All-Art.org provides an extensive image library, essays and information on art history, organized by date and movement, up to the 20th century, including photography, design and classical music with audio samples. A small selection of the encyclopedic range offered: Erotica in Art l Paintings that changed the world l The Origins of Typography and Graphic design l Russian Silver Age l Japanese Prints l African l Posters l A Brief History of Western Literature l An illustrated dictionary of art and artists.
posted on Oct 4, 2008 - View this thread

"So, that’s my long and winding history of a little postcard from the Upper West Side of Manhattan!" Suzanne Vega writes about writing the hit song Tom's Diner, coping with its numerous remixes, and its part in the birth of the MP3 music compression format.
posted on Sep 24, 2008 - View this thread

Dick Stacey's Country Jamboree is now available on DVD/CD after years of slowly fading into obscurity. "I was wrong in thinking the Jamboree was a thing of the past," said Dick Stacey, a man whose three gas stations and motel took over sponsoring this uniquely Maine talent showcase on a whim in 1973—and ended up lasting just over a decade.
posted on Sep 3, 2008 - View this thread

Prvi svetski rat - Gritty and poignant Serbian postcards from the First World War. Just one of the seriously interesting (e.g. check out the collection of 78s) holdings at the Digital National Library of Serbia.
posted on Jul 20, 2008 - View this thread

The first known recording of a digital computer playing music, recorded by the BBC in 1951. The music played on a Ferantti Mark 1, one of the first commercial general-use computers, and was entered via punchtape and played on a speaker usually used for making clicks and tones to indicate program progress.
posted on Jun 18, 2008 - View this thread

The opening shots of 1920s New York City are wonderful, then you get a zany high-speed Harold Lloyd blazing down the avenues, and that's fun to watch, but the real killer is the horse-drawn trolley absolutely tearing-ass through lower Manhattan, full gallop. Ends badly. Then it's over to San Francisco for one last bit of homicidal vehicular activity with a bus. Well, they sure don't drive like they used to!
posted on May 25, 2008 - View this thread

Whole Lotta Shakin' - a PRI documentary series on the history of rockabilly, hosted by Rosie Flores.
posted on Apr 26, 2008 - View this thread

What the IFPI tries to conceal about its origins in fascist Italy IFPI is the global version of the RIAA
posted on Apr 8, 2008 - View this thread

Sounds of America is a new monthly streaming audio program, a collaboration between the National Museum of American History and Smithsonian Global Sound. Up now are 3 episodes: African-American music in New Orleans, Women in American Music, and Freedom Songs of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.
posted on Apr 2, 2008 - View this thread

Another King Records RnB artist covered by The Aerosmiths is Cleveland's own Bullmoose . Jackson. Here's Jackson's original recording of Big ten inch record (1952).
posted on Mar 11, 2008 - View this thread

Someone asked "What does it take before a song becomes a pop standard? Four generations? Five?
The Train Kept A Rollin' is a garage rock classic, but the original by Tiny Bradshaw (rec. 25-jul-1951 -- sax solo: Red Prysock) was played in a very different style. So who was Tiny Bradshaw? And what about all those covers?
posted on Mar 10, 2008 - View this thread

Jeffrey Lewis brings you The Complete History of Punk Rock and Its Development on the Lower East Side (1950-1975) in eight and a half minutes.
posted on Feb 27, 2008 - View this thread

Atomic Platters :: Cold War Music from the Golden Age of Homeland Security
posted on Feb 15, 2008 - View this thread

Ron Murphy cut records, but not just any records. Responsible for cutting the actual vinyl master plates of much of the now revered Detroit Techno including Jeff Mills, Carl Craig, Underground Resistance's seminal Knights of the Jaguar, and much more - he demonstrated impeccable craftsmanship and skill in both mastering records for sound and aesthetics at company known as Sound Enterprises source link AKA National Sound Corporation. Schooled in Motown, dubplates and jukeboxes, he is the bespoke-crafted, analog link between the digital future and analog past that is the roots of Techno music and modern techno DJ culture.
posted on Feb 13, 2008 - View this thread

