Not A Victrola Halloween Special

"Graveyard Love," a Cemetery Moan, posted by pianosyncrazy.



"Dance Macabre" by Saint-Saens, and performed by Horowitz in 1928.  Posted by AeolianHall1.

Bonus Halloween Crankin' It Up!

I always like to pull out Moran and Mack's performance of "Two Black Crows In Hades" for Halloween to put me in the spirit of the holiday.

Crankin' It Up

Lyman's California Ambassador Hotel Orchestra performs a nice Fox-Trot for your dancing pleasure. Brunswick disc number 2504-A; recorded on October 23, 1923.

October e-Postal: Final Weekend

US Citizen needs your October e-Postal targets by midnight on October 31, so if you haven't done so already, GET OUT AND SHOOT!  If you can't make it to a range, set up a BB gun range in your garage and shoot.  US Citizen will score your target if you shoot it!  This is a difficult target, but that makes for more fun and is better at building your skill than an easy target.  The circles are 1" diameter, and you shoot it at 21' with a pistol.  Touch the circle for 1 point, and the dot in the middle for 3 points.  I made 10 points out of a possible 60, and I had only a couple of bad misses.  You are not expected to shoot like an Olympian athlete, we just want you to have fun and improve your shooting skills.  Every target you enter gives you a chance in the $50 Cheaper Than Dirt drawing, so take more than one gun to the range with your stack of targets.

Disappearing Acts

I can think of half a dozen old barns/and or houses that have been torn down and burned around us in recent months.  I drove by this place on nearly a daily basis, and it is down to just a small pile of lumber that will soon be burned.  The top photo was taken two years ago, and I took the one below just yesterday. (Photo Credit for the first picture goes to JimH.)

The face of farm country is changing fast, and the family farms we like to envision really do not exist anymore, except  in the Amish and Mennonite communities.  One of the things that bothers me is that the barns I see being knocked down and burned are usually better than the one I am working on.  This barn is over 100 years old, and raising it up out of the termites is a never-ending task.

Our current focus is on the southwest corner, which had no sound wood holding up the roof.  The footer was poured during the early 1950's, and for some reason it has a kink in it.  The south wall leaned out to meet the rafters, and we poured a new foot for the corner, which we think is lined up pretty well.  Lining things up is sort of a relative thing in a building with no parallel lines or right angles.  As we put new wood back into our barn we are mainly shooting for less whopperjawed-ness.

Throttle Governed Massey Harris Engine

Massey Harris tractors are fairly common at the engine shows, but gas engines by Massey are none too plentiful. There were several at Pinckneyville this year, and this one was putting along at the fall show last week. Note that this is a throttle governed engine, not a hit-and-miss.

Concealed Carry Options From Ruger

Ruger has been expanding their firearm selection in the last few years. The SR9 should be familiar to you if you have been watching the Ruger videos on this blog for the last several weeks. The SR9 has developed a huge following, and it is a very dependable, moderately priced choice for self defense. Ruger recently brought out a compact version of the SR9, and Lori Petoske tells us about it in this video made during the 2010 Shot Show by trophyhunterstv.



In the next video, Jeff Quinn of Gunblast demonstrates the SR9c.



Ruger's newest addition to their line of pistols is the SR40, and judging from the reviews I am seeing, it is going to be even more popular than its 9 mm predecessor. Ruger has engineered the SR40 to tame the snappy recoil of the S&W .40, and the gun writers really like the way this new pistol shoots. The video below is Jeff Quinn of GunBlast talking about the new SR, and showing us how it handles on the firing line.

Crankin' It Up

Lyman's California Ambassador Hotel Orchestra recorded "Weary Weasel" on July 27, 1923, for your dancing pleasure. This is another of those records that I have kept safely stored away, and had never played. Imagine my surprise as I recorded it into the computer, and I heard that this song is an obvious knockoff of the "Tiger Rag!" Wonders never cease. "Before You Go" is on the A side, and I will check it out for next week's crank up.

BONUS!!! Here is the original recording of "Tiger Rag" from 1917 by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, uploaded by transformingArt.

The World's Greatest Entertainer...

Al Jolson passed away on October 23, 1950.  His last gig was entertaining soldiers in Korea, and even though he had just one good lung, and was sick with bronchitis, he did forty-two shows in seven days.  Visit the Al Jolson Society website, and light a candle for Al this evening.  Be sure to explore the Jolson Society website while you are there.  Many of Jolson's recordings are available for your enjoyment, such as the original Toot-Toot-Tootsie, and the rarest of Al's records, I'm Down In Honolulu Looking Them Over.

I started collecting old records when I was just a kid, and Jolson records were my favorites.  I still remember looking up Al Jolson in an encyclopedia and seeing to my horror that he had died before I was born.  It was like losing an old friend.

Many thanks to the Al Jolson Society for the great site, and the links. 

Put-ti, Put-ti, Put-ti

I did manage to squeeze out a few hours for Pinckneyville over the last weekend, and rapidly filled a couple of SD cards taking video and pictures. In my hurry to see as much as possible in a limited time, I neglected to read the builder's tag on this nice hit-and-miss engine. I think it is a Stover, and from the size, I would guess it is about 1 1/2 HP.

WOW!! Even More Pictures From GBR-V!!

We finally have the pictures and videos taken by the True Blue Team (Bea and TBS) processed into a video for your gratification. The sound track is "Shufflin' Mose," one of my Edison records from a great-grandfather. (The father of the man next to the Model T coupe in the header.) Putting this together was quite enjoyable, especially playing with the speed on the video segments. U.S. Citizen's Thompson is NOT full auto, but speeding him up 66% sort of gives that impression. Block out some time next September, travel to Reno, and join in on the fun.

Not My Victrola

Pax41 has posted a lovely rendition of the old favorite, "Let Me Call You Sweetheart." This song was published in 1910, and this performance by the Shannon Quartet was recorded in 1926, after electric microphones replaced the horns used in acoustic recording. That's lucky for us, because we get to hear a performance of this great song by people who still know how to sing to the back row in a theater, but with much better sound quality than was available just a few years earlier.