Oh No, we gotta listen to ALL of them?

Freddie, who does the weeding @ ARC, was comparing our three copies of the LP “Combo” by  Henry Mancini and His Orchestra ( RCA Victor Records, LPM-2258 , 1961).   We sell third copies, keep two of everything.  Well why not hava listen he sez to himself he sez.  Lo, it turns out two copies of the  album play “Moanin’” as the first track on both sides, but lists “Powdered Wig” as the first track on side two.  So that means we gotta keep ‘em all.  But what it really means is that we should be listening to ALL TWO MILLION RECORDINGS at ARC.  Freddie will start Aug 24, when he gets back from vacation.

The Oldest Playable Phonautogram. Ever.

 

The New York Times has a new article about the newly recovered, mid-nineteenth century recordings of Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, a Parisian “tinkerer” who invented a recording device called the Phonautogram YEARS before Edison (that bad bastard) ever even thought about recording.  This phonautogram of “Au Claire de la Lune,” which dates to 1860, is now considered the earliest playable recording in existence:

Scott’s technology – and the technology used to recover it – are amazing.  A really worthwhile read.

ps. the article mentions Jonathan Sterne’s The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction.  It’s a fabulous book and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who wants insight into the history of sound recording and a better understanding of how technology changed the way people listened to the world.  It’s all about the ensoniment, folks!

pps.  the article also mentions Archeophone, an amazing company that preserves, remasters and reissues recordings of the acoustic era of the recording industry.  All of their releases are worth having.  (My favorite is the Billy Murray album, but the Bert Williams releases are mind blowing too.  If you’re into popular music history, this stuff is de rigueur).

Happy Birthday, The CD.

 

Today is the 25th anniversary of the compact disc. Although there seems to be some consensus that today is indeed the CD’s silver anniversary, astute readers may note that different sources disagree over which one of the above three CDs was in fact “the first CD ever.” Allow me to untangle: CNN says it was the Strauss via Philips (while their wording is sort of vague, it’s CNN and they’re “the news,” so that’s what everyone’s going to think now – besides, Strauss is classical, so it just SOUNDS right), Philips says it was the ABBA (“the first CD ever manufactured,” a kind of nit-picky claim if you ask me) and Sony claims it was the Billy Joel (the first numbered CD in the first commercially available series of 50 released in Japan; why anyone would want to claim Billy Joel overany of the other 49 that shipped with it, however, is beyond me).

Anyhow, each link makes a c-o-m-p-e-l-l-i-n-g case, but you may just want to pick your favorite version of the story and go with it. Just don’t believe anyone who tells you that “the first” was Springsteen’s Born in the USA. Those people are just plain wrong.

We at the ARChive celebrated this historic and momentous occasion by listening to vinyl. And Max Roach tributes on the radio.

Oh, CDs, we hardly knew ye (except for the 150,000 or so that we have cataloged so far)…

dtn

Garage Sale Find

Last week the Baroness Von Oomph and I made the scene in the swingin’ Finger Lakes region of New York State. If you are a fan of Coneys (local white hot dogs) root beer, drive-ins and very skinny lakes, go there. Nuff said. And did I mention world class thrift stores? Here’s one score which we will be donating to the ARChive.

It’s a British book about singles which hit number one in the UK during the Sixties. There is one entry for each month of every year of the decade. A lot of records you would expect, but also some one-hit-wonders and Brit specific hits to add a little variety, such as:

March 1968 – Esther And Abi Ofarim, “Cinderella Rockafella” (strictly from corn.)

December 1962 – Frank Ifield, “Lovesick Blues” (Warwickshire hillbilly covering Hank Williams covering Emmet Miller!)

April 1960 – Lonnie Donegan, “My Old Man’s A Dustman” (roots rock used to be called skiffle, children, and you know all your fave Beat groups were grooving on this platter.)

December 1968 – Scaffold, “Lily The Pink” (always loved this side, only in Britain would a creaky old drinking song like this go to number one.)

A fun read, and your price at the Salvation Army in Waterloo, NY?

69¢

– Jonny

Gore Verbinski, Pirate of 1980s Punk Rock

The other day I was cataloging a box of 80s punk and metal records (lots and lots of bad 80s metal from Metal Blade Records) and came across this record:

Not a bad cover, I s’pose.  Anyway, it stood out because it was the only record in the box that had a textured sleeve.  (Plus, the cover reminded me a little of a Kreator single I used to have.)  Another thing that struck me was that it was released in 1989 by Epitaph, making it sort of an early Epitaph record.  So, I put it on.  Not bad music.  Excitedly (well, as excitedly as he gets), Phast Phreddie comes up and asked me if I put it on.  Turns out the drummer, Chris Bailey, was in Phreddie’s old group Thee Precisions :

Checking out the rest of the group, something struck me about the lead singer/guitarist’s name “Gregory Verbinski.” It was really familiar, I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was, though.  This is what he looked like:

That didn’t help me figure it out, and because it really started bugging me I googled it.  Turns out that after being in the Little Kings, “Gregory” Verbinsky went to film school, changed his name to Gore Verbinski and became a director.

