I bumped into Shorty Fincher before, reading about Lucky Lang. Shorty was actually named Luther Clark “Shorty” Fincher and he was born in 1899 in Iukia… Read More

I had no idea this cookbook would warrant a part 2 post. But since I wrote that post in 2014 almost everyone mentioned has died. That first post is here; where I spent some time untangling a… Read More

 I've been at this for almost 20 years now and gradually I've noticed that this blog has been cited a few times as a primary source. I do quite a bit of original research so why… Read More

I'm reading the book The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner. It's not about running. It's a book by Alan Sillitoe about the bleak working class life in Nottingham, England; published in… Read More

tapemuzik.deI had to transfer some cassette spools last year into new shells. In the process I noticed that new and old magnetic shields are very different sizes. Most are flat and roughly 2… Read More

How or when Crosley wrote the above pamphlet I do not know. It's obscure ephemera. But powell has always been involved writing his own history. Wikipedia clearly states that Powel Crosley Jr… Read More

Sometimes when you flip over a rock you find amazing things. Lets' start with the meme I saw. Let's also briefly revisit the definition of meme. Per Merriam Webster: /mēm/an amusin… Read More

This is more obscure than it probably should be. I found a book on the imprint "Radio House Books." It's publisher was George W. Stewart, Inc. His operated from at least 1936 and 1951. The e… Read More

Often by the time I discover an obscure radio figure, they're already deceased. I either start or end that research with their obituary, often it's all that exists in terms of a biography. I… Read More

I bought this coffee mug. I had never heard of the radio program and that's just the sort of thing that gets me curious. I discovered her obituary in the Danville Commercial News, June 26th… Read More

Downbeat Magazine April 1958There are few images of George V. Garabedian, and his definitive biography has not been written.   George was a performing musician, and led several dif… Read More

I bought a few cassettes, mostly for parts. But upon closer inspection this one had clear adhesive tape over the corners. For those of you that don't know, that indicates that it was taped o… Read More

Timelines are strange. When you tell a story you have to decide whether to start and the beginning or the end or the middle. What makes the most sense is subjective. I think I have to tell y… Read More

It's important to start with the fact that most of Tom Mix's radio and film catalog has been lost.  He appeared in 291 films, 282 of which were silent. Reportedly only about 10% of thos… Read More

I didn't drive directly from Tri-Cities to San Francisco. I drove from Portland to Tri-Cities and back to Portland, and only then down that long winding coastal road. Route 101 originates in… Read More

Let's start at the SHSM - State Historical Society of Missouri  [LINK]. The few images I can find of the Goodwill Family all seem to originate there. On one post card they stand in a ro… Read More

 I only found this video recently but it's excellent. I've never seen a radio engineer go thru the circuit component by component and explain how it's working at this level of detail. H… Read More

It's about 650 miles from Portland to San Francisco, that's a full day at the wheel. The plan was to spend as much of the drive on the coast as possible so instead of heading down I-5 or Rou… Read More

Everyone knows the airport code for Portland (PDX) but if you were not familiar, PSC is the airport code for Tri-Cities in western Washington state. The Tri-Cities are three cities (Kennewic… Read More

Res ipsa loquitur, the thing speaks for itself.  As you'd imagine, a cordless cassette tape eraser is just some permanent magnets, and it is so. In my lab, my tape eraser of choice is a… Read More

Almost everyone knows what a Les Paul guitar is, but history seem to be forgetting Les Paul the person. Firstly, his real name was Lester William Polsfuss, He never legally changed his name… Read More

In the world of college radio, WHCM is a relatively young radio station. They only won their FCC license in the year 2000, buying it out from the EMF station WCLR. It's the only occasion I k… Read More

David Brenner Live was a very short-lived program by a comedian who was very famous at the time. It's so brief that some of the articles about the debut, didn't run until it was almost over… Read More

I first found Mr. E. Rodney Jones on the back of a cassette. It was the back of the album: War Live  UA-CA193-J to be specific. (By the way, it's a fine album) Looking online for more i… Read More

Here's an oddity, and I've never seen one before.  It's labeled "8TC Protective Cape." The "p" is shaped a bit funny but only a couple possible words made sense. [I doubt it's cave… Read More

There are two gentlemen pictured here, C.J. Ingram and Frank Bremer and this is a Prohibition joke. It appears in a 1923 issue of Radio News. First— the gag: In 1919 the Eighteenth Ame… Read More

