September 4, 2011 – Music for Every Mood!

I am not sure where all the paper sleeves for 45’s even came from, but they are in one of my drawers of collage fodder. No records, just the paper sleeves. Tell the people from Hoarders to back off! I am making art with them.

Some of the artists were from rather obscure singles. I particularly liked (and used) the sleeve from Mercury Records that was labeled Music for every mood! That sleeved listed some of the big stars on the Mercury label. A few I had never heard of — Rusty Draper and David Caroll for example. Of course I know who Patti Page is (I grew up on Cape Cod). And I have a stack of Dinah Washington CD’s. I even have seen one the artists live a few times – Dick Contino of course, he usually headlines at the Cotati Accordion Festival. And right now I am listening to Quincy Jones because I always need music to make art too. I just worry if the neighbors hear What’s New Pussycat? one more time they’ll start pounding on the ceiling…..

April 25, 2011 — Rock and Roll While You Stroll

30 years ago there was no iPod, it was all about the Walkman. The mobile music device that seemed to eat a set of batteries each time you played an entire cassette. One had to travel with a horde of batteries plus all those cassettes. Younger generations have no idea how we “suffered” to bring our music alone.

Today I found this article about how you could “Rock and Roll while you stroll” in a 1963 issue of Popular Mechanics. This device made it possible to walk down the street playing your 45’s. It never seems to have caught on. The price back then was $79.95. That is about $570 in 2011 dollars.