Dissecting things from The Phonoscope

Digging through the great old magazine The Phonoscope can really be fun sometimes. As I'm sure it was fun to write it as well:

(from my own art. Russell Hunting writing for The Phonoscope, with various machines and horns around him.)

He must have had a good time writing and doing editing for it as the editions kept coming. How is it a good source? Well, you just have to know what you're looking for when you get to it, and you can view all the editions from November 1896 to December 1899 Here. 

The sections that I share on this blog are ones that I have dug around for in all the editions available online(there are more of them out there that the Library of Congress owns), because I had heard of the section used and in what edition. But as you're doing that, you WILL run across other little things you want to save. So that is why I have saved so many things from it. This is where the mystery to who "Freddy Hylands" was can be solved, where you can learn when  record companies collapsed and when new ones began. It is also a great way to read funny little anecdotes and yarns about the artists we all love from their records. It's where we can hear how Russell Hunting really wrote, and how mediocre of an editor he was. 

It was Columbia biased however. What I mean by this is that it mostly spoke of matters relating to the Columbia phonograph company and also Berliner. Even though it did speak a good amount of Edison, it was more Columbia in its general writing. Their staff had a high praise for Columbia's "heavy-weight piano artist" and Mr. Leonard Spencer, it's very clear this is true by all the great things they mention about the eccentric and strong-willed Hylands and the intelligent, perfectly figured Spencer. 

Here are a few of these things about Spencer and Hylands:

 (Heh, I remember this one.)

an esoteric reference I still don't really get.

(still makes me laugh)

We all love those Hylands and Spencer stories. That last one still gets me though, I know that cylinder of "Will O the Wisp" by Myers is out there, and I really want to hear how hard it worked Hylands. Apparently, that's how hard Banta worked at Edison's studio, as Hylands as well(well, according to the Hylands section above that one). But as I have said before, it's probably him just complaining almost meaninglessly. 

As expected from a magazine co-written by Russell Hunting, he is mentioned quite a lot throughout the editions. Both his "Casey" records and just general antics on vacation or record sales. He doesn't get mentioned too much though, just enough to catch your attention. The only editions where it's really relevant are in the earlier ones, as he was the main writer if the first few editions. 

here are two Hunting sections:

These are only two of many. 
someone who was never mentioned in The Phonoscope and who should have been was Frank Banta:

He was never mentioned, but his "rival" Freddy Hylands sure was. As this is proving the Columbia bias even more. they still loved him just as much as Hylands was praised in The Phonoscope. 
Something that can be found in several editions of the magazine is documentation of the artists of Columbia doing private performances for big "swells" of New York.It is something that cannot be found anywhere else, not even in small local newspapers. 
Here are some of them:

(Lots of typos on this one)
But a lot of familiar people mentioned.

(This one is actually the first time Fred Hylands was mentioned in The Phonoscope)

I think there are a few more of these, but I cannot find them right now. 
I hope if you haven't read through The Phonoscope yet that my link to it helped you out! Enjoy the reading! 

I hope you enjoyed this!