The records I’ve played ranged from classic country to Garth Brooks (not an entirely popular choice) before settling on a regular mix of honky tonk and rockabilly, highlighted by occasional early rock and roll gems like this one.

09 dynamite

“Dynamite” by Brenda Lee

“Dynamite” is one of my favorite 45s to spin as a DJ. There’s not a lot of records with this much awesomeness jammed into a single inch of grooves, or a lot of records that make me as happy as this one. People often ask if it’s Wanda Jackson (whose singles I often play in the same set), but most people over about fifty years old know exactly who it is because Brenda Lee was thereafter always known as “Little Miss Dynamite.” Famously tiny at four feet nine inches, she was only twelve years old when she belted out this incredible performance.

Here it goes out to a new friend of ours, who ought to wear a sign that says “Danger TNT!” People like that are hard to find but worth the search, just like Brenda Lee’s rock and roll records.

The Cactus Blossoms will record their next album live at the Turf Club on Friday July 5th. $5 cover, music at 9pm. 21+.

Voyager 1′s parting look at Saturn.

The Voyager 2 interstellar space probe was launched on August 20, 1977. Its counterpart, Voyager 1, was launched sixteen days later. The second probe traveled at a greater speed, arriving at Jupiter nearly four months earlier.

Each probe used the gravitational force of the planets it passed to increase it’s velocity, an innovation in aerospace engineering called “gravity assist” that was experimental at the time of their launch. This and the extraordinary alignment of the solar system’s outer planets in the late 1970s (something that will not occur again until well into the next century) allowed them to tour the “gas giants” with leisure and send back to Earth some of the most breathtaking images ever captured by a camera.

Voyager 1′s picture of Jupiter with Europa and Io.

The probes have long since completed their primary missions – Voyager 1 left the Saturnian system in 1980, and Voyager 2, which took a much longer trip through the solar system, left the Uranian system in 1986, and bid farewell to cold and distant Neptune in 1989. Propelled like slingshots by the massive gravitational force of the gigantic planets, the Voyager probes continue to move away from our sun. Their secondary mission is to explore interstellar space.

Voyager 1 is presently more than eighteen billion kilometers from Earth, the farthest-away man-made object cast into space. Voyager 2, is a little closer, only fifteen billion kilometers from us, and moving in a different direction. According to NASA’s official site for the Voyager interstellar mission (here) they are both in a region called the heliosheath, the outer-most layer of of our heliosphere, where solar wind is slowed by pressure from interstellar gas.

Voyager 2′s picture of the eerily featureless Uranus.

After it becomes the first man-made object to leave our solar system, Voyager 1 will continue to drift away from us without stopping, a predicted by Sir Isaac Newton’s law of inertia (“an object at motion will continue in motion and at the same speed unless acted upon by an unbalanced force”). In the year 40,272 AD, the probe will come within 1.7 light years of an unnamed star in the Ursa Minor constellation known simply as AC+79 3888.

Voyager 2‘s destination is more desolate. It will pass within 4.3 light years of Sirius (the Dog Star) in about the year 302,000 AD. This is about the same distance as exists between our Sun and the nearest neighboring star, Proxima Centauri.

Both probes are expected to lose all power in or around 2025. And while there seems to be little chance they will encounter an extrasolar planet (a planet outside of our solar system) or an intelligent being, it cannot be assumed with certainty that they will not. Perhaps somewhere in that unfathomably vast void there are beings scanning for signs of life, just as we have done for decades (just ask these people). And this, for those of you still reading, is why we are talking about space probes launched thirty-five years ago on the Hymie’s blog.

There are records on the Voyager probes.

The cover of each record contains binary instructions (upper left and center left) showing how quickly the record must turn and how the stylus must be elevated. It also contains binary instructions that explain how to produce the video images encoded in analog form (upper right and center right). The hydrogen atom (lower right) appears for reference, and to it’s left is an image presenting the location of our solar system.

Each record comes with a mounting platter as well as a cartridge and needle. The records are made of copper and plated with gold.

They open with a greeting, spoken in English, by Kurt Waldheim, Secretary General of the United Nations in 1977. This is followed by additional greetings in 55 different languages (including four dialects of Chinese, five ancient languages and Esperanto, but sadly none representing indigenous American people). This is followed by a collections of sound from Earth, ranging from Johannes Keplar’s “Harmonicies Mundi” to animal and bird sounds to the launch of a Saturn V rocket.

The third section of the audio portion represents the music of Earth. It begins with the first movement of Bach’s Brandenberg Concerto no. 2 and then becomes one of the strangest mix tapes ever given to someone on a first date. A pygmy girls’ song from Zaire and percussion from Senegal is included alongside Shakuhachi music from Japan and an aria from Mozart’s Magic Flute.

