Radio doings (Dec 1930-Jun1932)

But now certain of our more enterprising broadcasters have gone in for real music. Works of Honegger, Ravel, de Falla, and revivals of Corelli and Vivaldi share evenings with La Paloma and the Rhythm Boys. Messrs. Raymond Paige, Pryor Moore, Calmon Luboviski and a number of others have made bids for a rating as real musicians, and in so doing they have subjected themselves to more searching, more exacting criticism from people who know the best and demand it. So we admire our highbrows for their musical enterprise and ability. But if they're going to be good, they've got to be real good, because real people are listening to them. We won't stand for human metronomes on the conductor's stand — they've got to be real, thin\ing conductors. The other night we heard an announcer stress the fact that his station ran twenty words, no more, no less, of commercial announcements at the end of each selection or program. Which I took to be an indication that people have become vociferous in their objections to long-winded sales talks on their radios. * * * I never have objected to a mediumlong announcement. In fact, I hold that listeners should not only pay attention to radio announcements, but should go out and at least try the products advertised. It's a sort of return of courtesy to the advertiser who has pleased you with a good program, delivered gratis. On the other hand, to tune out a good program when you come to the announcement, is a violation of the hospitality of the advertiser whose guest you have been. Somebody or other might be interested in the fact that Lew Conrad, that tender tenor, was a violin prodigy and was booked at seventy-five a week when a mere boy. He blew up after the second week. Stage fright. * * * The San Francisco lads are going high brow at T^BC. They will refer you to their manager now when you want to tal\ business. Assuming, of course, that you do want to tal\ business. Billy Page was the first to sign the new fangled contract with T^BC Artists Service, which handles all of his booking. * * * We have solved the problem of KHJ's Phantom of the Organ. The gentleman has cleverly concealed his name behind a blush and mike. He has a neat little mustache, a line of the very latest gags and without doubt is old Victor Herbert's ghost. The publicity boys give us the interesting news that Ken Niles, master of ceremonies of the Hallelujah Hour on KHJ was married to Nadja Vladovna, that lovely little Russian violinist. And then a week or a month ago Eliva Allman of KHJ married Wesley Tourtellotte, the organist. And further more, Nadja and Wesley are heard together over KNX; Ken and Eliva work together for KHJ. It must be one of those modern domestic arrangements gone astray. * * * Oh yes, Morton Downey has sung Wabash Moon into the microphone more than 260 times. Something ought to be done about this, people. * * * We wish to quote from a recent letter: "It was discovered that the peculiar ring of a locomotive bell of the 1840 era could be produced by hitting a standard Empire Builder bell with a hammer instead of a clapper." Why not hit the bell ringer7 With a piano stool instead of a hammer7 * * * This is just straight news, but it's good. Walter Damrosch is coming out to the coast in June to conduct the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in a couple of programs. And he will be down at the Hollywood Bowl. Damrosch first conducted in Los Angeles in 1897. * * * Ben S. McGlashan, the play boy of the Western world and the owner of KGFJ, put up several sheafs of the long green for a neat new Caddie phaeton. Rudy Vallee, the lad with a past and the ex-apple of the ladies' eyes, has turned author. At least we have seen a picture of him sitting before a portable typewriter and looking worried. That's what ma\es an author all right, all right. Some of our vast army of intellectual readers might be interested in knowing that the American Philosophical Society broke a precedent of two hundred and four years when its annual meeting was made public recently. NBC networks exposed it to the world. Lines and Angles By Ted Osborne This year It has been Almost as hard To be a Congressman As it has to Work for A Living. A clever young man in Mo. Was arrested for running a bro. But the trial was spurned, And the court was adjourned, When the evidence went to the jo. * * * Th' only people who can profit by fightin' other folks' battles is lawyers. * * * All Cake-eaters Are not Effeminate. A good many Of them have Lion Hearts Beating Below their Spats. * * * Matrimony is a good deal like a theatre, an' divorce is like th' exit y' can use in case of emergency. Y' don't expect f have t' use th' exit, but y' wouldn't think o' goin' into a theatre that didn't have any. * * * It ain't so hard to' find th" road t' Success, but th' feller who sets down beside it an' waits for a free ride is goin' to get left. A chorus girl died yesterday — 7\[o one was there to see; And no one sang her praises, Or wrote her L. E. G. * * * And that's that. Page Twenty-nine