The Radio Dismuke Blog

7th Annual New Year's Eve Broadcast

2011-12-18T18:15:00.001-06:00

Radio Dismuke will ring in the New Year in all four continental United States time zones with our seventh annual New Year's Eve broadcast. Joining Dismuke on the broadcast will be guest contributors Eddie The Collector, Matt From College Station, Eric From Dallas and perhaps a few others who will be bringing lots of fun and interesting selections from their respective 78 rpm record collections. For those who have other plans on New Year's Eve or reside in time zones where the initial broadcast occurs at odd hours, the entire program will be rebroadcast in continuous rotation throughout New Year's Day. For more information and for start times in your time zone, visit this pag e on the Radio Dismuke website.

New Features & New Projects

2011-07-31T22:12:00.001-06:00

Radio Dismuke is pleased to announce new features and projects that will enable listeners to interact with station and to discover vintage recordings beyond those played on the station.

RADIO DISMUKE ON FACEBOOK

A lot of people have asked why Radio Dismuke does not have a presence on Facebook. As of today it does at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Radio-Dismuke/123824654294253? If you are on Facebook and enjoy the station, please feel free to click on the "Like" button. And be sure to check the Wall section regularly for recommendations and links to great 1920s & 1930s popular music and jazz recordings elsewhere on the Internet. Some of these recommendations will be automatically fed to the Wall from Dismuke's Twitter Feed (for more on that, see below). Other recommendations will be posted specifically for the Facebook page.

- DISMUKE'S 78 RPM BLOG

You can find it at http://dismuke.org/blog This is a brand new blog that is the successor to the old Dismuke's Hit of the Week feature that stopped being updated a year ago. The old Hit of the Week postings are not going away - they will continue to be available and archived at http://dismuke.org/how As with the old Hit of the Week site, the new blog will feature recordings from my 78 rpm record collection. Many of the recordings featured will be the same sort of 1920s and 1930s popular music and jazz recordings you hear on Radio Dismuke. But it will also present recordings from other 78 rpm era genres. Basically, if it is in my collection and was recorded between 1900 and 1945 it is fair game for inclusion.

DISMUKE ON TWITTER

http://twitter.com/#!/Dismuke78 I now have a brand new Twitter account from which I will be posting recommendations and links to 78 rpm era recordings found elsewhere on the Internet. As with the blog, in addition to featuring plenty of recordings of 1920s and 1930s pop and jazz, the Twitter feed will highlight other 78 rpm era genres as well. Those tweets that ARE consistent with the sort of material played on Radio Dismuke will be automatically directed into the Wall section of the Radio Dismuke Facebook page.

Both the blog and the Twitter feed make it easy for those who are interested in promoting the music to a wider audience to do so. If you have a Twitter account and enjoy one of the recordings featured, consider retweeting it on to others. Same for any recordings you might enjoy on the blog - on each posting you will find icons which will enable you to share the posting with others either by email or through a variety of social networking sites. The biggest difficulty vintage recordings face in terms of enjoying the modern audience that they deserve is most people are not familiar with them. But a great many people are highly receptive to such music once they are exposed to it. Social networking provides an excellent opportunity to bring the music to the attention of potential new audiences.

UPCOMING PLANS

Another 6 hour Texas Record Collectors' Party broadcast has already been recorded and will air sometime in September on a weekend soon to be announced. As is the case with television and terrestrial radio stations, the audience for Internet radio tends to drop off a bit during summer months and then picks up again in the fall. So we are holding off on airing it until then so that more people will have an opportunity to catch it. Expect to receive an update within the next few weeks with the exact air dates.

Meanwhile, the Radio Dismuke playlist continues to be updated with more recordings as fast as I am able to find the time to digitize them. I recently acquired a new and very large batch of 78 rpm records with hundreds of sides of material perfect for Radio Dismuke. So expect to hear many "new" recordings in the station's playlist rotation in the weeks ahead.

Nauck's Vintage Records Broadcast

2011-04-01T00:22:00.003-06:00

The eleventh semi-annual Nauck's Vintage Records broadcast starts this weekend running in continuous rotation all day Saturday April 2, Sunday April 3 and Saturday April 9. For more information about the program and for start times in your timezone, click here. To tune in, follow the instructions on the Radio Dismuke website.

Sixth Annual New Year's Eve Broadcast

2010-12-26T14:56:00.004-06:00

Radio Dismuke will ring in the New Year in all four continental United States time zones with our sixth annual New Year's Eve broadcast. Joining Dismuke for the broadcast will be guest contributors Eddie The Collector, Matt From College Station and Eric from Dallas who will be bringing lots of fun and interesting selections from their respective 78 rpm record collections. For those who have other plans New Year's Eve or live in time zones where the live broadcast occurs at odd hours, the entire program rebroadcast in continuous rotation throughout New Year's Day

New Year's Eve
Friday, December 31, 2010

United States Listeners
10:00 PM - 4:00 AM Eastern
9:00 PM - 3:00 AM Central
8:00 PM - 2:00 AM Mountain
7:00 PM - 1:00 AM Pacific

International Listeners
3:00 AM - 9:00 AM Friday GMT

New Year's Day
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Rebroadcast

After the initial airing, the program will repeat in continuous rotation throughout New Year's Day. The continuous loop rebroadcast will run though at least midnight Sunday morning Central Time in the USA (6:00 AM Sunday GMT). The replay of the broadcast that is still in progress at midnight will be allowed to complete before Radio Dismuke resumes normal programing for Sunday.

To tune into the broadcast, simply visit the Radio Dismuke website at www.RadioDismuke.com

Here is a website that will be helpful for listeners outside of North America who wish to convert the broadcast schedule to their local time: http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc

October 2010 Nauck's Vintage Records Broadcast

2010-09-26T16:26:00.004-06:00

Radio Dismuke is pleased to announce the tenth semi-annual Nauck's Vintage Records Broadcast hosted by Kurt Nauck, owner of Nauck's Vintage Records, the world's largest and most prestigious auction house of rare and collectible vintage records.

For these special broadcasts, Kurt generously makes all of the nearly 10,000 vintage records in his current auction available for the program. During the broadcast, Radio Dismuke will depart from its strictly 1920s and 1930s popular music and jazz format and play recordings from just about every musical genre imaginable from the dawn of commercial recorded sound in the 1890s through the end of the 78 rpm era in the late 1950s. Many of the records in the auction are extremely rare and the vast majority have never been reissued in modern formats.

One of the things that is special about the broadcast is that it will provide listeners a rare opportunity to hear very early cylinder records played through Kurt's Archeophone- a modern, electrical playback device designed specifically for the reproduction and preservation of vintage cylinder records. Because an Archeophone costs over $24,000 owning one is beyond the financial reach of the vast majority of private collectors and they are usually found in institutions such as sound archives and national libraries. You, however, will have the privilege of listening to one during the broadcast. Late 19th century wax cylinder records are especially fascinating because very frequently they are the last surviving copies of the recorded performance.

In addition to vintage cylinders and conventional 78 rpm discs, there are other vintage formats in the auction as well including Edison diamond discs, radio transcription disc, picture records and cardboard Hit of the Week records. Radio Dismuke listeners have the opportunity to hear recordings from a wide variety of musical genres ranging from jazz and dance band music to classical, opera, blues, country and even early rock and roll.

The broadcast will be slightly over 8 hours in length. The first 6 hours will be devoted to vintage 78 rpm, 80 rpm and cylinder recordings from the auction catalog. Following that are two special bonus hours of vintage radio transcription discs from the auction catalog.

For the autumn 2010 broadcast, we will be continue with the continuous rotation schedule format which has been well received for previous broadcasts. The program will start Saturday October 2 at 11:00 AM Central Time in the United States and will continuously repeat all day October 2 and October 3. The program will be aired again starting at 8:00 AM Central Time in the United States on Saturday October 9 and will continuously repeat all day. Because these broadcasts are several hours in length, listeners with schedule commitments may not be able to listen all the way through to any given broadcast. This "continuous loop" format should provides opportunities for those who miss portions of the broadcast on one airing to be able to catch the rest on a subsequent airing.

The Nauck broadcasts provide a unique opportunity to hear some extremely rare and historic recordings - a good number of which have not been available to a public audience in many decades. It is another example of how Internet radio is able to provide to a worldwide audience highly specialized, quality programing that traditional media outlets are simply not able or willing to take on.

For more information, visit the Radio Dismuke website at www.RadioDismuke.com

"Admiration" - Willam H. Tyers

2009-11-17T23:59:00.003-06:00

This past weekend I made two separate 78 rpm record purchases. My very rough guess is that I probably acquired somewhere around 1,500 78 rpms. I have not yet had a chance to go through any more than a tiny fraction of them but have already found lots of excellent recordings which will eventually be added to Radio Dismuke in the weeks and months ahead as I get the time to transfer and digitize them.

This evening I picked out a handful to listen to and was extremely impressed by this 1930 recording by the Green Brothers' Marimba Orchestra. It is a revival of a 1917 composition by the ragtime composer William H. Tyres. While the song is subtitled as "Hawaiian Idyl" this recording has an almost Latin/Caribbean sound to it.

Upcoming Special Broadcasts

2009-10-23T07:46:00.002-06:00

I am pleased to announce several upcoming special broadcasts.

- Nauck's Vintage Records Broadcast - October 31, November 1, November 7

- Texas Record Collectors' Party Broadcast plus two additional special programs: Big Band/Swing Era (1935-1942) Broadcast and Ragtime Era (1900 - 1918) Broadcast - Nivember 14, November 15

Eighth Semi-Annual Nauck's Vintage Records Broadcast
October 31, November 1, November 7

Radio Dismuke is pleased to announce the eight semi-annual Nauck's Vintage Records Broadcast hosted by Kurt Nauck, owner of Nauck's Vintage Records, the world's largest and most prestigious auction house of rare and collectible vintage records.

For these special broadcasts, Kurt generously makes all of the nearly 10,000 vintage records in his current auction available for the program. During the broadcast, Radio Dismuke will depart from its strictly 1920s and 1930s popular music and jazz format and play recordings from just about every musical genre imaginable from the dawn of commercial recorded sound in the 1890s through the end of the 78 rpm era in the late 1950s. Many of the records in the auction are extremely rare and the vast majority have never been reissued in modern formats.

One of the things that is special about the broadcast is that it will provide listeners a rare opportunity to hear very early cylinder records played through Kurt's Archeophone - a modern, electrical playback device designed specifically for the reproduction and preservation of vintage cylinder records. Because an Archeophone costs over $16,000 owning one is beyond the financial reach of the vast majority of private collectors and they are usually found in institutions such as sound archives and national libraries. You, however, will have the privilege of listening to one during the broadcast. Late 19th century wax cylinder records are especially fascinating because very frequently they are the last surviving copies of the recorded performance.

In addition to vintage cylinders and conventional 78 rpm discs, there are other vintage formats in the auction as well including Edison diamond discs, radio transcription disc, picture records and cardboard Hit of the Week records. Radio Dismuke listeners have the opportunity to hear recordings from a wide variety of musical genres ranging from jazz and dance band music to classical, opera, blues, country and even early rock and roll.

For the autumn 2009 broadcast, we will be continue with the continuous rotation schedule format which has been well received for previous broadcasts. The program will start Saturday October 31 at 11:00 AM Central Time in the United States and will continuously repeat all day October 31 and November 1. The program will be aired again starting at 8:00 AM Central Time in the United States on Saturday November 7 and will continuously repeat all day. Because these broadcasts are several hours in length, listeners with schedule commitments may not be able to listen all the way through to any given broadcast. This format should provides opportunities for those who miss portions of the broadcast on one airing to be able to catch the rest on a subsequent airing. Listeners outside North America can find program start time instructions for their time zone here.

The Nauck broadcasts provide a unique opportunity to hear some extremely rare and historic recordings - a good number of which have not been available to a public audience in many decades. It is another example of how Internet radio is able to provide to a worldwide audience highly specialized, quality programing that traditional media outlets are simply not able or willing to take on.

2009 Texas Record Collectors' Party Broadcast

Special Program Devoted to Recordings from the Big Band/Swing Era (1935 - 1942)

Special Program Devoted to Recordings from the Ragtme Era (1900 - 1918)

November 14, November 15

Regular Radio Dismuke contributors Matt From College Station, Eddie The Collector from Waco and Christian from Austin once again meet up and join Dismuke taking turns spinning great 78 rpm records from their respective collections. Two additional special broadcasts will air the same weekend. One will be devoted to recordings from the big band/swing era of 1935 - 1942 and the other will be devoted to recordings from the ragtime era of 1900 - 1918. All programs will air in continuous rotation throughout the weekend of November 14 and November 15. Information about the programs and program start times will be posted here when it becomes available and on the Radio Dismuke website at RadioDismuke.com

A Visit To Nauck's Vintage Records

2009-05-14T21:08:00.014-06:00

Last weekend, I, along with Radio Dismuke contributors Matt From College Station, Eddie The Collector and Christian From Austin, took a trip down to Spring, Texas just outside of Houston to visit the impressive facilities of Nauck's Vintage Records and look through Kurt Nauck's large room full of "reject" records.

Kurt is extremely selective about the condition and collectability of the records he includes in his semi-annual auctions. Thus records with various flaws and those that are not in particularly high demand by serious collectors are set aside as rejects. But just because they are "rejects" does not mean that there is not plenty of great music to be had. In many cases, the condition issues are primarily cosmetic and do not effect playing quality. Other condition issues such as cracks can render even a very collectible record nearly worthless - but if the crack is tight enough for a stylus to navigate through, my audio restoration equipment can, in most cases, easily take out the resulting "clicks."

There were several thousand records to go through - so Matt, Eddie, Christian and I each grabbed a bunch of boxes and sorted through for stuff that we wanted for our respective collections. I ended up driving back to Fort Worth with about 400 some odd records. Many of these will gradually make their way into the Radio Dismuke playlist as I get the time to transfer, restore and digitize them. Others I picked up fall outside Radio Dismuke's 1920s and 1930s popular music and jazz format. These include swing, big band, operatic and about 75 1940s era V-Discs. Much of the music on V-Disc I find to be of only marginal interest. But I find the label to be interesting both for the role the records played in World War II and the fact that they often contain recordings that were not made available commercially to the general public. Some of the records I picked up that do not fit the Radio Dismuke format might eventually be featured as "Extras" in my Hit of the Week updates.

Matt, Eddie and Christian each picked up a good number of records as well. All three have always been very generous about making their collections available to Radio Dismuke so it is very possible that some of their acquisitions will eventually be broadcast.

Kurt's facility - built from the ground up to his specifications - is always a fascinating place to visit and is as much a museum of early recorded sound as it is a successful retail enterprise. Below are a few photos I took while we were there - but they do not do the place any justice. Perhaps next time I go down there, I will get my hands on a video camera and see if Kurt would be interested in providing a video tour of the facility and the many items on display.

Kurt Nauck, owner of Nauck's Vintage Records

A display cabinet of assorted cylinder records. Nauck auctions feature all pre-microgroove formats of recorded sound from the 1890s through the end of the 78 rpm era in the late 1950s.

This is the shipping room where the approximately 10,000 items in each auction are carefully packed for shipment to winning bidders around the world. The funnel in the middle is a dispenser for packing peanuts. On the far left is a giant roll of bubble wrap.

The trademark Pathe rooster. This was originally an advertising display for a Pathe Records dealer.

This is the room in which the semi-annual Bidder's Request Program aired on Radio Dismuke is recorded.

Matt sorts through some of the records he picked out.

Christian looks through a box of vintage sheet music.

Matt and Eddie look through unsold items from previous Nauck auctions.

After our visit to Nauck's, Matt, Eddie and I introduced Christian to the gastrointestinal adventure known as Pancho's Mexican Buffet. I don't quite know how to describe Pancho's. Let's just say that when I was growing up in Dallas/Fort Worth during the chain's heyday there were locations all over town which were best avoided on Friday and Saturday nights as they were usually jammed full of families with screaming and hyper kids. Pancho's is an all-you-can-eat establishment. In the photo, Christian is pointing to the table top Mexican flag that diners raise to notify the wait staff that they would like additional helpings. Pancho's does NOT rate very highly as far as Mexican food is concerned. However, if one takes the mindset that the stuff Pancho's serves is not Mexican food but rather an entirely unique genre unto itself, it can be oddly addictive - or at least I think so. Every so often, I actually crave the stuff and have to go in and get my fix. Christian is still talking to us - so presumably it was not all that bad of an experience for him.

"Pancho" - the cartoon trademark of Pancho's Mexican Buffet

Poor Christian is probably not aware that the pose I am asking him to strike for this photo is the same one as the man in Pancho's cartoon trademark. Hmmmm. Give him a shave, a sombrero, and a fake Spanish accent and he could become a corporate spokesman and go around telling the world about the wonders of Panchos! (Hopefully he will still be talking to me after this!)

Nauck's Vintage Records Broadcast

2009-04-24T11:10:00.002-06:00

I am very pleased to announce the seventh semi-annual Nauck's Vintage Records Broadcast hosted by Kurt Nauck, owner of Nauck's Vintage Records, the world's largest and most prestigious auction house of rare and collectible vintage records.

During theses special broadcasts, Kurt generously makes all of the nearly 10,000 vintage records in his current auction available for the broadcast. During the broadcast, Radio Dismuke will depart from its strictly 1920s and 1930s popular music and jazz format and play recordings from just about every musical genre imaginable from the dawn of commercial recorded sound in the 1890s through the end of the 78 rpm era in the late 1950s. Many of the records in the auction are extremely rare and the vast majority have never been reissued in modern formats.

For April's broadcast, we will be continue with the continuous rotation schedule format which has been well received for previous broadcasts. The program will start Saturday April 25 at 11:00 AM Central Time in the United States and will continuously repeat all day April 25 and April 26. The program will be aired again starting at 8:00 AM Central Time in the United States on Saturday May 3 and will continuously repeat all day. Because these broadcasts are several hours in length, listeners with schedule commitments may not be able to listen all the way through to any given broadcast. This format should provides opportunities for those who miss portions of the broadcast on one airing to be able to catch the rest on a subsequent airing.

For more broadcast start times in your time zone, click here.

I am always very excited about these broadcasts and hope you will have a chance to listen. They provide a unique opportunity to hear some extremely rare and historic recordings - a good number of which have not been available to a public audience in many decades. It is another example of how Internet radio is able to provide to a worldwide audience highly specialized, quality programing that traditional media outlets are simply not able or willing to take on.

Vintage Radios Play Again

2009-01-25T21:04:00.006-06:00

It is still fairly easy to come across vintage radios in non-working condition. Radios that have all or most of their parts can usually be put back in working order if one has a basic understanding of electronics. The local vintage radio club near me even offers occasional workshops on how to do it.

I own several non-working vintage radios and keep them simply because they are very attractive to look at. I almost never listen to the ones that I have which are in working condition. Quite frankly, the problem with vintage radios is that they only pick up modern stations and, in my area, there is very little on such stations that I wish to listen to.

A while back I purchased an AM transmitter device so that I could broadcast Internet radio and music files on my computer to vintage radios throughout the house. Unfortunately it turned out that, unlike a similar FM transmitter, I would have had to construct an antenna in order to get the signal from one side of the house to the other. Since that is not my idea of a fun project and I already have a lot on my plate, my notion of broadcasting through the transmitter came to an abrupt end.

For those who have non-functioning vintage radio sets, my friend Christian Kohlhaas in Austin, Texas has successfully found other methods short of complete restoration of bringing them back to life musically.

Here is Christian's circa 1930 American Bosch floor model radio. The first time I ever visited his place a few years ago, I walked in and immediately saw the radio's dial lit up with vintage music coming from the speaker. Moments later, I heard my own voice announcing that it I was listening to Radio Dismuke.

The radio, however, is little more than a very attractive speaker. When Christian acquired the cabinet a good amount of its parts were either missing or broken, including the original speaker. He installed in place of the original speaker a similarly sized 1970s vintage Radio Shack speaker. He also got the dial light working and wired it to one of the radio's knobs. The speaker is connected to a long cord that can be plugged into a computer or stereo system sound jack.

Vintage recordings, to me at least, sound better through the radio than they do even very decent computer speakers. My guess is part of it might have something to do with the resonance of the wood in the cabinet.

Here is Christian's late 1930s General Electric table top radio. For its time this was a very compact radio. When he acquired it was just an empty wooden cabinet. It now plays music from an mp3 player and amplifier hidden away in the cabinet.

One of Christian's hobbies is participating in Eastern front World War II reenactments. He thought it would be fun to bring a vintage radio that played appropriate period music along to the reenactments. As you can see from the photo, the finish is in very rough condition in certain areas. This is actually very suitable for Christian's purpose in that a radio set that managed to make it to the front lines of a war was probably not in the best cosmetic condition.

Here is a view of what he built inside the cabinet. The speaker was taken from a broken 1980s vintage boombox. At the upper lift hand corner is an inexpensive USB stick mp3 player already loaded with vintage recordings. In the foreground is the amplifier that powers the speaker. If one does not already have an amplifier to use, one can build one from an inexpensive kit. Everything is powered by battery. Christian was able to wire one of the radio's control knobs to turn the power on and off. The other knob is wired to the mp3 player and is used to change the songs.

Finally, Christian does have a vintage radio that actually picks up regular stations. It is a 1934 RCA Model 143 tabletop radio. It was RCA's most expensive table top model and sold for $97.40 - which, adjusted for currency inflation was about $2,182 in today's money. Unfortunately, it is hard to judge its size by the photo - but it is very large for a table top model.

Home entertainment devices have certainly become far less expensive and technologically better in every way. But, like so many other areas of modern life, from a strictly aesthetic standpoint, they have a very hard time matching the beauty and quality that was commonplace in the 1920s and 1930s.

Vienna At Night - 1936

2009-01-07T02:29:00.003-06:00

This film clip of Vienna at night from around 1936 is only 25 seconds long but every second is great.

Back in the '20s and '30s, big city downtowns offered incredible neon light shows at night - especially in the entertainment districts. The spirit still lives on in New York's Times Square but not a whole lot of other places.

