Archive for January, 2008
Cheesy Guitars is a wonderful website devoted to electric guitars made behind the Iron Curtain in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. I have only seen a few of these instruments over the years, but I have to say the range of styles is breathtaking. There are pages devoted to instruments from Russia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland and other Eastern Bloc countries. There is also a page devoted to guitars that can’t be indentified. If you have one of these wonders and know something about it, head on over and help them out.-MJS (via Guitarz)
January 17th, 2008
Here’s an article about a ring of smugglers busted for bringing tortoise shell picks and violin bow parts into the US from China. Even though the shell used for these items comes from a hawksbill sea turtle, they’re known as tortoise shell. I wonder why that is? -MJS
January 17th, 2008
Last month, Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music put on a 50th Anniversary concert that included performers like Jeff Tweedy, Béla Fleck, Abigail Washburn and David Bromberg. I’m sorry I couldn’t make the show because I would have loved to have seen the performance in the photo by Roger McGuinn, who attended the school in the late 1950s, and Frank Hamilton, who was his teacher back then. McGuinn is featured in our latest issue and talks a bit about taking lessons at the school. Also, in issue 6, we ran a photo essay about the school by Eric Futran, who, along being an excellent photographer, takes harmonica lessons there.-MJS (Photo by Steven Gross)
January 10th, 2008
On this day, January 10, in 1949, RCA introduced the 45 RPM record. Here on the FJ blog we’re going to celebrate by Mousekedancing and linking to this page of old record sleeves from the collection of our contributor Derek See. What are you going to do?-MJS
January 10th, 2008
I got this clip from Gary Peare over at Ukulelia, who had been doing some sleuthing on YouTube and turned up this wonderful clip of Witt and Berg, a guitar/ukulele duo from the 1920s, playing in a Vitaphone short. In an extra cool addition, he also found a documentary about early sound movies that includes a segment filmed in 1926 at the Vitaphone studios that shows the company filming the Witt and Berg segment. It worth heading over to Ukulelia to read his full post, which includes a link to the documentary and some speculation from me about the instruments Witt and Berg are playing.-MJS
January 8th, 2008
Well, it’s not so much a ballad as it is a short newspaper article. It seems an English banjo player named Joel Whittle got drunk and legally changed his name to Big Crazy Lester. Apparently in the UK you can officially change your name online via a deed poll. It’s a pretty silly situation but I presume he can change it back if he wants. It could have been worse, I suppose. He could have had the words Big Crazy Lester tattooed on his forehead.-MJS
January 8th, 2008
I posted here about a $12,900 ring that looked like a turntable a while ago. Now it looks like an Austrailian designer named Nathan Thomas has come out with a much less expensive version. Thomas’ Turntable Ring only costs $350 Australian and features a real vinyl disc and a moving tone arm.-MJS
January 7th, 2008
When I first saw the headline I figured they meant tax records or something like that, but no, it turns out that thousands of reggae LPs, 45s and CDs have been pilfered from the Jamaican National Archives.-MJS
January 7th, 2008
Now, it may seem that Elvis Presley and Yahtzee go together about as well as, say, kumquats and carburetors, but just take a gander at Mondo Elvis, a documentary about ultra-hardcore Elvis fans and you’ll see it’s not so far fetched. The relevant portion comes about 5 minutes into Part 1, the segment with the twins who believe they’re The King’s illegitimate offspring. The complete video lasts about 30 minutes, is in three parts and is well worth watching. Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here and Part 3 is here.-MJS
January 7th, 2008
Previous Posts
Cheesy Guitars is a wonderful website devoted to electric guitars made behind the Iron Curtain in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. I have only seen a few of these instruments over the years, but I have to say the range of styles is breathtaking. There are pages devoted to instruments from Russia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland and other Eastern Bloc countries. There is also a page devoted to guitars that can’t be indentified. If you have one of these wonders and know something about it, head on over and help them out.-MJS (via Guitarz)