Edward Samuel's Illustrated History of Copyright A fascinating illustrated historical tour, looking at how different technologies have shaped how we think about copyright and intellectual property.
posted on Jan 31, 2008 - View this thread

For Sale: Max Yasgur's Farm
posted on Jan 9, 2008 - View this thread

Chicago's Maxwell Street Market wasn't just a market: it was a stage that played host to many an exuberantly ragged, hard grinding blues performance. It was lively, eccentric, ecstatic. You could get there on The Happy Bus. And of course, one of the greatest musicals in the history of American cinema paid homage to the street, as the setting for a fabulous performance by John Lee Hooker of his iconic "Boom Boom". (Note: See mouseovers for link descriptions.)
posted on Jan 4, 2008 - View this thread

Here is Naomia Wise from The Max Hunter Folksong Collection. Folk songs, more or less, sung by real folks, collected in Arkansas by Max Hunter between 1956 and 1976. On a related tip, here is Historic Music--recorded popular music from the 1920s, with a large selection devoted to music from the First World War. And here, from Manufacturing Memory: American Popular Music in the 1930's, are the Popular Music Jukebox 1930-1934 and the Popular Music Jukebox 1935-1939 to complete this day's vintage musical Americana experience.
The Max Hunter songs are in RealAudio. Realplayer haters can use Real Alternative aka Media Player Classic.
posted on Nov 27, 2007 - View this thread

The Uncensored History of the Blues is a fantastic podcast exploring some rougher aspects of blues history. From the Delta Blues Museum.
posted on Oct 17, 2007 - View this thread

He's got Rhythm (single-link YouTube)
posted on Aug 25, 2007 - View this thread

LP Cover Lover The world's greatest LP album covers. Groovy, man. [some nudity, some total insanity]
posted on Jul 18, 2007 - View this thread

Dim Lights, Thick Smoke, and Loud, Loud Music Photgrapher Henry Horenstein's Honky-Tonk: Portraits of Country Music, 1972-1981 captures a sound in transition. This evocative collection of informal, black-and-white portraits of country musicians and fans in bars, backstage, and on the road illustrate a decade when smoky roadhouses and venerated venues began to give way to the more mainstream Countrypolitan or "Nashville" sound. Seminal artists like Mother Maybelle Carter and Bill Monroe mingled backstage with shinier newcomers like Dolly Parton and Anne Murray. But even as the commercial sound was dominating, youngsters mixing with old-timers sparked the first wave of old-time/bluegrass revival, and some of the artists who got started then still carry the torch for a non-Nashville sound today. In this online exhibit you can watch it all unfold.
posted on Feb 2, 2007 - View this thread

Did Anyone Really Follow the Drinking Gourd? Were you taught that slaves in the antebellum South sang this traditional song to convey coded instructions for escaping Northward? Were you taught that quilt block patterns could be read as a map to freedom, or that quilts were hung outside safe houses as signals to escaping slaves?Though these are among the most often taught stories of the operation of the Underground Railroad, current scholarship indicates that these aren't survivals of pre-Civil War African-American folklore, but legends constructed and popularized within the twentieth century, frequently by white writers and performers. In today's New York Times, these legends battle it out with fact in debate over the proposed design of a new Frederick Douglass memorial [PDF].
posted on Jan 23, 2007 - View this thread

Zvukovye Pis'ma: Musical letters from the Soviet Union during the 1950s, with images and audio. More information for those that can decipher it.
posted on Dec 31, 2006 - View this thread

...In 1924 New York Recording Laboratory decided to expand its reach into that market by purchasing the Black Swan label. Founded in 1920 or 1921 by black entrepreneur Harry H. Pace, the pioneering company recorded everything from ragtime to grand opera, as long as it was sung by African-Americans... Paramount's biggest star was Ma Rainey, a blues moaner who influenced the legendary singer Bessie Smith... Paramount did not neglect male blues singers, who tended to be folk artists in the sense that their music was made initially for the entertainment of isolated rural communities. These included the singers and guitarists Charlie Patton... Blind Lemon Jefferson...

