Eh?! Whats that you say? It sounds like a barking dog, or Caruso Singing. I am not quite sure.

So, I get this new found energy and desire to re- start up the blog, and things are going well.  Then BANG I catch the nasty cold that has been making the rounds between my 2 1/2 year old, my 9 month old and my Wife.  I am a bit bleary eyed and my nose is running like a leaky spout. 'I love it when a plan comes together'.

While my biting repartee is muted I did find some interesting items of  Tech Arcane -(dammit, I still cannot get the Jerry Reed song  'East Bound and Down' '...cause the boys are thirsty in Atlanta and there's beer in texarcana',  song outta my head).  What this really shows is that I watched the first Smokey and the Bandit movie way too many times as a kid. SATB may very well be where I caught a hook into the then 'hillbilly sounds' of country. I soon found better refuge in the likes of Hank Williams.  Then Rock n' Roll took hold O' my soul, but of the pure guitar pickin and twangy harmonies made their way back to me in the likes of X, Wilco, Lucero and the Rock-a-Billy \ Punk-a- Billy of The Cramps, The Reverend Horton Heat, Slick Pelt  and garage -billy bands like the Stumbleweeds.   Technologically we live in gilded age of musical access where many of us only have the slightest inkling as to where it all started.

Edison is heralded by the mass culture as the inventor of recording.  He certainly had his hand in making a mass market device which allowed for the music to come to you rather then having to go out and see it live. (it is interesting to read archival articles on how stunning people thought the sound was, how true to life , and also to hear the naysayers declare it did no justice to being in the music hall to hear first hand.   The modern equivalents have allowed us mock the over reaching comments of yesteryear but in reality our grandchildren will say the same of us).  Yet, Edison apparently is not the first to conceive of and operate a recording device.  I found  an interesting article on the NPR site about  much earlier French devices which only recently could be listened to.  The article describes and has an audio sample of an 1857 recording of a French folk song:

Sound Recording Predates Edison Phonograph

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89148959&ft=1&f=1019

I also found a nifty little article and video of a Japanese learning toy manufacture who made a limited quantity of Edison phonograph toys.  The Toy will record and playback from a standard plastic cup:

Plastic Cup Gramophone Kit: Edison Reproduced

http://gizmodo.com/373307/plastic-cup-gramophone-kit-edisons-invention-reproduced