny

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And finally, here's today's "Very Short Reel". This comes from a city called Turlock, in central California, but other than that, I don't have a date or a station, as this was unlabeled, apart from saying "Moonlight Madness". This seems to have a region-wide sale, or perhaps a street-wide sale or something. 

Download: "Moonlight Madness in Turlock" Promo

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"The Jeff Martin Case", and More!

I have three unrelated tapes today, shared with the hope that you'll find something of interest in at least one of them.

The first one presents more than a bit of a mystery. Several years ago, I acquired an ancient Concertone reel to reel tape machine - the same model as the one my father had bought way back in 1952, and which I've spoken about before. My brother and I hoped - and were rewarded in this - that it would work, and would more accurately and effectively play our beloved 1950's reels in the half-track mono in which they'd been recorded.

The owner of the machine - a man in his 80's - also donated to me all of his tapes, well over 100 of them. These proved to largely contain recordings of the local classical music organizations, of which he was a sometime member. These tapes have provided some interesting listening from time to time, but nothing I'd be likely to share here.

The outlier was a tape in a truly ancient Scotch box, labeled "old tape", and with a note that indicated it would only play correctly on the Concertone. The first item in our playlist today is the 17 minutes or so which are recorded on that tape. This seems to be a radio drama, perhaps titled "The Story Behind the Headlines", in this case, an episode about The Jeff Martin Case. The recording quality is quite good, and certainly doesn't sound like an over-the-air recording, so this may have been a studio reel.

But I can find no record of this show ever existing, and, sadly, the entire show is not contained on the tape - it ends with a teaser about more information yet to come. But what's there is certainly entertaining and sort of fascinating.

Download: The Story Behind the Headlines - The Jeff Martin Case
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Next up, here are the 14 minutes that make up a tape simply labeled "Northrop Sounds", starting with the track "Space Mice", followed soon after by "Earthquake Ernie", and then moving on into other equally interesting sounds. Before playing it, I'd assumed this tape came from the Northrop Corporation, but very little, if anything, heard here seems related to the manufacturing of aircraft.

Download: Northrop Sounds
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And finally, just a reminder. Check your phone book.

I mean it. Check your damn phone book. Maybe then he'll shut up.

Download: Check Your Phone Book
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