Compliments of the Season from ParamountsHome--where, among many other things, one can find an online copy of David Evans's biography Charley Patton in Parts 1, 2 and 3 or look at a picture of Skip James in 1932, not to mention a view of Paramount's promotion of Patton as the Masked Marvel. And that is not, as they say, all...
posted on Dec 18, 2006 - View this thread

Five Blind Boys Of Alabama - Too Close
Supreme Angels - Hush Hush
Soul Stirrers - Listen To The Angels Sing
King Louis Narcisse - This Little Light Of Mine
Goldia Hayes with the Harmonizing Four - Beams of Heaven
Sister Rosetta Tharpe & Choir - Up Above My Head
Hall Johnson Choir - Little Black Sheep
Norfleet Brothers - I Am A Pilgrim And A Stranger
Caravans - No Coward Soldier
Soul Stirrers - I'm A Soldier In The Army Of The Lord
Gospel Paraders - Have You Got Good Religion
Pilgrim Jubilee Singers - Testify
Imperial Gospel Singers - The Lord Will see You Through
Lucy Rodgers Singers - Hold To God's Unchanging Hand

YouTube in the Holy Spirit--mostly old school black gospel...
posted on Dec 4, 2006 - View this thread

The Virtual Gramophone. A massive database of early Canadian 78 RPM recordings, now available in mp3 and rm format. Over 13,000 titles available, freely downloadable. Includes biographical notes on the artists, notes on the history of Canadian recording, interesting technical notes on media conversion, a few videos from the olde dayes, and podcasts. This collection is particularly strong on Quebecois and Acadien folk/fiddle music. Courtesy of the Library and Archives Services of the Government of Canada. Mentioned once before in passing, five years ago on Metafilter, but much improved since them realaudio only days.
posted on Oct 31, 2006 - View this thread

That's the Sound of the Man Working on the Chain Gang Among all genres of American folk music, prison songs may be the most viscerally compelling. They evolved from plantation songs and field hollers of slaves in the American South before the civil war (whose origins can in turn be traced to patterns found in the music of West Africa) but their tone and content is quite different. Limitless in length, bitter and pained, offering little hope of freedom or redemption, these songs were first heard during Reconstruction. Harsh and unevenly enforced laws incarcerated legions of black American men, consigning them to long sentences of labor for minor offenses like insult, fistfighting, and shoplifting. To shore up a tanking Southern economy, prisons leased convict labor to plantation owners as a low-cost replacement for slave labor. When reform efforts brought that to an end, state governments became the contractors. Sweetheart deals awarded lucrative contracts to prisons to provide labor for rebuilding the railroads and highways of the war-destroyed South. Slavery in all but name, these work conditions gave rise to a body of music that is one of the most significant antecedents of the blues. In hundreds of variants, cadenced to axe-fall, hoe stroke, or the drop of a maul, the songs set a working pace a man could sustain from dawn to dusk, while remaining fast enough to satisfy an armed 'Captain' on horseback.
posted on Aug 27, 2006 - View this thread

The Nickel Under The Foot is one of the most important songs in the history of the American theatre. The back story.
posted on Aug 4, 2006 - View this thread

The Digital Library of Appalachia presents an online collection of music files, images, literature, and scanned documents supplied by twelve regional college libraries.
posted on Jun 22, 2006 - View this thread

Music from Morrisania: Dr. Mark Naison, urban historian at Fordham University and principal investigator of the Bronx African-American history project, leads a musical tour of one South Bronx neighborhood from the 1950s to the present, describing how hot summers, open windows and a fertile mixing of ethnic groups influenced landmarks in American musical history -- from Tito Puente to "Watermelon Man" to KRS-One.
posted on May 18, 2006 - View this thread

The Riot of Spring. Théâtre Champs-Elysées, Paris, May 29, 1913. Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Marcel Proust, Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy are among those present at the premiere of The Rite of Spring (the score is here), written by Igor Stravinsky and choreographed by the great Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. The music and the choreography shocked the audience with its daring modernism, ripping up the rulebook of classical ballet with its heavy, savage movements. Many in the audience promptly booed, then yelled, insulting the performers and each other. Then fistfights broke out. The police was summoned, but was unable to stop an all-out riot.
Now the BBC has made a TV movie about that night. More inside.
posted on Mar 11, 2006 - View this thread