4th Annual New Year's Broadcast

2008-12-30T11:12:00.001-06:00

I am very pleased to announce the 4th Annual Radio Dismuke New Year's Eve Broadcast in which Radio Dismuke will help ring in the New Year in all four continental United States time zones by spinning a variety of 78 rpm recordings from the 1920s through the early 1940s in a special live broadcast.

Joining me in the Radio Dismuke studio in Fort Worth, Texas will be special guests Eddie The Collector, Matt From College Station and Jerry From Dallas who will be bringing along lots of fun and interesting selections from their large collections of vintage 78 rpm records.

The New Year's Eve live broadcast will run from:

For North America listeners:

Wednesday December 31, 2008

10:00 PM - 3:00 AM Eastern
9:00 PM - 2:00 AM Central
8:00 PM - 1:00 AM Mountain
7:00 PM - 12:00 AM Pacific

For International listeners:

3:00 AM - 8:00 AM Thursday GMT

Already have plans for New Year's Eve? Not to worry - the entire program will be rebroadcast on New Year's day. It will be a great way to recuperate from the sort of music that one is often subjected to these days at New Year's parties!

The New Year's day rebroadcast will run from:

For North America listeners:

Thursday January 1, 2009

The recorded broadcast will be repeated back in a continuous loop throughout New Year's Day. The rebroadcast will start as soon after the live broadcast as it takes to process the
recording and upload it to the Radio Dismuke broadcast server. The continuous loop rebroadcast will run though at least midnight Friday morning Central Time in the USA (6:00 AM
Friday GMT). The replay of the broadcast that is still in progress at midnight will be allowed to complete before Radio Dismuke resumes normal programing for Friday.

Here is a website that will be helpful for listeners outside of North America who wish to convert the broadcast schedule to their local time: http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc

A link to a Technical Issues Blog will be available on the Radio Dismuke website at www.RadioDismuke.com

Excellent Acting - 1933

2008-11-20T10:34:00.008-06:00

If you want to see an example of outstanding acting ability watch this very funny scene from the 1933 German film Viktor und Viktoria. The scene does not contain a single word of dialogue so everything had to be conveyed entirely though facial expressions. You also do not need to speak German in order to follow it.

If the film's title sounds familiar, it is because it was remade in America in 1982 as Victor/Victoria.

To fully appreciate the clip, a bit of background information about the film's plot is necessary. As with the better known 1982 remake, the central character is a struggling actress who gets an unexpected break when she agrees to fill in at the last minute for a female impersonator who is too ill to perform. The act becomes an immediate sensation forcing her to put on a permanent charade that she is a cross-dressing male. Renate Muller played the role in the 1933 film and Julie Andrews played the role in the 1982 version.

Much of the action in the 1982 remake revolves around a Chicago gangster (played by James Garner) falling in love with "Victoria" and the hilarious psychological trauma he goes through over his attraction to a woman he believes is a man. This aspect of the film does not take place in the 1933 version and, unlike the risque 1982 remake, all of the characters in the German version are heterosexual. James Garner's 1933 counterpart character, Robert (played by Anton Walbrook), learns about Viktoria's masquerade early on and decides to have a bit of fun with his discovery. Playing along with the charade, he offers to take "Viktor" out to do "guy stuff" such as smoking, drinking, flirting with prostitutes and getting a shave with a straight blade razor.

The scene in the clip is where Robert takes "Viktor" to a rowdy pub. Pay close attention to the facial expressions, especially those of "Viktor"/Renate Muller, which are very well done. Robert offers her a smoke - which she reluctantly accepts. When "Viktor" follows Robert's lead in reacting to the flirtatious prostitutes - well, as you will see, the results are hilarious.

When I first discovered this film clip on YouTube, it struck me as another great example of the incredible level of talent that existed in the early 20th century entertainment industry that is sadly so rare today.

While the film was produced in 1933 after Hitler's National Socialists had assumed power, the Nazi stranglehold on the Germany film industry had not yet been fully implemented and, in many respects, it retains a lot of the spirit of the Wiemar era.

Unfortunately, Renate Muller met a very sad end. The Nazi regime was eager to promote her as an "ideal Aryan woman" and there were even attempts to get her to engage in a friendly personal relationship with Adolf Hitler. When she resisted, she was put under surveillance by the Gestapo, possibly on grounds that she might have had incriminating information about Hitler. She also antagonized the regime by refusing to give into pressure to end a relationship with a Jewish emigre. Increasingly worried about her safety, she became addicted to morphine and entered a sanitarium. Muller died in October 1937 as a result of a fall from a window at the sanitarium. The German media officially reported her sudden death as being caused by epilepsy. Witnesses, however, reported that, shortly before her death, four Gestapo agents visited the sanitarium. Exactly what happened is unknown but it is speculated that they either pushed her out of the window or that she panicked and jumped when she looked out and saw the Gestapo agents approaching the building.

You can also see a nice musical performance by Renate Muller singing the theme song from the film here . And here you can see Renate Muller performing "Viktoria's" cabaret act.

1934 Hollywood Party

2008-11-08T15:26:00.005-06:00

Here is really entertaining clip both visually and musically from the film Hollywood Party. In addition to a performance by Shirley Ross (perhaps best remembered for singing "Thanks For The Memories" and "Two Sleepy People" with Bob Hope), is a nice scat vocal by Harry Barris of the Paul Whiteman's Rhythm Boys trio which gave Bing Crosby his start.

Despite all of the huge budgets and significant improvements in technology can you imagine the Hollywood of today coming up with something even close to this?

Upcoming Autumn 2008 Special Broadcasts

2008-10-05T19:35:00.003-06:00

Radio Dismuke is very pleased to announce upcoming weekends of special programing.

So that listeners in various time zones across the world have an opportunity to tune in, all of the programs will be replayed in a continuous loop throughout their day of broadcast.

Weekend of October 18 - October 19

This weekend will feature two special programs which will play back-to-back and be repeated throughout the entire weekend.
The 2008 Texas Record Collectors' Party Broadcast (Broadcast lasts 4 hours)
The Radio Dismuke "Mobile Studio" recently traveled to Waco, Texas to record this special broadcast. Joining Dismuke on the broadcast are regular Radio Dismuke contributors Eddie The Collector, Matt From College Station and Christian Kohlhaas. The purpose of the get-together was for everyone to have fun sharing with the audience great vintage recordings from their respective 78 rpm record collections.
The program features a variety of jazz and dance band recordings from the 1920s and 1930s and plenty of conversation and commentary about the recordings. Many of the recordings featured are very difficult to find and have not been reissued in LP or CD format. One objective in selecting the recordings was to pick out selections that are NOT currently featured in the regular Radio Dismuke playlist.
The Woolworth Record Counter: Select Recordings from the Depression Era Crown Label (Broadcast lasts 2 hours 45 minutes)
Crown was a bargain priced American record label which was sold through the F.W.Woolworth dime store chain. The records sold for twenty five cents each. Crown got its start in 1930, making it one of the very few American record labels to be formed during the Depression. The label survived for just under three years. Like all dime store labels, Crown's output was primarily targeted to a mass audience and emphasized the popular songs of the era featuring both "hot" and "sweet" arrangements. Crown's in-house band employed some of the top New York studio musicians of the day. The label also occasionally recorded name bands such as the Fletcher Henderson, Eubie Blake and Smith Ballew orchestras.
The program, hosted by Dismuke and Matt From College Station, features 78 rpm recordings from Matt's extensive collection of Crown records. It provides an excellent look at a period when the "Jazz Age" sound of the 1920s was in gradual transition towards a "sweeter" sound which was popular for a few years before the arrival of the "swing" craze in 1935. For most Americans during the early Depression years, records were a luxury item. This program provides a great opportunity to hear the music that inspired Depression era shoppers to part with a hard-to-come-by twenty five cents for something new to play on the home phonographs that they most likely purchased during the more prosperous years of the 1920s.
Broadcast Schedule
The two programs will air back-to-back starting on Saturday, October 18th at:
North American Listeners
10:00 AM Eastern
9:00 AM Central
8:00 AM Mountain
7:00 AM Pacific
International Listeners
2:00 PM GMT
The Texas Record Collectors Broadcast will be the first program to air and will be immediately by The Woolworth Record Counter. The two programs will continuously repeat all day Saturday and all day Sunday. If one of the programs is still in progress at midnight Sunday evening Central Time (5:00 AM GMT) it will be allowed to complete before Radio Dismuke resumes its normal programing for Monday.
NOTE: When converting GMT to local time, International listeners are advised that regional factors such as daylight savings time may differ from country to country. For this reason, it is highly recommended that one use this Online Conversion Tool to make the time zone conversion.

Weekend of November 1 - November 2; All Day November 8

The Sixth Semi-Annual Nauck's Vintage Records Broadcast with Kurt Nauck
(We anticipate that the program will be approximately 6 hours long)
Twice each year Kurt Nauck, owner of Nauck's Vintage Records, the world's largest and most prestigious auction house of vintage disc and cylinder recordings, generously provides Radio Dismuke listeners access to his auction catalogue of over 10,000 quality vintage records. For three days over the course of two weekends, Radio Dismuke will depart from its strictly 1920s and 1930s jazz and popular music format and feature recordings from a wide variety of genres made between the dawn of commercially recorded sound in the 1890s to the end of the 78 rpm era in the late 1950s. Featured genres will range from jazz and pop to classical, operatic, blues, country, early rock and roll, comedy, spoken word and more.
The best part is that the recordings played during the broadcasts are selected from requests submitted by Radio Dismuke listeners and Nauck's bidders. To submit a request for a selection to be played during the broadcast, simply browse through Kurt's current online auction catalogue. Email your request to radio@78rpm.com no later than October 17, 2008. Note: While Kurt attempts to play as many requests as possible, because of the volume of requests and the limited amount of programing time, unfortunately we cannot guarantee that he will be able to get to all of them. If you are interested in actually owning and placing a bid on any of the recordings, the deadline for all bids is Saturday evening November 8 at midnight Central Time.
In addition to more to the more familiar period artists and tunes, Kurt's auctions always include a number of recordings which are extremely rare and have not been heard by the general public in decades. His semi-annual broadcasts provide a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for listeners to hear and enjoy some of the world's rarest and most historic recordings before they find new homes in private collections and institutions around the world.
The program also features recordings that rarely get to be enjoyed anymore due to the fact that they were recorded on formats that few people have the means to play back. The earliest commercial sound recordings in the 1890s were issued on wax cylinders - and Kurt will be featuring such recordings on the broadcast thanks to his Archeophone, a machine designed specifically for the preservation and electrical playback of vintage cylinders. Since the Archeophone retails for $16,250 it is beyond the financial reach of the vast majority of private collectors. The machines are usually found in institutions such as sound archives and national archives. Radio Dismuke listeners, however, will have the privilege of hearing one in action during the broadcast. Kurt will also be featuring some vintage radio transcription discs. A lot of the old transcription discs have very interesting content that, because of the 16 inch size of the discs, rarely gets to be heard these days beyond a relatively small number of collectors who have the special turntables needed to play them.
The Nauck Broadcasts have always been well received by listeners and Radio Dismuke is very grateful to Kurt for making them possible. The broadcasts are an excellent example how Internet radio is able to provide to a worldwide audience the sort of unique and quality specialty programing that traditional media outlets are simply not able or willing to take on.

Broadcast Schedule
Saturday November 1- Sunday November 2
The program will continuously repeat throughout the entire weekend starting on Saturday November 1 at:
North American Listeners
Noon Eastern
11:00 AM Central
10:00 AM Mountain
9:00 AM Pacific
International Listeners
4:00 PM GMT
The program will continuously repeat throughout the entire weekend. We anticipate that the broadcast will be about 6 hours in length. If the broadcast is still in progress Sunday evening at midnight Central Time (6:00 AM GMT), it will be allowed to fully complete before Radio Dismuke resumes its normal programing for Monday.
Saturday, November 8
The program will continuously repeat all day Saturday starting at:
North American Listeners
9:00 AM Eastern
8:00 AM Central
7:00 AM Mountain
6:00 AM Pacific
International Listeners
2:00 PM GMT
The program will continuously repeat throughout the day Saturday. NOTE: This broadcast will be a repeat of the same program aired the previous weekend. If the broadcast is still in progress Saturday evening at midnight Central Time (6:00 AM GMT), it will be allowed to fully complete before Radio Dismuke resumes its normal programing for Sunday.
NOTE: When converting GMT to local time, International listeners are advised that regional factors such as daylight savings time may differ from country to country. For this reason, it is highly recommended that one use this Online Conversion Tool to make the time zone conversion. Also note that the time difference between North American time zones and GMT is not the consistent in all of the times quoted above due to the fact that daylight savings time ends in the United States at 2:00 AM on Sunday, November 2.

To tune into any of the programs, simply follow the tune-in instructions on the Radio Dismuke website

Roter Teufel

2008-09-18T00:47:00.007-06:00

My good friend Christian down in Austin sent me a link to this YouTube audio clip of a really nice 1938 recording by the Barnabas von Geczy Orchestra, a very famous German band of the era.

"Roter Teufel" translates to "Red Devil." It is a great example of an upbeat "piano orchestra" dance band style that was apparently quite popular in Germany at the time and which had no real counterpart in American popular music. I have heard other recordings in a similar vein by German bands such as Hans Bund and Otto Dobrindt. I also have a few that someone found off the Internet and sent to me that I don't have title and artist credits for.

Barnabas von Geczy was Hungarian and came to Berlin in 1924 where he led the band at the Hotel Esplanade from 1925 through 1937. The von Gezcy Orchestra was very diverse musically and recorded everything from classical and "salon" music to tangos to popular dance band music.

Back Again

2008-09-18T00:47:00.004-06:00

The past several weeks have been hectic for several reasons. I figured that made it a good time to take a little "vacation" from putting up Hit of the Week updates and blog postings. Sometimes it is necessary to do that. If my online music endeavors ever start to become more of a chore or a "duty" than fun - well, that is the day that I will pack it in and quit. I find that taking a break every now and then is crucial to help keep things fun.

Son of Rifleman Grows Up To Become 1920s & 1930s Bandleader

2008-08-09T11:59:00.005-06:00

The Johnny Crawford Dance Orchestra, a contemporary 1920s and 1930s style dance band based out of Los Angeles, has released a much anticipated CD featuring recordings of the band with vocals by Johnny Crawford recorded during live performances at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and at the historic Gold Room of the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel. You can purchase and stream tracks from the CD on its page at CD Baby.

Those unfamiliar with the Johnny Crawford Dance Orchestra might not be aware that they may already be familiar with its leader who was a 1950s and 1960s child television star and recording artist. Born into a show business family, Johnny got his television break at the age of 9 as a Mouseketeer on the Mickey Mouse Club. Big time fame and teen-idol status came with his role playing the son, Mark McCain, in The Rifleman which aired from 1959 - 1964 and for many years afterwards in reruns. During The Rifleman years, Johnny also had a record contract and one of his recordings "Cindy's Birthday" became a top ten hit.

On the band's myspace profile, Johnny describes how he became interested in 1920s and 1930s music.

But what I loved most during my youth, was acting in a western tv series, having my own horse, learning to rope, and playing Red River Valley on my harmonica. In my head, I was actually living in the 1880s, and I continued to live there even after two years in the army; as a young veteran, I couldn't resist the allure of rural America, and the excitement of participating in cowboy events at dusty arenas. My family was a little concerned.

Then, in my 26th year, I began a road trip from which I have never returned.

An antique automobile put me in touch with the spirit of my grandfather, Bobby Crawford (1889-1941). A former jockey from Chicago, the "dynamo song plugger" married the young pianist at Woolworth's and soon became vice president of Irving Berlin's music publishing company. Not satisfied, he left Berlin to form De Sylva, Brown & Henderson as well as Crawford Music Corporation, and moved his office into the penthouse of New York's famous Brill Building ("Tin Pan Alley"). He made a quick fortune. Then he lost it, even quicker, about the time my old car was rolling off the assembly line, in the "fall" of 1929.

I became possessed by my grandfather's spirit. I would find myself driving around in the middle of the night, hearing forgotten dance bands and singing songs I didn't even know I knew. Instead of the 1880s, suddenly I was living in the 1920s. I thought this was considerable progress, but my family was still a little concerned. So, after word got around, arrangements were made and two years were spent in an institution on the east coast known as Vince Giordano's Nighthawks, the notorious asylum for musicians lost in time.

I certainly can relate to being lost in a time warp. And, happily, Vince Giordano's Nighthawks are still going strong.

In addition to the band, Crawford owns Crawford Music Services, a music booking agency. On its website is a form where you can subscribe to a mailing list for updates about Crawford's activities.

Tuning In With A 1929 Edision Radio

2008-08-06T22:32:00.004-06:00

A listener got in touch with me through Radio Dismuke's myspace profile to let me know about a YouTube clip he posted of his 1929 Edison R-4 radio playing Radio Dismuke.

Very nice!

Waco Trip For Upcoming Broadcast

2008-07-31T23:10:00.015-06:00

Recording the Texas Record Collectors' Party broadcast in Waco, Texas last weekend.

Last weekend I traveled down to Waco, Texas and met up with Matt From College Station and Christian Kohlhaas at the residence of Eddie The Collector to record an upcoming Texas Record Collectors' Party broadcast. The last time the four of us got together to record such a broadcast was in the summer of 2006 - so we were definitely overdue for one. Matt From College Station drove in from.... well, from College Station, of course. Christian came in from Austin. Each of us brought a nice big stack of 1920s and 1930s era 78 rpm records that had been pre-screened to exclude any recordings that are already in the Radio Dismuke playlist.

The broadcast will air sometime within the next month or two - exactly when depends on certain factors in my own personal schedule. Once a date has been set, I will certainly give plenty of advanced notice both here and in audio announcements on Radio Dismuke.

We had some additional fun besides the broadcast. Eddie took us on a walk-though of the restoration work on the lower floors of the historic Roosevelt Hotel in downtown Waco. The hotel in recent years had been used as a retirement home. Developers are now restoring the lower levels and ballroom to their original grandeur with plans for the upper floors to become offices.

After that we went to a nice spot on the campus of nearby Baylor University to enjoy 78 rpms outdoors under large trees with the portable wind-up phonograph Matt brought along.

We also visited an antique store located in a very neat 1909 house that was once the residence of the president of Dr. Pepper. Dr. Pepper was invented in Waco and was headquartered there during its early decades. We did find a pile of 78 rpms at the antique store - but they were mostly uninteresting late '40s and early '50s easy listening stuff. But I did pick up a copy of an Original Dixieland Jazz Band 78 rpm that I am pretty sure I did not already have and Christian got an interesting 1910s Columbia disc of a Serbian band.

Finally, we visited the soda fountain at the Dr. Pepper Museum and enjoyed Dr. Pepper sundaes. A Dr. Pepper sundae is vanilla ice cream topped with Dr. Pepper syrup. It probably sounds kind of gross to most people - but, in fact, it is very delicious and is a definite "must do" whenever one visits Waco.

We played a lot of great records on the broadcast so you will definitely want to check back for the announcement of when it will air.

I did bring my camera along and took pictures throughout the day. Here are a few of them. You can view the rest under the "view my pics" section on Radio Dismuke's myspace profile.

Matt's portable wind-up phonograph playing a mint condition Depression era Columbia blue wax disc.

Eddie The Collector with the wind up phonograph. A second wind-up can be seen in the background.

From left to right: Eddie The Collector, Christian, Matt From College Station on porch of 1909 house.

Me during the broadcast at Eddie's house.

Me announcing a recording while Matt From College Station changes records on the turntable in the background.

Christian pretending to chug down a bottle of Baby Percy Medicine, a patent medicine era remedy which is still made in Waco.

Matt From College Station announces an upcoming recording.

Our host Eddie The Collector, who generously made his house available for the broadcast, announces a recording.

Christian displays a bottle of Dublin Dr. Pepper made by the world's oldest Dr. Pepper bottling plant in the small town of Dublin, Texas. Unlike ordinary Dr. Pepper, Dublin Dr. Pepper is made according to the original recipe using cane sugar instead of corn syrup - and you can taste the difference. Dublin Dr. Pepper has become sort of a tradition during special Radio Dismuke broadcasts.

One of the vintage records Matt brought along from his collection was an unusual and extremely rare early 1920s marble wax Paramount disc.

Texas Themed Hit of the Week Update

2008-07-25T11:41:00.004-06:00

Just a plug for this week's Hit of the Week Update by guest contributor Eddie The Collector. I think it is an especially good update - and all of the recordings have a Texas connection. Eddie features hard-to-find recordings and provides interesting background information about the Jimmy Joy Orchestra, a now all-but-forgotten territory band based here in Texas. In the 1920s, it was one of the most successful and highly regarded bands in Texas and it went on to achieve a certain amount of national fame.

For the update's Extra section, Eddie features vintage recordings of college fight songs from three famous Texas institutions - SMU, UT and Texas A&M - along with interesting background information about the history of the songs.

The update is currently featured at: http://dismuke.org/how. Once the next update is posted, Eddie's update will be archived under the July 24 entry at: http://dismuke.org/how/prev7-08.html.

19th Century Commercial Interior

2008-07-25T10:31:00.008-06:00

There is another interesting posting at detroitblog - this one about an intact 19th century interior that survives on the top floor of an abandoned 119 year old commercial building. While the rest of the building has been remodeled during the course of many decades, the upper floor was used for storage and was largely ignored.

From the posting:

"Up here, there are square columns made of cast iron, lined across the middle of the floor in strict rows, beautifully painted and topped with lovely details. There are exuberantly layered moldings, piled one atop the other in a burst of whimsy. There are garish colors like turquoise and silver and magenta, and shades of gold everywhere. There is texture throughout, touchable elements to be experienced with more than one sense.

They do not design buildings like this anymore. A modern retail store would not go to such lengths to enchant their customers with such surroundings. These rooms are rare, immediate evidence that a world existed when people sought to make buildings beautiful both inside and out, just to do so."

