Getting to Know the PRESTO – #5 – Radio Days : PRESTOs help radio repeat, get the man on the street

With every acetate we cut, we’re understanding more and more how miraculous it is to be able to capture and replay sound.  Portable and accessible recording devices changed the lives of Americans in the 1920s and 30s.  And one of the most important reasons they did, was that machines like our PRESTOs changed the way that radio broadcasts were made.

Before TV (but long after broadsheets) most Americans got their news and entertainment from their radios.  1920s radio shows were a far cry from the phone-prank-laden shock jock-hosted sound effect parades you hear during drive time today.  Back then every round of applause or word of warning had to be made in the studio in real time.

But radio broadcasters realized the possibilities of field recorders right away, and dove right in, using them to create all kinds of messages for delayed broadcast. These “air checks” would include intros and outros for popular radio programs, news reports, recurring features that required content from outside the station, political messages, public service messages and more.  It was the birth of syndication.  Just imagine the faint crackle of record spinning every time you hear Ryan Seacrest start the Top 40 countdown…we have PRESTO to thank.

LISTEN: Kentucky Governor A.B. Chandler for the reelection of Franklin Roosevelt in 1936

LISTEN: January 27, 1937 aircheck of WSM/Nashville’s coverage of the great Ohio River Flood

These clips are from the archives of WHAS, LKY Radio in Kentucky. Radio geeks can hear dozens more vintage air checks on their website.

Happening: Watch footage from our secret New York hootenanny on the 7 Train

Last Friday night, December 2, at 9:02pm, forty New Yorkers piled onto a 7 Train bound for Flushing, Queens. Not an unusual occurrence in and of itself, except that these particular New Yorkers had more than commuting in mind. As the subway sped out of Grand Central Station, guitars, drums, banjos, mandolins, accordions, and even a mbira came out and a hootenanny began.

7 musicians and bands each played a cover song in honor of the borough of Queens, and a song of their own, and The 78 Project cameras caught it all.

Starting tonight, we’ll be posting a video from The 7 Train Happening every day for a week on our Vimeo channel. It’s a musical advent with a lucky number of surprises to open; our gift to you.

Check our Twitter for daily updates and for invitations to future hootenannies.

Special thanks to James and Amy of The 7 Train Sessions, a beautiful regular gathering of musicians in Long Island City, our partners in crime and planning.

And thank you to the 7 artists whose spirited song and singing made the 7 Train the most Happening party on a Friday night in New York City.

The Mercantillers
Chris Morrissey
Kara Suzanne
Luke Reynolds
Katie Mullins
Austin McCutchen
The Reverend John DeLore

Sold down the river: Hear both sides of The Reverend John DeLore & Kara Suzanne’s 78

Throughout history, we have always been captivated by the tales of tragedy, misfortune and triumph in the news. And it seems every era has one particular news story that comes to define it, or at least melds that generation in morbid fascination. At the turn of the 19th century, a young woman was strangled by her beloved and drowned in a river, and the story spread like wildfire via the news broadsheets that were written to be sung and widely circulated all throughout the 1800s. As “Omie Wise” was passed around the country and eventually down through the generations, the lyrics morphed and took on new life and death as the song came to be more about murder stories than about Omie herself. When it was their turn to sing “Omie Wise,” The Reverend John DeLore and Kara Suzanne chose to recount a news story from our own lifetime, a tale so brutal and complex that it continues to be unshakeable.

Buy it on iTunes.

To make a foil for poor Omie, Kara and John put poor John Doe on their Flipside, singing The Reverend’s original song “Wounded Knee.” We’ve mentioned before that recording with the PRESTOs can be a fraught experience, but the skips left in this acetate that we encountered while digitizing it seem to add to the charm of the song.

After listening, if you would like to further appreciate the beauty of the lyrics, a link is included below the acetate player to hear the version of “Wounded Knee” recorded for The Reverend John DeLore’s album Ode to an American Urn.

