The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls

diamone · Joined: 09 Aug 2008 Posts: 21 Location: Silicon Valley

For those of you who read my Introduction,

http://lathetrolls.phpbbweb.com/viewtopic.php?p=3285&highlight=#3285

and my student's paper from middle school in 1976...

http://78rpmrecord.com/altformat.htm

...I have been wondering for over 30 years about these two-sided stereo shellac 78's he mentions. He showed me a Xerox of a photo in a coffee-table book, but if any other historian knows more about them, it would be nice to know.

As he wrote in the piece, the left channel of the 78 is on the top (or left) side of the disc playing in the conventional manner. The right channel is on the bottom (or right) side of the disc, also playing outside-in.

However, he makes a small mistake in describing the artwork though. The two gramophone heads do in fact face one another, however they are 180 degrees opposite, one on the left front and one on the right rear with the disc playing upright in the center, also featuring start grooves on opposite sides of the disc.

As we have only seen the artwork in a book, never a photo of the machine, and certainly none of the records intended therefor, it would be nice to find out.

Same with the Home Music Library System he cites in there.
That, we have seen a photo for, though from the 60's.
It uses Edison Voicewriter type heads on super wide tape with 63 tracks.

So whoever knows more, if anybody, share.

E.

[This post given its own thread, & links added, by the moderator.]
_________________
2 Kinds of Men/Records: Low Noise & Wide Range. LN is mod. fidelity, cheap, & easy. WR is High Fidelity & Abrasive to its' Environment. Remember that when you encounter a Grumpy Engineer. ( Very Happy

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Steve E. · Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 7:02 pm Post subject:

This is very cool, though the phrase "six degrees of separation" was not in general use until John Guare's 1990 play (even though it refers to findings from a Stanley Milgrim experiment from the 70's, which did not use this phrase). What of this piece is actually from 1976? It appears that at least the title and outro were rewritten.

And in which town, exactly, was this "Inventor's Magnet School" in Upstate Western Michigan? What an interesting concept!! Does it still exist?

diamone · Joined: 09 Aug 2008 Posts: 21 Location: Silicon Valley

Yeah, that's probably the case.

But then, this post won't have much to do with the sound recording industry.

Even though I was a teacher for a couple years, I didn't keep copies of my student's papers like some teachers did.
I remember him turning in all kinds of supporting material and dragging me to Traverse City to the library there and bugging to go along with another school on a State Capitol field trip so he could go to what then passed for the music department at Michigan State.

I said OK and arranged it with the teacher at the other school. Not being a special-ed teacher, she balked a little bit, but I told her he knew how to tell time, and new how to be back outside at such-and-such a time. They dropped him off at MSU on their way to the Capitol tour, picked him back up on the way out, and it all worked out fine.

As far as the school goes, before I got there it was originally called Edison Marconi Educational Center outside Traverse City in a converted old warehouse building. It was for as we called them then `Special Kids'.

Not retarded or developmentally disabled though, or physically disabled or with mental illnesses, because they had schools for all these kids already. They catered to kids that were `between diagnoses' i.e. couldn't fit or function in regular classrooms, but for whom the then-common `alternative education centers' catering to developmentally, physically or psychiatrically disabled kids was an inappropriate placement.

So, for those people who didn't fit any of that, and who couldn't be shipped off to the State School for the Blind and/or Deaf, we had these little bitty off-the-wall educational centers in all sorts of non-traditional school buildings dotting the Michigan countryside to take care of them.

They found out early on, by the mid `60's in fact, that these kinds of Special Ed kids who weren't functioning in any of the `conventional' disabled-childrens' programs for all the disabilities mentioned above, needed something else.

So a lot of teachers' husbands and fathers and brothers would set up little mock versions of their office, shop, studio or factory, because in those days, it was still common to stuff any kind of special-needs boy into some kind of blue-collar or manual-arts training.

But by the `75-`76 school year that had begun to change, and other people with other backgrounds were invited to participate. This grizzled old sound engineer from Detroit that had retired up there brought all his old radio station and recording studio reel to reels with him, and set up in a couple of huge broken down rooms in the warehouse.

All the summer of `75 long we hung up discarded wrestling mats, and other sorts of sound-deadening materials, scrounged up all kinds of unused and discarded radio, recording and TV gear and set up a little TV studio and a little recording studio.

Since we were not part of the school district and more or less independent, we could pretty much format our instructional day as we saw fit. We would be doing then as they do nowadays, following along with student interests, and taking educational opportunities as they presented themselves.

English, math and composition as well as other topics would be presented within the framework of a concept which would soon come to be known as Magnet School or Charter Academy, something they are only now getting into: `themed cohesive education' where all the conventional topics are taught from the viewpoint of the career in question.

By the following year when the Individuals with Disabilities Educational Act (IDEA) was passed, local school districts were beginning to be forced by the Federal Government into creating programs and training teachers and facilitators to handle these kids, so by the time the `76-`77 school year was out, everybody had to go back to `regular' school with `adaptations' and our program along with most others, was disbanded.

Most of the boys I heard about later languished badly in the `regular-but-now-`adapted' school system' and ended up going into the same manual arts and blue-collar professions as all their predecessors, or went on disability for the rest of their life to languish at home or in a residential care center. So much for being innovative or making a Big Difference.

But Tim did alright. He would get jobs as tape operators in automated or Muzak-type operations and do well because it didn't matter what else he did on his shift as long as tapes were playing and machines were cleaned and maintained.

Gradually, these grizzled old chief engineer guys would train him one-on-one on recorder maintenance and calibration techniques, and get him into the more complicated aspects. Same with his later jobs as film projectionist and video calibrationist, before he got into the restoration work he does now. So at least one of mine didn't end up in the janitorial heap being treated like trash by everybody. That eases feelings some.

By the early 80's, as the school districts had begun to accommodate these people more fully than in `77, all these programs had ceased to exist independently, being folded back into conventional education featuring `resource' rooms, teachers and facilitators.

The teachers and facilitators from these programs who didn't go back to teaching in resource rooms went on to write books about the early days of Special Ed, and/or serve as consultants to school boards, developing programs of their own.

The warehouse where ours was, halfway to Cedar, MI has long since been torn down, and as far as I know, to this day, no Traverse City charter school features radio, film, TV or music production.

I escaped the snow and cold in 1992 and haven't been back since except for the occasional summer or Christmas vacation.

Have fun when you can.

E.
_________________
2 Kinds of Men/Records: Low Noise & Wide Range. LN is mod. fidelity, cheap, & easy. WR is High Fidelity & Abrasive to its' Environment. Remember that when you encounter a Grumpy Engineer. ( Very Happy

)

Steve E. · Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 12:22 am Post subject:

Sad yet inspirational story. Sad for obvious reasons but inspirational because of what _could_ be. Sounds like it was a very special place while it lasted. Thanks for sharing!!!

diamone · Joined: 09 Aug 2008 Posts: 21 Location: Silicon Valley

If anybody has the coffee table book the artwork for both the player and/or the discs were in, or has any other information, they can share it here. No I don't remember the title or author of the book, or what they called the player in there, only that the left channel was on one side and the right on the other playing vertically, both sides playing outside in simultaneously.
_________________
2 Kinds of Men/Records: Low Noise & Wide Range. LN is mod. fidelity, cheap, & easy. WR is High Fidelity & Abrasive to its' Environment. Remember that when you encounter a Grumpy Engineer. ( Very Happy

)