Based on the photos, I can't say that I am all too fond of the color scheme - though perhaps it may look better in person. But the columns and details are very nice. And the poster's admiration for "a world when people sought to make buildings beautiful both inside and out just to do so" very eloquently captures a sentiment that I have felt ever since I was a child and noticed the enormous contrast between pre-World War II era buildings verses the disgracefully ugly stuff put up during the 1960s and 1970s that still dominated and blighted the landscape. And the spirit of that long-lost world manifested itself in far more than just its buildings.

I am extremely grateful for the advantages that the modern world has to offer in terms of medical advances, a much higher standard of living and the many technological achievements that make our lives easier and better in countless and often under-appreciated ways. But whenever I listen to old music, look at old buildings and old photographs, I cannot help but notice that something very special had become all but lost in our popular culture by the latter part of the 20th century. I am greedy: I want to live in a world that combines the very best of both eras.

World's Oldest Blogger Dies At Age 108

2008-07-19T21:30:00.004-06:00

Olive Riley, the world's oldest blogger has passed away at age 108. This is the first I have heard of her. From the announcement on her blog:

"Her example says; if a woman who left school in 1914, can embrace the internet in her 106th year, what is there you can’t do, friend?...I was gob smacked by this dame with a memory like a hard drive. At 104, Olive was able to remember conversations she’d had in 1908 and bring them to life. Amazing!"

I'll bet it would have been fun to talk with her about old times.

Vince Giordano & His Nighthawks At Hotel Edison

2008-07-17T19:10:00.006-06:00

Via Andy at Radiola! I've learned that Vince Giordano And His Nighthawks have a long-term engagement at Sofia's Restaurant in New York's Hotel Edison.

Catching a performance of The Nighthawks is definitely a "must do" for any 1920s and 1930s music fan's visit to New York City. I got to attend one of their performances in 2005 - and it was a wonderful treat to hear 78 rpm era popular music performed live and in a highly authentic manner without the technological limitations of 78 rpm records. Those not familiar with the band might recognize it from the film The Aviator (which I haven't yet seen - but it is on my "to watch someday" list).

While I have never been to Sofia's Restaurant, the Hotel Edison was one of a number of old art deco skyscrapers that I have visited on my trips to the city. The hotel was built in 1931 and is certainly an appropriate venue for Giordano as a great many of the old "Golden Era" 1930s bands performed at The Edison.

This Old House

2008-07-17T02:02:00.002-06:00

From Detroitblog, the sad story of the decline of a once-grand house and its neighborhood.

The Wonderful World of Hans Fischerkoesen

2008-07-13T20:30:00.004-06:00

A few years ago I discovered and became a big fan of the German cartoonist Hans Fischerkoesen.

Fischerkoesen established his own production company in the 1920s and specialized in advertising cartoons that were shown between features in cinemas. Though Fischerkoesen was very much not a supporter of the National Socialist regime, the advertising nature of his output enabled him to work without a lot of interference from Nazi censors. In 1941, however, Propaganda Minister Goebbels ordered him to collaborate with the German film monopoly UFA for the production of propaganda films - and in those films he was able to sneak in very subtle and implicit jabs against the Nazis. At the end of the war he was arrested by Russian troops on suspicion of being a Nazi collaborator and was held for three years at Sachsenhausen, a former Nazi concentration camp that had been taken over and put back into use by the Russians. In 1948 Fischerkoesen was tried, exonerated and released. Since he was not a communist, however, he was not permitted to work in the East German film industry. He and his wife managed to escape to West Germany where he was able to resume making advertising films and did so through 1969. He died in 1973.

Fisherkoesen's cartoons have an incredible charm about them. Here is one of my favorites. It is a 1937 advertisement for Phillips light bulbs. I especially enjoy the scenes of the animals, insects and flowers.

Here is a 1933 cigarette advertisement in black and white where cigarette smoke is transformed into a ballet:

Finally, here is one of Fischerkoesen's most famous cartoons, Weather Beaten Melody from 1942. The premise of the cartoon is a bee who discovers an abandoned phonograph player left over from a pre-war picnic and is able to revive the spirit of happier and less troubled times. A rather lengthy article at this link talks about some of the implicit anti-Nazi elements in the cartoon - though, in some cases, I think the author is stretching things a bit. Here, too, the scenes featuring assorted animals, insects and plant are very well done and actually have a three dimensional aspect to them as a result of then state-of-the-art stereo animation techniques. It must have been something to see on a big screen in a theater.

You can view a few more Fischerkoesen cartoons by entering his name into a search box on YouTube. Some of the others I did not include here are his post-War efforts which, while well done, strike me as being much more low budget.

Tulsa Auto Hotel

2008-07-13T13:46:00.009-06:00

Who says that, just because parking garages usually are ugly, they have to be ugly.

I took these photos of the 1920s vintage Tulsa Auto Hotel on a trip I made to Tulsa in 2004. Tulsa is a wonderful city to visit because of the large number of incredible buildings that survive from the prosperity of that city's 1920s oil boom.

Unfortunately, the Tulsa Auto Hotel is no longer one of those surviving buildings; when I visited the city again in 2007, it had been demolished and the site was an empty lot with machinery pushing dirt around. I was stunned to see it gone. It was the most unusual parking garage I had ever seen. It was built in an era when aesthetics counted for something.

The skyline in my hometown of Fort Worth is blighted by several tall parking structures that were put up with zero regard to aesthetics. Don't get me wrong - I like having plenty of parking and parking garages are a very necessary means of making such parking available. But why not make them look attractive? Sadly, for a while during the 1960s and 1970s, a lot of high profile buildings were built with the same disregard for aesthetics that goes into the typical parking garage. To be fair, there are a couple of parking structures that have been built in downtown Fort Worth in recent years that do take aesthetics into consideration. Unfortunately, I do not have any photos of them to post. Hopefully, they are the start of a trend and are not just happy exceptions.

My guess is the portion at the far right was added on sometime in the 1950s. The metal portion along the roof was also added on either at the time of the addition or even later.

I took a lot of photos of vintage buildings in Tulsa during my visits to the city. I will share some of them in future postings.

SPAMMOBILE & 1940 Rap Music

2008-07-09T00:11:00.013-06:00

On the Fourth of July I got together with a friend I had not seen in a while and went to see the annual fireworks display at Las Colinas, a large suburban "urban center" in Irving, Texas located between Fort Worth and Dallas. The food vendors that had been set up for the occasion gave the place a bit of a carnival atmosphere. The SPAMMOBILE was also in town for a visit and had set up shop next to the food vendors giving out free samples of the famous Hormel product. By the time we arrived they had stopped giving the samples.

My friend was a bit puzzled by my fascination with the SPAMMOBILE and the fact that I wanted to take photos of it. Part of it was that I found the whole concept of a SPAMMOBILE to be somewhat amusing. Part of it was because it reminded me of the old Moxiemobiles which used to be sent around to events in the early 1900s to advertise my favorite soda pop Moxie.

SPAM certainly has its own vintage credentials. It was introduced in 1937 at the very tail end of the period that Radio Dismuke musically covers. Before that, it had an earlier incarnation as Hormel Spiced Ham which was not successful. The product's new name must have helped as SPAM is still with us - and in more ways than just the food, unfortunately.

SPAM was the sponsor of the autumn 1940 - spring 1941 season of NBC's George Burns & Gracie Allen Show. I am a huge Burns & Allen fan. I think their later TV show was funnier but the original radio program certainly had many great moments. Comedy, in general, does not age well and I personally find a lot of the comedy in vintage radio programs and films to be rather tedious. But Gracie Allen's dumb yet incredibly clever wordplays just crack me up.

In those days most network radio comedy shows had a house band. Burns & Allen had several bands during the course of the program's long run. In the 1940 -1941 season the house band was Artie Shaw's swing band. In addition to leading the band, Shaw performed as a regular cast member and was frequently incorporated into the comedy routines.

The Burns & Allen program from November 18, 1940 especially stands out for a routine that can only be described as an early performance of rap music. I am most emphatically NOT a fan of rap music - but this one is actually quite neat. The lyrics are about SPAM. During the first couple of decades of network radio, it was commonplace for mentions of a sponsor's product to be worked into the content of the program.

I know next to nothing about the history of rap music so I have no idea whether or not this is one of the earlier surviving performances. You can take a listen by clicking on the link below. The link should open up your default mp3 player and start to stream. Artie Shaw also participates in the rap - his is the voice that says "yeah, that's right Gracie, that's the worst one yet."

1940 Spam Rap mp3 stream
(George Burns, Gracie Allen, Artie Shaw & Cast of November 18, 1940 Burns & Allen Program)

Kind of neat, isn't it?

I have read that the practice of incorporating mentions of corporate sponsors into actual program content might be making a come back in television as a way of addressing the fact that, with the advent of video recorders, many viewers simply fast forward past commercials and never see them.

Here are some additional excerpts from the same program which feature plugs for SPAM

Program Intro & SPAM Commercial mp3 stream
This clip also features some brief swing passages by the Artie Shaw Orchestra.

Program Close & SPAM Commercial & NBC Chimes mp3 stream
Just before the electronic NBC radio chimes is a plug for Hormel Chili Con Carne.

Below are some additional photos I took of the SPAMMOBILE as well as a photo of one of the food stands that I thought came out well.

Peruna

2008-07-07T00:42:00.008-06:00

Some months ago, Eddie The Collector, a regular guest contributor to my Hit of the Week updates, visited Fort Worth with a nice big stack of 78 rpm records for me to digitize for future updates. It has taken me a while to get around to doing the audio restoration on all of the recordings. A couple of weekends ago I finally knocked out a good number of them.

One of them was an old Brunswick disc by a group named Cline's Collegians of a song called "Peruna." The song's title made me curious enough to do some digging around on the Internet. My research ended up providing me with a surprise lesson in local Fort Worth/Dallas history.

Peruna was a patent medicine dating back to the late 1800s. For awhile it was the number one selling patent medicine in America. Peruna also contained 28 percent alcohol. When patent medicines went out of style, sales of Peruna declined. When Prohibition came into effect, however, Peruna enjoyed sudden renewed popularity as it continued to be sold at drug stores for medicinal purposes. Needless to say, its new-found popularity had little to do with its alleged medicinal benefits.

Peruna is also the name of the horse that serves as the mascot for Southern Methodist University in Dallas - and, as it turns out, the song on Eddie's 78 rpm record is the SMU fight song. The song dates back to a 1915 SMU pep rally where a student changed the lyrics of "She'll Be Coming 'Round The Mountain" to "she'll be loaded with Peruna when she comes...." - i.e, she'll be drunk as a result of drinking the medicine.

Moreover, the recording itself was recorded in Dallas for Brunswick on October 20, 1928. The leader of Cline's Collegians was Durward Cline who fronted bands in the Dallas area from the 1920s through at least the 1960s and perhaps longer. He died in 1982. As far as I can determine, Cline only had one additional recording session with a major label - a 1929 session when Okeh records came though Dallas with their field recording equipment. Cline was a graduate of the SMU School of Music and, according to a Dallas Morning News story published the day after the recording session, the band was comprised of students and ex-students of SMU. The recording is quite jazzy and evidence that there was a lot of nice musical talent here in this area.

You can take a listen to the recording by clicking on the song's title below. The link should bring up your default mp3 player and stream the song. The stream, by the way, is dial-up friendly. Eddie The Collector will present this recording along with a few other hard-to-find rarities with a Texas connection in an upcoming Hit of the Week update.

Peruna
Cline's Collegians
Recorded in Dallas, October 20, 1928
Brunswick 4162

Dallas Morning News - October 21, 1928

Metropolis - Missing Scenes Rediscovered

2008-07-07T00:06:00.003-06:00

A regular poster on my Message Board mentions in this thread that an original full length copy of the famous 1927 Fritz Lang film Metropolis has been discovered in Argentina. While the film is today considered a classic, it was not successful with German audiences. When it was shown in the United States, its distributor Paramount Pictures edited out about 25 percent of the film on grounds that it was too lengthy and difficult for the American public. As a result, the plot was oversimplified and key scenes were eliminated. Until now, the cut scenes had been presumed lost.

I have heard a lot about Metropolis but have yet to get around to watching it. It is one of many films on my rather lengthy "to watch someday" list. I have seen Lang's Siegfried which I do recommend.

You can read the story about how the rediscovered original copy of Metropolis managed to survive here. You can also see images from the rediscovered scenes here - the images are on the pages following the article.

Posting Again

2008-07-07T00:03:00.003-06:00

Had I known how hectic the past few months would have been, I would have delayed the revival of this blog. Hopefully, I will be able to once again post more regularly.

Tango Stations From Argentina

2008-05-04T17:36:00.003-06:00

Tango is a musical genre that I have an appreciation for - and there are a few 1930s tango recordings in the Radio Dismuke playlist. Tango music was extremely popular in Germany, of all places, in the late 1920s and early 1930 and I actually prefer German tango recordings from that era over the ones from Argentina. And recently I discovered via recordings people have posted to YouTube that tango was apparently also popular in Poland during the same period.

Today I stumbled across two radio stations in Argentina that have a tango format and stream online.

FM Estereo 2000 I listened for about an hour and the vast majority of their selections seem to come from vintage material. A number of them I thought were VERY nice. The stream is dial-up friendly - though the audio quality on some recordings is a bit on the low side for even a 24 kbps stream. To tune into the stream, click on the "En Vivo/Live Here" link.

FM Tango Rosario This station also features vintage tango recordings in its playlist. At 56k, however, the stream will not work for those on dial-up. The audio quality of the recordings is much better than the first station's. Unfortunately, this afternoon, the station streams ONLY from my left speaker. My guess is they have an incorrect setting on their streaming software - and hopefully someone will notice adjust it. Since the recordings are mono, the stream coming from only one speaker does not impact the music quality - but it is a little annoying. To tune into the stream, click on the "Radio Online" link.

Special Nauck's Vintage Records Broadcast

2008-04-21T09:30:00.001-06:00

The fifth semi-annual Nauck's Vintage Records broadcast hosted by Kurt Nauck of 78rpm.com will air at multiple times on Saturday April 26, Sunday April 27 and Saturday May 3.

Nauck's Vintage Records is the world's largest and most prestigious auction house of rare and vintage 78 rpm and cylinder records. The broadcast is held in conjunction with Nauck's current auction which closes May 3. Kurt generously makes available to Radio Dismuke listeners selections from the over 10,000 vintage recordings featured in the auction.

During the broadcasts, Radio Dismuke will depart from its strictly 1920s and 1930s popular music and jazz format to feature recordings from the dawn of recorded sound in the late 1800s through the end of the 78 rpm era in the 1950s. The recordings will come from a wide variety of genres ranging from jazz, to pop, to blues, to classical, to operatic, to ethnic and spoken word recordings and more.

One of the things that makes these broadcasts unique is that Kurt will be playing early wax cylinders on his Archeophone, a modern machine designed specifically for the playback and preservation of vintage cylinder recordings. With its $16,000 price tag, few private collectors can afford to own an Archeophone and they are mostly found in archives and national libraries - but during the broadcast, you will get to hear one in action.

The Nauck's broadcasts provide a unique opportunity for Radio Dismuke listeners to hear and enjoy recordings that, in many cases, are extremely rare and have not been reissued or performed in public in many decades.

For April's broadcast we will retain the new schedule format introduced for last November's broadcast and which was well received. Under the new format, the broadcast continually repeats throughout the day. Since Radio Dismuke is available in all time zones throughout the world, this format makes it easy for international listeners to be able to tune in at a convenient time. It also enables those who miss portions of the broadcast more opportunities to tune in again.

This time around, the broadcast will start at 11:00 AM Central Time in the United States on Saturday, April 26. It will then continuously repeat throughout the day Saturday and all day on Sunday, April 27. Normal Radio Dismuke programing will resume early Monday morning as soon as the last airing of the Nauck's broadcast has completed. The broadcast will then be aired again on Saturday, May 3 at 8:00 AM Central Time in the United States and be rebroadcast throughout the day. Normal Radio Dismuke programing will resume that Sunday morning as soon as the last airing of the Nauck's broadcast has completed.

Because the final production copy of the broadcast has not yet been delivered, the exact length is not yet known. Previous broadcasts have lasted between 5 and 7 hours. However, once the exact length is known, it will be posted to the Radio Dismuke website so that listeners will have an estimate of when the various replays of the broadcast will start.

For more information about the broadcast and to find the specific start times in your timezone, visit the Radio Dismuke website at http://RadioDismuke.com

Clover Leaf Garage

2008-03-20T01:30:00.004-06:00

Here is an orphaned snapshot that caught my attention when I came across it recently in an antique shop. Unfortunately, there is no information as to when or where it was taken. You can click on the image to view it in greater detail.

My guess is it from sometime in the 1920s. The glass globe above the man's head and an identical globe on the other side of the window say "Sinclair Oils." The buildings are much older - from the last couple of decades of the 19th century. Presumably the man was either the owner or an employee of the garage. Is the child on the tricycle his? Or is it just some random kid who happened to be there when the photo was posed?

I like to think that somebody somewhere has another copy of this photo - somebody who either knows who the man and child in it were or at least the name of the city and street. Somebody obviously cared enough about it to preserve it for a good many decades. Yet, in the end, it was relegated to a box in the corner of some antique shop along with a few hundred other forgotten images waiting for someone like me to come along and fork over a dollar for it.

Busy

2008-03-10T11:28:00.003-06:00

No, I have not abandoned the blog. But things have been busy. I have a few postings floating around in my head - it is just a matter of setting aside a bit of time to type them in.

Aleksander Zabczynski

2008-02-29T02:50:00.004-06:00

In recent weeks, I have been spending time on YouTube discovering some of the 1930s era Polish recordings that people have been kind enough to upload. Until the Internet came along, access to such recordings was all but impossible for the average person here in the United States.

Here is one of the vintage Polish recordings that I discovered and fell for immediately. It is called "Nadine" and is performed by Polish film star Aleksander Zabczynski with a really charming and peppy band in the background. While this recording was made in 1934, it still retains a certain "Roaring '20s" spirit that, by then, had all but disappeared from American popular music. The evening I discovered this, I must have played it back a dozen or so times.

I had never heard of Zabczynski before I discovered this clip. But you can learn more about him by going to the clip's page on the YouTube website and look for the "About This Video" section on the top right hand portion and click on the "more" link to show the details. The story of his life and career is actually rather sad. Five years after this grand and happy recording was made, as was the case for so many Europeans and certainly for all Poles, Zabczynski's world was suddenly transformed into a living hell at the hands of not just one but two of history's most brutal and murderous totalitarian regimes. For Poland, the nightmare of totalitarian rule would last for a full half century.

The good news is that Poland has regained its freedom and people around the world can now access and enjoy wonderful recordings such as this that, even in the 1930s, were virtually unknown here in the United States.

While I do feature a limited number of European recordings on Radio Dismuke your best source of for exploring vintage European recordings from the 1920s - 1940s is Weimar Rundfunk. The easiest way to tune in is though the station's tune-in page on the Live365.com website.

1923 Time Travel Shopping Trip

2008-02-24T14:19:00.010-06:00

One of the occasional features of this blog will be time travel "shopping trips" in which we will compare prices from the "Golden Era" with those of comparable items today. Of course, in order to make any such comparison meaningful, it will be necessary for us to adjust for currency inflation.

One of the aspects of today's world that I very much do value and appreciate is the fact that prices, on average, tend to be significantly lower - and, at the same time, we also earn a lot more money than our grandparents did. Sure, there is a lot that is nasty, ugly and utterly empty about today's music and popular culture and it is sometimes awfully tempting to want to step into a time machine and go back. Nevertheless, speaking strictly in terms of our material standard of living, it is we, not our grandparents, who are fortunate enough to live in a "Golden Era."

Looking at prices in old advertisements can be deceptive. At first glance, it looks like everything was much less expensive because the dollar values quoted are so much lower than the prices of today. But, in reality, it is not that prices have gone up so much as the fact that value of our currency has gone down - as these vintage "shopping trips" will demonstrate.

Ignoring short-term events such as wars and economic downturns, over the long run, prices of most items we buy have fallen while wages have steadily increased. One major reason for this is that technological advances result in more economical methods of making things. Technology also makes it possible for workers to be more productive. A man operating a backhoe can dig up more dirt in a few hours than ten men with shovels could in an entire day - and this makes it possible for today's backhoe operator to earn more money with less effort than his great grandfather could earn doing the same work with a shovel.

The tool I will be using to adjust prices for inflation is this nifty Cost of Living Calculator from the American Institute For Economic Research. This calculator lets you pick any year between 1913 and 2007 and tells you what a given dollar amount in one year was worth in another. If you have access to vintage advertisements, you can use this calculator to make your own vintage shopping trips.

For today's shopping trip our time machine will take us back to the year 1923. According to the calculator, $1 in 1923 had about the same purchasing power as $12.12 in today's money.

But before we step into our time machine, if we are going to go shopping, it helps to have some money in our pockets. And, as we all know, money doesn't just appear in one's pocket by magic. For most people, it is necessary to have a job and a paycheck first. So it is also important to know how much people were paid back in 1923.

Unfortunately, there is no similar calculator to compare wages. But I did find a website that quotes the 1920 census as showing that, in the year 1920, the average annual wage in the United States was about $1,500. Plug that into the Cost of Living Calculator and that ends up being roughly $18,180 in today's currency. By contrast, according to this chart by the Social Security Administration, the average wage in the United States in 2006 was $38,651.

In other words, the average wage in the United States in 1920 was only 47 percent of what it was in 2006. So when we go on our shopping trip and convert 1923 prices into today's money, imagine that you are paying those prices while bringing in 53 percent less money per year than you currently do. Also, keep in mind that, in 1920, married women usually stayed home to take care of the house and kids. So not only were the wages significantly lower, two income households were nowhere near as common as they are today.