Today is Texas Independence Day On March 2, 1836, the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed at Washington-on-the-Brazos. The document was created by the Convention of 1836 while almost a couple hundred brave Texans at the Alamo held Gen. Santa Anna's army of several thousand at bay for 13 days. On March 6, the Alamo finally fell, slaughtered to the last man. On March 27, 352 Texas soliders were slaughtered at the Goliad Massacre. Finally on April 21, the untrained armies of Texas, outnumbered and under the command of Sam Houston, decisively defeated the much larger and better trained and equipped Army of Mexico at the Battle of San Jacinto and captured the Mexican dictator Santa Anna. Happy Texas Independence Day.
posted on Mar 2, 2006 - View this thread

The Memory of The Netherlands is an extensive digital collection of illustrations, photographs, texts, film and audio fragments from a large variety of Dutch cultural institutions. There are about 50 collections (in english).
posted on Feb 19, 2006 - View this thread

So You Think You Hate Country Music? Then listen to this. The roots of American country music may surprise you. In this series of NPR programs, trace the gradual development of real country music through the first half of the 20th century. Learn how a woman's instrument of the late 1800s, the parlor guitar, became the the central symbol of country and rock; see how African-American musical forms like gospel and blues meshed with the development of country and early rock and influenced the traditional forms in turn; listen to German-Mexican hybrids of accordian style; find out why women had so many honky-tonk torch songs to sing in the late 40s. The series contains hours of content (narrative, interviews, music tracks), and a multitude of excellent links for deeper digging.
posted on Feb 2, 2006 - View this thread

A potted history of coffee Oh, and some music - Dylan, Bach, Inkspots, Lightnin' Hopkins, Peggy Lee, Duke Ellington, White Stripes, etc.
posted on Dec 20, 2005 - View this thread

Whistling: a lost art? Once upon a time, siffleurs like Brother Bones, Fred Lowery and Marcel ‘Muzzy’ Marcellino warbled from the stage, and trilled across the airwaves. While our generation almost certainly whistles less than our grandparents’, and while we may never again see a whistler attain the modest fame of Ronnie Ronalde, let alone the celebrity of la belle siffleuse Alice Shaw, nor witness any meaningful revival of the kunstpfeifen tradition, there are yet several contemporary whistlers who would revive the art: ‘Whistlin’ Tom,’ Sean Lomax, Robert Stemmons (‘the whistler of Coeur d’Alene’), Hylton ‘The Whistler’ Brown, Chris Ullman (‘the symphonic whistler’) and Milt Briggs (‘a maverick among whistlers’), etc., or any number of the other enthusiasts who attend the International Whistlers Convention held every year at Loiusburg, North Carolina, ‘the world’s whistling capital.’
posted on Dec 3, 2005 - View this thread

Electro-funk is a often overlooked genre of dance music that is very influential for many genres of dance music that came around it and after it, including Hip-Hop, Dance, Disco, Electric Boogie, Freestyle, Techno and Drum and Bass.
One of the most prominent Electro-Funk DJs was Greg Wilson, who has set up electrofunkroots.co.uk to document the history and influence of Electro-Funk. Wilson interviews Quentin Leo Cook, (a.k.a. Norman Cook, a.k.a. Fatboy Slim) on Cook's impressions of Electro-Funk and how it has influenced him as a music producer and DJ.
Wilson has also provided a personal history and retrospective mix of top Electro-Funk songs to A Guy Called Gerald for Samurai.fm.
posted on Nov 29, 2005 - View this thread

The Wartime Ninth. "Berlin. October 7, 1944. In the Beethovensaal a concert is about to begin, but the theater is empty, relieved of its usual audience studded with Nazi elite. The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra is on stage, awaiting its cue. Conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler stands awkwardly on the podium. The vague meandering of his baton summons the first shadowy note of Bruckner's Ninth Symphony. A Radio Berlin engineer starts his Magnetophon. The most extraordinary orchestral recording of the century has just begun". More inside.
posted on Oct 5, 2005 - View this thread