He went on to direct all sorts of successful big budget films, most recently, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.  Apparently, Phreddie knew him a little “back in the day.”

Gore, if you’re out there reading this, we’d love it if you dropped by the ARChive.  We could order Vietnamese sandwiches (best in the city!) from the Sáu Voi, show you around the place and talk about stuff and things!  If it’d make you feel more comfortable, we could even try to get our new friend Joe Franklin to come by as well.  It’d be a grand old time.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

dtn

The Boys in the Backroom

Every year there is a major music industry trivia contest organized by Rich Appel up at Sony, and a cast of indefatigable characters in-and-out of the music industry. They have a lot of fun and the event raises money for good causes.

This year ARC’s B. George combined his “hobby” of watching films with his “job” of watching films with music in them. The result was a handful of movie related music questions to stump the very savvy trivia teams. Our category, “The Boys in the Backroom,” revolved around famous bands and performers lurking in shadows of the reel stars, adding local color to a pile of mostly drab films.

Hare the questions we sent along and our estimate of how hard they were. Care to try your luck? – but no cheating or googling or watching films allowed!

The Boys in the Backroom

• The irreverent Dogma (1999) gave the job of God to a young woman singer, who, thank God, kept mum and amplified the theme of her best known song.

Difficulty : 1

• Hippie lifestyle is given the Hollywood treatment in You Are What You Eat (1968). Behind the scenes was producer Peter Yarrow and way out front was the Dickensesque ukulele strumming falsetto named
Difficulty : 1

• Natalie Portman’s character in Garden State (2004) raves that .”.. you gotta hear this song. It’ll change your life.” The Band and the song are?
Difficulty : 2

• Wild in the Streets (1968) tell the story of a political youth rebellion, where 14 year olds earn the right to vote. Leading the rallies is the band Max Frost and the Troupers, and the Black actor playing Stanley X, the drummer in the band, is…..
Difficulty : 3

• Elmer Gantry (1960) provided a behind-the-scenes peek at revivalist religion – equal parts circus, business plan and grass-roots mass hypnosis. Many on-screen revival meetings led off with a song, and the blond and bland 50s pop chanteuse leading the band was…
Difficulty : 3

• Get Yourself a College Girl’s (1964) slim plot revolved around an Ivy League undergrad in trouble for penning pop songs. Nevertheless, some leading pop starts of the era show up and matriculate! Name at least ONE band or artist…
Difficulty : 3

• Overworked surfing themes forced Hollywood’s creative genius onto the slopes to give us Ski Party (1965) And the most unlikely Southern soul singer ever to don a Norwegian sweater was…
Difficulty : 3

• In The Girl Can’t Help It (1956), a rarely filmed group throws off their hats to start off their rockin’ set – and they are?
Difficulty : 4

• In Bunny Lake is Missing (1965) which rockers hover ominously in a few scenes, in the background on the telle?
Difficulty : 5

• In the British film Scandal (1989), The Pet Shop Boys wrote the theme and Dusty Springfield sang it. But lurking in the sheets was a young man who just drove at least one of the girls crazy. In real life he was the lead singer in the band…
Difficulty : 5

• Beat Girl, (1960) an early British ‘youth’ movie featured Adam Faith and a swingin’ score by a cool jazz seven piece. Well not exactly in the backroom, this older leader of the band in the basement, and at the strip club across the street, really bonded with the kids. This future multi – Grammy and Oscar winning composer and performer is …
Difficulty : 5

• Which San Fran based artist is seen singing at the Benefit Party in the opening scene of Richard Lester’s very British, very horrid film, Petulia (1968).
Difficulty : 7

NOTE : Even weirder was recruiting members of the Grateful Dead to carry Julie Christie’s stretcher after an overdose!

• Noir classic Criss Cross (1949) features Burt Lancaster and Yvonne De Carlo dancing a little too much and too close to the flute playing of Latin band leader?
Difficulty : 10

NOTE : A very young and uncredited Tony Curtis is also on the dancefloor

• In Destry Rides Again (1939), Marlene Dietrich sings. “See What the Boys In the Back Room Will Have”. Well those boys are playing up a storm, led by which fiddlin’ cowboy?
Difficulty : 10