Time Travel Shopping Trip

Our time machine drops us off on a cold winter day at a modest but respectable middle class home somewhere in America. The mid-winter sales circular from Montgomery Ward is sitting on a table offering sale prices on all sorts of items. But we must hurry and decide what we are going to buy - the special prices end on February 28, 1923.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the big Chicago mail order houses Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck were, for all intents and purposes, the Wal-marts of their day. Just as small town merchants today complain that they are unable to sell as low as Wal-mart, 100 years ago similar merchants complained about how "unfair" it was that Montgomery Ward and Sears were siphoning off all their customers by offering prices that were sometimes even less than what the merchants themselves had to pay for similar items. But during the period this catalog was current, the world was beginning to change for the big mail order houses. The advent of the automobile and better roads made it easier for rural families to make more frequent shopping trips into town. A new company, J.C. Penny, started opening stores in towns all across the country offering low prices without the wait and shipping charges associated with mail order. By the end of the decade, Montgomery Ward and Sears were both busy opening hundreds of retail stores of their own.

Here is an in-house Montgomery Ward brand electric vacuum cleaner. It does not have any fancy attachments - what you see in the drawing is what you get.

If you pay for it in cash and have standard city electricity, you can buy it on sale for $29.95. (An extra dollar will get you a model that has a 32 volt motor for homes where farm lighting plants made by Powerlite or Delco are in use). In today's money the vacuum will cost you $363.08. If you don't have or want to spend all that money at once, Wards will let you put down $5 and pay it off for $5 more every month. In today's money, that works out to $60.61 per month.

Today, you can easily pay over $363 for a high end vacuum cleaner. But a Montgomery Ward store brand model of anything was hardly a high end product and it did not have any of the special features higher priced modern vacuums do. I have no way of knowing or comparing specs such as suction power, durability, etc. But a quick look at the Wal-mart and Target websites shows several models of vacuum cleaners made by Hoover and Eureka in the $75 - $150 range that I would guess are just as good, if not better, than the 1923 Monkey Ward model.

If paying a couple of hundred dollars extra for a product such as a vacuum cleaner which will, presumably, last you a number of years does not seem all that harsh, keep in mind that, for this shopping trip, your annual income is the 1920 national average of $18,180 in today's money - and prices of other things you will need to buy are also higher.

Unfortunately, unless you live in town, chances are that, here in 1923, an electric vacuum cleaner will be useless to you as electrification has yet to make its way to most rural areas. So here is a vacuum cleaner that does not require electricity. The ad says: "the suction force is produced by a revolving fan propelled by the rubber tired wheels." This model set you back $14.98 or $181.60 in today's money.

To find a comparable product for sale today I suspect one would have to go to a third world country. Here in the USA, even the most isolated farms have had electricity since at least the 1950s.

Here is a special price on auto batteries - again with with Ward's in-house store brand. The ad claims that one can save between $6.50 and $15 ($78.80 - $181.84 in today's money) by buying your battery at Wards instead of a service station.

If you drive a Model T Ford, you can buy a battery for the $11.75 price displayed in red type at the top of the ad. That's $142.44 in today's money. Batteries for other makes of cars cost more - up to $17.75 for Dodge and Maxwell cars. That's $215.18 in today's money. And all batteries are guaranteed for whopping 18 months - unless you drive a Model T Ford, in which case the guarantee is only for 12 months.

I just made a quick visit to the website for Auto Zone and pulled up the price for a battery for the vehicle I drive. Two low-end batteries listed with 48 month warranties did not have price information available. A battery with a 72 month warranty costs $54.99. My guess is if one were to go to Wal-mart, the price would be even less, especially if one were to drop down to a 48 month warranty.

Batteries are one product where prices have fallen significantly while storage capacity and length of service has, at the same time, vastly improved. On future time travel shopping trips we will take a look at just how expensive it was for rural households to operate their battery-powered radio sets in the late 1920s and 1930s.

Here in 1923, every penny counts. And since married women usually stay at home, they have the time to save money by making their own clothes.

For $4 down - $48.49 in today's money - one can buy this Damascus Vibrating Shuttle sewing machine on a $4 monthly installment plan until it is paid off at a price of $29.95 or $363.08 in today's money. If you are able to pay in cash, the price is only $27.95 or $338.83 in today's money. The machine is manually powered by the large pedal at the bottom.

I know next to nothing about sewing machines, so I am not not the best person to compare features. Wal-mart's website offers a machine at $39.87 and another one at $56.70 and I suspect that both are capable doing of everything that the vintage Wards machine was able to. For $179 Wal-mart offers a machine that is advertised as being "computerized" - whatever that means.

True, today's sewing machines are rather bland looking and don't come with the attractive cabinet made of "genuine quarter sawed veneered oak." But since they are electrically powered and do not need a huge pulley system, they can be easily stored away out of view when they are not in use instead of taking up space that could be used for some other piece of furniture.

Here is a machine to wash the clothes made by the sewing machine. It is called the Cyclone Vacuum Washer and is strictly mechanical. It claims that your clothes will last twice as long as they are not rubbed. Instead, "this machine washes by suction, one of the most efficient methods of washing ever discovered. The vacuum cups plunge down into the water and at the same time rotate forcing hot suds through every fiber of the cloth. This loosens the particles of dirt. Then, when the cups are withdrawn, a suction is created which draws the dirt right out of the clothes. "

Oh, yes - it is necessary to manually heat up and add the water to the machine before you use it. I am not sure if the rinsing is done in a separate tub or not. To operate the machine, you will need to stand besides it and move the handle back and forth until your clothes are clean. And afterwards you will need to manually run the clothes one at a time through a wringer.

This washer sells for $13.95 or $169.11 in today's money. I couldn't find a modern washer online for $169 - though I'll bet one can buy a used one for less than that. BestBuy.com has washers starting at $269 and all you have to do is load the clothes and soap and come back later. The water is added and drained automatically and the machine does all the work.

This tea kettle caught my attention because I recently purchased a kettle at Target for about $9. The $1.89 price tag in 1923 works out to $22.91 in today's money.

My cheapo $9 Target teapot is stainless steel whereas the 1923 Monkey Ward cheapo teapot is only made out of aluminum. I did see some other tea kettles in Target approaching $20 but the primary difference between them and the one I bought was the higher priced ones tended to be more attractively designed. All of them, however, had a 2 quart capacity whereas smallest Montgomery Ward kettle listed was 5 quarts and they even offered one that was 8 quart.

I don't think I have ever seen a 5 quart, let alone an 8 quart, tea kettle for sale. I guess back then housewives needed two gallon kettles in order to heat up enough water for their manual Cyclone Vacuum Washers.

Unfortunately, the size difference makes a price comparison between modern kettles difficult. Today, however, the only the cheapest low end tea kettles are all aluminum.

At last, we finally find a product that appears to be a bargain even when compared with today's prices. The $1.69 for a 5 foot ladder works out to $20.49 in today's money. The $1.98 for a 6 foot ladder works out to $24. That strikes me as being a pretty low price for a step ladder. Home Depot's website offers a 6 foot fiberglass step ladder for $39.

Not everything was more expensive back then. The price of a house, for example, was significantly less than what it is today even after adjusting for inflation. This is true despite the advent of labor saving devices and low cost materials that are standard in modern construction. On the other hand, it was a lot more difficult to buy a house. Mortgages were usually issued only if a person had 40 or 50 percent equity in the house and the duration of the average mortgage was much shorter than today's standard 30 years. The advent of cheap and easy credit and long-term mortgages has made it possible for a larger pool of potential buyers to bid prices up.

Work requiring manual labor or skills that are not easy or possible to replace by technology usually cost less in the 1920s. One of the challenges in restoring certain vintage buildings is the high price one has to pay for the skilled craftsmen that are necessary in order to do the job right. In the early 1900s such craftsmen were plentiful and they were often low paid European immigrants from families who had handed the craft down from father to son for generations. Today, such craftsmen are very expensive as their numbers are few. In order to hire them, one has to be competitive with the pay scales of all of the other professions they could potentially work in.

Looking at old photographs and listening to vintage records, I have often envied those who were able to experience the pre-World War II decades first hand. But the reality is that the average person today enjoys conveniences and a level of material prosperity that our grandparents, even during the boom years of the 1920s, couldn't have even imagined.

The focus of Radio Dismuke and this blog is to celebrate those aspects of the 1920s and 1930s that I think were vastly better and which, to various degrees, have disappeared from our popular culture. It is easy for enthusiasts of the early 1900s to acquire a highly romanticized view of the period and overlook certain aspects of it that were not so great compared with our own era. Since we have no choice but to live in the age into which we are born, I think it is important to recognize the aspects of modern life which are worthy of appreciation and admiration so that we can consciously enjoy them rather than taking them for granted.

I am occasionally asked, if such a choice were possible, whether I would prefer to live back then or to stay in the present. My answer is neither. I am greedy: I want a future that combines the best of both eras. In order to get there, however, it is necessary for our culture to rediscover the many wonderful things from previous eras which have been largely forgotten or lost. One of the purposes of Radio Dismuke is to help contribute to that necessary process of rediscovery.

Three Ian House Websites

2008-02-21T22:01:00.016-06:00

One of the the regular features of this blog will be reviews of various websites that I think might be of interest to Radio Dismuke listeners and other early 1900s enthusiasts. As the reviews appear, I will add the sites to the new "Reviewed Websites" links section on the right hand column of the blog.

Those who are regulars at my Message Board will already be familiar with Ian House. He is by far the most prolific participant and the board would not be the same without his wit and his passion for the early 1900s decades.

I have corresponded with Ian for about 6 years and, in 2006, I finally got to meet him when he visited Texas during a cross country move. Last summer I met up with Ian and regular Radio Dismuke contributor Eddie The Collector in Tulsa, Oklahoma for a few days to see a 50 year old Plymouth unearthed from a time capsule and to visit the many impressive vintage buildings in that city that still survive as reminder of its incredible wealth during the 1920s oil boom.

In addition to being an interesting fellow, Ian is a talented web designer and is responsible for three web sites that I think will be of definite interest to early 1900s enthusiasts.

The American Package Museum
www.PackageMusum.com

According to the website's mission statement, the purpose of the Package Museum is to "preserve and display specimens of American package design from the early decades of the 20th Century."

The "museum" in the website's name is highly appropriate, I think, as one of the things the site does is provide a glimpse at some of the possibilities that could be open to real life brick and mortar museums in an online age.

When you access the website and get past the opening page, click on "Index" for a list of items in the museum's collection. Follow the links and you will see a photo of each item. So far so good - if you are a fan of the early 1900s, you will probably enjoy looking at the artwork on the packaging of various products that were commonplace at the time.

On some of the items in the collection, however, you will see a link to a 3-D view. (If you are on a dial-up connection, you will find 3-D views frustratingly slow and would probably be better off viewing the standard photos and bookmarking the page for viewing when you eventually upgrade your connection.) If you are on a high speed connection, the 3-D items are very interesting. With your mouse, you can "pick up" the items, spin them around and view them from any angle.

I think a great many museums with vastly greater resources than Ian has at his disposal would do well to take notes.

One of the limitations museums and archives face is a lack of space to be able to put all of the items in their collections on permanent display. As a result, a great deal of our cultural and artistic heritage that is held by museums and a vast amount of information that is stored in archives ends up being effectively warehoused and out of sight to all but museum employees and a handful of researchers who have the time to dig through them and the credentials to be allowed access.

Another limitation faced by any museum is the fact that its geographical location necessarily limits access. A fascinating exhibit by a museum on the other side of he continent or halfway around the world is of little use to those who lack the time and money to travel to it.

Online exhibits can go far in addressing both limitations.

Clearly some of the items currently warehoused by museums are easier to place online than others. For example, photographs and paper documents are very easy to digitize for online viewing. And there are some institutions that have put forth great efforts in that area. Yet, oddly enough, there are still a lot of museums, libraries and archives with important collections of historical photographs and paper documents that have shown little, if any, initiative towards making them available online. I have yet to understand why as, in the grand scheme of things, putting content online is relatively affordable. Operating a scanner is not a difficult skill to teach and is work well suited for volunteers and low-paid interns. Most museums already have at least some sort of web presence and, therefore, presumably a webmaster.

Not only would online exhibits help widen the reach and promote the mission of such institutions, I suspect that they could generate revenue via ad sales and, in the case of photos, from sales of quality prints of the low resolution images that are sufficient for online display.

How many times have you seen news stories about important discoveries turning up among items that have been warehoused away and forgotten about for decades in a museum or archive? Placing such content online - and in the case of written documents, making the contents searchable - could result in who knows what sort of new discoveries by virtue of the larger number of eyes and minds looking at it and integrating the information with other knowledge, perhaps acquired online from similar institutions with digitized collections.

Of course, there are a lot of other things on display in museums that are more problematic in terms of making them available online. For example, artworks such as statues, archaeological specimins, fossils and rocks, etc. are all three dimensional and best appreciated in person. And it is in this area that Ian's Package Museum illustrates how such items can, in fact, be displayed online.

Seeing things online is certainly not the same as viewing them in person. But it sure beats not seeing them at all. And in the case of some items, a three dimensional online exhibit actually has certain advantages. For example, a real museum holding an exhibit of vintage product packaging would never allow visitors to handle such items and inspect the various angles not easily visible in their display case. Vintage packages are way too fragile and would end up destroyed. It is far easier to view the artwork and text on all six sides of the Gillette razor blades box in Ian's virtual museum than it is likely to be when looking at the real thing in a brick and mortar museum.

Imagine if Ian's "museum" had the resources to significantly expand its collection and the staff to put it online. There are plenty of real museums out there that have wonderful and extensive collections in various areas and vast resources at their disposal. A Google search for "3-D museum" turns up a handful of other attempts in this direction, most notably this one by the UC Davis Geology Department. But it is pretty clear that the larger and better known museums have not jumped on the bandwagon - which I find a bit surprising given that the software to produce such content has been available for several years now and web storage costs and bandwidth prices these days have become very inexpensive.

Lee Morse - Echoes of a Songbird
www.LeeMorse.com

Most regular Radio Dismuke listeners and fans of 1920s and 1930s popular music fans are already familiar with at least some of Lee Morse's recordings.

As a result of his enthusiasm for her recordings and his subsequent research, Ian has become, without a doubt, the world's foremost living authority and biographer on Lee Morse.

Lee Morse had a vocal style that was highly unusual and unique even during the peak of her popularity. Her deep voice, along with the name "Lee," led her to be sometimes billed on records as "Miss Lee Morse" just so that there would be no confusion. And sometimes, in the middle of a song, she would break out into a yodel - her answer to the scat singing popular with certain other jazz vocalists of the period.

Ian has been researching Morse's life and career for several years now and has even met with some of her surviving relatives.

Morse's career went into a slow decline starting in 1930 when excessive drinking resulted in her being fired and replaced by Ruth Etting as the lead in the Broadway production Simple Simon. It was in that role that Etting introduced the hit song "Ten Cents A Dance" that she is best remembered for.

In the mid-1930s Morse contracted a very severe case of strep throat and was told that her singing career was over. She then moved to Texas for a stay with relatives. Her voice, however, recovered and she was soon performing at various nightspots, hotels and on radio broadcasts here in Fort Worth and in nearby Dallas. For a few years, she and her common law husband Bob Downey called the Fort Worth area home.

When Ian made his visit to Texas in 2006, I accompanied him as he visited Palo Pinto, Texas where Morse's ancestors were prominent pioneer settlers and as he researched the archives at the local library for information about her time in the area.

Ian's website is a tribute to Morse's life and career and features a biographical time line, a photo gallery and a "media room" where you can view three early 1930s musical short film features she appeared in.

Also check out the "Her Songbook" section of the site where you can listen to audio streams of most of her 78 rpm recordings - all from Ian's personal collection. Some of these records from Ian's collection were used in the 2-CD set issued in 2005 by the Jasmine label called Lee Morse: Echoes of a Songbird which can be purchased at Amazon.com and elsewhere. For the CD reissue, the records were processed through very expensive and top of the line CEDAR audio restoration equipment. If you enjoy the recordings on Ian's site, you will definitely want to get the CD - which he also did the graphics and liner notes for - as the sound quality is significantly better.

Ian also maintains a Lee Morse profile on myspace.com which, like all of his online endeavors, is very attractive and well done. It is definitely worth a "friends request" from early 1900s enthusiasts on myspace.

Retro Sign Shop
www.RetroSignShop.com

Ian also has a commercial website which sells reproduction tin signs of nostalgic advertisements, trademarks and products. He has 674 different signs to choose from.

Similar reproduction signs are not too difficult to find at various retail shops in tourist trap towns, at flea markets and online. However, it is rare to find as many choices in one place. Nor does one usually find them for as low a price as Ian is offering them for - $8.99 each with free shipping within the USA if you purchase more 8 or more.

I have a similar reproduction tin sign which I purchased a few years ago for $12 at a large second-hand and close out bookstore chain here in Texas where everything is usually significantly discounted. At the time, I thought the $12 they were asking was cheap. So what Ian is offering them for is definitely a good price. His signs are an attractive and inexpensive option for someone wishing to add a retro feel to a casual room in one's house or business. The fact that such signs do not need to be framed makes them even more of a bargain.

1933 Philco Winamp Skin

2008-02-20T01:35:00.003-06:00

Ever wish you could listen to Radio Dismuke and other vintage programs such as old time radio comedies, dramas and adventure programs through one of those really cool vintage radios? Via this thread on The Fedora Lounge I learned of a Winamp skin based on a 1933 Philco cathedral radio that allows one to at least pretend one is doing so in a virtual sort of way.

Winamp is the mp3 player program that I usually use when listening to Internet radio streams (though I use other programs for managing and organizing mp3 files, burning to CD, etc. ) so I decided to give it a try.

I have installed other Winamp skins before and have always ended up going back the default skin the program comes with. The default skin may not be very attractive, but at least I can easily find all of the various features that I need - and Winamp does have quite a number of nice features.

Happily, I was able easily locate most of the commonly used features on the Philco skin - and after a few minutes, I figured out that by right clicking on the mouse I was able to access those functions that are not visible on the skin.

My only major complaint is that, while there is an area provided for the the track and title information to scroll across, it is too small for the text to be legible. This is not a huge problem for me because, even on the default skin where the text is easily visible, I find the fact that it scrolls to be a bit of a pain as one has to wait a few seconds for all of the information to scroll by. Instead, when I am using the default skin, I always open the Playlist Editor window which provides the track information in an instantly readable list. The Philco skin also has a Playlist Editor window which is easy to read and appears as a separate wooden cabinet. The skin's equalizer feature also appears as a separate wooden cabinet - and its attractiveness rivals that of the main radio portion.

I have never been able to install Winamp skins according to the directions provided on the Winamp website. Supposedly when you download and run the skin, Winamp is supposed to automatically start with the new skin installed. That does not work for me. What I do instead is simply download the skin directly to the "Skins" folder inside the Winamp program folder on my hard drive which is located at: C:\Program Files\Winamp. Then all one has to do is open up Winamp, right click on the player and select "Skins" from the menu. The name of the downloaded skin should appear and, as soon as one selects it, the skin is installed. To change back, simply right click, select "Skins" and select one of the two default skins "classic" or "modern."

Whoever put the Philco skin together did a great job in making it very attractive. But I can't say that having an attractive Winamp skin is all that much of a big deal for me personally as I usually keep the player minimized when I am listening. My primary concern is that I can easily view track information when I hear a song I especially like and that I have no problems getting the player's various functions to to work. But judging by the number Winamp skins available, a lot of people enjoy them and this is certainly a appropriately themed one for those who listen to vintage music and old time radio through their computers.

There is another vintage radio skin mentioned in the Fedora Lounge thread based on the 1936 Zenith Stratosphere that not strike me as being quite as attractive and which I did not try out. And if you are not into retro radios or find them to be a bit out of place on a computer screen, there are certainly plenty of other Winamp skins for you to choose from based on a wide variety of themes and styles.

Personal AM Radio Transmitters And A Word Of Caution

I am, by the way, a huge fan of vintage radios and have multiple sets in every room of my house and several more in storage that I do not have room to display. Some still work while others do not. Whether they work or not does not make a whole lot of difference for me as the only thing they will pick up when they do work is modern radio stations - and there is no music on those that I am even remotely interested in. I have the radios around mostly because I love how they look.

There are personal AM radio transmitters available that will transmit programing from a computer or any other audio source to AM radios throughout one's house without violating any FCC frequency interference laws. Because some of my vintage radios do work, I thought it would be fun to get one and use it to transmit vintage music from my computer. And that would certainly be a far more authentic experience than a retro themed Winamp skin.

The least expensive transmitters are available in kit form. I purchased such a kit but, despite being careful, my attempt to assemble it was unsuccessful. After that, I sprang for a pre-assembled model. Unfortunately, what the advertisement for it failed to mention was that it is necessary to have an antenna in order for the thing to achieve even a minimal amount of range. The little makeshift antenna that I threw together with old wire was barely able to transmit halfway across the room. I have subsequently found instructions on how to build a decent antenna. But that would put me back in the position of having a do-it-yourself electronics project - which is not the sort of thing I enjoy and is more likely to result in frustration instead of success. All I wanted when I purchased the pre-assembled model was something that I could take out of the box, plug in and have it work.

There are additional transmitters on the market and I have read about vintage radio collectors having success in using them. My suggestion, however, for those who are not into electronics projects is to ask about included antennas and their range before you fork over any money.

Ernst Lubitsch Film Collecton On DVD

2008-02-17T20:05:00.008-06:00

My friend and regular Radio Dismuke contributor Matt From College Station informs me that the Criterion Collection has just reissued a 4 DVD box set of early 1930s Ernst Lubitsch movie musicals. Included in the set are The Love Parade (1929), The Smiling Lieutenant (1931), One Hour With You (1932) and Monte Carlo (1930).

Based on the handful I have seen so far, I highly recommend Lubitsch films. Two that are not part of this collection Ninotchka (1939) and the silent The Student Prince In Old Heidelberg (1927) rank among the best films I have seen.

Until this box set, as with so many vintage films from the period, the only way that most people wishing to see the films could do so was through bootleg copies that are sometimes made available in various Internet venues by collectors and film enthusiasts - and quite often such bootlegs are blurry after several generations of VHS copying and recopying. This is not only an opportunity for these films to find a wider audience, it will enable fans to obtain high quality, restored copies.