On a drive across New England I picked up a free issue of Neighbors magazine. In it I found a lengthy article by Dean Farrell aka Dean Fiora. He was singing the praises of some obscure soul… Read More

Caveat: I do not normally watch this Youtube channel. This was sent to me in the form of a clip showing the inside of an abandoned radio station in New Jersey. From that clip I found this or… Read More

Early regional and national flour brands were frequent radio sponsors in the golden era. In a previous post, back in 2007 I wrote up [LINK] the radio contributions of nine brands Light Crust… Read More

It weighs just a few ounces and measures 2 3/8 inches in diameter, and is 3/8 inches thick, not counting the binding post. On the back it bears a yellow label for Bromwell's Radi-O-Trap Aeri… Read More

I found this image online with no attribution but dated to January 12th, 1935. But I do recognize it as a column from the New York Daily News. I'm going to assume that date is real and extr… Read More

These articles usually start with a chance find, and then basic research to block in the timeline. John Daniel was unknown to me, even in the context of WSM. So the multi-decade career was v… Read More

The sign reads "Radio Sales Service, Malcom D. Burdick; Hampton, Conn, Call 1011-2, Complete service to All Makes of Radios. Modern testing Equipment. Reasonable Rates. RCA Radios RCA Tubes… Read More

Not Danny Kaye or Carol Kaye, Harold Kaye, Lenny Kaye, Nora Kaye, Sammy Kaye, Paul Kaye, not even Buddy Kaye. There are after all quite a few successful and at least semi-famous Kayes. (He's… Read More

We are now in year 18, (a Harshad number), and I stand by my statement from 7 years ago... "it seems both impossible and inadvisable to have gone so far down the rabbit-hole." This blog be… Read More

Cassettes have always sounded a bit crap.  CDs can flawlessly reproduce the entire range of human hearing, from about 20 hertz all the way up to 20 kHz. Cassettes roll off everything be… Read More

K-Tel is still in business today. But their music footprint is mostly limited to licensing songs for film and television now. Not that they were always in the business of cheap comps. K-Tel… Read More

Sometimes at the odd antiquarian book shop I find an odd antiquarian phone book. Sometimes, those old phone books list off radio stations. Below is an image from Might's Greater Toronto city… Read More

I recently found a Leon Russel bootleg cassette. Scribbled on the J-card it reads "Live in Los Angeles FM & TV concert." A second line of text dates the recording only to 1970. Am I a Le… Read More

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This transistor radio bears both the "candle" branded and 6 Transistor branding. The ad above is from 1964, which is interesting as 10-trnsistor models had been on the market since at least… Read More

I really like finding old radios that have presets will call signs on them. This one only has three but it still narrows down the era and the location. Lets dig into it. WJZ - I've writ… Read More

This was another tough topic to research. WOR-AM has been operating since February of 1922. So we have a solid 100 years of history to sort through to rediscover this radio program.  I… Read More

I was doing a bit of soldering and it suddenly occurred to me that my tin of Rubyfluid was older than some of my friends. It's dented yellow 4 oz tin that would fit inside a coffee cup. I go… Read More

 I write about radio history. History can be dry, academic even boring for some. But my background was in rock music and radio so sometimes a bit of blasphemy or profanity, creeps in; m… Read More

Technical Author's Bureau Books was based in Blue Ridge Summit, PA on the Maryland border about halfway between Gettysburg, and Hagerstown. It's s small town, even today the population is ju… Read More

There is something oddly endearing about this tiny book with it's awkward idioms on the inside and rear cover. I was most taken with this one, a true product of the 1950s: "The insects mus… Read More

We are now in year 17, (a nice respectable prime number) and I stand by my statement from 6 years ago... "it seems both impossible and inadvisable to have gone so far down the rabbit-hole… Read More

 Bill Thailing was a long time fan, trader, collector and dealer of comics, newspapers, radio programs, magazines, pulp magazines, books and ephemera in Cleveland, OH. He published his… Read More

It's very difficult to write about the Basque as an outsider not speaking Euskara. Because very few people speak Euskara there's very little editing to information webpages. Even within the… Read More

Don and Norman Blisard were the Blisard Brothers. One promotional photo shows them in cowboy hats with a mandolin and a guitar standing in front of a microphone bearing a KUOA badge. Their p… Read More