Play Those 78s

Sept 12, 2012

One more clutch of central-northeastern Wisconsin pictures. While visiting Appleton, I looked around two antique stores. One mostly specializing in fine vintage furniture, the other an “antique mall” with an endless variety of intriguing old stuff. I found some postcards there at reasonable prices.

At the fine vintage furniture store, the Harp Gallery, I saw more old record players than I’ve ever seen in one place. Somehow, I had to take pictures. These are only three of the dozen or so.

 

I didn’t make notes, so I can’t comment on the exact models. But maybe it’s enough to know that people listened to their “Yes, We Have No Bananas” 78s on machines like these.

There's Such a Lot of World to See

 Sept 26, 2012


As I stood in line at a grocery store earlier today, I heard the cashier say to the customer ahead of me, "Did you hear that Andy Williams died?" The customer, a woman in her 70s at least, didn't react much. It was news to me, but I'd spent much of the morning working on an item that didn't require that I look at Google News, or I would have.

Naturally the articles about him mention "Moon River." You have to wonder whether he ever got tired of it. Maybe not: as the AP reported, "... though 'Moon River' was covered by countless artists and became a hit single for Jerry Butler, Williams made the song his personal brand. In fact, he insisted on it. " 'When I hear anybody else sing it, it's all I can to do stop myself from shouting at the television screen, "No! That's my song!" ' Williams wrote in his 2009 memoir titled, fittingly, Moon River and Me."

Less mentioned in Williams' obits -- not all all, that I could see -- is the The Claudine Longet Invitational, but my mind has some roundabout and peculiar associations sometimes.

Business Card?

A business card came to my attention today, by way of an emailed image. It was good for laugh only because Lilly turns on the radio in the car sometimes, and the song that the card draws its inspiration from happens to be in heavy rotation on some stations at the moment.

Context, that's the thing in comedy. That and timing. Under the lyric-inspired text is a name and phone number, now greened-out. Not too many people would hear the song and think, "Business card," but I guess the person who created the card did.

Musical Weekend

On Friday, I drove to Berwyn, Ill., to see my nephew's band, Sons of Fathers, at FitzGerald's, a venerable venue in the near western suburbs. They were playing as part of FitzGerald's American Music Festival, one of the first acts to take to the stage, doing two sets. My nephew Dees is their drummer, and all together the lads -- I can't help thinking of them that way, though of course they're all grown men in their 20s -- have a lot of talent and energy, and put on an enjoyable show.



On Sunday, Yuriko and I went to Ravinia on the North Shore, another venerable Chicago-area venue, to see Jake Shimabukuro, four-string Hawaiian ukulele virtuoso. He too is young (that is, in his early 30s), with talent and energy. It's astonishing what he made that ukulele do -- an instrument, as he joked at one point, that invites low expectations.

Irish Pipes

One pretty good way to start your weekend is with some bagpipes.



These happen to be the Shannon Rovers of Chicago, playing in downtown Chicago at a real estate event I attended toward the end of last week. They played -- I don't remember, but they were bagpipe-y tunes, skillfully done.

As the name suggests, the Shannon Rovers are an Irish pipe band. A history of the organization is here, stating that the early goals of the club were, "for the promotion of Irish music and to help members who are in distress; to run dances and social affairs; to finance these objectives." Unstated is the opportunity to drink, but I won't dwell on old Irish stereotypes.

Al Stewart, 2012

Al Stewart was in fine form early this month at the Woodstock Opera House. The remarkable thing is that his guitar virtuosity and fine voice sound almost the same now as they did on records he made around 35 years ago, or during live performances of the period currently disseminated by YouTube. We should all age so well.



The audience has aged with Al. In fact, I felt a bit younger than the average. Al Stewart had his biggest records in this country in the late '70s, when I was a teenager, but many in the audience must have first listened to him in their 20s or even 30s. Lilly, of course, was drastically out of the audience demographic, and claimed that people were starring at her (she's the age at which she feels that way a lot, but it was probably true in this setting).