Of the four films in the box set, I have have seen and can comment on One Hour With You and The Smiling Lieutenant. I highly recommend both - even to modern audiences who are not necessarily into the 1930s scene. As part of the recommendation, I should point out that I am often very hesitant to recommend movie musicals from this period to those who are not already hard-core fans of the era. Beyond the primitive production qualities of the early talkie musicals, very often the plots - or what barely passes for a plot - are trite and tedious. Even I have been known to grow impatient and fast forward to the song and dance scenes knowing full well that I am not missing out on much. A great many of the musicals and comedies of that era simply do not age well.

This is not the case with either One Hour With You or The Smiling Lieutenant. Both films are refreshingly charming yet sophisticated. And both have a wonderful, light-hearted benevolence that has long since completely disappeared from our popular culture. They are like a window to a very different world that has sadly been lost. And, unlike a lot of movie musicals from the period, they have storylines that are actually engaging and that you do not feel like you have seen a thousand times before. Nor is the music the typical fare found in the Jazz Age Hollywood revues that dominated the genre (not that there is anything wrong with such music - I am a big fan): both feature elegant and lush scores by Viennese operetta composer Oscar Straus.

Both films - especially The Smiling Lieutenant - are also very pre-Code and contain scenes and situations that simply would not have been allowed by the Hollywood censors had they been made a few years later. Films from this period were pretty much locked away after they had their run in theaters and were forgotten about. When television came on the scene in the late 1940s, there was a sudden need by stations for content to fill out their broadcast day - and for this they turned to the dusty old film vaults of the Hollywood studios. Television is what ended up being the salvation of a great many 1930s films which existed on highly unstable celluloid film and would otherwise have simply deteriorated had reprints not been made as a result of their new-found broadcast viability. Unfortunately, on occasion, certain scenes from pre-Code films were considered to be too suggestive or shocking for presentation on 1950s era television - and some scenes from One Hour With You ended up being edited out for that reason. Matt tells me, however, that the cut scenes have been added back in the new Criterion release.

The Smiling Lieutenant, on the other hand, was not rereleased for television audiences as there was simply no way of editing out the fact that Maurice Chevalier and Claudette Colbert's characters were living together and - well, doing the sort of stuff that young unmarried men and women who live together do. Paramount actually wanted to rerelease the film in theaters in 1936 but was unable to get it past the Production Code Administration which insisted on no less than 27 edits. As a result, the film was presumed to be lost for many decades until a copy turned up in a European vault sometime in the 1970s.

Of the two, I think that One Hour With You, which features Maurice Chevalier and Jeannette MacDonald, is the best one for modern audiences to start with. Despite its vintage and the fact that there is a tendency for comedy not to age well, the film is still very witty and, as I have already mentioned, incredibly charming.

The Smiling Lieutenant, staring Maurice Chevalier and Claudette Colbert, is also a very nice film - but for me it is special because it is movie adaptation of my all-time favorite operetta, Oscar Straus's A Waltz Dream (Ein Walzertraum) which dates back to 1908. The music from the operetta is incredibly beautiful and is featured throughout the film.

The film collection is available at Amazon.com The list price is $69.99 - but if you follow the "other sellers" link, you can get for as little as $44. Not only is that a decent price for four films, unlike releases of modern mass market films, Criterion releases are issued in limited quantities and, once they are sold out, used copies frequently go for full price or more. For that reason, if you are interested, you will probably want to order quickly before it is no longer easily available.

I did find two excerpts of One Hour With You on YouTube. The first clip is from early in the movie and features a very pretty Oscar Straus tune.

The second clip features the film's title song. Unlike the music rest of the music in the movie, this is not an Oscar Straus song but rather a Leo Robin/Richard Whiting composition. I very much enjoy this scene - though to fully appreciate it and the wonderful expressions on the characters' faces it is necessary to be familiar with the storyline. The band visible in the scene, by the way, is Jimmie Grier's orchestra which was, at the time, performing in the famed Cocoanut Grove at the recently destroyed Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Donald Novis performs the initial vocal in the clip and he later recorded the same song with the Grier orchestra on 78 rpm for Victor - a recording which turned up decades later in another great film, Paper Moon.

The Nicholas Brothers

2008-02-15T03:36:00.003-06:00

One of the places where the rebirth of interest in 1920s and 1930s popular culture is taking place is YouTube. Recommendations of YouTube clips will certainly be part of future blog postings. The problem is where to start. There are so many great clips available, I could spend hours posting recommendations - and it would be more than anyone would likely have time to watch.

I can't think of a better place to start than the Nicholas Brothers, a tap dancing act in the 1930s and 1940s that I have become a huge fan of. You can read more about them at: http://www.nicholasbrothers.com/index.htm

"Lucky Number"

Here they are in 1936 appearing in a short feature film The Black Network

"Jumpin' Jive"

Here they are in 1942 from the film Stormy Weather. The clip starts out with a vocal performance by Cab Calloway backed by his band. The Nicholas Brothers appear about 1 minute 35 seconds into the clip - and their performance here is simply amazing.

I'm Back!

2008-02-14T21:25:00.006-06:00

Or, rather, this blog is back. I have decided to revive it with a somewhat broader focus. I will not have a set posting schedule - but the blog will be updated much more frequently than it was when it was previously active.

There were several reasons why I stopped posting here last summer. One was simply a matter of time management. Writing the sort of articles I that I was putting up is time consuming - and between a full time job, the time I already spend digitalizing recordings and keeping the radio station running plus the ordinary chores and tasks that everyone has to deal with, I was already pretty stretched thin to begin with. Yes, one can fight city hall. The problem is doing so requires time.

The sort of postings that I plan to put up here in the future will usually not be as time consuming to write.

Another reason I stopped posting is there has been precious little news to report regarding the Internet radio royalty situation since my last posting. The negotiations that were mentioned in that posting are supposedly still in progress. But since they are held behind closed doors and I am way too small a player to be in on them, I and many other webcasters have been pretty much in the dark about what is going on. This, of course, makes it very difficult for the operator of any Internet radio station to plan for the future or, in the case of stations that are significantly larger than mine, to attract investors. Undoubtedly this is one of the motives the RIAA has for dragging this on for so long.

This posting from the founder of SomaFM is the closest thing I have found to a recent update on the royalty situation. Keep in mind that the negotiations with the RIAA's SoundExchange are not a single set of negotiations with all webcasters but rather a series of separate negotiations with "small" webcasters, "large" webcasters, "non-commercial" webcasters, etc. One of the networks Radio Dismuke is carried on, Live 365, is considered a "large" webcaster based on its revenues despite the fact that it is home to some of the smallest Internet radio stations. The other network my station is carried on is LoudCity which is considered a "small" webcaster. So any "deal" that might come along for one may not be valid for the other.

Finally, a major reason why I stopped posting is simply because I can only focus on evil and irrational people so long before it really starts to get to me. What the Luddites at the RIAA have been trying to do in order to kill off Internet radio and replace it with an online carbon copy of AM/FM radio type programing as part of their desperate attempt to protect their antiquated and obsolete business model from emerging competition makes my blood boil. That, along with the possibility that the Internet radio station I had put so much effort and devotion into building and which has brought new visibility to a mostly forgotten genre of music that I passionately love was going to be forced to shut down, brought things to the point where my frustration over the situation and my hatred towards the RIAA Luddites was starting to dominate my life and my thinking. For the sake of my overall outlook on life and my happiness, it become very important for me to instead focus my thoughts and energies on the thing that I value and the things which are within my ability to change for the better rather than on desperate and scared Luddites whom I despise, have zero influence over and who would be impervious to any argument that I might make no matter how logical, valid and eloquently stated. Let's just say I needed to take a vacation away from the subject for a while. The lack of any significant news or progress about the royalty situation resulted in that vacation being much longer than I anticipated.

The good news is that, during the time since my last posting, I have had the pleasure of watching the RIAA's world continue to crash down around them and at a rate much faster than I had anticipated. Even the heads of some of the RIAA labels and a former RIAA executive have pretty much openly admitted that they realize their old game will soon be up and that their shortsightedness and their fear and hostility towards new technologies is largely to blame. Happily, I think that such realizations on their part are too little too late to save them. The labels are still talking about how they are seeking new business models. That is something they should have done ten years ago. If they haven't figured it out now - well, they are in deep doo doo. Indeed, there is talk that the RIAA itself may not exist for very much longer.

A number of things I predicted in my earlier postings with regard to the eventual downfall of the recording industry have actually started to happen - and I will most likely, at some point, put up a few "I told you so" type postings which will provide the details.

This Blog And The Future

I will continue, of course, to post updates about the Internet radio royalty situation as such information becomes available. I will also have commentary about the demise of the old RIAA dominated recording industry and all of the wonderful new technologies and new media venues which are replacing it and providing us with a new world of musical choice and diversity which would have been unimaginable a decade or so ago. I will also provide news about Radio Dismuke in terms of upcoming programing and its progress in exposing the popular music of the 1920s and 1930s to new audiences.

But beyond that, I will post about a wide variety of subjects that interest me and would likely be of interest to many in the Radio Dismuke audience. I will comment about vintage music, vintage films and other aspects of the popular culture of the early 1900s decades. I will provide information and recommendations about new CD reissues and contemporary bands which perform vintage music.

A Blog About The Old And The New

I live in the modern world - what other option do I have? There are some aspects of the modern world - mostly as a result of technological and scientific advances - that I appreciate and value a great deal. But I intensely dislike much of today's popular culture and aesthetics - and to the degree it is possible for me to do so, I simply choose not to participate. Ever since I discovered it as a child, I have been fascinated by the popular culture of the early decades of the 20th century. That is the world that has always inspired me and which I seek to incorporate into my daily life. Thanks to the ability of today's technology to serve niche tastes and to bring together communities of people with highly specialized shared interests, it is increasingly possible to do just that.

Thanks to technology, we have more opportunities than ever of being able to pick and choose between the best that today has to offer and the best that previous decades had to offer. Sure, all of us are impacted by and have little escape from modern trends in areas such as politics and the overall economy. But we certainly no longer live in a world where our entertainment options are largely limited by whatever the elite gatekeepers at the Big Three television networks, the Hollywood movie studios, the RIAA labels and major market FM radio program directors think will appeal to the largest and lowest common denominator. Our access to information about subjects that we are interested in is no longer limited to whatever our local libraries and book stores choose to stock and by the very high cost of publishing and distributing such information in paper formats.

We live in a world where none other than the mighty NBC television network is scratching its head trying to figure out how to stop the loss of its audience not to other networks or cable but to YouTube clips posted by tens of thousands of unknown nobodies. Some of those clips that are draining away NBC's audiences include musical excerpts from previously forgotten films of the 1920s and 1930s. Who would ever have thought that 1920s and 1930s film clips could compete with and jeopardize the audience for prime time network television? On their own they don't - the audience for such film clips is minuscule compared with that of even a single small town NBC affiliate. But when one combines that niche along with all other countless niches that YouTube is able to appeal to - well, NBC along with the rest of the mass media finds itself bleeding to death as a result of thousands of tiny pin pricks.

The mass media culture we grew up with is rapidly dying and will be replaced by a vast mosaic of countless niche subcultures that each of us will get to pick and choose from in terms of the art, music and ideas we choose to partake in and in terms of the people we choose to associate with. Niches, of course, have always existed. But in a mass media dominated culture the number and viability of such niches is severely limited because of the difficulty and expense involved in making people aware that they even exist. In a mass media dominated culture, everything tends to get pushed towards the widest - which frequently means the lowest - common denominator.

In the niche dominated world of the future, I strongly believe things will tend to get pushed in the opposite direction. High quality content that was previously not available because its appeal was too narrow will suddenly become viable. And people no longer will have to "settle" for content simply because it was the merely best that was available among the limited options they had to choose from. People will instead seek out something better - however it is they define "better."

The greater availability and access to high quality content will, in and of itself, expose more people to it and, in the process, raise their standards and expectations.

A mass media culture, in its appeal to the widest common denominator, leads to the formation of institutionalized consensus and orthodoxies making it difficult for controversial and innovative "outsiders" to get a hearing. In a niche dominated world, it is much easier for such innovators to find themselves a core audience to support their initial efforts and which they can build on. Sure, it is also possible for pretentious fools to put their hat into the ring as well - anyone these days regardless as to whether or not they have any talent can inexpensively produce their own CD and promote it on myspace or cdbaby.com or start a blog. But such efforts will never spread beyond the handful of people who somehow stumble across it. On the other hand, works by those who do have talent and do have something to say that is worthwhile will spread by word of mouth to an increasingly wider audience - and on the Internet, word of mouth can travel very rapidly.

Today's technology makes this trend towards quality possible in ways far beyond the stuff we read and listen to online. I was well into my adulthood before I personally knew anyone who shared my interest in '20s and '30s music and old 78 rpm records. This was before the Internet came along. Today, I know several such people here in Texas that I regularly communicate and/or visit with and I have corresponded with countless more in other parts of the world. I would not likely have known any of these people had it not been for the Internet.

I am fascinated with how very new technology is helping to bring back and reanimate interest in "old fashioned" music from an era that was almost forgotten about. After spending years of not knowing anyone who shared my passion for the early 1900s, it has been absolutely amazing for me to watch a growing subculture of people with similar interests spring up out of nowhere on myspace and in other Internet venues. These are certainly among the things that I will be writing about here.

I am a person who lives in the early 21st century but whose heart is, in many ways, in an early 20th century world that ended long before I was born - and I constantly strive to seek out and enjoy the very best aspects of both. That is the perspective from which this blog will be written and which will be its new focus.

Status Update

2007-07-16T11:57:00.000-06:00

I just sent the following email out to the Radio Dismuke mailing list. You can subscribe to that list for updates on Radio Dismuke and the Internet radio royalty situation by going to the Radio Dismuke website.

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July 15 has passed and, thanks to the emails, letters and phone calls listeners placed to Congress, Internet radio is still streaming - at least for now. Under pressure from Congress, SoundExchange agreed at the last minute to not immediately enforce the devastating rate increases that were scheduled to take effect today and to enter into negotiations with webcasters.

To those of you who have contacted your representatives in Congress, you have my profound gratitude. Please know that your your doing so DID have an impact. I can guarantee you that the ONLY reason that thousands of stations did not go silent yesterday was because of the pressure Congress felt after hearing from hundreds of thousands of concerned constituents over the past several months.

Unfortunately, at this point, there is still much that needs to be resolved and the future of Internet radio still faces many potential dangers in the days and weeks ahead. The good news is we are still alive to fight and, now that Congress has stepped into the picture, SoundExchange is under pressure to negotiate honestly and in good faith - something that it has not done to date.

Right now, the situation is very fluid and lot of what is going on is taking place behind the scenes and is simply unknown to most webcasters and the general public. Based on what I have read from various online sources, here is where things currently stand:

SoundExchange has agreed to cap the $500 per channel "administration fee" which threatened to immediately bankrupt webcasters such as Live365, Pandora and Yahoo who each offer thousands of channels. The cap would be at 100 channels or $50,000. My understanding is that this only applies to stations that fall under the "large commercial webcaster" category which is determined by the size of a company's annual revenues. Live365 falls under this category. LoudCity, however, is classified as a "small commercial webcaster" and will likely end up under some different sort of arrangement.

A new bill, H.R.3015, has been introduced in the House which would officially postpone implementation of the new rates for 60 days in order to allow time for negotiations between SoundExchange and webcasters or for passage of the Internet Radio Equality Act which would set Internet radio royalties at a rate equal to what satellite radio pays to perform the same recordings. Such a bill would give webcasters a postponement of execution that is more binding than SoundExchange's mere promise to not enforce the new rates. Some websites are suggesting that the bill will pass quickly while others say it stands little chance of passing. The general consensus, however, is that just the mere fact that such a bill is out there is probably enough to pressure SoundExchange into keeping its promises.

One area of particular concern to me is reports that, in the negotiations with the large commercial webcasters, SoundExchange has supposedly said that the per-song per-listener rates are "non negotiable." This ought to be troubling to the Radio Dismuke audience and fans of niche genres because Live365 falls into that category by virtue of its annual revenues. Despite being a "large webcaster" Live365 is, in fact, the home to the vast majority of the Internet's SMALLEST radio stations. Live365 makes it affordable for hobbyists and music enthusiasts to provide highly specialized programing to very limited audiences that are simply not profitable for more commercially oriented webcasters to serve. For example, on Live365, Radio Dismuke is only one of several stations that feature vintage music. Weimar Rundfunk specializes in European recordings from the 1920s though 1940s. Elite Syncopations specializes in ragtime music. And there are others.

Beyond the danger to Live365, my concern about the negotiations with the large webcasters is that SoundExchange might be taking a hard line approach with the per-song per-listener rates in order to pressure webcasters such as Yahoo, AOL and Pandora into cutting direct license deals with the major RIAA labels at lower rates. Such an approach would be a DISASTER for independent artists. If the only way for the largest and most successful webcasters to survive is by dealing directly with the labels, it would mean that it would cost such stations far more money to play music by unknown artists and obscure genres than it would to play mass market hits - which is the exact opposite of what would occur under normal marketplace conditions. It would also give the RIAA labels considerable leverage over such webcasters because they would always be under the potential threat of their direct license not be renewed at the end of its term. This would have the effect of giving the RIAA labels considerable leverage over stations in terms of getting airplay for the particular recordings that the labels are especially interested in promoting at any given time.

Congress and its constituents have already made it clear that they will not allow RIAA/SoundExchange to get away with killing off Internet radio completely. My guess is that SoundExchange has already conceded that it has lost the battle as far as killing off the smaller webcasters is concerned and that its focus is now on trying to at least make it so that the most successful webcasters who have the deepest pockets in terms of being able to promote themselves are under extreme financial pressure to play only RIAA approved formats and artists.

Another concern I have is that SoundExchange will attempt to harass smaller stations out of existence by unreasonable reporting requirements. Under the old rates, educational institutions such as colleges paid very low licensing fees. Many colleges, however, have been forced to take their streams down not because of the royalties but because they simply could not afford the expense and hassle of keeping up with all of the reports that SoundExchange was demanding. I have read that SoundExchange is already complaining in the current negotiations about the need for increased reporting and tracking requirements.

Never forget that the RIAA's motive in this entire mess has ALWAYS been nothing more than to kill off what it sees as an emerging threat to the influence it has traditionally had over which recordings receive all-important FM radio airplay. Internet radio is poised to replace FM radio's role as the primary musical trendsetter in our culture. If the RIAA labels are not able to exert similar influence over airplay on the Internet, their days are very numbered. The very moment it becomes apparent to artists that they can get much needed airplay and become successful on their own, there will no longer be any reason for them to sign the terribly one-sided record contracts with the RIAA labels. By bypassing the major labels, artists will be able to retain much more control over their artistic product and would be entitled to receive 100 percent of all revenues that might be derived from it. The way things are rapidly evolving, there will soon no longer be a need for the role that the major record labels traditionally served prior to the advent of recent technological advances. What we have been witnessing over the past few years is an obsolete and dying industry desperately trying to use the law of the land in order to carve out a relevance and role for itself that would otherwise not exist in a free market.

In my opinion and in the opinion of most webcasters, the only viable LONG TERM solution to this mess, regardless of the outcome of any negotiation with SoundExchange, is the passage of the Interent Radio Equality Act. If the act were passed, Internet broadcasters would still be paying the highest royalties of any category of broadcaster in the United States and it would be among the highest royalties paid by broadcasters anywhere in the world. The advantage of the Act, is that it would provide PERMANENT relief to the various attempts by the RIAA to kill off webcasting as an independent industry.

Whatever may come out of the negotiations with SoundExchange is only going to be good through the year 2010. After that, the whole process starts over again. The RIAA attempted to shut down Internet radio when the first rates came out in 2002 and was stopped only because of a pubic outcry to Congress. At this point, it appears that the same might happen in 2007. The fact of the matter is, however, that webcasters simply cannot afford to have to endure this every four years. No serious investor is going to make a substantial financial commitment to an industry that is under constant threat of a possible forced shutdown in the future. Very few webcasters currently make much, if any, profits. And yet they have been forced to fight a battle that has been very costly in terms of legal and lobbying expenses, staff hours as well as lost opportunities that might have been pursued had the webcasters been able to focus more on their businesses than on fighting the RIAA. I have been fortunate in that my agreements with Live365 and LoudCity have sheltered me from such expenses. However, even on my level, this battle has been costly in terms of lost opportunities. For over a year and a half now I have been more or less forced to put all of the various plans I have entertained for substantially expanding Radio Dismuke's audience and programing abilities on indefinite hold until the royalty issue has been resolved one way or another. It makes no sense for me to sink time and money in significant expansion when I have no way of knowing whether my existing service providers will still be around and whether or not I will be forced to struggle to find a way to keep the station going at a fraction of its present size at a significantly increased price. The Internet Radio Equality Act would provide a long term legal stability that the Internet radio industry has yet to enjoy. Had such an approach been taken since the get-go, I can assure you that Internet radio would be far more advanced and evolved that it presently is.

Because the long term outcome is still uncertain, it is very possible that webcasters will once again be forced to ask their listeners to contact Congress on their behalf before this is finally over. I will let you know when and if any such action becomes urgent.

In other news, despite the gloomy mess of the past few months, I have been constantly updating the Radio Dismuke playlist. Over the past weekend, I added 60 new selections - all from vintage 78 rpms. I would guess that over 80 percent of those new selections have never been reissued in CD format. I have many hundreds of additional 78 rpm recordings lined up for eventual inclusion. The difficulty with 78 rpms is that transferring them and digitally restoring the audio so that it will be acceptable to modern audiences is very time consuming so using them has to be an ongoing and very long-term project. As of today, Radio Dismuke currently has 1,947 tracks in its playlist. The playlists of most terrestrial stations are but a fraction of that size. At its present size, it takes over 4 days for Radio Dismuke to cycle through its playlist (I do have it set up so that recently added recordings are played somewhat more frequently). The current playlist features 665 unique artists - far more than one would hear in a given week on a typical FM station. According to one of the Live365's employees, during the month of May, over 250,000 artists received airplay across the thousands of Internet stations in the Live365 network. That's about 249,000 artists who would have most likely received NO airplay at all had it not been for Internet radio and about 249,500 more artists whose existence and work the major RIAA labels would rather you not be made aware of. Internet radio is special and, in my opinion, it is the most wonderful thing that has come along for music and the artists who perform it since the invention of recorded sound. It is definitely something worth fighting for.

