A Death date and Spencer's relationship with Columbia

well, I'm still here everyone, those fires are far enough away. But you know, it's been a disaster that's really got me depressed and unmotivated to do any work I usually do and and am assigned. The one thing I for some reason have the motivation to do is a blog post. It seems the death date of this weekend is so important to motivate me to write a post. In honor of such dates as always, I wore all black and burnt incense. 

of course, some of you may already know whose death date it is, those of you who follow my Facebook page know this. 

104 years ago today, Fred Hylands died in a suburb of Liverpool in Britain. For some reason he left a pile of obscure sheet music while spending his final weeks in Britain. It seems strange that this is so, but there's a bunch of his music at a library in Britain, and it's either because of his investments there while a publisher with Len Spencer, or he had a bunch of sheets with him on his tour when he died. It will forever be strange to me why a bunch of very rare(some not copyrighted) pieces of his music. 

However that happened, hopefully I will sometime be able to see those sheets. 

Hopefully we all understand the circumstances and sequencing that led up to his death, and I have explained it in many previous blog posts. Of course it's hard for us to really know about all of that that led to his death, but one thing is for sure, he was sickly before he died. 

Here's three images of him in various years to compare, and so you'll see what I mean here: 

Early 1897.

Mid-1898.

1913. 

Contrary to what some might assume, Hylands became rather sickly and looked similar to how he did in 1897(kinda). But we know it's obvious that he didn't take care of himself, and it comes through rather well when just looking through the few images we have of him (so far). as expected, some are still shocked to see such the change, or transformation rather, he went through at the beginning of his time at Columbia. i still can't really believe it too well, but that unknown pianist in that 1897 Columbia picture can't be anyone else. Also keep in mind that he was 41 when he died. That's less than ten years older than the age that Banta was when he died. when calculating and analyzing the median age these recording stars died, Hylands was on the low end of the spectrum(the median age seems to be 56). Uunfortunately, it seems he forced himself to live a hard life, even with all the supposed good money coming in from working at Columbia between 1897 and 1903-1904 ish(notice that we are beginning to debate the time he was dropped from Columbia again, this has returned as an item of discussion). By this, I mean that he didn't make his life any easier, he stuck his already injured foot into every snake pit he encountered. He joined in toxic partnerships(like with Len Spencer), and messed with unstable and risky communities and endeavors, this including his job at Columbia. His job at Columbia was risky, even if it was relatively stable the first few years, the Climax/Zon-O-Phone/Victor feud proved a death scare for everyone. After all of that, he toyed with the Socialist community, and that was never proved to be stable, nor was it well-organized. By that, I mean the usual friendly neighborhood socialists, but also the mean and bitter union leaders and crowd. He joined in and helped to better organize the White Rats Actors' Union, since Columbia had been mean to him(they actually were...no joke or pun intended), and his first attempt at becoming socialist failed miserably. He soon rose up the ladder real quick and became a leading member of the White rats, and from 1905 on that's what he pledged his allegiance to. of course being the way he was he couldn't keep all those commitments and was soon breaking rules that he pledged to in the first place. In 1912, he was thrown out for being defiant and disloyal to the rules he helped to create and enforce. Hylands was dragged into court for his defiance, and was forced to testify, as indicated in a few papers I've read on the very trial, it seems that a few members of the union were tried in court that day for similar perpetrations. 

With this trial, Hylands was no longer a "chief rat" as they called him, and he was no longer able to speak at gatherings of the union. And just after then, he joined with Wilbur Held, with whom he performed until his death supposedly caused directly by diabetes. There's probably more that went into his cause of death, since it's obvious that he didn't take care of himself while at Columbia. That directly led to his issues years later, and it can easily be seen, this is not just some wild theory. 

So for the honoring of his death date, I not only wore black, but I also did something else that I will have become a ritual from now on. 