Buying Rare Race Records in the South. Music That Americans Loved 100 Years Ago. The Cheney Talking Machine. Just three among dozens of amazing articles about early recording machines and American popular music at the astonishingly detailed site of Tim Gracyk, author of Popular American Recording Pioneers: 1895-1925. Scroll down for bios of forgotten stars, including Nora Bayes - who performed in the Follies of 1907, before Flo Ziegfeld's name became part of the title, George W. Johnson - "the most important African-American recording artist of the 1890s," and piano player Zez Confrey, whose sheet music for the 1921 hit "Kitten on the Keys" sold over a million copies and became "the third most-frequently recorded rag in history."
posted on May 17, 2005 - View this thread

Alan Cross is a name that is known in Toronto. He's the guy from 102.1 Edge who has the best rock'n'roll show in the business, called The Ongoing History of New Music. His knowledge is so encyclopedic it's creepy. He's personable. He's interesting. He's current. He's uber-cool. And you can either podcast his shows or read them yourself. I'm no rock newbie, but I'm currently enjoying Building A Record Library: Part I. The History of Selling Out is interesting enough to provoke the question, did REM, Husker Du and Sonic Youth really do it for the bling bling? Speaking of Husker Du, are they possibly the fathers of Emo? Do yourself a favour: give him a listen and a read. note: the site's a bit rough on the browser
posted on Apr 27, 2005 - View this thread

Lets wade in the water, Coded slave songs.
posted on Apr 27, 2005 - View this thread

All roads lead to Apache. From Bert (.mp3) to Nas (.mp3), surf (.mp3) to electronica (.mp3), the audio genealogy of one influential tune. (via Soul-Sides)
posted on Apr 21, 2005 - View this thread

With My Special Partner, I can drink my way back to the 7th Millenium BCE for ancient music, and the fish’ll tell me how to get home.
posted on Apr 13, 2005 - View this thread

The latest additions to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress have just been announced. This year's additions of "culturally, historically or aesthetically important" works include "Swanee'" by Al Jolson, Edward R. Murrow's radio reports from London during WWII, and "Fear of a Black Planet" by Public Enemy. View the full registry here, selection criteria and nomination information here.
posted on Apr 6, 2005 - View this thread

Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-cut; snapping his fingers, rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting the backs of his legs in front, spinning about on his toes and heels like nothing but the man’s fingers on the tambourine. Dancing with two left legs, two right legs, two wooded legs, two wire legs, two spring legs–all sorts of legs and no legs–what is this to him? And in what walk of life, or dance of life does man ever get such stimulating applause as thunders about him, when, having danced his partner off her feet, and himself too, he finishes by leaping gloriously on the bar-counter, and calling for something to drink, with the chuckle of a million of counterfeit Jim Crows, in one inimitable sound!

Dancing Across The Color Line.   In 1842, Charles Dickens came to New York City, where initally, he was wined, dined and theatrically entertained by the upper crust. Afterwards, he then went slumming and soon saw William Henry Lane, aka Master Juba, a man of whose dancing a number of historians say is where tap dance began, step lively in a cellar in the neighborhood called Five Points--the very same neighborhood creatively misrepresented recently by one Martin Scorcese in Gangs of New York. The dance he did was known as Pattin' Juba and the first time it's rhythm--which we think of as the Bo Diddley beat--was used on a sound recording was in 1952, when Red Saunders and his Orchestra, with Dolores Hawkins and and the Hambone Kids recorded Hambone. Continued within
posted on Apr 4, 2005 - View this thread

By a weird coincidence, after reading this interview in New Scientist with three of the engineers who made electronic music possible, I walked by a poster for a documentary film about Bob Moog. One of my earliest memories of electronic music in the 1970s was an elementary school music teacher who was really into Wendy Carlos' and Isao Tomita's early arrangements of classical works for synthesizer. Of course, electronic music history goes back to the 1920s with the theremin developed as a classical instrument. It has its own web portal filled with lots of good stuff. And now for something slightly different, Conlon Nancarrow wrote piano compositions that could not be performed by human hands, demanding the use of a player piano.
posted on Apr 4, 2005 - View this thread