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Please feel free to foward this email to anyone you think might be interested in reading it.

Urgent Apeal From SaveNetRadio.org

2007-07-12T11:59:00.000-06:00

Below is an email that I sent out to the Radio Dismuke mailing list (you can sign up to be on that list on my website at www.RadioDismuke.com )

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At the end of this email is an URGENT message that the SaveNetRadio.org has put out and which I support. This Sunday, July 15 is the day that the new royalty rates become due retroactively and will drive most webcasters into bankruptcy.

Not only are the per-song per-listener rates themselves very high, on top of them are a $500 per channel "administration" fee that will be ruinous for my service providers Live 365 which hosts around ten thousand channels and LoudCity which hosts around five hundred. All of these fees are retroactive to January 2006. In the case of Live 365, it means that on July 15 they will immediately be in the hole for about $5 million just for one year's "administration fees" alone. Live 365 was founded a few years ago during the dot.com boom and only turned its first profit ever last year - and that profit was only a few thousand dollars. Live 365 simply does not have millions of dollar to fork over.

LoudCity is in a similar situation. Not only will they owe about $250,000 in "administration" fees, they will be force to pay per song per listener rates for all of 2006 a year that they had every reason to believe would have been charged on a similar basis as the old royalty rates with perhaps a reasonable increase. For them, their SoundExchange royalties under the old rates would have been capped at $2,000. Their royalty bill from my stream alone is now going to cost them well in excess of $2,000 and, when one multiplies that by 500 stations, the bill will have RETROACTIVELY jumped from around $2,000 to into the HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars. Based on my knowledge of the rates they charge their customers, my guess is that LoudCity took in CONSIDERABLY less than $180,000 in TOTAL revenues last year - not even enough to pay the "administration fees" which are being retroactively applied to them.

As I have explained in previous emails, this is all part of an effort of the RIAA to effectively take over Internet radio by killing off the existing players so that the major labels can sign "sweetheart deals" with hand picked webcasters who will be charged less than the statutory royalty rates in exchange for playing the lowest common denominator mass market recordings currently found on FM radio and from which the four major RIAA labels derive most of their revenue. This is nothing more than a disgusting effort to use a very flawed law that the RIAA lobbied for in order to kill off emerging competitors (independent artists and niche genres which, thanks to Internet radio, were able to receive radio air play for the first time ever) in order to prop up their technologically obsolete business models.

As of right now, both of my service providers, Live 365 and LoudCity have said that they DO plan on remaining on the air after the July 15 deadline passes. From what I gather, the attitude that both will be taking is that, since they will ALREADY be effectively bankrupt as of July 15, they have absolutely nothing to lose that they haven't already lost and will keep broadcasting while attempting to fight it out in court until they receive a court order that forces them to shut down. I have no way of knowing for sure how long such a process will take - but so long as they are fighting this, I will continue to provide them my streams of 1920s and 1930s popular music and jazz. Other webcasters, for a variety of reasons, are not quite as gutsy as Live 365 and LoudCity in this regard and plan to go out of business as of July 15. When that happens, a MONSTROUS injustice will have taken place - and many will lose their businesses, their incomes and, in some cases, even their homes. The ONLY thing that webcasters are "guilty" of is playing music and artists that the RIAA labels would prefer that you not be aware of on grounds that it might diminish interest in the artists and music that they want you to be listening to and purchasing.

The recent Day of Silence was EXTREMELY successful in terms of the number of people that contacted Congress. Congressional switchboards and faxes were jammed from the very large number of calls from the hundreds of thousands of concerned Internet radio listeners who called in. Unfortunately, the RIAA is a VERY powerful organization with LOTS of political pull and many bought and paid for politicians in both houses of Congress. At last count 127 members of the House have agreed to co-sponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act which would set Internet radio royalty rates on par with those charged satellite radio and resolve the whole situation. There IS a significant amount of support for our cause in Congress. But, in order for it to do any good, the bill has to come to the floor for a vote. That can be a very difficult thing as it is not hard for opponents of a bill to kill it off in committee. That has essentially what has been happening since the otherwise successful Day of Silence.

Another factor is that SoundExchange, the royalty collection organization founded and controlled by the RIAA is sending out very false and misleading information to members of Congress - most of whom are NOT scholars in the complicated issue of copyrights and royalties. For example, the head of SoundExchange yesterday distributed an email to members of Congress suggesting that it has offered to cap the $500 minimum fee to $2,500 per service provider. That is VERY misleading. The offer on the part of SoundExchange to cap the fee was ONLY good through 2008 AND required webcasters to agree to give up all future efforts to lobby Congress for changes in the law. No webcaster in his right mind would agree to such a thing - and, in the long run, what good is it to effectively AGREE to go out of business in two years and voluntarily forfeit one's right to petition Congress for redress of grievances? The ONLY reason that SoundExchange made such a bizarre offer in the first place was to provide window dressing so that it could tell Congress that it was "working" with webcasters and that it is the webcasters who have turned down their alleged offers of benevolence. This is the nature of the sort of organization that webcasters are up against - and, as of right now, it is very close to achieving its goal of shutting down all Internet radio except for a handful of RIAA sanctioned operators.

SaveNetRadio is requesting people to IMMEDIATELY contact ALL of their Senators and Congresspersons TODAY and urge them to support the Internet Radio Equality Act and to bring it up for a floor vote IMMEDIATELY. They are asking Internet radio fans and supporters to not quit until they feel that they got their message across very clearly. If your representative has already co-sponsored the bill, please thank them for their support and ask them to please push for the bill to be put up to a floor vote now BEFORE the July 15 deadline goes into effect. If you have already contacted your representatives in support of this issue - you have my profound gratitude. If it is all possible, please do so AGAIN in order to stress the importance of bringing the issue to a floor vote.

Here is where you can go to look up the name and contact information for your Congressperson and Senator:

http://www3.capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/alert_9738601.html

Your support on this is appreciated not only by me but by may many, many listeners who depend on Internet radio in order to hear the music that they love - music that is NOT available on FM radio and will NOT be available on the Internet for much longer if the RIAA achieves its goal of transforming the Internet into a carbon copy of FM.

Below is the plea from SaveNetRadio.org

- - - - -

URGENT URGENT URGENT
IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED FOR THURSDAY, JULY 12TH

Time and options are running out for Internet Radio. Late yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals DENIED the emergency stay sought on behalf of webcasters, millions of listeners and the artists and music they support.

UNLESS CONGRESS ACTS BY JULY 15th, it is the end of the road for Internet radio.

We are appealing to the millions of Internet radio listeners out there, the webcasters they support and the artists and labels we treasure to rise up and make your voices heard before this vibrant medium is silenced.

This situation is grave, but that makes the message all the simpler and most serious. CALL YOUR SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES RIGHT AWAY and urge them to support the "Internet Radio Equality Act." If they've already co-sponsored, thank them and tell them to fight to bring it to the floor for an immediate vote. If the line is busy, call back. Call until you know your voice has been heard. Your voices are what have gotten us this far -- Congress has listened. Now, they are our only hope.

TELL THEM.

We are outmatched by lobbying power and money but we are NOT outmatched by facts and passion and the power of our voices.

===============
The exact page of the SaveNetRadio.org website that allows you to look up Congressional office phone numbers is here: http://www3.capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/alert_9738601.html

Artists And Internet Radio

2007-07-06T00:57:00.000-06:00

I have pointed out in several of my last postings that, after webcasters and listeners, the group that will be most injured by the pending royalty increases is independent artists - i.e. artists who record and distribute their music through labels and venues other than the major RIAA labels.

Now a musican by the name of SONiA is very eloquently making the same case in an editorial in the Baltimore Sun.

"While the royalty rate increases would mean certain bankruptcy for almost every Webcaster, the effect on indie artists would also be disastrous. Losing Internet radio would mean the loss of our biggest promotional resource.

This becomes obvious when you look at the market. Right now, independent artists make up less than 10 percent of what's played on broadcast radio. On Internet radio, we make up about 37 percent.

And as much I appreciate royalties as an artist, a bump in royalties means little to indie singer-songwriters if it also means the death of our biggest source of exposure. If Internet radio dies, there won't be any royalties to pay...."

She concludes by saying:

"For us, Internet radio has become essential. A world without it can only be described as scary."

Check out the entire editorial - the points she makes are right on the mark.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.radio04jul04,0,1361533.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines

Day Of Slience - Radio Dismuke Joins In With Thousands Of Webcasters

2007-06-26T01:01:00.001-06:00

Today, June 26, 2007 Radio Dismuke joins thousands of Internet radio stations in observing a Day of Silence to call attention to the impending shutdown of the vast majority of Internet streams if the new sound recording royalty rates are allowed to go into effect on July 15. For today only, listeners who tune in will be directed to a non-music informational stream explaining the crisis facing Internet radio and featuring testimonials from a variety of broadcasters. Normal Radio Dismuke programing will resume on Wednesday.

The Internet Radio Equality Act has been introduced in both the US House and Senate which would establish Internet radio royalties at a rate that is equal to the more reasonable percentage of revenue model that satellite broadcasters pay for airing the exact same music. By contrast, the rates which are scheduled to go into effect on July 15, are based on a per-song per-listener basis and would amount to well over 100 percent of most existing webcasters' annual revenues - and they would be applied RETROACTIVELY back to January 2006. The Act would also do away with a $500 per channel minimum so-called "administration fee" that is part of the new rate structure. Radio Dismuke's service providers, Live 365 and LoudCity host THOUSANDS of Internet radio stations. This administration fee alone is likely to send them into bankruptcy. Indeed, based on the number of unique channels they offer, four of the top Internet radio networks, Live 365, Rhapsody, Yahoo and Pandora alone would owe SoundExchange, the RIAA's royalty collection arm, approximately $1 BILLION per year for these administration fees alone IN ADDITION to the very expensive royalties. To illustrate how absurd this is, that $1 billion in "admin fees" from those four webcasters alone would vastly exceed the $20 million in total royalties that SoundExchange collected last year from all Internet radio stations combined.

The new rates are nothing more than a thinly disguised attempt on the part of the RIAA to kill off a rapidly emerging medium which, by bringing the public's attention to an unprecedented range of independent artists and niche genres, threatens the market share the RIAA labels have held for decades. According to Live 365's Director of Engineering, last month the several thousand stations across the Live 365 network featured recordings by over 250,000 artists. That's probably around 249,000 more artists than you would likely be able to hear on your local FM radio stations - artists who would have almost no opportunity for broadcast air time to expose their works to new audiences were it not for Internet radio. That's 249,000 artists whose existence and music the RIAA would prefer that you not know about.

The major RIAA labels make their money by selling mass market recordings aimed at the widest and lowest common denominator - i.e., the sort of music you will hear on FM radio and find in the limited assortment of CDs available at your local discount retailer. The degree to which audiences discover and become enthusiastic about the wide variety of wonderful artists and music that fall outside of the RIAA labels' lowest common denominator offerings is the degree to which their market falls apart on them. Every time I receive an enthusiastic email from a high school student telling me how, as a result of discovering Radio Dismuke, 1920s and 1930s popular music is now his or her favorite type of music, that is one less person who is likely to act like a good little sheep and buy the latest hit recording that has been played over and over again on half the FM stations in town. And the same is true for the people who, through Internet radio, discover stations which play Ukrainian folk music, or ragtime, or polka, or blues, or jazz or even features some group of young rock musicians who perform at local clubs and are not famous enough to get FM airplay.

Internet radio is at the forefront of a wonderful revolution in both how enthusiasts listen to music and how aspiring artists promote themselves. It is bringing about a world where audiences will have endless options to access an unprecedented variety of quality music and where artists - especially those who previously had little hope of getting past the focus groups and "gatekeepers" at the RIAA labels and FM radio stations - will have new opportunities to make themselves known to new fans and to promote their recordings and live performances. The RIAA does not have any special advantage in such a world and will face new competition from a wide variety of sources, including artists who in an earlier day would have signed with an RIAA label but now realize it is increasingly advantageous to remain independent and thereby retain ownership and control of their music and keep all of the financial rewards for themselves. Therefore, the RIAA has used its political pull in an attempt to kill off the new and increasingly popular industry which is making such a world possible: Internet radio.

If you value the music that I and countless other Internet broadcasters present, please do not allow that to happen. Please telephone your Congressperson and both of your Senators TODAY and ask them to support the Internet Radio Equality Act. In the House, the specific bill is H.R. 2060. In the Senate the bill is S.1353.

For those who have responded to my previous requests to contact your representatives, I and all other Internet broadcasters thank you. Your letters, phone calls and emails were what has made it possible for bills to exist today in both houses of Congress. But there is still a lot of distance that needs to be covered before the future of Internet radio is secure. Now that there are very specific bills on the table, please consider contacting your representatives AGAIN and encourage them to support the Internet Radio Equality Act.

Those who have followed my postings here on this blog now know that I am not a fan of statutory royalties in any form. As I pointed out in a previous posting, under such a compulsory and crude "one size fits all" approach, it is impossible to be fair with or adequately protect the rights of all players. There are certain aspects of the Internet Radio Equality Act that I do not like and take exception to. But these shortcomings pale in comparison to the profoundly unjust and, in my judgement, downright evil attempt to kill off an absolutely wonderful new medium with endless potential and possibilities for the purpose of artificially propping up a de-facto cartel of dying and technologically obsolete companies which through their legacy revenue streams are, unfortunately, still able to purchase and wield a substantial amount of political pull. Short of a radical reexamination and reform of certain aspects of our copyright laws, the Internet Radio Equality Act is our best hope of stopping this injustice before it does a great deal of damage to both webcasters, artists and enthusiasts of the many musical genres that, prior to the Internet, were simply shut out from radio airplay.

Hearings on the Internet Radio Equality Act begin soon so it is important to take action NOW. By contacting your representatives, you will be doing your part to ensure that the Day of Silence is only a DAY of silence and not a permanent reality after July 15.

A Free Market Answer To Statutory Royalties - How It Would Kill The RIAA

2007-06-21T23:34:00.000-06:00

Note: Some individual whom I refuse to dignify by linking back to has grotesquely distorted one of my previous postings and has used it to insinuate that webcasters seek an unearned license to steal copyrighted music and falsely asserted that I somehow am an advocate of statutory royalties and the CRB process.

For the record, I am not and never have supported statutory - i.e., government mandated - royalties. I very clearly stated the context of my remarks in the conclusion of my posting when I said: "So long as the government is setting the rates..." I made it very clear in my posting that I was not in favor of the government setting royalty rates. However, as any person who has any grounding in reality ought to know, regardless of what the rates end up being when the CRB ruling is scheduled to go into effect on July 15, the rates are going to be ones that have been set by the government. To argue whether they should or should not be set by a governmental board in the first place is certainly a very valid topic for discussion - but for webcasters who are fighting for their survival the question is academic. To eliminate statutory royalties would require a major overhaul of the copyright laws and the abolition or, at the very least, a major reworking of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. None of this is going to be on the agenda in Washington DC anytime soon - certainly not before webcasters are forced into retroactive bankruptcy by the new rates.

To set the record straight and to defend myself against this individual's disgraceful misrepresentation of my position, I am publishing a posting I put up a couple of months ago to a private broadcasters-only forum. (One of the readers on that forum, however, asked for and received my permission to republish my remarks here. ) This posting will very clearly establish that I am NOT an advocate of statutory licensing. In it, I propose a free market alternative which would recognize and protect the rights and interests of both copyright holders and webcasters. I also explain why the modern day Luddites at the RIAA would NEVER go along with such a proposal.

A Free Market Answer To Statutory Royalties - And How It Would Kill The RIAA

My problem with the compulsory license is that it is a rather pathetic and grotesquely unfair way of protecting intellectual property rights. The fact of the matter is that not all owners of intellectual property have similar interests in the marketplace. Indeed, as we have seen, the marketplace interests of the vast majority of intellectual property owners - i.e. the independents - are very much at odds with the interests of the RIAA labels. In a free marketplace, everyone is able to battle it out and everything is ultimately decided by what the customers have to say. Under a compulsory license, everything is pretty much determined in advance by a governmental body and the one who wins is usually the one with the largest amount of political pull.

This is exactly what we have seen with the CRB which has set rates at a level that favors the interests of the lowest common denominator recordings of the RIAA labels by making it too expensive for broadcasters to stream less famous artists and niche genres and thus depriving them of the valuable Internet radio exposure they have come to depend on. In other words, the CRB basically has set itself up as the agency that exists to protect the interests of the RIAA by keeping emerging competitors from gaining access to the marketplace.

One of the cardinal rights of ownership is the ability to charge whatever price one wishes and is able to voluntarily get. If you make pencils and want to sell them for $100 each and someone is dumb enough to buy them - go for it. Likewise, if a copyright owner wishes to charge $100 per song per listener or to not license his recordings at all - well, that is a major part of ownership and he should have every right to do so. And likewise, we have every right to treat them the same way we would someone who offered to sell us a ten cent pencil for $100.

In reality, however, people do not charge $100 for ordinary pencils. And, unless there happens to be a temporary shortage of certain raw materials, nobody goes around complaining that pencil prices are outrageous and pencil manufacturers are not at each others throats over what price pencils should sell for. The marketplace takes care of that. It ought to do the same thing with regard to what price, if any, broadcasters pay for royalties.

Here is what I propose in place of compulsory licensing:

When a sound recording is copyrighted, the automatic default will be that NO license is required for public performance. Copyright holders who are eager for exposure and publicity might consider this to be their very best option - and it certainly will give broadcasters a HUGE incentive to play their material.

Copyright owners who do not wish to allow free public performance of their material have the option of specifying which Performance Rights Organization (PRO) they wish to license their material through - or they have the option of requiring that any license must be granted by the copyright holder exclusively.

Note that I say "which PRO." The notion that SoundExchange should be a monopoly is absurd. If the RIAA wishes to license all of its material through SoundExchange for outrageous rates - then it should be able to do so. But it does NOT have the right to demand that all other copyright holders be forced to either do the same or else give the material away for free. Copyright holders who wish to charge rates that are more reasonable have every right in the world to form their own PRO for such a purpose.

What I also propose is that every sound recording sold carry a notice of the licensing requirements. For example: "Public performance license granted" "Public performance license through SoundExchange" or Public performance through SoundExchange Competitor X or "Must contact copyright holder for public performance license." The Library of Congress would also maintain a database of all recordings under Federal copyright where broadcasters could quickly and easily check the status and licensing requirements of any recording.

Under my proposed system, if the RIAA wished to charge outrageous rates for its material, it would be very easy for broadcasters to identify such recordings and refuse to buy them or include them in their playlists. And it would be very easy for broadcasters to identify those copyright owners who DO want airplay and are willing to either give it away for free or else charge reasonable rates.

Such a system would protect the rights and interests of ALL copyright holders. It also would enable the RIAA to get what it claims to want - the high prices it claims its recordings are worth.

But the fact of the matter is, if such a proposal was put forth, the RIAA would fight it tooth and nail. A free marketplace is the LAST thing they want - because they know they cannot survive in one.

SoundExchange and the RIAA is lying through its teeth when it says that Internet radio airplay does not have value. Who gets airplay and who doesn't is the only thing this royalty battle is about. The RIAA wants to make sure that only the mass market products of the Big Four get Internet airplay - which is why it has tried to use the SoundExchange monopoly to price everyone else out.

If a free market were to come about and the RIAA charged the sort of rates that they have pushed through the CRB - well, Internet stations would have little choice but to pull RIAA recordings and play only those which are more affordable or, at the very least, severely restrict the number of RIAA recordings which are played. What that would do, of course, is give greater airplay and more exposure to those recordings that are not so overpriced. This, of course, would only hasten the RIAA's demise as the extra exposure would enable audiences to discover artists that they most likely would not have otherwise and the RIAA's market share will decline even faster. Their only hope of being competitive in the market for Internet radio airplay would be to lower their prices to rates that make it attractive for stations to play them. The only reason they could get away with charging high prices would be if a recording is a huge hit - but if they don't get airplay on Internet radio, which will very soon replace FM as the medium where musical trends are set, they will not have any huge hits that anyone would be willing to pay high prices for. They will have priced themselves and not their competitors out of the market.

If the RIAA wants to price recordings out of the market for airplay, it should be free to do so - but only with its OWN recordings and not everybody else's. If the RIAA does not wish to participate in Internet radio - well it shouldn't have to. It can stand on the sidelines and become even more obsolete as Internet radio becomes more and more important in people's daily lives and in our culture. But it does NOT have a right to determine the conditions and terms that its emerging competitors must operate under in order for them to participate in the many wonderful things that Internet radio has to offer. Quite frankly, we need a system where the RIAA has to play by the same rules that everybody else does and where it has absolutely no more status or privilege in the eyes of the law and the government than does any other copyright owner.

The notion of a "willing buyer and a willing seller" being determined by a GOVERNMENT PANEL is absurd. Despite the pseudo-free market verbiage, such is NOT a free market approach. A system where the GOVERNMENT determines what prices ought and ought not to be is the premise of communism/socialism and not a free market. I am actually all for prices being set by "willing buyers and willing sellers" - provided that all parties are actually willing. Perhaps certain broadcasters would be willing to pay .0019 cents to stream some recordings - but no broadcaster in his right mind would be willing to play such a price for all recordings as the vast majority simply are not worth that much in terms of attracting audiences. And perhaps the RIAA labels are willing to sell performance rights to their mega hit recordings for .0019 - but no independent artists or niche genre artist in his right mind would be willing to charge that much for airplay for the exact same reason that pencil makers do not charge $100 for an ordinary pencil. If we are going to have a "willing buyer/willing seller" strandard then it actually needs to be decided by willing buyers and willing sellers - i.e. by a free market and NOT by the RIAA on grounds that it has political pull. And webcasters and independent copyright owners should not have to be forced to spend the time, money and energy to go out and acquire their own political pull in order defend themselves from the RIAA's predatory political schemes.