 

Episode #2 of The 78 Project: The Reverend John DeLore & Kara Suzanne “Omie Wise”

The 78 Project: The Reverend John DeLore and Kara Suzanne “Omie Wise”

The tragic tale of Omie Wise has traveled the generations for more than two hundred years. Murdered rather than married by her beloved and thrown into a river, Omie is a warning to beware the wolf in disguise. In the back of a cozy local saloon in Brooklyn, the afternoon light worked its way through the window and The Reverend John DeLore and Kara Suzanne settled in to recount the chilling tale of Omie Wise’s murder. But true to the folk tradition, the duo added their own personal spin to the story.

Buy the music on iTunes.

The Flipside: The Reverend John DeLore and Kara Suzanne “Wounded Knee”

Kara and John had another tale to tell once Omie was conjured and put to rest. And their mesmerizing voices and guitars had the assembled historians and barkeeps transfixed. So we flipped the record, and they sang The Reverend’s own beautiful song “Wounded Knee” for a new feature of The 78 Project called The Flipside.

Special thanks to the High Horse Saloon and Salon in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for their generosity.

Getting to Know the PRESTO – #4 – Down Periscope: PRESTO goes underwater to detect submarines

We’ve always felt that the PRESTOs seem like military gear.  Whether it’s their army green casings, their utilitarian bulk or their striking resemblance to the machines you see people frantically shouting distress calls and orders into during epic battles in movies about WWII, they have always seemed to us to be battle-ready.

From recorders to radar

We’re only doing battle with the sounds of sirens and some light weather concerns when we take our PRESTOs out these days, and (knock wood) we’re yet to have to send out a serious S.O.S. from a shoot, but during WWII, the company’s technology really was employed for missions of a life-or-death nature.

Can you hear me now?

In the early 40s PRESTO landed defense contracts to develop and manufacture military technology.  Their expertise in crafting durable and portable sound equipment made PRESTO uniquely qualified to build radar rigs and navigation gear for the U.S. Navy.  And their proximity to the New York harbor made them ideal for the job of installing submarine-detecting sonar rigs to protect the city’s substantial naval reserves.

PRESTO wins the pennant

Their contributions to the war effort did not go unnoticed.  PRESTO was awarded the prestigious Army-Navy “E” Award, an honor presented to a company during World War II for excellence in production of war equipment. PRESTO’s plant got a pennant to hang, and each and every one of the employees in the plant at the time the award was earned was given an emblem.  Then it was time to get back to the music.

Another kind of award for valor

Episode #1 of The 78 Project – Dawn Landes “The Brown Girl”

The 78 Project: Dawn Landes “The Brown Girl”

Under the sweltering late-summer sun, a small crew of filmmakers and audio historians capture Dawn Landes as she sings “The Brown Girl”. Cicadas drone, buses huff to a stop, bees hover lazily, sunflowers loom, and as the acetate spins, a song is carefully carved into its surface.

An age old and brutal choice: to marry for love or money? In the first side of Dawn Landes’ haunting 78, “The Brown Girl,” the noble Thomas chooses a plain brown girl with a dowry over his beautiful but land-less true love Ellender. Story songs like this one – which travelled from Scotland to the Appalachians over three hundred years – were the primetime dramas of the pre-television era. So the verses swiftly build into an epic, bloody tale with a twist. You can stream Side A of Dawn’s acetate here.

Buy the music on iTunes.

Special thanks to The Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and the farmers of the Children’s Garden who kindly harvested around us.

For love or money: Hear a full side of Dawn Landes’ 78

Dawn Landes An age old and brutal choice: to marry for love or money? In the first side of Dawn Landes’ haunting 78, “The Brown Girl,” the noble Thomas chooses a plain brown girl with a dowry over his beautiful but land-less true love Ellender. Story songs like this one – which traveled from Scotland to the Appalachians over three hundred years – were the primetime dramas of the pre-television era. So the verses swiftly build into an epic, bloody tale with a twist. You’ll have to flip the record to find out how it ends…

Buy it on iTunes.

Three for the price of one… our teasers collected

It won’t be long now.  By the time the week is out, you’ll be able to listen to a full track from one of our first recordings!  Crackle, hiss, sirens, birds, cicadas, friends, voices, sadness, redemption, our PRESTOs have caught it all.  And we made it digital so that you can hear it for yourself.  Until then, here’s our full library of video teasers so far:

 

1 13 14 15 16