The talented Stewart sideman David Nachmanoff and a bassist opened the show with three Nachmanoff songs, and then Al came out for a set in which they both, or all three, played Al's songs. After an intermission, they repeated the pattern. As usual, Al bantered between most of the songs, sometimes to explain a song's back story, sometimes to talk about some early experience in music, which I'm certain he knows the audience likes to hear. Once he talked about meeting the young Rolling Stones as a very young man himself -- 17, I believe he said, which would put the event ca. 1962.

The playlist relied heavily on his '70s albums, especially Year of the Cat. No doubt he feels obliged to play "Year of the Cat" and "On the Border" from that record, which he did, but this time around he also played "Midas Shadow" and "Flying Sorcery," the latter about aviatrix Amy Johnson. Surprisingly, he reached all the way back to his first album to play the title track of Bed-Sitter Images, a song I don't think I'd heard before. Also on the playlist from an early album (Orange) was "The News From Spain," which he characterized as his worst-selling single, "because it's so depressing." I'll go along with that.

When I saw Al Stewart live for the first time at the Park West in Chicago in early 1989, someone in the audience requested something from Orange, and he mocked the suggestion. But then again, he had an album to promote during that tour — Last Days of the Century — and so focused on newer items that aren't so new any more. These days he obviously doesn't mind reaching back more than 40 years for a tune.

The newest thing he played at the Woodstock Opera House was "Sheila Won't Be Coming Home," something he co-wrote with Nachmanoff. Also on the playlist were the relatively new "(A Child's View Of) The Eisenhower Years," which is good fun, and "Night Train to Munich," which I assume was inspired by the movie of that name, though I've never seen it.

All in all, a good show. I wouldn't have expected anything else. Still, I wouldn't have minded hearing some songs of his I've never heard live before, such as the moody "Palace of Versailles" or the only pop song I know about the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

Early Summer Interlude

Time for a break. Back posting again June 10, more or less. This year, everything from around Memorial Day to around my birthday gets to be my own string of holidays. That doesn't mean I won't be working much of the time, though occasional days of indolence might be possible. Or I might see a few things worth describing later. I can only hope.

Or I might try something new. I already did that yesterday when I sent a text message. I've written millions of words of text in my life (a few years ago, I estimated 250,000 a year, both for-pay and not), but none to feed into a phone. Some e-mail messages are so short they might as well be text message, but strictly speaking, they don't count.

Lilly has taken to sending me text messages occasionally, which I see about half of the time. Usually along the lines of "I'm here, doing this." If I want to answer, I call her. But yesterday, on a whim, I followed the directions to answer via text. My answer: OK.

My attitude is still indifference when it comes to this kind of communication. It's a generational attitude, of course, but I don't mind being on the non-youthful side of this one.

Cole Porter's birthday is coming up in early June, which is a good reason for posting this version of "You're the Top," with Porter singing the song himself. Sure, there are more polished versions, but I like this one.



Also, annotated lyrics, including some not in the version above. I have to say I didn't know what a Bendel bonnet was either. It might have been the top once, but sic transit gloria mundi. I also have to say I've never had a strong urge to read Ulysses in time for Bloomsday, which is also coming up.

YouTube Revolver

I had the urge to listen to "Tomorrow Never Knows" today, which I probably hadn't heard in 20-plus years, except for the excerpt on Mad Men on Sunday (which I've read cost the show a quarter million). Not owning a copy of Revolver, I naturally went to YouTube to look for it. But I also was astonished to find the entire album (UK version) posted as one chunk.

Not only that, but there are more records: mostly canonical rock albums of the period in the suggestions bar, but a few more recent ones as well. I vaguely thought that there was a 10-minute limit on videos, but I don't really don't pay attention to YouTube that closely. The bigger surprise is that the copyright holders haven't swatted these down. Surely they could. Maybe the postings are considered a free way to market mp3 downloads.

So I listened to "Tomorrow Never Knows." When I heard it in younger days, it was just one of many Beatles songs. Sure, they did songs like that. But I was listening some years after all their work had been released. Now that I know more about popular songs recorded in the decades before it, I have some inkling of how strange the song must have sounded when new; it and most of the album.