The problem with the compulsory license is that it is a "one size fits all" proposition for both copyright holders and broadcasters. As a consequence, the results will never be to everyone's satisfaction: either one side or the other or both will always feel that they are being screwed. In a free market, each player makes his own decision as to what he wants to charge and to pay - and if it does not work out, then only he is to blame. Under a free market, the only party that loses is the RIAA because it is no longer able to use its political pull in order to keep a flood of emerging competitors in check. It will be forced to compete in a marketplace where it has no special advantage over anybody else and is no longer needed or even particularly wanted anymore by either artists, customers or broadcasters. Establish a genuinely free market and the RIAA is toast because, quite frankly, it no longer has anything to offer that other players in the marketplace cannot do better and much more efficiently.

Breaking News - Please Act Now

2007-04-27T03:46:00.000-06:00

On Thursday the Internet Radio Equality Act was introduced by Representatives Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Donald Manzullo (R-IL). The bill would nullify the current Copyright Royalty Board ruling and require that future CRBs to apply the same standards in setting Internet radio royalty rates as apply to satellite radio - thus the basis for the word "equality" in the bill. It would set "transitional" royalty rates which would be in effect until the CRB royalty hearings for the years 2011-2015. The transitional rates would be either .33 cents per listener hour or 7.5% of annual revenues. The broadcaster would have to decide once each year which method of calculation he wishes to be subject to for the following year. The logic behind these rates is that they attempt to match the rate that satellite radio pays for the same royalties - thus, again, the name of the bill.

The bill also sets the annual minimum per service provider of $500 per year and instructs future CRBs that future minimum royalty rates per service provider shall not be higher than $500 per year. This is in contrast with the current CRB's demand that service providers pay a minimum of $500 PER CHANNEL - a rule that was very obviously designed to specifically bankrupt my service providers Live365 which aggregates the broadcasts of some 10,000 Internet radio stations and LoudCity which provides joint licensing coverage for several hundred stations. Both services not only provide cost efficiencies for small stations such as mine, they also take care of the extremely burdensome and complicated tacking and paperwork requirements that SoundExchange subjects Internet stations to. And, they actually make the cost of administering royalties on SoundExchange's end less burdensome as well.

I am asking that Radio Dismuke listeners and anyone else who values the wonderful variety and diversity of musical programing that Internet radio makes possible to please telephone your Representatives in Congress. Ask the person who answers to phone to please urge your Congressional representative to co-sponsor and support The Internet Radio Equality Act.

Time is of the essence. The outrageous royalties set forth by the Copyright Royalty Board will go in effect on May 15 if nothing is done. Even if the proposed rates go in effect for just one day, it will immediately bankrupt a great many small webcasters due to the fact that the rates are retroactive back to January 2006. Because of the fundamental change in the way the rates are calculated, small stations that were previously being charged $2,000 per year could suddenly be faced with retroactive royalty bills of up to $40,000 or more. If nothing is done by May 15, it is very possible that one or both of Radio Dismuke's service providers will be forced into bankruptcy and go out of business.

I read on a Live 365 message board that if 260 Representatives sign off on the bill at the desk it will pull the bill out of committee and onto the floor for a vote. So you might also ask your Representative to sign the book at the desk so that it can be brought to a vote before stations are forced to go off the air on May 15.

Unfortunately, because of my busy schedule with a full time job and the time I have had to devote on finding a way for Radio Dismuke to somehow survive under a worst case scenario, I have not been able to spend as much time on this blog as I would like to. Your best source of up-to-the-minute news on this rapidly evolving royalty siutation is going to be TheSaveNetRadio Coalition. Both of my service providers are members of this coalition as are a great many small stations and even very large operators such as Yahoo and AOL. If you go to the SaveNetRadio website, you will find a link to where you can enter in your zip code in order to get the telephone number of your Representatives office.

Please call your Representative's office today.

Today Is "Calendar Day"

2007-03-29T02:29:00.000-06:00

Yes - I know. I have not posted anything in a while. It has not been for a lack of things to say - I actually have several postings worth of stuff about the royalty situation in my head that I would very much like to express. My lack of anything new here has been entirely due to a lack of time to write as things have been very hectic.

Today, March 29 is the much anticipated "calendar day" for my website and for Radio Dismuke. Turns out that Page-A-Day, a major calendar publisher, decided to feature my website as its March 29 entry in its 2007 Wacky Web Sites: 365 For The Weird & Wired calendar. Here is what the entry says:

"Listen to hits from before your grandmother was born at this site celebrating music recorded on 78 rpm records. Plus a link to Radio Dismuke - a 24-hour online radio station playing hits from the '20s and '30s."

Needless to say, I was thrilled when I first learned about this. This is incredible exposure for both Radio Dismuke and for the music I present. Radio Dismuke is all about bringing the wonderful but nearly forgotten music of the past to the attention of a new and hopefully appreciative modern audience. The calendar is sold in major bookstores all across the country and this entry is going to result in a great many people stumbling across and being exposed to the music for the very first time - and some of them will discover that they enjoy it and become fans. Whoever at Workman Publishing is responsible for that entry has my profound gratitude. You have helped the cause of this music finding its much deserved renaissance more than you will ever know.

On another note, for those who are new to Radio Dismuke or know of it only through this blog, coming up soon is the semi-annual broadcast Radio Dismuke conducts in conjunction with Nauck's Vintage Records, the world's largest and most prestigious auction house of rare vintage records. Kurt Nauck generously makes the records in his auction catalog of over 10,000 items available to the Radio Dismuke audience by playing specific records that listeners have requested to hear. Many of the records in Kurt's auctions are extremely rare and these broadcasts frequently are the first time that some of them have been performed in public in decades - and since all of the items are for sale and will be dispersed to various private collections around the world, there is a good possibility that it will be the last time some of them will be performed in public for a number of years to come. Normally, Radio Dismuke focuses on popular music and jazz from the 1925 to 1935 decade. During the Nauck's Vintage Records broadcasts, however, we feature everything from 1890s era wax cylinders to early rock and roll recordings from the very last years of the 78 rpm era. The program includes selections from a very wide range of genres - opera, classical, jazz, pop, ethic, rock, blues, country, spoken word recordings , you name it. The program features something for everybody - so I hope you will check it out. You can find out more information about it and the dates and broadcast times in your time zone by following this link.

I do plan on putting up additional postings regarding the royalty situation as time permits.

It Is Not Just Me Saying This

2007-03-19T01:03:00.000-06:00

Harmed Copyright Holder Speaks Out

In my March 14th posting, I argued that the new royalty rates will, in fact, be harmful to artists and copyright holders whose works are less than famous or who focus on specialty genres by making it uneconomical for webcasters to play anything other than music which appeals to the widest and lowest common denominator. The result will be that such artists and recordings will be priced out valuable Internet radio airplay the same way that they have been priced out of AM/FM radio airplay for decades.

Well, it is not just some sour grapes webcaster saying this - one such copyright holder very nicely makes the exact same point. His name is Chris Thomas and he is the founder of Palo Duro Records, a small independent country label which focuses on Texas-based artists.

In an excellent posting to his blog, Thomas explains that, while he will be one of those collecting the higher royalty rates, the overall impact for his label will be negative as a result of the loss of the considerable exposure it receives from Internet radio airplay:

"Palo Duro has had the honor of having multiple projects in the Top 10, Top 5, and even #1 airplay position at many webcasters — something that, frankly, will never happen on a major-market terrestrial radio station. So while we technically have the most to gain economically from the new fee structure, the real-world effect will be just the opposite - webcasters that specialize in the cool and eclectic will simply disappear, and music fans everyone will return back to the stale 80s format and the same ten songs on your semi-local Hot Country favorite."
(Emphasis his)

As I mentioned in my previous posting, the task of the judges on the CRB was to look out for the best interests of all copyright holders - not just the desire on the part of the major labels to maintain their dominance and thwart emerging competition by means of bought and paid for legislation and governmental decrees.

Mr. Thomas also warns"

"This irresponsible government policy will push a tremendous growth opportunity and potential economic boom for the music industry to offshore locations immune to, and even defiant of, artist/label rights."

Indeed. Keep in mind that the webcasters who are impacted by this are those who choose to play by the rules and who pay royalties. The new rates will have no impact at all on the many pirate stations that are out there - except, of course, for the possibility that they may end up with lots of new listeners on their hands once the honest and legal broadcasters are forced off the air and into bankruptcy.

Mr. Thomas ends by saying:

"I’m angry. You should be, too."

I, of course, agree - except for the fact that "angry" is too mild of a word for what I think and feel about it.

An Unfree Market

2007-03-14T13:06:00.000-06:00

How The Rates Harm Many Copyright Owners

A Radio Ink article that I learned about via Kurt Hanson's RAIN provides a quote from the Copyright Royalty Board's explanation as to why it settled on the per-song per-listener rate favored by the RIAA over the percentage of revenue model that other performing rights organizations use and for which webcasters argued:

“In reaching a determination, the Copyright Royalty Judges cannot guarantee a profitable business to every market entrant. Indeed, the normal free market processes typically weed out those entities that have poor business models or are inefficient. To allow inefficient market participants to continue to use as much music as they want and for as long a time period as they want without compensating copyright owners on the same basis as more efficient market participants trivializes the property rights of copyright owners.”

Aside from the implication that small webcasters such as myself are a bunch of mooching freeloaders, on the surface, this almost sounds reasonable. For someone like me who considers himself to be a free market sort of guy, it sounds like they are talking my kind of language.

Not.

For the judges to attempt to cloak their rationalizations using free market verbiage is absurd and drops context in a massive sort of way because the entire process they are part of and the results of their decision is the exact opposite of a free market.

In a free market, prices for goods and services are not determined by a handful of judges sitting on a government board.

In a free market, the government does not grant special privileges for one industry (i.e. AM/FM radio which does not have to pay such royalties) by exempting it from the laws and rules that all other market participants are required to play by.

In a free market, prices fluctuate according to supply and demand and whatever is going on in the wider marketplace as a whole. No commodity in a free market is guaranteed year over year price increases - let alone double digit price increases. (I sure wish I were guaranteed such year-over-year increases in my salary at work!)

The prices in the CRB's decision only fluctuate in one direction - up. And they do so without any consideration given to the larger marketplace conditions that the buyers might find themselves in at the time.

The task that was given the CRB and the standard that it was instructed to go by was: "to establish rates and terms that most clearly represent the rates and terms that would have been negotiated in the marketplace between a willing buyer and a willing seller."

I am sorry - but that is simply not possible to do. I don't care how fair, objective and conscientious the judges on the CRB might have been, nobody is in a position to come up with such a rate.

If the judges on the CRB were in a position to know what the exact market rate for copyright music ought be for every year through 2010 - well, I suspect that they might be spending their days doing something other than pouring over mundane and boring legal minutia because each of them would be richer than Bill Gates from playing the commodities market and having been right 100 percent of the time.

For a person to know what the market price for a given good or service in the year 2010 ought to be would require nothing short of psychic powers or omniscience.

What if we are in a recession in 2010 and the market for advertising dries up? What happens if Internet radio's audience decides it prefers podcasts instead? What happens if some yet-to-be-invented and bandwidth swallowing "killer ap" comes along and bids up the price of bandwidth making it significantly more expensive for webcasters to transmit and listeners to receive streaming audio?

Can things like this always be predicted in advance? Of course not. And yet every one of these and an unlimited number of other potential scenarios would have a profound impact on what a "willing buyer" would pay to a "willing seller" in an actual free market.

So, no matter what per-song per-listener rate the CRB comes up with, that rate is ultimately arbitrary.

Moreover - and this is very important - the rate is not merely arbitrary in a very wide and generalized sort of way, the rate is highly arbitrary as it is applied to any particular copyrighted recording.

Let's just assume for the sake of argument that, by some unknown magical and mystical means, the judges on the CRB do know with intrinsically guaranteed certainty that the per-song per-listener market price of a copyrighted sound record really ought to be the .0019 rate they have put forth.

If so - then the next question is this: which copyrighted sound recording?

Do the judges on the CRB actually mean to suggest that the market value of all copyright sound recordings is identical?

Let's just assume that the market value of a Brittany Spears recording is such that it can attract an audience large enough to make it worth a webcaster's while to pay .0019 cents per listener. Does it, therefore, follow that it would also be worth a webcaster's while to pay that same .0019 per listener to play a contemporary group that I happen to enjoy, Mora's Modern Rhythmists which plays 1920s and 1930s pop in an authentic style? (I need to state that Dean Mora was not told that I planned to write about him and one should NOT assume that he necessarily agrees with anything at all that I write about.)

If a recording by Mora's Modern Rhythmists has the same marketplace value as a Brittany Spears recording - well, how come Dean Mora's bank account is most likely nowhere near as large as Brittany Spears'?

The sad reality is, unfortunately, everybody has heard of Brittany Spears, including people such as myself who tries to avoid modern pop music as much as possible. How many people outside of fans of vintage pop and the early 1900s retro crowd has ever heard of Dean Mora?

Having to pay .0019 per song, per listener is a very expensive rate. Basically, that means a station that plays on average 16 songs per hour is going to have to fork over every hour in SoundExchange royalties alone $3 for every 100 listeners tuned in or $30 for every 1,000 listeners or $300 for every 10,000 listeners.

The problem for niche genres and lesser known artists such as Dean Mora is the fact that it is much easier for a station with 10,000 listeners to sell $300 worth of advertising than it is for a station with only 100 listeners to sell $3 worth of advertising.

Buying and selling advertising requires more than just the advertiser forking money over to a station owner to run ads. On top of the cost of the spots themselves is the time that both parties have to invest in the transaction. The buyer has to spend time shopping for stations, signing the agreement, paying the bill and getting the ad copy and/or recordings of the commercial to the station owner. And the station owner has expenses involved in bringing his station to the attention of advertisers.

An audience of 100 listeners per hour or less is simply too small for a serious advertiser to mess with. Even if the spots were being given away for free, the advertiser still has to pay the per-hour costs of the person who is responsible for buying and overseeing advertising campaigns. And there is simply no way that a station owner with only 100 listeners or less per hour can sell advertising at a rate high enough to compensate him for the time it would take in order to make sales calls and drum up the business.

The answer given by the judges on the CRB is that, since stations that small are "inefficient" it is entirely appropriate for their owners to face economic reality and go off the air. But if a station with an audience of 100 listeners per hour is playing recordings by artists such as Mora's Modern Rhythmists to a niche audience - well, exactly what is it inefficient at? The only "inefficiency" is the fact that a handful of judges have forced it to pay an arbitrary and artificially high per-song per-listener rate which might be appropriate for streaming a Brittany Spears type mass market recording but which is vastly priced above the market value of streaming artists who are unknown and are not able to attract a similar mass audience.

What an across-the-board royalty rate of .0019 cents per listener means is that the only recordings that are economically viable for a webcaster to stream are those recordings which are actually worth .0019 cents per listener - i.e., those recordings which can bring in a large enough audience to enable a station owner to generate enough revenue to pay the .0019 on top of all of his other operational expense plus, hopefully, some sort of profit. And since the only way a station owner can generate such revenue is by the economies of scale that can only be achieved with a large audience the effect of the CRB's across-the-board per-song per-listener royalty rate is to artificially price niche genres and all artists who do not have a mass market appeal out of any opportunities to get Internet radio airplay.

If this is allowed to happen, it would place niche genres and lesser known artist back in the exact same unfortunate predicament they were in for decades with regard to AM/FM radio. There are only so many radio frequencies - which means that there can only be so many AM/FM stations in any given market. An FM station in even a small market will sell for many millions of dollars - in a major market such as Fort Worth/Dallas, where I live, such a station will sell in the hundreds of millions of dollars. In such a world, station owners have no choice but to program their stations to wide, mass market audiences. That is the only way they can bring in enough revenue to pay off their mortgages and other bills. And that is why you don't find major market AM/FM stations devoted to nothing but 1920s/1930s pop or Ukrainian folk music. It is simply not possible to make enough money on such formats to pay for the cost of buying the station.

But that, unfortunately, is the environment the CRB's decision will bring to Internet radio if something is not done about the rates. Only this time there will be a substantial difference: with AM/FM such a situation is necessitated by the limitations of technology. With Internet radio, there are no such technological restrictions and the situation will have been brought about artificially by means of decree by a governmental board.

If the judges on the CRB are sincere about determining a royalty rate for copyrighted recordings that approximates a free market price, then that rate must necessarily take into consideration the fact that some recordings are worth more in the marketplace than others.

But the CRB does not take such economic realities into consideration. What it does is assigns an arbitrary and very high across-the-board flat rate applicable to all copyrighted recordings - a rate which, in fact, is economically viable for only the relatively small percentage of recordings that have a large, mass market appeal. And, as a result artists and genres that do not currently have a mass market appeal will be arbitrarily priced out of being able to enjoy the many benefits they currently derive from Internet radio air play.

Let's say some government board decided that, in the name of "fairness" to chair manufacturers, buyers would be required to pay no less than $50 per chair. Who would benefit from that? Obviously chair manufacturers who are currently selling chairs over $50. They would suddenly be protected from down market competition. And who would lose out besides those who wish to purchase lower priced chairs? Obviously those companies that specialize in making low priced chairs and the shops that sell them would be hurt very badly by such a regulation.

The per-song per-listener rates set by the CRB will have the exact same effect on recordings of niche genres and those by less famous artists.

The reality is that there are a great many recordings that probably have close to a negative per-song per-listener economic value. A very significant percentage of Internet radio stations out there cost more to operate than they will ever generate back in revenue. Such stations are primarily hobbies and labors of love. Yet there are a great many specialty genres and artists for whom such stations represent their only chance of getting airplay on Internet radio and the benefits they receive from such exposure. Their recordings have a negative per-song per-listener economic value because it costs the stations willing to feature them more money to play the recordings than they could ever bring in as a result of playing them.

For the CRB to price such copyright holders out of the market for Internet radio airplay does them a profound injustice - especially since the purpose of the CRB is to look out for the property rights and best interests of all copyright holders, not just copyright holders who happen to be the major mass market labels which control the RIAA.

If a group such as Mora's Modern Rhytmists were to get airplay on a station the size of Radio Dismuke, it would not generate nearly enough per-song per-listener plays to qualify Dean Mora for the minimum amount of royalties he would need to accumulate before SoundExchange would ever cut him a check. Yet if such a station were to include his recordings in its playlist it would be of tremendous benefit to him. People who otherwise would not be aware of his band's existence will discover it. Some of them will become fans. Some of them might google his name and go to to his website and find this page where they can buy some of his marvelous CDs.

I guarantee you that Dean Mora would make far more money in sales of CDs from only one year's worth of exposure on a single station the size of Radio Dismuke than he would ever see in a lifetime of SoundExchange royalties generated from several such stations playing his material.

In the music business, getting airplay is a major element in a recording's success - and the only reason the word "payola" exists in our language is because airplay is so beneficial that it is actually worth a copyright holder's while to pay a station in order to get it.

Never forget what this battle is about. In a world where professional recording studios are commonplace and can be rented by the hour, where there are countless outsourcers who will manufacture CDs for well under $1 each and where more and more music is being distributed over the Internet, the only remaining relevance that the major record labels have is in their ability to promote their artists to the large audience concentrations on major, trendsetting FM radio stations in order to generate hit recordings.

Internet radio threatens to scatter those FM type audience concentrations to the wind across thousands and thousands of smaller stations. When that happens, the marketing advantage the big record labels currently enjoy over the independents will be significantly diminished. Since the major labels know that Internet radio is here to stay in some form or another, they are attempting to use the RIAA's political pull in order to get the government to pass rules and regulations which will artificially create on the Internet the same audience concentrations they enjoy on FM radio and which they desperately need if they are to remain relevant in a digital and online world.

The fact that this is nothing more than an attempt on the part of the RIAA to protect AM/FM audience concentrations and move them over, intact, to the Internet became very obvious to me the last time this battle was fought back in 2002. At the time, the CRB came out with a per-song per listener rate of .0007 for Internet streams of AM/FM simulcasts while the rate they came up with for Internet-only broadcasters was exactly double or .0014. On what twisted logic can one say that the value of a given recording being streamed is somehow different depending on whether the stream originates from an FM broadcaster or whether it originates from a station such as mine? Fortunately, that double standard was struck down. But the very fact that it was proposed in the first place told me that it was nothing more than an attempt to artificially impose a situation where the only Internet streams that would be financially viable were AM/FM simulcasts.

The task of the Library of Congress and the Copyright Royalty Board is to protect the property rights and interests of all copyright holders. The fact that the judges on the CRB chose to use their authority to create an arbitrary rate scheme which will price a great many copyright holders out of the market for valuable Internet radio airplay so that some copyright holders with political pull can be protected from emerging forms of competition - well, that is disgraceful. And the fact that they attempt to use the honorable term "free market" as a rationalization for their decrees is beyond disgusting.

So long as a governmental body is dictating a statutory rate that is applicable for all sound recordings under copyright, the CRB's per-song per-listener model needs to be permanently abolished. Because it is a fact of reality that some recordings are worth more in the marketplace than other recordings, it is simply not possible to come up with a single flat rate that is fair to the interests of all copyright holders, large and small. And it certainly is not possible or feasible for some government board to determine individual per-song per-listener rates for each of the tens of thousands of artists.

If the judges on the CRB truly cared about a free market approach to the issue, they would have immediately and eagerly adopted the same percentage of revenue approach the other performing rights associations (ASCAP/BMI and SESAC) have used for decades. Unlike some arbitrary number tossed out by a handful of judges, the amount of revenue that a station generates is determined exclusively by the free market.

If a station brings in a lot of revenue, that probably means that the music it plays has value in attracting a large audience that is willing to support the station and its advertisers. If a station does not bring in a lot of revenue, it does not necessarily mean that it is "inefficient" as the CRB suggests. In a great many cases, it simply means the music the owner chooses to play is not able to generate a very large audience - and thus his revenue, assuming he even gets any, will be reduced accordingly.