I first got some incense, then wrapped a picture of Hylands with a little note on it around the incense, lit it on fire, let the two things burn, and once it was burnt down, I grasped all the ashes and blew them into the breeze, then out in the world. 

I took pictures in sequence. 

Someone suggested that I do this, and I found it a really sweet and thoughtful way of remembering. From now on, this is going to be my ritual on important death dates. Next month comes Banta's, so that will be another good time to do this, and hopefully I can get my symbolic violet incense for him. 

Anyway...

Rest well Fred. You are not forgotten.

Now to move onward...

Last weekend I got to discuss some interesting matters with Charlie Judkins, and with that, we got into something that I had not previously considered. We discussed the interesting relationship that Len Spencer had with Columbia and U.S., and it appears to be more complicated than most of us might think. 

It's starting to become clear that Spencer was a common face amongst the men in blue all over New York and in Newark. 

Yes indeed.

Many policemen probably knew his face, or had heard his name as a "deadbeat" or something of that type in social terms. 

Now what has this to do with anything? 

well...It seems his relationship with Columbia and U.S. wasn't all peaches and cream(haha, Spencer and Jones pun). We all want to assumed that he was on great terms with Columbia, which is true without a doubt, but there were strange aspects to his relationship with U.S. and Columbia. We know that he began with Columbia in 1888-1889, and soon rose up the ladder from just a local dork with a golden ticket of a surname. He was soon a well-respected money maker for Columbia, even though in 1893, he was forced into some sketchy business with them...

Okay, so it seems that we may have a hypothesis as to why he used that strange pseudonym of "Gary Allen" on early Columbia and U.S. records. He was involved in some patent and law breaking activity with Columbia and U.S., and this can be proven through newspaper digging. In 1894, Spencer was tried in court for doing essentially the same thing he did while at U.S. in 1897(remember a few posts ago when I talked about the "midnight crooks"?), for stealing records from one company and bringing them to the next, and for doing who knows what else... 

tsk tsk Mr. Spencer...

So he was dropped from Columbia almost entirely in that sketchy period from 1893 to 1897, but after pledging to U.S. under Victor Emerson, he made some deal with Columbia under the table, and hence the reason that we get that jarring headline of him getting at last arrested for stealing those records with Georgie and Clyde Emerson. The second time it was the reverse, he was stealing records from U.S. to smuggle to Columbia, rather than stealing records from Columbia and smuggling them to U.S. Now what can we analyze from this? well, after discussing this recently, we can see Emerson(Victor) had those expected intentions with Spencer. He and the Management at Columbia, like Master Edward Easton, thought of Spencer as a so-called(excuse my language) "attention whore", and by this, I mean that Spencer was always wanting attention from the public for his work in the studio, and was pretty cocky about it. Hmm, from all this, we're getting a better image of Spencer for certain. Emerson and Easton as they were all getting Columbia set up in New York were looking for talent to hire with their new fresh start, and who was likely one of their first thoughts--Spencer. Right, he's nair-do-well, how about we get him to do some of our bidding. And so that's exactly as Spencer did, some deal was made, and he with the "lesser" Emerson brothers raided U.S. for the sake of pledging alliance secretly to Emerson at Columbia, though they weren't yet allowed to, since U.S. had not completely decimated at that point. All of this is making Columbia seem even more sleazy and like pirates. Edison called them "pirates" for a reason, and it may or may not be because of Spencer(well, now there's that possibility, so that makes this even more hilarious). 

So to sum up this about Spencer, it seems that Columbia saw him as a privileged deadbeat who could do anything for money and cocky bragging rights, so that's why we see him getting into trouble more than once with both of the companies he worked for before 1897. Now we can see why he used that strange pseudonym too, that's good to have cleared up. Hopefully we get to actually hear records from this fabled era sometime.

Hope you enjoyed this!

Mid-night crooks and "The Voice in Time"

Who are these three funny guys? 

