This Amazing America
Today’s scan is a 1938 brochure promoting “Strange and Unusual” places you could visit via Greyhound Bus Lines. There are 140 locations overall and as an extra bonus we get a profile shot of the beautiful streamlined Greyhound Super-Coach. I’m a sucker for old buses, and this one’s a beauty.
Discovered Mural
In Alameda, CA an old Mug Root Beer advertising mural was uncovered when siding was removed during a facade update.
When you look at it up close you can see that there are many layers of murals on this wall, and below the plaster on the original sideboards is still another mural, visible because of an old pipe installation that cut through the plaster. The future of this mural is unknown to me.
If you are in the area and want to see it for yourself, the Mural is located at the intersection of Webster and Haight.
No Post Tomorrow
I have not had any time to digitize new material recently, so there will not be a post tomorrow.
Luckily for me, I finally have a free weekend coming up. I’m planning on spending a lot of quality time with my record cleaner and photo scanner on Saturday so that I can bank up more original content for you.
Photo credit: “Sad Puppy” by Husham Samir
1960′s China Souvenir Slides
Today’s post is 20 souvenir slides of China from the 1960′s. These are those pre-packaged professional photos for tourists that are sold in gift shops at attractions and airports. The package and slides are undated, but in the rickshaw photo you see the top of a Volkswagen Splitscreen bus which stop being produced in 1967.
Movie Cover Cliche
While browsing Netflix the other night, I started to see a pattern in the covers of action movies. Guns. Guns in every direction. Here is a sampling:
Guns Aimed Up
There’s No Noise In It
I always love it when I find home recorded acetates. The records are not actually made from acetate, but they are usually a metal record with a fragile lacquer coating.
The reason I enjoy these is that I never know what I’m getting when I drop the needle. Most of the time it’s someone’s piano recital, or other boring stuff. Then when I find something like today’s post, it makes up for all the bad organ music I listened to.
I found these two 8″ records at a white elephant sale a few years ago, and they are dated 1941 in pencil. The first side was unremarkable piano music in one track taking up the whole side, but the flip side only contained a single short track. On it was children playing with the microphone! A little yelling, which I assume is being done while they are enjoying making the monitor gauge needle jump into the red. Then the child laments off mic that “There’s no noise in it!”, then sings Happy Birthday”. I don’t know why, but I like this random private moment captured in time. Continue reading "There’s No Noise In It"
Johnny Stool Pigeon
This was an interesting find. These two 12″ discs are radio promotions for the 1949 William Castle film-noir from Universal-International: Johnny Stool Pigeon.
Johnny Stool Pigeon stars Howard Duff (as the Federal Agent), Dan Duryea (as the Killer from Alcatraz), and Shelly Winters (as the Woman). Hooray for well-rounded female characters in Hollywood!
The first record is just 8 radio spots in 60, 30, and 15 seconds.
The second record is a “Personal Interview with Dan Duryea”. The “interview” is just a one-sided conversation. The records were sent out to radio stations with a script to be read by the DJ, so that the listeners might think that the actor was visiting their local radio station.
Continue reading "Johnny Stool Pigeon"
Transcribing Around The Neighborhood
This is a 10 minute field interview by Frank Reynolds for the Modesto, California radio station KTRB and aired on May 14th, 1954.
Frank is interviewing Mr. and Mrs. Cliff Horst the day before they opened Cliff’s Bakery and Delicatessen at 23 McHenry Ave in Modesto.
This Electrical Transcription (ET) is a large 12″ acetate that was unfortunately stored in a plastic bag, which drew oils out of the record and soaked into the label (as seen in the scan).
If anyone has more information about Mr. Reynolds, or Mr. and Mrs. Horst, I’d love to hear from you and I’ll update this post.
For more information about KTRB, check out the Modesto Radio Museum.
Dear Mr. Smith
Today’s audio offering is an odd one. This 45 record from Dictation Disc is a practice disc for increasing your shorthand speed. The record is undated, but from the tone of the voice work feels very mid-century to me.
A man in his best 1950′s voice dictates various fictitious business letters in increasing speeds. For example, the second track has our man thanking Mr Smith for his order of butter and asks for feedback about their packaging, but in… very… stilted… 50… words per minute.
These tracks are ripe for sampling. If you are inspired, please feel free to take these and make magic. All I ask in return is that you send me a copy and I’ll group them into a future post.