Under a percentage of revenue model, to the degree a station is successful from a financial standpoint, the copyright owners who helped make that success possible get to share in it. If a station is not able to generate revenue from the music it plays - well, then the copyright owners are immune from the station owner's losses but still derive the many, many benefits they receive from the free publicity. Plus, most royalty organizations have a minimum license fee - so even the smallest webcasters who stream music to very few listeners would pay into the system.

The fact is that certain highly successful copyrighted recordings do have an economic value that station owners derive benefit from - and such station owners should be required to compensate copyright holders accordingly.

But it is also a fact that some copyrighted recordings do not have a great deal of economic value and that the primary financial beneficiary from airplay is not the station owner but the copyright holder in the form of increased visibility, web traffic and sales of things such as CDs and tee shirts. Those copyright holders should not be denied the opportunity to benefit from such valuable publicity that small webcasters are willing to provide to them at no cost.

The judges on the CRB asserts that "inefficient" webcasters unable to generate enough revenue to cover the per-song per-listener rates "trivialize" the property rights of copyright holders. In reality, it is the CRB that trivializes copyright holders whose works are not capable of generating enough revenue to enable webcasters to cover those arbitrary rates - and the result is that such copyright holders will no longer be able to reach their audience through Internet radio unless some webcaster is willing to go through the paperwork and hassle of contacting them one by one for permission to bypass SoundExchage. Few broadcasters have the time and ability to do that.

So long as the government is setting the rates, a percentage of revenue model is the fairest approach because it provides a means of addressing the legitimate concerns and needs of all copyright holders, large and small, famous and not-so-famous.

If you have not yet done so, please write your representatives and let them know that you support Internet radio and that Congress needs to push for a percentage of revenue royalty rate that is fair to the financial interests of all copyright holders - not just the the major labels which control the RIAA.

Still Here

2007-03-14T12:59:00.000-06:00

Just a quick note to those who have been checking back for updated content.... things have been very busy over the past few days. I am currently working on another entry which I hope to have posted soon. So please do continue to check back.

Retroactive Bankruptcy

2007-03-11T00:32:00.000-06:00

How Live 365's Most Successful Broadcasters Face Financial Ruin Even If They Shut Down Immediately

Imagine, for a moment, that you had an ongoing business relationship with an organization in 2006 and have already paid the $2,000 in charges that the organization had billed you for during that year. Now, imagine it is early March, 2007 and a governmental board announces that the rate should have, instead, been somewhere between $10,000 and $40,000 and that you have to pay the balance now retroactively. And, not only that, since January 1 you have been building up a bill with this organization at a rate which, by the end of the year, could result in you owing it up to $100,000.

Would you be able to fork over such an amount of money for an unexpected expense on something you had already paid a rather hefty price for in the first place? If so, would you be able to do so without a significant amount of financial pain? Would you possibly have to take out a loan of some sort to cover the bill? If not, what percentage of the population do you suppose is in such a position?

What I have described above is exactly what the Copyright Royalty Board did on March 2 to Live 365's most successful independent broadcasters who had signed up for the Live 365 X5000 package. These broadcasters are private individuals such as myself who are passionate about the music that they play and broadcast as a hobby, often investing considerable time and expense and usually getting no other reward than the the pleasure they get from doing it and the emails they receive from happy and grateful listeners.

Many of these broadcasters are now facing the prospect of financial ruin and perhaps even bankruptcy.

I hasten to add that I did NOT sign Radio Dismuke up for the X5000 package - thank goodness.

Here is a bit of background about the X5000 package, why it came into being in the first place and why those who signed up for it are suddenly on the hook for far more money that most of them can possibly afford.

Last time the RIAA tried to pull a similar stunt with Internet radio royalties a few years ago, a Small Webcasters Settlement Act was passed by Congress which allowed small Internet broadcasters with revenues under $50,000 per year and expenses under $30,000 per year to qualify for a flat SoundExchange royalty payment of $2,000 per year.

Live 365 and other major streaming audio providers such as AOL were way too large to qualify for the Small Webcasters Settlement Act and had to pay a very expensive per song per listener rate.

Because of that per song per listener rate, the royalty bill for Live 365's most successful stations, some of which which were pulling in hundreds of thousands of listener hours per month, ended up being a huge financial drain on Live 365. One option that Live 365 could have taken to address this problem would have been to significantly cap the number of free listeners that were allowed to tune into such stations at any given time. But such caps would have made it impossible for those highly successful stations to maintain their listings in important directories such as itunes.

To address this situation Live 365 came up with the X5000 plan.

Under the X5000, individual broadcasters agreed to get their own license with SoundExchange under the Small Webcasters Settlement Act and they, not Live 365, were responsible for $2,000 minimum royalty. In exchange, Live 365 gave these broadcasters 500 listener slots at no cost and covered all of the broadcaster's royalties for ASCAP/BMI/SESAC.

It was a great deal for everybody. $2,000 per year for 500 listener slots was a great deal for broadcasters - especially since Live 365 also provided the broadcasters with all of the server statistics needed to submit the quarterly reports to SoundExchange, which is not a small thing as many suspect that the reporting requirements were deliberately designed to make tracking and reporting requirements as difficult and as much of a burden for small broadcasters as possible. And, on Live 365's end, freed from having to pay the exorbitant SoundExchange royalties on the stream and only being responsible for bandwidth costs and ASCAP/BMI/SESAC royalties, Live 365 was actually able to turn a profit on the advertising it targeted to X5000 station listeners.

I guess it was too good of a deal because all of the provisions that Congress passed for small Internet broadcasters under the Small Webcaster Settlement Act were eliminated under the new royalty scheme.

Under the new royalty scheme, even the smallest webcasters have to pay per-song, per-listener.

Here is what makes this a financial disaster for hobbyists who became licensed with SoundExchange in order to qualify for Live 365's X5000 package: the new royalty rates, including the elimination of the provisions established by the Small Webcasters' Act are retroactive to the year 2006.

This means that webcasters who thought they would only be on the hook for $2000 for the year 2006 and might perhaps see a modest increase in that minimum amount once the new rates were announced by the Copyright Board are suddenly being told that they will have to retroactively pay MANY times that amount.

According to Mark Lam, the CEO of Live 365:

"The average X5000 station under these "per performance" rates will find their 2006 royalty obligation around $10,000, with some stations surpassing $40k. At current TLH, without any change in the new rates or streaming, some could find their 2007 SoundExchange bill approaching $100,000."

Again, keep in mind that the individuals he is talking about are not deep pocketed corporations who have lawyers who can fight this out in court. The are ordinary private citizens such as myself who run an Internet radio station as a hobby and are already probably spending more that they probably would like to on maintaining their stations.

Oh, and by the way, my understanding is that the royalty bill on these new rates is due very soon, with no regard for the appeals process which will hopefully overturn all of this.

Again, I ask, what percentage of the population, do you suppose, is in much of a position to suddenly absorb an unexpected $10,000, $40,000 or a $100,000 expense without being financially ruined or being in hock for years?

The Copyright Board, SoundExchange and the RIAA, which is behind the actions of both, are not content to just force these stations to go off the air - they want blood and are perfectly willing to knowingly drive decent individuals into personal bankruptcy.

And what did these broadcasters do to deserve something such as this being brought upon them? They had the nerve and audacity to provide their audiences with an opportunity to listen to something other than Brittany Spears and other lowest common denominator type stuff that the major labels who dominate the RIAA want you to listen to in order to ensure that music sales are largely concentrated on the hit recordings that such labels depend on.

I might add that broadcasters on Live 365 are people who choose, at great expense to themselves, to share their music with others legally.

I am sorry - but there is only one word that comes to mind which I think adequately describes what is happening to these broadcasters: evil.

Because of the potential impact of the new rates on X5000 broadcasters, Live 365 is strongly recommending that they consider lowering their free (i.e., non-VIP) listening slots to zero or taking their stations down completely.

As for the short-term impact on Radio Dismuke's Live365 stream - there is no word yet what, if anything, Live 365 will do. It is possible that they could eliminate the free listeners slots and make the station available only for VIP members. Or they could raise my rates by a rather significant amount in order to cover their increased costs. Long term, of course, if something is not done to overturn it, there is no way they can continue to carry my station at a rate that I can afford - assuming that Live 365 is even still in business.

Please do not allow the Copyright Board, SoundExchange and the lawyers and lobbiests at the RIAA to get away with it. Do not allow them to bring innocent men and women whose only crime was to have a dream of sharing the music they enjoy with others in a legal and lawful manner to be financially ruined in the name of protecting a technologically obsolete and increasingly irrelevant recording industry from the emerging competition it dreads and knows it will have a difficult time standing up against.

Above all, do not allow them to take away your freedom of choice in the sort of music you are able to listen to.

If you are a fan of the music that I present on Radio Dismuke, please do not allow them to take us back to the bad old days when few people outside of those who owned their own private collections of vintage 78 rpm records ever had much opportunity to listen to it.

Please write your representatives right now. And once you have done so, nag all of your friends to do the same. Speak out to anyone who will listen. Write letters to the editor. Put up postings in online message boards. Post something to your myspace page and all of your myspace friends. Please act quickly before it is too late.

Just How Insane Are The New Rates?

2007-03-10T22:12:00.000-06:00

The Examination Of A Folly

Kurt Hanson's Radio And Internet Newsletter links to a Beta News article which illustrates just how absurd and out of whack the new SoundExchange royalties really are.

Beta News analyzed the amount of royalties that AM/FM broadcasters pay for composers' royalties to ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. Beta News estimates that the total royalties paid by AM/FM broadcasters in 2006 to the three organizations combined is approximately $437.5 million. These amounts are for the royalties paid by all of the over 12,000 AM/FM stations in the United States.

It is important to keep in mind that AM/FM stations are exempt from paying the SoundExchange royalties that Internet broadcasters are required to pay on top of ASCAP/BMI/SESAC royalties.

Here is where this starts to get interesting - as well as bloody absurd.

According to Beta New's calculations, in 2006, AM/FM stations in the USA paid, on average, $1.56 per listener in royalties. By contrast, based on the recently announced retroactive SoundExchange royalty rates for 2006, Internet broadcasters would owe, on average, $8.91 in per listener royalties for that same year. By the year 2008, this cost would rise to an average of $15.59 per listener.

Let's do some math.

According to that article, 56.7 million listeners tuned into Internet radio every week during 2006. Using Beta New's numbers, 56.7 million x $8.91 = $505.2 million in royalties retroactively owned by Internet broadcasters for the year 2006.

Now let's go back and look at the numbers quoted earlier.

In 2006, the over 12,000 AM/FM stations combined paid $437.5 million in royalties verses the $505.2 million that Internet radio broadcasters will have to pay under the new royalty rates that Internet broadcasters will owe retroactively for the year 2006. In other words, under the new rates, Internet broadcasters will have to pay 67.7 million more in royalties for 2006 than all AM/FM stations in the USA combined despite the fact that the audience for Internet radio is only one fifth the size of the AM/FM audience.

To put it bluntly - there is simply no basis on which anybody this side of a mental institution can claim that such royalty rates are reasonable, rational or just. That is why, to me, the only apt description of the new royalty rates is: they are insane.

There is a famous line in a novel that says: "Don't bother to examine a folly - ask yourself what it accomplishes."

The new royalty rate structure may be insane. But unless quick and immediate action is taken, it will do exactly what it was designed to accomplish: to close down Internet radio and eliminate the competition and threat that it poses to the large audience concentrations on FM radio the major labels which dominate the RIAA depend on in order to promote the sales of lowest common denominator hit recordings.

Please speak up NOW and don't let that happen.

Live 365's Call For Help

2007-03-10T19:17:00.000-06:00

Live365 has posted its own Save Internet Radio page at:

http://www.live365.com/info/royalties.html

As with all of the other similar activist websites, Live 365 is asking that people write their elected representatives. However, Live 365 is asking that people make the following points in their messages:

Congress void the retroactive $500 per channel minimum that threatens to drive Live365’s small webcasters out of business.
Congress reinstate the Small Webcaster Settlement Act. The CRB declared that the 2002 SWSA would not be extended despite the Small Webcaster contracts SoundExchange offered on its website and signed with Small Webcasters for 2006 and 2007.
Stop the retroactive, ex post facto royalty payments for 2006 mandated by the CRB, until all appeals have been heard.
Create a level playing field by bringing the Internet radio per performance rates into parity with traditional and satellite radio. Unlike internet radio, traditional radio does NOT pay royalties to record labels or artists for songs performed over the air.

The $500 per channel minimum is very important because both of my service providers host many channels - Live365 has thousands of channels and LoudCity has hundreds. Some of these channels are VERY small.

For instance, a good friend of mine operates Radio Moscow a Live 365 hosted station which streams vintage Russian recordings from the 1930s and 1940s. He mostly promotes the station to his fellow World War II reenactors. Currently his station only streams a few hundred listening hours per month. Even under the ridiculous new royalty rates, such a tiny audience would amount to maybe $10 per month in royalties at the most - which is about what he is currently paying Live 365 to carry the station. If Live 365 was charged a $500 minimum per channel, it would have no choice (assuming that it will still even in business to begin with) but to pass that charge along to him.

Since my friend is a college student on a budget, he would have no choice but to close the station down. And if that were to happen - well, I think that would be a huge loss. Before his station came along, I had no idea what Russian music from that period was like. Now I do, thanks to his station and the time and effort he put in making it available. Today, anybody who happens to be curious is able to simply tune in an check it out.

There is NO other purpose of the $500 channel minimum than to make sure that networks such as Live 365 and LoudCity which focus on serving small operators such as Radio Moscow or even Radio Dismuke, which has a vastly larger audience, do not exist.

SoundExchange certainly cannot come out and say that additional channels constitute an additional expense for them because it is station owners who are responsible for the very significant burden of preparing the mandated reports and logging listenership patterns. Any additional costs involved in tracking and keeping up with the paperwork requirements for additional channels rests entirely with station operators and not SoundExchange.

Live 365's message about a level playing field between Internet broadcasters and AM/FM broadcasters is also worthy of comment. Unlike most countries, AM/FM broadcasters are not required to pay any performance royalties to record labels. They have for decades been completely exempt from them by law.

Personally, such an exemption has never made sense to me. My understanding is that the logic behind it is that, especially in the aftermath of the "payola" scandals of the 1950s, airplay on radio stations was considered to be free publicity for the record industry's products.

My big problem with all of it is that, with the advent of new mediums such as satellite and Internet radio, Congress has allowed a definite double standard to exist by continuing the exemption for AM/FM broadcasters but requiring broadcasters who use emerging technologies to deliver their programing to pay.

If airplay on a terrestrial station is considered as "free publicity" then why is the same recording being streamed on Live 365 somehow not considered "free publicity?"

Justice requires that there be consistency. If the exemption that AM/FM radio enjoys does, in fact, constitute unjust mooching on the intellectual property of record labels, then that exemption needs to be abolished - and, once that happens, the new statutory rates that the Copyright Office puts out need to be consistent across the board regardless of the particular medium that the music is distributed over. Imagine, for example, if ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, whose royalties over-the-air broadcasters are responsible for, decided to pressure the Copyright Office to set establish a rate structure that was significantly different for AM stations than for FM stations. It would make no sense whatsoever. Neither does it make sense to discriminate between terrestrial stations and satellite and Internet stations.

If, on the other hand, the legal exemption for AM/FM radio is somehow justified - then on what basis would it not be justified for satellite and Internet radio as well?

I am not especially knowledgeable about the various legal and property rights issues involved - but my off-the-cuff guess is that all broadcasters, including AM/FM stations, probably should be paying royalties for the copyright recordings that they play. If so, and if our laws required that the Copyright Board devise a royalty scheme that was applied evenly to all broadcasters, regardless of the specific technology they use to deliver their programs to listeners, I guarantee you that we would not be seeing such astronomical royalty rates.

Imagine if all FM broadcasters were in the same boat right now as the Internet broadcasters and faced with the serious likelihood of having to end all musical programming within weeks. Do you really think that the RIAA would allow that to happen? Obviously the record labels need the FM stations - as evidence by the latest round of new "payola" scandals. (As an aside - I do not have a problem with "payola" and think FM operators should be free to accept it if they wish. So long as competition in the form of alternative mediums such as Internet and satellite radio is allowed to exist, such practices on the part of station operators will eventually cause their programming quality to suffer and drive audiences to other sources where music is programmed based on what listeners want to hear and not what a bunch of salesmen want people to hear. )

Never forget that the whole reason we are having to fight this battle in the first place is because the RIAA is desperate to preserve the dominance of major metropolitan FM radio stations as the trendsetting force in determining which recordings become popular and which do not. Only the major labels which control the RIAA have the financial means and clout to get through the door and exert influence on program directors at such stations. Such stations rarely give independent labels and artists who self-promote the time of day.

In a couple of years, when Internet radio becomes available in people's automobiles and drivers will have thousands upon thousands of stations to choose from and trends in popular music are no longer determined by a handful of major FM stations - well, the advantage the major labels will have in promoting their artists over independent artists will be significantly diminished. When that happens, there will be little, if any, reason for the major record labels to exist other than to collect what money they can from reissues of musical acts that still have an audience leftover from their glory days before they became technologically and economically obsolete dinosaurs. For the RIAA this battle is all about holding that day off for as long as possible.

As for the "the retroactive, ex post facto royalty payments for 2006 mandated by the CRB," I will have more comments on that in a future posting.

MONOPOLY RIAA Style!

2007-03-10T19:00:00.000-06:00

Ian House, a regular participant on my Message Board put up a light-hearted posting about the game MONOPOLY and gave some helpful tips.

Well, I guess this Internet royalties nonsense has been on my mind too much - because the very moment I read his posting about Monopoly, my warped brain immediately came up with a new twist on the old "Golden Era" game from the 1930s. It is called RIAA MONOPOLY.

Let's see.... considering that, under the new rates, Internet broadcasters would be required to fork over 125% or more of their existing revenues to SoundExchange for royalties that AM/FM broadcasters are exempt from - well, it looks to me that I have found a way to make the game much more "real world."

Below is the posting that I put up:

- - - - -
RIAA MONOPOLY

It has been years since I have played MONOPOLY!

But I think I have come up with an exciting new variant of the game. It is called RIAA Monopoly (and if anybody is expert at seeking to become a monopoly, it is the RIAA!).

Here is how it works:

One lucky participant gets to play the RIAA. He plays the game as usual.

Another lucky participant gets to play FM radio.

All of the other suckers get to play on their own behalf.

Instead of all houses and hotels being sold by the bank, they will now be sold by the person who plays the RIAA who gets to keep all of the money raised in this fashion.

The other participants play as usual and fork over the customary rents when they land on another person's property. However, the person whose property is landed upon has to immediately turn over 125% of all rents thusly collected as a "royalty" to the person who is playing the RIAA. The person playing FM radio, however, is exempt from having to pay any royalties to the RIAA and gets to keep all of the money he receives from rents. The person who plays the RIAA then funnels a large portion of the money he receives in royalty payments under the table as a "payola" payment to the person who plays FM radio so that he can use it to buy more houses and hotels from the RIAA.

Sounds like a really fun game - and one that truly lives up to the name of the game!

EDIT

It occurs to me that when I came up with the rules I forgot about the fact that the new royalty payments are retroactive So here is one additional change to the rules to make the game more like real life: Before the game starts, all players except for the person playing FM radio are required to fork over to the person playing the RIAA 125% of all the rents that they collected the last time they ever played the game of MONOPOLY! And if one doesn't? Well, then it's go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

The Purpose Of This Blog

2007-03-10T18:37:00.000-06:00

I am starting this blog so that I can keep my audience and other supporters up-to-date in the battle to save Radio Dismuke and all other Internet radio stations from the crippling new SoundExchange royalty rates recently announced by the Library of Congress.

The blog will consist of a mixture of news updates, my own personal commentary on the situation as well as specific calls to action should they become necessary.

For those who have just stumbled across this blog via a link somewhere on the Internet, Radio Dismuke is an Internet radio station I operate that is devoted to popular music and jazz from the 1920s and 1930s decades. The station is currently carried on both the Live365 and LoudCity networks. A decade ago, few people had much, if any, significant previous exposure to the sort of music that I present on Radio Dismuke. The music fell out of popularity over 65 years ago and has been all but absent from the AM/FM radio airwaves since with the exception of a few weekly programs mostly on non-commercial stations in a very small handful of local markets. Today, thanks to Internet radio, the music is experiencing a renaissance and can be enjoyed by anyone with a computer and Internet connection. Thanks to Internet radio, music which was once enjoyed only be a handful of hard core collectors of vintage 78 rpm records now has a loyal and growing worldwide audience - including many people in their teens and twenties who were born many decades after the music fell out of the public spotlight. All of that progress is now in jeopardy as a result of the attempt by the RIAA to kill off independent Internet radio stations.

For those who are not familiar with or do not even care to become familiar with 1920s and 1930s music, my battle is still your battle. Presumably you or people you care about enjoy at least some genre of music and see the value in having as many listening options open to you as possible. Well, the RIAA wants to take those options away from you and use the power of legislation to make sure that the only musical programing that is available on the Internet is the same sort of cookie cutter lowest common denominator stuff that is presently heard on AM/FM radio.

For those who have never listened to Internet radio, check it out while you still have a chance to do so. It is very addictive. In the right hand column I have provided links to several stations. Most of them focus on various types of music from the early 1900s. But if you do a little searching around at the Live 365, LoudCity and Shoutcast Directory links, you will definitely find something to suit your taste regardless of what musical genre you enjoy. If you are into more mainstream modern type music, I have linked to Radio Paradise. I have not listened to it because I do not care for modern popular music. But I admire how the husband and wife owners of that station have been able to build it up and turn it into a financial success. Considering that most Internet radio stations do not generate a profit, that is a tremendous achievement. And, unfortunately, if something isn't done quickly, all of the hard work, time and money that was spent building that station will be wiped out.

I hope you will please consider joining me and all other webcasters in our battle for survival.