Well, we ought to know that first guy(Len Spencer), but the other two could stump some of us. The second is George Emerson, and the third is Clyde Emerson. These three rough-and-tumblers seem to have pulled off an interesting heist back in 1897, one that has been causing all sorts of buzz among the brown wax community this past week. This heist of a sort was pulled off in early 1897(just as the U.S. Phonograph company was collapsing), and in fact, speaking of the U.S. company, it seems that this was part of what led to their demise. So after reading the other record blog that was all read, it seems that Russell Hunting wasn't the only one of these studio stars who was arrested in the 1890's. Len Spencer and those infernal Emerson's were also taken out of that studio by the men in blue. 

The three of them crooks went to their U.S. Company headquarters in Newark(I hope late at night!) and took a hundred records as it says(around 100 would be my guess, keep in mind that it's just three guys...) from that company and brought them to be sold to a company of "rival concern",which is probably Columbia at this point of time. The case was brought to court, with them three handed $2,500 in bail(hot damn that's a lot of money!), but were soon discharged upon having no strong stance on the case. 

So that's it?

Yes, essentially with all the evidence. 

But hold on! There's more to it...This is clearly an inside job, a very complicated story, much more so than it lends itself to be. This is one of those things that just can't be a small thing, with a bail set over the amount that Victor Emerson put aside for George W. Johnson, something ain't right to me...As with anything Emerson or Columbia related, there's some really tangled up backstory that involves several recording stars, as well as deals between rival companies. The U. S. Company was a sinking ship in 1896-97,and everyone had to get their way off into the water. Spencer was in an uncomfortable position for sure, since he had such strong and long lasting ties to U.S., but was being led on a string back to Columbia, since that's where he started, and that's where they wanted him. A similar story must have been attached to Edward Issler, though Issler was not nearly as valuable to the management(he would be the most valuable if managers really cared about musicians), however, he did have an important role at U.S. that succeeding pianists hadn't, the knowledge of the technical aspect. Everyone eventually were saved by Columbia, but it was a long and almost deadly process, as it always was with Columbia during any transition. Spencer just after this heist had pledged his services to Columbia, which is also a little fishy. Come on, you can't just see this as being a smoothly moving thing that just happened. Spencer got busted for it, and so did the two "lesser" Emerson brothers. Victor Emerson may not have been charged, but it's got to be for certain that he had some hand in this late-night raid. 

(a cartoon I did parodying this heist)

Even with the lack of names(unlike the Johnson trial), there must have been at least a dozen other sleazy hustlers involved in this raid, they just sent out the best hustlers to go and steal the records themselves to be sold. I'm sure brother Harry(Spencer) had a piece of this too, since Harry at this point wasn't fully set as a recording artist solely. Recall that at this time (early-1897) Harry was more of a salesman and repairman than a recording artist. It would seem in this case that everyone we might think who would have a hand in this probably did. Considering Columbia's rampant legal squad, they were sure to brush this off quick no matter what happened. Hopefully we'll be able to learn more about his rather hilarious bust with Columbia. It's always fun to read about these stars getting into trouble like this, whether it has to do with recording or not.

Now to move to Fred Gaisberg!

We all have grown to love this crazy guy, and I have most certainly done so, along the course of reading this lovely book:

(Thanks Charlie!)

At this point, I am over half way through the thing, and the first night I started reading it got through 90 pages. I already have written about the first two to three chapters in a previous blog post, but this time, since I've the book right here, I will get to quoting some of Gaisberg's priceless and utterly snobbish remarks about those he met places he went. 

Here's one of the first lines from chapter three:

The man finally selected[to manage Berliner's London outpost]for this task was William Barry Owen, a legal assistant to Frank Seaman...

"Berliner could have selected no finer agent than Owen to exploit his invention. He was an opportunist of quick decision and a bold gambler...You would always find him sitting at the stiffest game of poker in the smoking room...and his eyes would bulge as he laid a full house on the table...He brought to London an infectious enthusiasm and energetic leadership which I believe was quite new to the conservative English city man of that day."