There is a house in New Orleans... A recent archeological excavation in the French Quarter reveals that a hotel called the "Rising Sun" operating in the early 1800s may have been the ruin of many a poor girl. Clues include suggestive newspaper ads from the period and artifacts such as "a large number of liquor bottles... Alongside... an unusually dense collection of rouge pots". [more...]
posted on Apr 4, 2005 - View this thread

Jump Jim Crow, through the hoops of one Robert Christgau's erudition as he surveys the literature extant in In Search of Jim Crow: Why Postmodern Minstrelsy Studies Matter, through multiple readings of Raising Cain: Blackface Performance from Jim Crow to Hip Hop, Demons of Disorder: Early Blackface Minstrels and Their World and and Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. Consider, too, The Minstrel Cycle from Reading The Commitments and other various and sundry attempts to peek inside the minstrel mask—all multiple readings reading blackface minstrels from the pejorative to the explorative, subversive to oppressive, past to future, unfolding tesseractly, if not exactly, with singing, dancing and extraordinary elocutions. Buy your tickets and step within for The Meller Drammer of Minstrelsy in The Minstrel Show 2.0…
posted on Mar 31, 2005 - View this thread

"Precious Lord" sung by Mahalia Jackson (mp3)
No artist brought more acclaim to gospel music than Mahalia Jackson (October 26, 1911 – January 27, 1972). Beginning in 1950, her divine (.wav) talents were featured weekly on Studs Turkel's radio program, and through her music and gentle personality she became so beloved worldwide that her funeral rivaled that of royalty. Mahalia sang "Precious Lord" at Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.'s funeral -- at Mahalia's funeral, Aretha Franklin did the honors. Mahalia was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame posthumously in 1997. Word has it she also made a mean okra gumbo.
posted on Jan 27, 2005 - View this thread

While culling my clippings file for the big move, I came across Ragtime: No Longer a Novelty in Sepia, which led me to the The Rag-Time Ephemeralist, a labor of love by one Chris Ware , whose 'The Acme Novelty Library' and Jimmy Corrigan, Smartest Boy In The World I had long admired. The Ragtime Ephemeralist's mention of Out of Sight - The Rise of African American Popular Music, 1889-1895---here's a review from Musical Traditions--and, its very own links page, as a consequence, led to this post about Ragtime, Cakewalks, Coon Songs and Vaudeville, with a slight nod to Barbershop Quartets. There's more, of course...
posted on Jan 21, 2005 - View this thread

'The Cantigas de Santa Maria medieval-era manuscripts were written during the reign of Alfonso X "El Sabio" (1221-1284) and are one of the largest collections of monophonic (solo) songs from the middle ages ... ' Images.
posted on Nov 18, 2004 - View this thread

Remembering Elizabeth "Libba" Cotten (1895-1987): Oh, Lordy me, didn't [she] shake sugaree! [last 2 are audio]
posted on Oct 14, 2004 - View this thread

Meeksville centers around Joe Meek, Britain's first independent record producer, whose DIY engineering wizardry would transform record-making during the Sixties. Five years after an international #1 hit in the Tornadoes' space-age Telstar (Windows Media or RealPlayer), he would self-destruct, in an end not without tragedy or speculation. His works--along with his trademarked name--live on.
posted on Sep 10, 2004 - View this thread

Life's like that isn’t it? Only the other day I was walking in the west end and... suddenly I was set upon by hordes of fans and admirers who wanted to... touch my clothes. So I took sanctuary in a nearby cinema. Normally of course I don't go in but... that day I saw something that... really moved me I'd like to share this...wonderful experience with you it was... (more inside gentle reader)
posted on Aug 12, 2004 - View this thread

The Dolmetsch online music theory & history pages - short introductions to the whole of the how and why of Western music, with enough links to fill in any gaps. Amazingly good, although as yet incomplete. via haddock
posted on Aug 11, 2004 - View this thread

120 Years of Electronic Music. Electronic musical instruments 1870 -1990.
posted on Jul 10, 2004 - View this thread

The J.S. Bach Home Page.
posted on Jun 26, 2004 - View this thread

The story of "St. James Infirmary." You thought it was a piece of old New Orleans? Turns out St. James Hospital was in London (and treated lepers), and the song goes back at least to the 18th century (though it used to be sung to the tune of "Streets of Laredo"). Rob Walker's Letter From New Orleans #13 describes the results of his obsessive researches. If you have more info, he wants to hear from you! (Via Wordorigins, a site any word lover should know.)
posted on Jun 11, 2004 - View this thread

