A visit to WFMU

A short trip on the NJ Path train from NYC to pay a visit to WFMU and play some 78s as a guest on the Antique Phonograph Music Program with MAC.

Some photos here of the WFMU environs -- love those lockers that have become a glass-cased museum display of album art.

As you can see here, the records were played on a Victrola instead of a modern record turntable, with the acoustically produced sound being broadcast on the airwaves.  Chatted a bit with MAC about the nature of experiencing sound from a gramophone, how despite being somewhat low in fidelity it has an organic quality that is almost like hearing music produced from some type of instrument.

Perhaps it's not unlike what I experience in the world of cinema where there's a discreet yet critical difference in seeing an analog film projected on film or the projection of a digital video.  Digital projection can be very clean, sharp, precise.  But the tradeoff is a certain antiseptic coldness to the image.


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Brought a grab-bag of music with me.  Including "Listen to the Mocking Bird" with the singer Alma Gluck and bird imitations by Charles Kellogg.  The song was popular with whistlers -- I've got three other versions of it with just whistling throughout.  MAC suggested some future episode of the Antique Phonograph Music Program just with versions of "Listen to the Mocking Bird."  Be careful what you wish for, it's not out of the realm of possibility!

In the meantime, the Kickstarter funding endeavor has begun:  Pay a visit there to "78rpm" on Kickstarter and check out the video, including some footage of MAC and Michael W. Haar spinning records on MAC's gramophones.

But for the time being, in the words of songstress Annette Hanshaw, "That's all."