That's most certainly Gaisberg's writing at it's finest...his descriptions and diction were just fantastic to every degree. When he wasn't describing a type of foreign music with his European eye, the images he painted through words otherwise were unbiased and nicely structured, giving us a very real and somewhat raw vision into the early recording business. 

His description of the old man Giuseppe Verdi was just as intriguing as his vibrant imagery of his first visits to Milan and Rome:

I often saw the venerable Verdi, who would regularly take an afternoon drive in an open landau drawn by two horses. People would stand on the curb and raise their hats in salute as the carriage proceeded down Via Manzoni to the park. A frail, transparent wisp of a man, but the trim of his pure white beard so corresponded with the popular picture of him that one could not fail to identify him. 

That pretty much sums up Verdi. Gaisberg and Willie Darby were utterly overwhelmed by the culture and constant vigor of Milan the first and few times they went. Being ever surrounded by lovely art, music, and people seemed to overwhelm Gaisberg at first, though after a little while he grew used to the culture.

I hate to move a little out of chronological order, but this book keeps opening to other important pages with Gaisberg's unequalled descriptions, here is his rather cute description of Alfred Clark around 1897:

He was, I remember, a youth big an well-proportioned, perfectly dressed in a tailor-made suit which, in those days of "off-the-peg" clothes[what does that mean?] (which I and even Berliner wore) struck a note of distinction. Further, his dark eyes and curly brown hair set off by a boyish blush whenever he spoke, made him irresistible[hmm mmm...interesting choice of words there], quite apart from the shadow of the great Edison.[That's where he worked before then]

That's a lovely description, and makes me laugh, since he and Clark lived adjacent one another above Berliner's studio from 1896 to 1897, and went to all sorts of shows and got plenty of bonding time in, whilst also learning of the business and local culture in Washington and in Philadelphia. 

Gaisberg's time from August 17th and 18th of 1899 is one of the absolute best two days in sequence throughout his entire years of travel. In these two days, he was traveling with Darby in Spain to France:

Thursday Aug. 17th 99. Plaza de Montesino, Valencia...

Here again the terrible uncertainty of whether to proceed to Libson or return to Madrid seized us, and for two hours we sat discussing the pros and cons. Our fate was decided when we discovered out luggage was already placed on the relief train and we sprung aboard...[then] the station-master informed us no connections for Libson would be made that day, but if we waited for Mañana('tomorrow') connections would surely be made. 

Already knowing that a Spaniard's 'tomorrow' means 'never'[haha], we quickly had our luggage transferred to the Madrid train and at 7 o'c p.m. we re-journeyed over the same ground travelled last night--sad, tired and provoked. However, before starting we invested 9p. in a sausage three rolls, and a bottle of wine. This we tackled with great relish, as we were nearly famished. 

The night was awfully close, and as these European railroad carriages give no draft9as there is no vestibule) we suffered awfully from the heat and thirst caused by the salty sausage

Friday Aug. 18th 99.

We entered Madrid at 8 in the morning...arriving at the station we finally accomplished the difficult task of registering trunks, and tried to find a place in the coach--but they were full. At last, finding an empty seat, I jumped in and sat down just as a fat matron with a bitter tongue claimed it. I refused to move, and she plumped down in my lap and there remained, while Darby on the outside frantically ram about looking for me. At last I gave her a push and slipped out from beneath her and she fell back into the seat with a jar. Then Darby got in, and as the fat woman got out of the car to give the seat to her daughter for whom she was preserving it, Darby slapped himself into it, and immediately two men and the old woman yelled and pulled and tugged and punched at him. Finally he had to give it up, and with a long face squeezed himself in a place opposite, and then it was my turn to laugh[indeed so Fred!].

Well, the ride was the worst I ever endured. This was our third successive night on a train--and that in a car so crowded that one had to sleep as in a strait-jacket.