Bach’s music appears three times, and the people of the United States are represented four times (we should be since we paid for the record and the rocket that launched it!). Chuck Berry’s “Rock and Roll Music” is probably the most contemporary piece on the album, although the NASA committee that created it requested permission to include the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” (it was denied by their short-sighted record label, EMI). Also representing American culture are recordings of Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, a Navajo night chant, and blues singer Blind Willie Johnson.

 There were a number of criticisms of the golden records, notably for their emphasis on American and western European music. Others were offended that the images portion contained images of a naked man and woman, which had been a problem with the plaques attached to Pioneer 10 and 11.

An on-going and remarkable criticism of the golden records is that they shouldn’t have been included in the probes at all. Stephen Hawking pointed out that “if aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans,” arguing against sending anything out of the solar system that might include directions to our planet (this was widely reported at the time, you can read it here).  He pointed to the historical precedence set by encounters between advanced and less advanced societies.

That humankind could face such a catastrophic end out of HG Wells is very unlikely, given the rare chance the Yoyager probes will ever be seen. Each will stop emitting any kind of electromagnetic energy about ten to twenty years after they lose power, making them tiny specks floating anonymously in an almost inconceivably vast empty space. Folks often come into the record shop here and say they’ve heard records are coming back — well, here are two records that most certainly aren’t.

“Calico Skies” by Paul McCartney

And you know how much we love 45s – some days when the shop’s not busy we listen to them all afternoon! We’re often heard lamenting the fact that more bands don’t release genuine 45 rpm, big-play-hole, paper sleeve seven inch singles.

That’s why were excited to be a co-sponsor of tonight’s show at the Triple Rock celebrating the release of the Prizefighters‘ three new singles. Billed as “a musical knockout in three rounds” the singles capture their three driving influences: Ska (round 1), rocksteady (round 2) and reggae (round 3).

We love this mellow rocksteady jam, the A-side of round 2, which recalls the pre-reggae boom middle 60s and the music of the young Maytals or the Paragons.

The Prizefighters – No Use Crying

“No Use Crying”

All three singles are available at tonight’s show and here at Hymie’s anytime. We’d also like to point out that providing additional awesomeness at the Triple Rock tonight will be Rocksteady Breakfast and our favorite time-traveling psych-sters in town, Panther Ray.

(spoken by Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice, scene V act I)

You’re hearing a recording from the Metropolitan Opera recorded on October 10th, 1908. In this aria, Cio Cio San (Madame Butterfly) sings of her hopes for the return of her lover, U.S. Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton. She does not know that his true wish is to marry an American girl, Kate. In this heartbreaking scene she is eagerly awaiting his return.

This is not the Met’s debut of Madame Butterfly, but one of it’s earliest performances. The soprano, Geraldine Farrar, went on to become one of its greatest stars.

Geraldine Farrar was born in Melrose, Massachusetts in 1892. The daughter of a baseball player for the Philadelphia Quakers and later the Philadelphia Athletics, Farrar began studying music in Boston at five. She was all of nineteen when her performance in Charles Gonoud’s Faust earned her the praise and support of two legendary nineteenth century sopranos, Lillian Nordica and Lilli Lehmann. She studied with Lehmann in Berlin for three years, appearing in the lead of several productions of the Berlin State Opera, notably as Juliet in in Gonoud’s Roméo et Juliette. While in Berlin she enjoyed the affections of Wilhelm, the Crown Prince of Germany.

She performed with the Monte Carlo Opera for three less-eventful years and made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in New York on November 26, 1906, again in the role of Juliet in Roméo et Juliette.

Farrar performed the title role in Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly at the Met’s debut of the opera on November 26 the following year, with the composer in attendance (at least for the final two acts). In all she would perform Madame Butterfly ninety-five times at the Met.

Arturo Toscanini came to lead the Metropolitan Opera the year after Farrar first performed Madame Butterfly. Farrar’s affair with the Italian conductor lasted seven years, and her demand that he leave his family for her led to his sudden departure in 1915. Her relationship with tenor Enrico Caruso, with whom she often performed in Butterfly and other productions, is the subject of great speculation – whether they had an affair or not is uncertain, but it was Caruso who first quipped the soprano’s maxim: Farrar Fara (“Farrar will do it”).

Farrar’s followers, primarily young women, were derided as “Gerry’s Flappers.” Her shaved eyebrows in those early performances of Madame Butterfly at the Met set off a trend that resonated into the era of classic American cinema. She herself was less successful in the movie house – her most notable performance in Cecil B. DeMille’s Joan the Woman, a silent movie best remembered for it’s early innovations in color film.

