From the sheet music for a 1919 song, shortly after the first hit jazz record and not long before the collapse of the sheet music business for the duration of the 20th century:
also for talking machine
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Category Archives: steamboing
Whore’s Union price list
The following MP3s a very dirty jokes from the 1890s on a wax cylinder recording, via the incredible Archeophone release Actionable Offenses: Indecent Phonograph Recordings from the 1890s:
Obscene Recordings from 110 Years Ago
The commercial recordings on this CD are the only known copies that Comstock’s men missed. They were preserved by long-time Edison Recording Manager Walter Miller and are now in the vault of the Edison National Historic Site. Scarcity and suppression have kept them silent for a century. They were stories told readily in the bar; yet they became legally actionable offenses when fixed in wax and played on a phonograph in that same bar. Brace yourself. Just because they are from the Victorian era does not mean they are tame by today’s standards—far from it.
Pioneer Recording Artist Goes to Jail
They are so indecent that Russell Hunting was imprisoned in 1896 for making and selling them. Up to that point Hunting had been doing a brisk trade selling his bawdy cylinders to the exhibitors on Coney Island who had certain “discriminating” customers. Although he recorded under pseudonyms such as “Charley Smith” and “Willy Fathand,” his voice was so well-known through his “Casey” routines that he was identified as the creator by aural evidence alone. Hunting’s recording career never fully recovered, and he left the U.S. in 1898 to make a fresh start in England.
These would not be safe for work in any way shape or form if your coworkers could figure out what they’re saying. You might have to listen 7-8 times to understand the details. “A Hard Head” is unbelievably funny and filthy, but it could take quite a while to figure it out. “Whore’s Union price list” is not far off and the recording is a lot more clear.
Whore’s Union price list (MP3)
To an enthusiast of historical American pop culture this stuff is mind boggling for the way it brings those times to life. Topics reserved for dirty jokes are important, and the lack of them in the historical record makes those times abstract and distant. You know intellectually that the texture of life was the same then as now, pretty much, but no amount of imagination can fill the gaps like verbatim potty talk and gross-outs.
mustaches
Courtesy of mustaches of the nineteenth century, a blog with an incredibly specific niche, I present some mustaches of the nineteenth century:
Yes, one of those is not like the others.
See also: Dave Grohl Doesn’t Appreciate Your Hipster Mustache:
Dave Grohl enjoys a good mustache. “Not the fuckin’ ironic mustache,” the Foo Fighters front man quickly clarified.
Vess Ossman version of “Maple Leaf Rag”
After posting my Vess Ossman playlist I came across a star recording over on archive.org that I didn’t know about — a 1907 banjo version of Scott Joplin‘s 1899 piece Maple Leaf Rag
, which would be almost the only currently recognizeable song in Ossman’s recorded works. (The other recognizeable works are the highly lame “William Tell Overture” and “Yankee Doodle”):
Vess Ossman – Maple Leaf Rag (1907)
According to Tangleweed, the blog where I found the song:
Only two of Joplin’s rags were recorded commercially during his lifetime, and the first piano recording of his most famous composition, Maple Leaf Rag, was not made until 1923, six years after his death.
More typical is this arrangement by banjo virtuoso Vess Ossman. The ubiquity of the banjo and relative scarcity of the piano in early recorded music has more to do with the limitations of early mechanical recording technology than with the popularity of the instruments. The volume and focused, directional sound of the banjo, combined with its lack of sustain, made it ideal for early mechanical recordings. Instruments like the piano and violin, however, tended to sound weak and warbly.
Vess Ossman playlist
I have created an awesome playlist of music by a banjo player from the early recording era named Vess Ossman. I hope you’ll dig it.
Where we went, what we saw
Courtesy of John Holbo, here’s an amazing piece of art from an 1857 book. The thumbnail doesn’t do it justice — better to click through to the full size image and toggle to the zoomed-in view:
My Last cruise
Where we went, what we saw
Being an account of visits to the Malay and Loo-Choo Islands, the coasts of China, Formosa, Japan, Kamtschatka, Siberia, and the mouth of the Amoor River.
By A. W. Habersham of the U.S. Navy.
You can also read or print out the book online at at Google Publisher. The high-res scan here is by John, and it’s a lot sweeter.
byrondolin double neck
I ran across a 190? flyer for The Byron Troubadours : novelty musical entertainers that included a cool Led Zeppelin-esque instrument — a double-neck combo of a guitar and a mandolin — which was called the “byrondolin.”
The Byron Troubadours, who were also known as the Magnolia Quintette, doing a multi-jam:
Jimmy Page doing a mega-jam:
So how about that byrondolin?
For more boss historical instruments, check out harpguitars.net.
hoop skirts
From a paper on the poem “Nothing to Wear”:
Cora Hatch’s public appearance had elements of both Harper’s New Monthly “true woman” and Flora M’Flimsey. In her initial divorce petition, she complained that B. F. Hatch refused to buy her flannel petticoats even though he freely paid large sums for her gowns and, especially, frilly and fashionable undergarments. The point of such garments was to be seen wearing them. The view that hoop skirts were designed to hide a woman’s legs is exactly wrong. They were to show them off.
In the first cartoon, Clara is consulting with her friend Julia. She has rigged up an “imitation set of front door steps. “What is the effect now, Julia dear?” Julia replies: “Charming, love, you might even flirt just a little more with safety.” In the second, a voyeur is shocked to discover that the young woman’s calf is padded. It is titled “The Padded Calf — Veal A La Mode.” The cartoon warns the young woman (rather than chastises the man): “Don’t stuff your calves with bran, lest you should re-veal the real state of your understanding.” The “Patent Padded Calf” was a real product. Women did pad their calves, if they were insufficiently plump, because their dresses rose in the back whenever they bent over or ascended stairs and in the front whenever they sat down.
Trapeze disrober
From the Library of Congress archive of moving pictures, a lady trapeze artist takes it off from high above the stage: