The Haunted Victrola is back!! Shivery shellac offerings from 1909-1949!

It occurred to me that all my of my Halloween shellac postings were pre-Vinyl Studio, which means none of them had the proper response curves.  So, working like a demon, I pulled twenty-two 78s from the racks and pyres--er, stacks and piles--and ripped them for you.  And isn't "ripped" the perfect verb for the holiday (sober or no)?  Anyway, here are 22 previously ghosted--er, posted--tracks, all zipped up in a handy slaylist.  And I wish these were streaming tracks, because then I could use the pun "screaming." Oh, well.

A couple "new" offerings--Carl Fenton's Spike Jones-esque recordings of Animal Fair and Go 'Long, Mule, neither of which are classic Halloween titles, but their treatments are so delightfully crazy, they had to be included.  Edward MacDowell's wonderful 1884 piano piece Witches' Dance (Hexentanz) starts the hearse rolling, and Leopold Godowsky could sure play the piano.  From a Brunswick 78 made in either 1921 or 1922.  Eduard Holst's (no relation to Gustav, far as I know) Dance of the Demon is also superbly performed, though it took two guys to manage it--Victor Arden and Phil Ohman, piano partners who became bandleaders.  For some reason, I gave the Polydor label Brownies' Parade a probable recording date of 1928 the last time I posted it, and I must have had a reason, though I can't remember it now.   Maybe clues from a vintage publication that's no longer on line.  It's driving me mad, trying to remember.  (Buwa-ha-haaaaa!!!!)  Cool electrical-era sound quality, anyway.  Chopin's Funeral March, played by Prince's Band in 1909, is by Chopin.  I know this, because the label actually lists "Chopin" under Chopin's Funeral March.  In case we thought Beethoven wrote it, maybe.  Stunningly effective piece, and, if you didn't know it was Chopin, well, now you do.  Murder is a very clever Byron (The Vamp) Gay number about the way jazz bands were murdering "wonderful" songs--totally destroying them, but in an irresistible way.  Sophisticated concept, excellent melody--why is poor Byron forgotten by song scholars?  Big Movie Show in the Sky has lyrics by an anything-but-forgotten lyricist--Johnny Mercer.  Not his best work, and there's something that really creeps me out about the song and this performance.  Which only means that it works as a Halloween track.  Normally, these would be bad things....

Halloween is a rite of reversal.  Good is bad, bad is good.  Kids chow down on stuff that's bad for them--sugary stuff packed in rip-off "snack" sizes.  Using a holiday as an excuse to charge more--that's totally American!  I mean, un-American.

Which Hazel is a clever, if slightly oversold (by Al Herman) comic number composed by Abner Silver (real name, Silberman), with lyrics that include, "The guy who wrote Witch Hazel is in a padded cell," and here's that theme, 45 years before Napoleon XIV hit the charts.  It also places the song in a song-which-refers-to-itself category, a tradition which goes beyond the mere use of the title as part of the lyrics--this is the song referring to... itself.  Which is usually only okay if you're singing about a dance (Charleston, Locomotion, Monster Mash, etc.).  Strange--and very Halloween.  And how to describe John Tilley's The Loch Ness Monster, from 1934?  Or John Tilley?  There's a strong Monty Python edge to this satirical piece, recorded in England--I suppose it's the cheery but cynical tone, the sophisticated references, and the mild misogyny--that, and more.  The evidence is all there--the monster claim was known all along to be a hoax (and a tourist lure), and note how Tilley makes fun of the Nessie believers' habit of searching for clues--any clues--of pre-modern Nessie sightings.  And the Nessie nonsense continues to this day.  And will continue, until the cable networks get tired of promoting the same paranormal junk hour after hour.  (It's gotten to where the "documentary" makers are combining themes--was Nessie and Lizzie Borden one and the same?  Etc.)

Delirium is a sophisticated instrumental by Red Nichols pianist Arthur Schutt, and speaking of delirium, I originally labeled the track Derilium.  Which sounds like a substance H.G. Wells would have made up to get his characters to Mars.  The magnificent novelty Ah-Ha! (Sidney Clare-James V. Monaco) shows up three times in our list, though I didn't have time to rip the best version of all--the 1925 Grofe arrangement for Paul Whiteman,  But it's very possible that's up someplace at the blog.  We close with 1916's Spooky Spooks (great sound effects), and Zez Confrey's Greenwich Witch, played by Confrey himself, and brilliantly.

To the treats!  All ripped from shellac housed in the cluttered Media Room....






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Witches' Dance (Hexentanz) (MacDowell)--Leopold Godowsky, Piano (1921 or 1922)
Dance of the Demon (Eduard Holst)--Victor Arden-Phil Ohman, Piano Duet (1922)
Animal Fair--Carl Fenton's Orch. w. vocal chorus, 1924
Go 'Long, Mule--Same
Chopin's Funeral March--Prince's Band, 1909
Brownies' Parade (K. Noack)--Polydor Brass Band Orch., c. Joseph Snaga, c. 1928?
Me-ow--One-step (Mel B. Kaufmann)--Joseph C. Smith's Orch., 1918
Magic Eyes (Brown-Fiorito)--Oriole Orchestra, 1923
Murder (Byron Gay)--Plantation Jazz Orchestra, 1920
Mystery!--Medley--Paul Biese and His Novelty Orch., 1919
Jabberwocky--Joseph Samuels' Jazz Band, 1921
Ah-Ha!--Freddie "Schnickelfritz" Fisher and His Orch. w. vocal chorus, 1940
Which Hazel (Abner Silver)--Al Herman, 1921
Eccentric Rag (J. Russell Robinson)--Oriole Orchestra, 1924
Big Movie Show in the Sky (Dolan-Mercer)--Blue Barron and His Orch., v: Bobby Beers and the Choir, 1949
Ah-Ha!--Hollywood Dance Orch., v: John Ryan, 1925
Ah-Ha!--Oriole Orchestra, v: Mark Fisher, 1925
Midnight Fire Alarm (Lincoln)--Prince's Orchestra, 1920
The Loch Ness Monster (Tilley)--John Tilley, 1934
Delirium (Schutt)--Carl Fenton's Orch., 1927
Spooky Spooks (Claypoole)--Prince's Band, 1916
Greenwich Witch (Confrey)--Zez Confrey, Piano Solo, 1922



Lee