What a trip! Hot damn that sounds absolutely awful, but it's genuinely a hilarious story that sums up most of their journeys together. 

Many of us can get to wondering about Fred's love life, and luckily, there's a lot of it scattered throughout this book, and it seemed impulsive of him to be describing the women around him any time they were met. Of course, he knew that he's never actually settle with a lady, and with his constant state of moving from place to place, his status of bachelor seemed inevitable, no matter how long the traveling with Darby lasted. Here's a particularly interesting little affair from Feb. of 1900 while back at home base in London:

25th, Sunday...

I went to take Miss Waite's package to Miss Edell's, and there spent a delightful afternoon, at the same time taking tea with them. Returning to town. I dropped in at the Horse Show, and to my great surprise who should I see sitting there but Henrietta. I hardly recognised her at first. She looked entirely prosperous, and decked out in fine dressed an jewels. She tried to urge me to enter old associations with her, but I stoutly resisted the magnetism of her beautiful brown eyes. She waxed most furious. What an uncontrollable passion this spoilt beauty has!

26th. Monday

After work Henrietta met me at the office, where we had a short dance and singing[aww...what a cute picture...].Then after supper we went to the gallery of the Savoy theater to see The Rose of Persia on Newton's invitation. She followed me me all the way to my Kensington lodgings, where I abruptly left her.

How interesting. It really fascinated me to read such writings of his, since we would normally never hear this side of him. He seems confused in this whole love matter...but at the same time all mad about it. It's truly charming to gather his feelings about being kinda in love. He hadn't the best of luck with this matter it seems. 

Here's an interesting picture from just a few months later. This was taken of the family when he visited for Christmas:

I'm sure you can guess where Fred is. 

Their long and grueling trips to Russia were chock full of mockery for Gaisberg. He reveled in how ignorant the Russian opera audiences were, cheering madly at a single performer who wasn't even adequate(at least to what Gaisberg had experienced). But after a horridly busy week of recording and traveling in Russia, this horrid mess befell them in their room:

About 2 a.m...

We were awakened by a terrible battering on our door. The porter and three or four others wanted to know what terrible happenings were going on, the room below was all dripping with what might be blood or something deadly, and was falling on the face of the sleeping occupant. We went into our 'lab' and to our dismay found a bucket filled with old acid had sprung a leak, and the floor was flooded...The bright red fluid dripped through the ceiling on to the sleeping guest; when his body began to smart[interesting word choice there...]he roused the hotel. We had the disagreeable task of sopping it up in our nightshirts, and expecting the manager up every moment to pitch us out bag and baggage. 

What a horrid thing! That would have freaked me out if I had been that other hotel occupant. Certainly I would have been convinced it was blood a-dripping on my face! 

Oh how there's so much more to write here from this lovely book, but there's no way I could quote everything  that was curious, since his descriptions of eastern music and instruments  are very interesting, while at the same time also strongly judgemental. He wasn't easy with his words on eastern music and instruments. He didn't revel as much being in Japan as he ought to have. His time in India and the middle east especially was curious to him. It seemed he took a great fascination with these nations, and took many candid pictures of the street people and musicians. This book is an overload of information and quotes, since Gaisberg lived a fuller life than anyone I have ever studied. Such the amount of travel he did is more than anyone would hope to travel in an entire lifetime, and he did that much travel in 10 years, or even less. He seemed to have most enjoyed Milan throughout his time of travel, since he revisited the place very often, and spoke the highest of everything there. He seemed to have disliked the long grueling trips to Russia, and seriously disliked the music of Japanese opera. His tastes dramatically changed from his days back at Columbia in 1889! Never would he have guessed he'd be in the studio with the masters of Italian opera just 15 years later...

Over time, I will use quotes from this book, since there are so many more, and I have to finish reading it of course. Remember, I'm only just over halfway through!

Hope you enjoyed this!