About This Blog!

Our beloved Spock is featured in the header photo, taken in 1979. These are some of my LPs, themed compilations, and the like.

ALL LINKS 2015 & LATER SHOULD BE ACTIVE. If you find a dead FileFactory link, or for any other correspondence, send me an email; Blogger comments do not allow me to send YOU a reply. That’s msuperfan1956@gmail.com


Thursday, August 28, 2014

Re-Post: MA-52 - Adventures of Superman - original MUTEL catalog recordings





I recently heard from a new friend asking about this release.  Previous posts of this release were victims of the Great Server Swap, so here it is again.

When I wrote to Vintage Soundtrak for information about their MUTEL music, I received a mimeographed list, several pages long, listing the various cassettes for sale.  That’s all I remember! I think the tapes were something like $20 each.

I originally learned about Vintage Soundtrak in a STARLOG article.  I’m not sure which issue, though.  Just this past week, I went page-by-page through STARLOG  issues 4-5, 7, 10-14, 17-21, 25-7, 29, 31, 33,  35-6, 38-9, 41-2, 51, 57, 61, 63-65, 67, 69, 71-224.  And I didn’t find it!

I sent money orders for two tapes.  I’m pretty sure they were at different times.  First I sent off for Season One, Volume Two, because I liked the selection titles.  When I popped that tape into my player and I got smacked in the face with “Mysterioso,” I was agog!  I love this kind of creepy, atmospheric stuff.

Remember, this was in the early 1980s, and the TV series, when shown, usually didn’t feature the B&W episodes.  Oftentimes the sillier color episodes were what you came across on the small screen.

Next, I ordered Season One, Volume One.  They sent me Season Two, Volume Two, with an apology that they were out of what I ordered but hoped the replacement was sufficient.  It was!




This is what the cassettes look like.

Now, the “catalog” they originally sent me had selection titles and brief one or two paragraph notations.  I’m happy I kept that catalog, because the cassettes arrived with no labeling except the stickers on the tapes themselves.

I made my own cassette-case inserts using info from the original mimeoed catalog.


 
Also this past week, I went through my “memory files” and folders of articles and clippings and other stuff, but did not find the catalog sheets from Vintage Soundtrak.  So, unless somebody else has better preservation skills, we may never know more about this firm, which evidently in the 1980s had possession of, or access to, the MUTEL discs.

And, as I mention in the notes for this release, at least one collector (who knows more about this stuff than I do), feels that these cassette-to-mp3 dubs have better sound quality than the Varese-Sarabande 2000 CD release.

So, here is my track list:

01. Mysterioso (2:13)
02. Wax Museum (1:32)
03. Build to Sting (0:18)
04. Frantic Rhythm (1:53)
05. Violin Scream (1:19)
06. The Getaway (0:57)
07. Fight (3:13)
08. Jump the Fence! (1:19)
09. Queasy (1:34)
10. Deserted Village (1:33)
11. Rip Through Fear (1:03)
12. Face at the Window (1:44)
13. Eerie Oboe (1:22)
14. Flute to Finale (0:53)
15. Night of Terror (2:29)
16. Sad Romance (1:20)
17. Monkey Mystery (1:18)
18. Airport (0:37)
19. Slow Carousel (0:46)
20. Radio Waltz (1:43)
21. Tango (2:09)
22. Silsby Pastorale (1:43)
23. Life and Death (2:28)
24. Romantic Interlude (1:54)
25. Blue Melody (1:41)
26. World of Tomorrow (3:10)
27. Menace (1:34)
28. City Desk (1:21)
29. Sword of Damocles (2:56)
30. Cat Burglar (1:28)
31. Atlantic Rollers (2:09)
32. Solemn Moment (1:31)
33. Sea Power (1:35)
34. Scotland Yard (2:59)
35. Prelude to Crime (0:24)
36. Crime Doesn't Pay (2:47)
37. Changing Moods I (3:01)
38. Changing Moods II (2:48)
39. Humorous In & Out (0:34)
40. Chameleon Moods (2:40)
41. Free for All (1:35)
42. Hope Abandoned (2:47)
43. Arctic Wastes (2:25)

So, combine this with MA-55 - Adventures of Superman - More Library Recordings from last September, and you will have everything I’ve got, as far as music goes, from the Adventures of Superman series.