Notecannons. An online pictorial history of National brand stringed instruments from 1920 - present.
posted on Mar 26, 2004 - View this thread

Musica Antiqua: A Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Instruments. Complete with both .wav and .mp3 samples.
posted on Mar 12, 2004 - View this thread

CBGB Photographic History. Includes one of the coolest Ramones photos I've ever seen. (One or two of the thumbnails are probably NSFW, but they're small, so unless you're really paranoid, I wouldn't be too concerned about it). (via things magazine)
posted on Jan 28, 2004 - View this thread

The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM to cognoscenti) one of the lesser known but most influential movements of the past quarter century. After the innovators of Metal ran out of steam in the late 70's and were stampeded in the maelstrom of punk, heavy metal (and testosterone-soaked delindquents everywhere) found itself in a quandary). A number of UK acts took some cues from the punks, shortened the songs, reigned in the self-indulgence and speeded up the tempo, and upped the relevance and intelligence of the lyrical content, while still retaining the vocal prowess, instrumental pyrotechnics and young warrior energy that makes it Metal in the first place. Some groups became world famous. Others only big in Europe. Some great ones missed stardom by just a notch. Many of these acts have been cited as inspirations by Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Napalm Death and the thrash/death metal hordes, and even many post-punks. An interesting summary for fans, and a good introduction for non-mans who may have to recalibrate their opinion of the genre after checking some of these bands out.
posted on Dec 17, 2003 - View this thread

A history of UK Punk Rock from 1976-79. "Featuring an A-Z of punk bands from Adam and The Ants to The Sex Pistols to X Ray Spex, fanzines, punk girls, rare record sleeves, audio clips, fashion, punk rock lyrics, interviews and loads of pictures." It's not all about the Sex Pistols.
posted on Sep 18, 2003 - View this thread

Excellent gallery of early 20th century sheet music folios, including some very attractive samples, as well as some somewhat outdated images. via memepool
posted on Aug 19, 2003 - View this thread

The Optigan: OPTIcal orGAN. Long before synthesizers, ProTools, and Cubase, Mattel released a bizarre contraption called the 'Optigan' which operated by assigning each key to a track on an optical disc on which were recorded sounds of real instruments playing every individual note. This site is one guy's obsession with the instrument that may well be dead and forgotten if not for him. Check out his mp3s of his own, reasonably successful, band based around the instrument, to see how it sounds.
posted on Jun 30, 2003 - View this thread

The Historical Museum of Southern Florida. A good set of exhibits and collections : the Afro-Cuban Orisha religion and associated arts; the Miami Centennial Quilt; South American music in Miami; illustrating Cuba's flora and fauna; vintage Cuban postcards; selections from Audubon's 'Birds of America'; Pan Am memorabilia; and more.
posted on Jun 20, 2003 - View this thread

The Scopitone was a French video jukebox that made its debut in 1960 and was imported into the US in 1964. Although they usually featured high production values, catchy melodies, and lots of gratuitous cheesecake, the singers were often relative unknowns and the music was square even by the standards of the day. Consequently, they never caught on in a big way outside of Europe, and many of the original Scopitone jukeboxes and films were destroyed. Fortunately for us, a few Scopitone enthusiasts have catalogued the songs, scanned the advertisements, and even preserved a few Quicktime clips of the original French and American Scopitone films.
posted on May 4, 2003 - View this thread

A Great Day in Harlem. Jazz history through one photograph.
posted on Mar 2, 2003 - View this thread

The IBM 1403 Printer (1964) playing music. This may change your life.
posted on Feb 4, 2003 - View this thread

The Smithsonian offers an online sampling of its Collection of Aeronautic Sheet Music. From the introduction: "...widespread fascination with flight has inspired an enormous output of historical drawings, paintings, advertisements and illustrations for publications. Some of the most colorful illustrations are those which adorn sheet music. In the Bella Landauer collection, you can find illustrations that range from the bizarre to the commonplace, from the humorous to the mundane. But most are colorful and interesting."
The collection is divided into categories such as "Ballooning", "Biplanes", and "Flying Machines". I love this one from 1914, called "A Hundred Years From Now".
posted on Nov 12, 2002 - View this thread

