when bunnies and clowns can be scary...

click here to listen to a home recording from the 1940's, also related to halloween...

slow burning silliness...

here a recording by an unknown "frankie" performing a commercial for an undertaker and a song. it was recorded on a wilcox gray home recording 'recordio' disc (note the motto: slow burning material), probably in the early 1940s.

i buy a lot of these discs, and they are generally pretty darn dull - usually home recordings from a radio broadcast, etc. i've posted a few of the better ones on airforms over the past few years, but this recent find is a doozie.

here we have silliness in all its goofing off glory, and i can't imagine anyone who experiences the fullness of frankie's horrible high pitched singing finding it both hilarious and life affirming.

click here to listen.

it was so cold we had to stretch socks over our heads to keep warm...

collecting home recording discs is a total crap shoot. when they're good, they're generally really good; and when they are bad, they are generally incredibly boring. many of the discs i've found have mediocre big band performances taken off a radio program; but there have been occasional gems. the nice thing about these is that you get a real intimate sense of people sitting in their homes (or occasionally in an amusement park record booth), speaking to the intended recipient of the audio letter like a one sided phone conversation. you can generally sense the discomfort people get from speaking into a microphone. these are true audio equivalents of candid photos.

the designs on these discs have soldiers in various humorous situations, so i'm guessing these were intended as audio letters for servicemen stationed overseas during WWII. this group of discs contained updates from mom and dad, stories from a sister or girlfriend, and this disc, which was definitely the best of the bunch, with two guys talking about a hunting trip...

click here to listen...