Monday, August 25, 2014

Popular Music in Jacksonian America - An Antidote for Nostalgia


This is a three-LP set.  I saw it in a thrift store and thought it looked pretty nifty.  And it was, but also sad.

These songs cover ranges of popular music of North and South, and therefore show how the degradation of humanity (aka slavery) was a commonplace of everyday life.  We need to be able to acknowledge the sad parts of our history along with the glorious parts.  I leave further thoughts or comments to you.

I am happy that projects like this set try to simply show what was what, and we can see the depressing and sorrow-making aspects of the subject matter on our own.  We have two CDs and a scan of the entire booklet that came with the set.

Popular Music in Jacksonian America, Disc 1:


Music of the Stage and Concert Hall
01. The Celebrated Sontag Polka Song (2:48)
02. The Dashing White Sergeant (3:12)
03. Yes! Tis the Indian Drum (2:28)
04. The Hunters of Kentucky (2:15)
05. Home! Sweet Home (2:50)
06. The Slave Ship (5:54)
07. My Old Kentucky Home (1:17)

Early Blackface Minstrelsy
08. Nigger on de Wood Pile (0:35)
09. The Way George Christy Got Through College (1:26)
10. What Did You Come From (1:12)
11. Lubly Fan Will You Cum Out to Night (1:40)
12. Nelly Was a Lady (2:46)
13. De Boatman's Dance (1:38)
14. Root Hog or Die (0:57)
15. Old King Crow (2:03)
16. Old Folks at Home (3:18)
17. Old Dan Tucker (1:40)
18. Dixie's Land (2:26)

Songs of the Hutchinson Family
19. Flow Gently Sweet Afton (2:15)
20. A Life on the Ocean Wave (2:06)
21. The Indian's Lament (2:53)
22. The Batchelor’s Lament (2:52)
23. Kind Words Can Never Die (3:07)
24. Get Off the Track! (2:10)
25. Gentle Annie (2:37)


Popular Music in Jacksonian America, Disc 2:


Sentimental Ballads
01. Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms (2:22)
02. The Orphan Ballad Singers (3:47)
03. The Old Arm Chair (3:46)
04. The Old Oaken Bucket (2:03)
05. The Messenger Bird (3:05)
06. Darling Nelly Gray (4:06)
07. Ah! May the Red Rose Live Always (1:26)

Amateurs and Music Societies
08. My Country 'Tis of Thee (0:38)
09. Mountain Song (1:09)
10. 'Tis the Last Rose of Summer (1:44)
11. Happy Are We Darkies So Gay (1:18)
12. Temperance Hymn (1:06)
13. The Hazel Dell (2:53)
14. Rural Felicity (0:27)
15. From Greenland's Icy Mountains (2:42)
16. Nearer My God to Thee (1:11)
17. Oh! Susanna (2:41)
18. Old Uncle Ned (4:10)

Shape-Note Singing
19. Holy Manna (2:03)
20. Hail! Columbia (1:04)
21. Hebrew Children (1:06)
22. Resignation (0:55)
23. Solemn Thought (1:06)
24. The Indian's Petition (0:58)
25. War Department (0:37)
26. Wondrous Love (2:39)
27. The Romish Lady (3:18)
28. The Dove of Peace (2:14)
29. Lover of the Lord (0:34)
30. Hallelujah (2:10)
31. New Britain (2:22)


Popular Music in Jacksonian America Booklet -- This is a 16-page scan including essays and lyrics.

I think the Yankee Doodle Society did a good job.