Passing by the Beasties

Everyone has a Beastie Boys story, don't they? No? It's never good when anyone only 47 dies of cancer, but I have to say that the band left a very light impression on me. Except for the time I rode in the same El car as a number of Beastie Boys fans. It was a fairly crowded car, but they stood out. How do I know they were Beastie Boys fans? They weren't shy about it.

No property damage or fights occurred during their ride, but they sounded like they were up for either. After a few minutes of noise, the lads got off to see the band at the Aragon Ballroom, which is on the North Side of Chicago, within sight of the El. I did some looking around, and that must have been during the Beasties' infamous 1987 tour.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine writes in Allmusic: "In fact, Licensed to Ill became the biggest-selling rap album of the '80s, which generated much criticism from certain hip-hop fans who believed that the Beasties were merely cultural pirates. On the other side of the coin, the group was being attacked from the right, who claimed the Beasties' lyrics were violent and sexist and that their concerts -- which featured female audience members dancing in go-go cages and a giant inflatable penis, similar to what the Stones used in their mid-70s concerts -- caused even more outrage. Throughout their 1987 tour, they were plagued with arrests and lawsuits, and were accused of inciting crime."

Remarkably, I'm able to pin it down: They played the Aragon on Friday, March 13, 1987, according to this fellow, who claims to have documented the many concerts he's been to. I'll go along with that. I don't have any record of what I did that night, but I was out doing something, and it's what I think of on those rare occasions when I hear about the band, such as this week.

Springtime Misc.

Recently I interviewed a fellow at Pure Industrial Real Estate Trust, a company whose portfolio is made up of industrial buildings in Canada (I'm using the commercial real estate definition of "industrial," mainly warehouses and distribution centers). The company's acronym is PIRET. I didn't think anything of it until he told me that its symbol on the Toronto Stock Exchange is AAR.UN.  You know, ARR like a PIRET says, he told me. I got a kick out of that.

I pull up Google News every day and see more stories about the election, mostly horse-race coverage. Do I want to read this? No. The election is six months from now. I know who's running. I might take a passing interest when the Republicans fill their VP position, but other than that, this mess can wait till October.

Lilly and I saw some cool cloud-to-cloud lightning this evening, off to the east, where it must have been raining. She hadn't been aware that lightning could do such a thing. I told her that it could; a meteorological teaching moment. Ball lightning didn't come up, though.

Ann did her state report recently: writing, making a cube with pictures and drawings on it, and doing an oral report with props. She picked Texas as her subject. I was able to supply her with a number of props: postcards of various Texas spots, a plastic bluebonnet, a bag of Fritos, a 21 X 34-inch Texas flag that I hang in my office. She said a classmate held it up while she did her report.

But there was more. She wanted some Texas songs. She'd read that "Texas Our Texas" was the state song, so she wanted that on tape to play the class. I didn't tell her how seldom I'd heard it growing up, or the fact that a lot of people — a lot of Texans — think "The Eyes of Texas" is the state song. She wanted two others, and asked me for suggestions, which is a recipe for me suggesting something unusual.

Which I did. I suggested "Galveston," which I hadn't heard in some years. Not really about Texas, though part of the theme, and she took to it, maybe because she'd read about the city in one of her books. It's an example of song that's melodically peppy yet lyrically poignant. Not nearly as many people know the follow-up song, "Dear John, From Galveston," in which the narrator is so upset after receiving the title letter that he takes out an entire nest of Germans or Red Chinese or Viet Cong single-handedly in a berserk fit. Not to worry, he only lost a couple of fingers and some hearing in one ear, and lived out his days quietly as a family man in Houston — he married another girl — working as an appliance, and later car, salesman.

The other song I suggested was "Across the Alley From the Alamo," which doesn't have all that much Texas in it either, except for the essential ingredient of the Alamo, added for euphonious purposes. We played all three songs on YouTube, taping them on one of the tape-using microcassette-recorders I quit using a few years ago in favor of a digital recorder, and she played them for her class. Lo-fi, but passable. If that doesn't count as fair use for educational purposes, I don't know what would. It isn't likely that any of the other kids had ever heard those songs, and maybe the teacher was unfamiliar with them too.