In 1924 George Antheil caused a riot with his ballet score for 'percussion orchestra, two pianists, seven electric bells, 3 airplane propellors, a siren, and 16 synchronized player pianos'. In 1933, Hedy Lamarr caused a sensation by appearing nude on film. In 1942, Antheil and Lamarr jointly filed a patent for a secret communications system, having thought up 'an interesting scheme to control armed torpedoes over long distances without the enemy detecting them or jamming their transmissions' over dinner.
posted on Oct 15, 2002 - View this thread

Demythologizing The Blues. Blues reseacher and scholar David Evans breaks it down. Country blues as a living tradition tied to a rural black culture - there is something of that culture left - I think it's essentially over.--that's from this interview with David Evans--scroll past the autobiographical details for the meat and potatos. Paul Garon, of Race Traitor and Living Blues, has strong feelings about White Blues. Similarly, black writer Jesse Douglas Allen-Taylor feels a chill amidst a white blues audience and asks Whose Blues Are They? Also, n a related and timely topic, here's Elvis Presley and the Impulse Towards Transculturation. (Hint: Elvis didn't sound black. Well, duh...) Originally in the NYT--no password needed now!--The Blues Dying In The Land Where It Was Born, and as a bonus, the New Yorker profile on an outfit I love to loathe, Fat Possum. Is is this guy's fault? And if you want to make the pilgrimage, let Junior's Juke Joint be your guide! (don't forget to make that unannounced drop in on raysmj!) Added bonus: R. Crumb's Charley Patton.
posted on Aug 22, 2002 - View this thread

Post-War Jazz: An Arbitrary Road Map In this two-part Village Voice piece, Gary Giddins presents a personal road map to post-war jazz, introducing 57 of his most cherished tracks from 1945 to 2001. Any glaring ommissions? I'd add Witchitai-To by Jim Pepper. In addition to being one of the first jazz-rock fusion proponents, Pepper, a Native American, also blended the music of his people into his compositions.
posted on Jun 11, 2002 - View this thread

One Defining Jazz Track Per Year, From 1945 To 2001? An Impossible Task! Well, not for Gary Giddins, arguably our greatest contemporary jazz critic. He's just spent five months going through his record collection to come up with a terrific and deliciously debatable list for The Village Voice. Yeah, how could he leave out...*insert your particular obsession here*...?[Here's a 74-page 1996 interview with him(in pdf format) that's practically a mini-history of jazz.]
posted on Jun 11, 2002 - View this thread

The Minstrel Show The Minstrel Show presents us with a strange, fascinating and awful phenomenon. Minstrel shows emerged from preindustrial European traditions of masking and carnival. But in the US they began in the 1830s, with working class white men dressing up as plantation slaves. These men imitated black musical and dance forms, combining savage parody of black Americans with genuine fondness for African American cultural forms. By the Civil War the minstrel show had become world famous and respectable. Late in his life Mark Twain fondly remembered the "old time nigger show" with its colorful comic darkies and its rousing songs and dances. By the 1840s, the minstrel show had become one of the central events in the culture of the Democratic party.. The image of white men in blackface, miming black song, dance and speech is considered the last word in racist bigotry for some. And yet, standing at the crossroads of race, class and high and low culture, blackface minstrelsy is one fascinating topic in academic circles. It’s history is intertwined with the rise of abolitionism, the works of Mark Twain and the histories of vaudeville, American vernacular music, radio, television, movies, in fact all of what is called popular culture. Details within.
posted on Mar 13, 2002 - View this thread

Not Salieri but Schnitzel the latest theory about what did in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is that he might have contracted trichinosis from some spoiled pork cutlets. "Why Antonio, I'd just die for some wiener schniztel right now," Wolfgang exclaimed. "Yes, you would," sneered Salieri.......
posted on Jun 11, 2001 - View this thread

An incredble collection of jazz photos, for those hooked on the PBS series.
posted on Jan 23, 2001 - View this thread