I Never Beep!
So, a few years ago, Kyle and I came across some old (1940s and 50s) home recordings on acetate aluminum(?) disks at a Salvation Army store. There was a whole stack of them, but not knowing what they were (They were mostly unmarked or hand labeled with fading pencil, and I, at the time, didn't even know that old timey home recording was even a thing), we just grabbed one of them out of curiosity.
When we brought it home and listened to it on our record player we were surprised by the haunting, creepy sound of a child singing "Mairzy Doats" through heavy record noise. When we flipped it over and listened to what was on the other side, we knew we'd found a fabulous treasure. It was a string of outrageous babblings of a seemingly drunk old man in the company of, presumably, some family members. His voice is crazy, and more than a little bit horrifying. The recording starts out with a short discussion between a woman and the old man about what he's "beeping" about and whether or not he, in fact, beeps at all (what?). The old man gets increasingly incoherent as the recording goes on. Stand out phrases are "this is my pauly" (sounds like "party" and is ripe for sampling), "go to school and learn a loooot" and "she's little and tiny. She's got two more years left to go, heh heh." (the creepiest laugh you've probably ever heard). He then launches into a racy discussion with the woman about the size of her girdle which culminates in the slanted refrain from the beginning, "I never peek!" I guess it's possible they were saying "peek" all along, but it really sounds like "beep" at the beginning. We supposed that "beeping" was some kind of euphemism for getting drunk. If this man wasn't drunk, I can't imagine what was wrong with him.
Needless to say, we went directly back to that Salvation Army and bought the rest of the home-made records.
Here is what they look like:
They span over more than a decade, and have recurring characters (the old man, Doug, Lottie, Jean, Mac (Lottie's beloved), some children). References to places like Muskegon, Kalamazoo and Battle Creek indicate that the family who made these recordings was from the West Michigan area. A few of the recordings, which seem to have been made in Battle Creek, are of brief interviews with World War 2 soldiers. Some of the recordings are of people singing or playing the piano. A couple are recordings of a radio broadcast. Everyone seems to have an accent, not of a region, but of a time period. The old-time radio era cadence. It is fascinating!
We converted some of the recordings into MP3s to preserve them, and to share them. Sharing them over the interwebs, though, would require me to know how to host sound files, which I don't. So, I forgot about it until today, when I was making a muxtape, and it occurred to me that I could host my found sounds on muxtape.com. You can find a selection of them here!
I highly recommend listening to the second track, which is the one with the dirty old man--the most bizarre one. Another favorite is the third one, in which Lottie and Jean, also possibly drunk, demonstrate that people in the 1940s didn't have a very evolved sense of humor (their most outstanding jokes involve tapping on a table and repeating a funny word they heard on the radio). Also interesting: tracks 6 and 7, which are recordings of a radio broadcast--the final broadcast, in fact, of a Mrs. Miles' write-in advice show, in which Mrs. Miles advises that if a man's wife doesn't dress temptingly enough, he should lay out her clothes for her the night before, and if she still wears her bathrobe to breakfast, then he should refuse to eat with her because she is not interested in his interest in her. AND: do you have a problem choosing between two boys because they're both equally wealthy, come from the same sorts of homes, and your parents all run with the same social sets? Well, just send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to
Mrs. Miles
The Blue Network
New York 20, New York
and you will receive your very own "love test" questionnaire.
(65 years later... )
ANYWAY, go listen!
http://bossanovascotia.muxtape.com/
When we brought it home and listened to it on our record player we were surprised by the haunting, creepy sound of a child singing "Mairzy Doats" through heavy record noise. When we flipped it over and listened to what was on the other side, we knew we'd found a fabulous treasure. It was a string of outrageous babblings of a seemingly drunk old man in the company of, presumably, some family members. His voice is crazy, and more than a little bit horrifying. The recording starts out with a short discussion between a woman and the old man about what he's "beeping" about and whether or not he, in fact, beeps at all (what?). The old man gets increasingly incoherent as the recording goes on. Stand out phrases are "this is my pauly" (sounds like "party" and is ripe for sampling), "go to school and learn a loooot" and "she's little and tiny. She's got two more years left to go, heh heh." (the creepiest laugh you've probably ever heard). He then launches into a racy discussion with the woman about the size of her girdle which culminates in the slanted refrain from the beginning, "I never peek!" I guess it's possible they were saying "peek" all along, but it really sounds like "beep" at the beginning. We supposed that "beeping" was some kind of euphemism for getting drunk. If this man wasn't drunk, I can't imagine what was wrong with him.
Needless to say, we went directly back to that Salvation Army and bought the rest of the home-made records.
Here is what they look like:
They span over more than a decade, and have recurring characters (the old man, Doug, Lottie, Jean, Mac (Lottie's beloved), some children). References to places like Muskegon, Kalamazoo and Battle Creek indicate that the family who made these recordings was from the West Michigan area. A few of the recordings, which seem to have been made in Battle Creek, are of brief interviews with World War 2 soldiers. Some of the recordings are of people singing or playing the piano. A couple are recordings of a radio broadcast. Everyone seems to have an accent, not of a region, but of a time period. The old-time radio era cadence. It is fascinating!
We converted some of the recordings into MP3s to preserve them, and to share them. Sharing them over the interwebs, though, would require me to know how to host sound files, which I don't. So, I forgot about it until today, when I was making a muxtape, and it occurred to me that I could host my found sounds on muxtape.com. You can find a selection of them here!
I highly recommend listening to the second track, which is the one with the dirty old man--the most bizarre one. Another favorite is the third one, in which Lottie and Jean, also possibly drunk, demonstrate that people in the 1940s didn't have a very evolved sense of humor (their most outstanding jokes involve tapping on a table and repeating a funny word they heard on the radio). Also interesting: tracks 6 and 7, which are recordings of a radio broadcast--the final broadcast, in fact, of a Mrs. Miles' write-in advice show, in which Mrs. Miles advises that if a man's wife doesn't dress temptingly enough, he should lay out her clothes for her the night before, and if she still wears her bathrobe to breakfast, then he should refuse to eat with her because she is not interested in his interest in her. AND: do you have a problem choosing between two boys because they're both equally wealthy, come from the same sorts of homes, and your parents all run with the same social sets? Well, just send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to
Mrs. Miles
The Blue Network
New York 20, New York
and you will receive your very own "love test" questionnaire.
(65 years later... )
ANYWAY, go listen!
http://bossanovascotia.muxtape.com/