The "Zou Bisou Bisou" Tangent

I'm surprised that Lionsgate or AMC, in a fit of copyrighteousness, hasn't quashed this high-quality clip of Megan Draper (Jessica Paré) dancing to "Zou Bisou Bisou," which was a high point of Mad Men's season premiere in late March. Who knows, maybe they've figured out that clips like this will inspire people to seek out the entire episode. You know, as a kind of marketing.

Like most of the audience, I'd never heard of "Zou Bisou Bisou" before seeing the episode, not being as interested in mid-century French pop culture as Matthew Weiner seems to be. But it's a charming song, light and sweet as meringue. Also, it took me on a tangent. I'm often willing to be taken on tangents, which can be little trips from the routine of settled life. First, I went to the Gillian Hills version of the song, the video of which must have been made for the French Scopitones.

Proceeding from that, I learned that nearly 10 years later Gillian Hills was one of the girls with the ice lollies in A Clockwork Orange, and that her father was Denis Hills. They don't make 'em like him any more. Once I started reading about the elder Hills, I remembered where I'd heard of him before.

In 1975, he ran afoul of Idi Amin, who threatened to execute Hills for writing disparaging things about the Conqueror of the British Empire -- foolishly writing them, as Hills was still in Uganda at the time. A wrangle between the UK and Uganda followed, and eventually a message from Queen Elizabeth herself, which presumably stoked the dictator's vanity, persuaded Amin to spring Hills. All of this played out in news reports that year, which I remember hearing (that was also the year Franco died so slowly).

The Next '20s Just Isn't Going to be the Same

Spring break time and it actually still feels like spring, though they say cool (not cold) air is on the way. Back to posting around April 1. In the meantime we will not be going hither and yon, or even part way to yon. But there may be a few new sights to report on come April. Sights are sights, even if they're close to home.

I must be in an early 20th century frame of mind, since lately I've been reading The New Deal (2011) by Michael Hiltzik, an engaging work. Besides discussing the broader scope of the various economic and social policies under that rubric, the book also details the efforts of cabinet members and advisors, some of them mostly forgotten now, who shaped and executed those policies. There are also some wonderful asides, such as a discussion of how a photograph of plutocrat J.P. Morgan Jr. and Ringling Bros. midget Lya Graf at U.S. Senate hearings on Wall Street came to be (June 1, 1933).

Also, I've been watching some Max Raabe videos not posted when we saw him a few years ago. In the one below, he explains why the version of "Singing in the Rain" they're about to do isn't quite like the version from the movie. We heard him discuss this in English in his droll way, and then heard their exceptional rendition of the song. The clip has the added bonus of featuring the fetching Cecilia Crisafulli.

Please continue to pray for Deb, my sister-in-law, in her slow recovery, and for her husband Jay, whose life is quite difficult now.

A Chipper Voice

Light snow at this late hour, at the end of a busy day. BTST usually isn't a place to post about how busy I happen to be, but this week is exceptionally so. Features and shorts must be done. There's nothing like deadlines to inspire flying fingers.

Other members of house were watching the Grammies last night, but even if I hadn't been busy then too, I would have skipped it. Still, at one point I couldn't help overhearing Adele's speaking voice, which I'd never heard before. What a delight, an internationally famed singer who talks like someone who takes your order at a fish and chips shop.

The Global Jukebox, Lomax Annex

Another warmish day, a freak of a mild winter to begin February. Too bad I needed to stay inside most of the time, tending to the word mill. It's going to be a busy month from beginning to end.

Even so, the time I put in at the computer also has its rewards, such as finding out about this by chance. Imagine that, 17,000 music tracks collected by Alan Lomax, soon to be accessible to anyone with a computer, no extra charge.

