Victrola Music Video - "Sweet Lorraine"

New VTK series: VMV, aka Victrola Music Video. I decided that I have to put some of these on film so that people can hear and see them and get most of the experience (the main missing ingredient here is the smell - the Victrola smells like old). The first VMV had to go to my favorite record, a 78 I picked up down at Cheapo's Records on Mass Ave. It's great because the fidelity is really good (relatively speaking) and also because the song is great. In fact, I don't think I'd ever heard this song before and it totally kicks ass. Enjoy.

(note - the needle spins around the center for about 20 seconds at the end because I was waiting for the satisfying click sound that it makes when it stops and it didn't do it this time. After 20 seconds I moved the arm to make the click sound. So only stick around if you want to hear the click. It's not essential, but I like it. Yes, I'm weird.)





All-star ensemble? Um, yes please. Here's what the label says:

SWEET LORRAINE
Fox Trot - Parrish - Burwell - arr: Oliver -
METRONOME ALL STARS with FRANK SINATRA
Piano - Nat Cole; Guitar - Bob Ahern; Bass - Eddie Safransky; Drums - Buddy Rich; Trumpet - Charlie Shavers; Trombone - Lawrence Brown; Alto Sax - Johnny Hodges; Tenor Sax - Coleman Hawkins; Baritone Sax - Harry Carney.

One of them days

I had an extremely sufficient night's sleep after dipping into the whiskey a bit last night at the Field. When I awoke in the early afternoon to the sounds of a Roc marathon blaring from the tv that had been left on all night, I felt a touch hungover but nothing too severe. I decided to take a look at the old internets to check up on my European soccer teams, West Ham and Athletic de Bilbao, and to see if there were any interesting emails in the old inbox. I couldn't seem to get any connectivity going but that's not unheard of with our crap modem, though it usually only happens on hot days. Another thing that usually only happens on hot days here in Area 4 of Cambridge is the old power blackout. I soon noticed that Roc was no longer dishing out his familiar brand of tough love common sense comedy in the other room and realized that the sound of Roc's rambling had been replaced by the hum of the generator from the old folk's home down the block. Blackout! Fortunately it was the middle of the day, so I didn't have to blindly search for my headlamp. After a half hour, it was clear that this might take a bit, so I decided to head down to Mass Ave Restaurant for coffee and a turkey club to wait out the power outage. Would that this were to be the most irritating electricity problem of my day...

It was raining, but not too bad. No big deal. A minor annoyance. Tito's Tropical store appeared to be open but the door was locked so I couldn't get the gatorade that was going to replenish my electrolites for the long 2.5 block walk down to Mass Ave. No matter. I decided to cut through the Harvest Co-op parking lot to check on the progress of the graffiti street artish mural (there's a lot of collage wallpapering stuff along with the spray can graffiti stuff) that some local (and non-local) artists are doing in the walkway alley. I'll post some pictures of it when it's done, but suffice it to say that I'm ambivalent about it. On the one hand, some of it looks pretty cool; on the other, there's something a bit irritating about a bunch of white kids moving to the city and getting permission to do their well practiced urban artwork under the supervision of the police who shoo away the black and brown homeless and addicts who usually hold court in the alley and the street and parking lot that it connects. Isn't that actually antithetical to the idea of street art? Or maybe I'm just a jealous white artist who moved to the city and isn't included in the collection of cool artists doing a cool project in my neighborhood. Any which way, the above considerations were an added irritant to the day. But it's easy to channel that into my own work. Like Michael Jordan, I always work better with a chip on my shoulder. And I've got lots of work to do learning how to paint acrylics on black velvet in preparation for my newest commission.

On the walk down to the diner, I stopped in the somewhat intimidating Sandy's Music shop to see if they had any 78's that I could buy for the old Victrola Talking Machine. The owner said that he did and we arranged a time for me to check out his Big Band selection next week. On the way out he mentioned that he could sell me needles too and I said that I had about 50 so that should be plenty. He responded with the information that you're only supposed to use one per play of a record - the shellac dulls the needles which then degrades the record. ... fucking what!?!? What kind of bullshit is that? Irritating.

Fortunately, the turkey club was great and the waitress adorable and receptive to my witty banter. So that was good.

When I returned home, the electricity was back on so I was able to resume watching Roc and checking my email and the scores. West Ham had pulled a scoreless draw on the road against a good Portsmouth side behind rising star Robert Green's save of an injury time penalty kick. Nice one. It seemed as if the day was taking a turn for the better. After a couple hours of college football, it had turned dark and I decided it was time for a shower. And a shower I got. But it wasn't soothing drops of hot water that cascaded down upon me. It was thousands of shards of glass that showered down on my naked body in total darkness as I stepped into the bathtub. The lone light bulb had burst at the most unpropitious of times.

Victrola Talking Machine

[Administrative Note: if you're thinking of commenting on recent sports events, please see the previous post.]



Check out the Nolan Fam Heirloom that I brought back to Cambridge from Pittsfield this weekend:



The Victrola Talking Machine, aka the approximately 100 year old wind-up record player that was in our basement when I grew up,



but was more recently serving as a bumper stop for my mom's car to let her know when she was all the way in the garage:









and there are 3 volumes of records too:







I love this thing.