In her time at the Met, Farrar also performed the lead in Carmen fifty-eight times. It is almost certainly overwork that led to the decline in her voice by her retirement from the opera in 1922. Biographer Elizabeth Nash captured what was unique about her performances:

Unlike most of the famous bel canto singers of the past who sacrificed dramatic action to tonal perfection, she was more interested in the emotional than in the purely lyrical aspects of her roles. According to Miss Farrar, until prime donne can combine the arts of Sarah Bernhardt and Nellie Melba, dramatic ability is more essential than perfect singing in opera.

For the 1910 debut of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Königskinder Farrar trained a flock of geese. The New York Tribune of the performance noted that she created a stir by appearing at the curtain call with one of them held under her arm.

Her saucy tussle with Jeanie Macpherson in DeMille’s 1915 adaptation of Carmen remains one of the sexiest girlfights on film.

Farrar’s marriage to movie star Lou Tellegen was no less scandalous than her affairs with the Crown Prince and the Italian conductor, though in this situation she was hardly the cause. Tellegen’s infidelities led to their divorce after seven years. Asked about her ex-husband after his dramatic suicide many years later, the film and opera star was quoted saying, “Why should that interest me?”

Farrar’s long and gracious retirement only extended her legacy by the time she passed away in 1967. She was not America’s first or greatest star of the opera, but she was uniquely ours. Her theatrical approach is lost today – poorly represented on film and hardly felt in recordings. Often we are asked here at Hymie’s which long-passed performer we’d wish to have perform in the shop – a lot of our first choice may be more modern, but the extraordinary Ms. Farrar would be with them.

This is how our drummer friend George remembers him. People have been circulating tapes of the bandleader cursing everyone out on the bus for years.

to come lenny soundtrack

“To Come” performed by Lenny Bruce

ode to a screw

“Ode to a Screw” performed by Mary Mitchell

There’s so many cool looking classical records. Sure, some of my all-time favorites are boring like this Budapest String Quartet recording of Beethoven’s Quartet no. 15 in A Minor (positively one of the best records in my collection).

It’s all there: Daunting title and numbers, old guys in tuxedos, review from a magazine you’ve never seen in your life. The only thing that’s missing is a frumpy bust of Beethoven – that would make it really boring.

Of course, by 1951 when they made this (their second) recording of Beethoven’s 15th, the Budapest String Quartet really didn’t have to catch your eye to sell records – They were rightfully regarded as tops by classical connoisseurs.

I don’t know if the boom in crazy cool classical covers really represents the desperation of mid-level performers, I think it’s more likely a response to expanding competition. I do know that there were some amazing talents recording during the 1950s and 1960s, both on the records and in designing the jackets they came in.

My favorite classical covers are dark and sort of spooky, like this recording of Beethoven’s “Appassionata” and “Pathetique” sonatas by Arthur Rubenstein.

Another well-known cover, a painting by Gray Foy that captured Dukas’ suite “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” – made famous in the Disney movie “Fantasia”.

Jackets for Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain” are reliable sweet (it is also often paired as here with “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”. This RCA Red Seal is a digital recording. The jacket sets a larger image on the inner sleeve framed by a die cut jacket.

Recordings of the great modern American composer William Grant Still’s works are rare, but not as rare as the winged rhinoceros on the cover of this album.

I suppose this album of harpsichord music by Bach and Haydn was packaged to entice listeners caught up in the Indian classical music fad of the late 60s. Harpsichordist Anthony Newman’s own pieces at the end (Chimaeras I & II) are pretty freaky. The composer/performer himself promises in the liner notes they “should be experienced bty the listener on many psychic levels – from the literal to the subconscious.” Heavy.

Saint-Saen’s “Dance Macabre”, the most famous of his tone poems, probably didn’t appeal to the deadheads who accidentally bought this recording by Pierre Dervaux and the Orchestre de Paris. It is a geniunely macabre piece, intended to capture the song Death himself plays on the fiddle, accompanied by his footstomps on a tombstone.

Jackets for Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” are usually pretty sweet. This one is also hilarious and a little raunchy (she’s really sharing altogether too much, um, atmopshere down there). Sir Adrian Boult recorded one of the best “Planets” in 1954 (with the London Philharmonic). This 1961 re-recording is good but not astronomical by any means.

Naked chicks are always a good choice when designing record jackets. This version of Scraibin’s “Poem of Ecstasy” also includes especially lurid liner notes.

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