Not that it's practical even to listen to a modest fraction of the recordings, at least for those of us who have much else to do. And some of the recordings are probably so fixed in their place and time that it might be hard for an early 21st-century listener to appreciate them. Still, I'm looking forward to sampling the collection, as I would wander around a new city or a thumb through a fat reference book. Unexpected pleasures await.

Stille Nacht

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all. Posting will resume again around January 2, 2012.

You'd think we'd hear this English version of the song more often, but no.

I'm Dreaming of a Brown Christmas

A solstice fact for the day, courtesy timeanddate.com: "December 20 and December 23 solstices occur less frequently than December 21 or December 22 solstices in the Gregorian calendar. The last December 23 solstice occurred in 1903 and will not occur again until the year 2303. A December 20 solstice has occurred very rarely, with the next one occurring in the year 2080."

Looks like Christmas Day in northern Illinois will not feature crystalline water ice coating the mixture of clay, sand and organic matter that serves as substrate for plant growth. That is to say, there's no snow on the ground today, and none predicted for the next few days. I wonder, was a "white Christmas" a popular idea before the Irving Berlin song, or did the song foster the idea? Probably the latter, considering how astonishingly successful the song has been.

Roy J. Harris claims in the article linked above that "longing for Christmas snowfall was hardly a common image before Berlin's song." But it is now. My own daughters are complaining about the prospect of a brown Christmas. But that doesn't bother me, since it's just like the ones I used to know.

I had a fine time driving home from Phillies (see yesterday), listening to Christmas music on WXRT, which has started playing it from 8 p.m. to midnight. That station, which normally plays a broader range of popular music than most, has figured out an alternative to the repetitive, unimaginative approach WLIT takes to Christmas music every year. First of all, XRT plays it only four hours a day; that should be more than enough for anyone. More importantly, countless artists have recorded countless holiday titles over the years, and the station dips deep into that well.

The selections include unheralded versions of classics, lesser-known songs, and a variety of demented holiday tunes. You never know what you'll hear next. I was enjoying the songs, but after awhile Lilly wanted me to change to WLIT, so she could hear "something I can sing along with."

"What, you can't sing along to 'Father Christmas'?" I asked. That was the song playing at that moment. (The Kinks, 1977; not exactly unknown, but the Christmas Lite wouldn't touch it.)

But the last time I played Father Christmas
I stood outside a department store
A gang of kids came over and mugged me
And knocked my reindeer to the floor

They said: 'Father Christmas, give us some money
Don't mess around with those silly toys.
We'll beat you up if you don't hand it over...'

I allowed that maybe "Father Christmas" didn't quite inspire the holiday cheer she was looking for, so we went back to the usual suspects for a few minutes. And what do you know, WLIT soon played the original Bing Crosby version of "White Christmas." I can't really complain about that. A few songs can take the repetition.

The Name Salad

Got an e-mail from Americans for Gary J today -- how did I get on that list? -- and the subject said: Gary Johnson is Angry! Find Out Why. I have a pretty good idea. He's asking himself, why isn't it my turn? Even the pizza guy got a turn.

We attended the Rosa Luxemburg Junior High Winter Band Concert this evening, in which Lilly participated as a trombonist. For anyone worried about the "winter" in that name at the expense of Christmas, I can report that the program included no fewer than four songs with "Christmas" explicitly in the title, plus others with obvious Christmas associations. Some tunes I wasn't familiar were "Santa at the Symphony," "Funky Ol' Saint Nick," and "Rhapsody in Red & Green."

I looked at the lists of kids in the bands (7th grade, 8th grade, the district junior highs' jazz band) and I'm pleased to report a multi-ethnic salad bowl of names, out here in the homogeneous suburbs. A selection: Avila, Begbaaji, Freiburger, Gonzalez, Hirjoi, Jones, Khokari, Kim, Li, McCoy, Nagorzanski, O'Connell, Patel, Popovic, Rizvic, Scalafini, Schmaus, Stribling, Takizawa, Walker, Woo. As for first names, the likes of Ann, Alex, Caroline, Jessica, Jonathan, Kevin, Lilly, Mike, Patrick, Rebecca, Sarah, Thomas and William are represented, but so are Aya, Ena, Jemi, Koryana, Malik, Mumbua, Reena, Sergio, and my own favorite, a kid named Vlad.

Synchronized Electric Holiday Cheer

While visiting a drug store this weekend, I noticed that A Christmas Story has become a cottage industry -- a fairly major cottage industry, I'd say, to get a whole endcap display of its themed merchandise at this particular large chain. Maybe this year I'll get around to seeing that movie, since somehow or other I've missed it over the years. I'd never even heard of it until some years ago, when I read that the house in Cleveland used for exteriors had been converted into a museum devoted to the movie. Or I could just read about the movie, so that I'll understand the significance of a female leg table lamp in the story.

Until this weekend, I'd also never seen home Christmas lights synchronized to flash in time to a musical score, though I'd been vaguely aware of such displays, which are still fairly new. An early example of synchronized Christmas lights "was the work of Carson Williams, a Mason, Ohio, electrical engineer who spent about three hours sequencing the BB Light-O-Rama channels that controlled the 16,000 Christmas lights in the 2004 version of his annual holiday spectacular," says Snopes. "His 2005 display included over 25,000 lights that he spent nearly two months and $10,000 to hook up. So that Williams' neighbors wouldn't be disturbed by constant noise, viewers driving by the house were informed by signs to tune into a signal broadcast over a low-power FM radio station to hear the musical accompaniment."

Another source says that Williams spent three hours sequencing each minute of his display, but whatever the total, I'm sure it was a lot of work. Now, in the holiday season of 2011, either the techniques involved in creating this kind of light show are being defused to the benefit of Christmas-display enthusiasts, or Christmas-display specialists have learned Mr. William's strategies and are finding a market for their services. Or both. But when you chance across an elaborate synchronized display in the heart of the northwest suburbs, you know the thing's got some legs, at least among homeowners for whom static Christmas lights just aren't enough.

One of Lilly's friends told us about a synchronized display a block from her house, and when Lilly and I were in the area on Saturday evening, we stopped in front of the house for a few minutes and watched. It's exactly as described above: thousands of lights and a hand-lettered sign advising us to tune into a certain unoccupied FM frequency. As we watched, the lights flashed in artful on/off patterns to "Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairies" and a few other songs. A remarkable sight. I plan to take Yuriko and Ann to see it soon.

Vocal Refain By Glee Club

Up in the southeastern sky at about 10 p.m. this evening was Orion, trailing a fairly bright Moon. But he was bright in the winter air. So winter's here.

Is anyone recording topical songs any more? I suppose someone must be, but I'm too out of touch with contemporary recording to know. So I look around a little and the answer is "yes." If you can call "Osama bin Laden Is Dead!!!" a song. I don't have the urge to listen to it.

Today I did listen to a few of the songs listed at "Pearl Harbor - Popular Songs" by the UMKC University Libraries. It seemed like the thing to do. All of them have long faded, but I did know "Remember Pearl Harbor" by Don Reid and Sammy Kaye. Recorded 10 days after the attack and a best-seller in its time, it's the World War II song that sounds the most like a college fight song. "Go to meet the foe?" How gallant.

I knew it already because it was on the soundtrack of Radio Days. Which I acquired while living in Japan. Life's peculiar sometimes.

Give November Its Due

I went outside at about 1 p.m. and it was snowing. Big, full flakes. The snow came and went for a while, but none stayed on the ground. Later it was sunny. Then bleakly cloudy again. Cold but not quite freezing. This evening, we had a bright full moon. How much more November can you get?

November, not December. This happens every year, and every year I'm going to complain about it. Lilly was changing radio stations in the car today and came across "Do You Hear What I Hear?" Even Lilly was astonished, commenting that it's too soon for Christmas songs. It's enough to make you go home and queue up something to blast it right out of your head.

The Christmas Lite station is back on the air -- before Veterans Day, much less Thanksgiving. No thanks. Christmas (that is, the marketers' Christmas) needs to leave November -- chilled, melancholy, bittersweet November -- alone.