The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Does anyone have any bright ideas as to how best to carry an HMV portable gramophone on a bicycle?

I find it won't fit in a standard rucksack and bungees don't hold it very securely to the pannier rack without doing damage to it.

In googling this I was delighted to learn that some people have actually turned their bike into a gramophone:

https://www.treehugger.com/bikes/dj-you ... cycle.html

This is how we do things in Somerset :

Wonderful!

I'm guessing you don't pedal that tricycle to events though or where would the table and parasol fit?

However, a rear basket looks to be a good solution.

If you are serious about transporting a portable on a bicycle, an HMV would not be the most practical choice. In the days before car ownership was commonplace, very small portables were made which could be easily transported on a bicycle. These include the Colibri, the Mikiphone, the Peter pan and the Thorens Excelda. They are popular with collectors because they do not take up much space and are almost a hobby within a hobby, but beware of fakes, especially Mikiphones.

Whatever machine you choose, you will still have to add the weight of the records!

If you are really serious, why not buy or construct a wooden box large enough to place your portable in that can be permanently fastened to a front or rear bicycle carrying rack? A closed box would protect it while traveling and if it had a removable lid, you would also have a place to play it when you arrive at wherever you are going... obviously you can't play one while riding...

A friend in Berlin, Germany, offers walking tours to the locations of the famous dance palaces of the swing era. He uses a little two wheel trailer on his bicycle to transport and play his HMV portable. Might be something to consider.

Andreas

Andreas,
What time period would those cabarets have existed, because swing music was not very popular in the 1930s and are they still in existence after the extensive bombing of Berlin?

A lot of these venues started out in the 1920s and were popular well into the late 1930s and some even into the 1940s. Some of them were part of hotels, others separate venues like bars etc. Things in Germany did not change immediately when the Nazis came to power, but gradually got worse throughout the 30s and especially when the war started. Yes, many of the buildings were destroyed in the WWII bombings and none of the actual dance palaces are still intact as far as I know. Some buildings have been restored, but re-purposed. So his tours go along the grand chaussees like the Kurfuerstendamm to the places were these venues existed. He shows pictures and plays 78s while telling about the history of these places.

The authenticity of the sign you show is debatable. While swing and other american music was discouraged like many other art forms that were deemed "undeutsch" (un-German), there does not seem to be any evidence of a general legal ban against swing. Similar signs have been created for movies about the war. There is proof of local governments issuing bans within their jurisdiction though. And of course there was a lot of government sanctioned bullying and violence against owners and patrons of such clubs. In the larger venues like in famous hotels etc the bandleaders learned to walk the thin line between what customers wanted and what the government accepted. Often times popular american music was slightly changed, combined with German traditional rhythms and German vocals to make it acceptable. Also, having all German bands without Jews and foreigners would help dogging the bullet quite literally. All in all very unpleasant. I often wonder how "normal" people survive such times.

Andreas

Curiously, Andreas, what you describe recalls me pretty closely what happened in Italy in the same years. Although some propaganda dispatch ordered that "degenerated negroid music" had to be avoided (sorry, not my words nor my thougts of course! ), conversely the jazz and the swing flourished in those years, and at least according to my taste, touched its all-times quality peak in Italy. Mussolini himself, although officially backing popular and melodic songs of the tradition, was fond of swing and it is well known that he particularly appreciated the Lescano Sisters (a female trio of Dutch origin, often compared to the Boswell Sisters). Actually, it is reported that one night Mussolini asked Alessandra Lescano to dance with him. Although Lescano's mother was of Jewish origin, Mussolini granted to the Lescano Sisters the Italian citizenship, and also the fascist party card. (However, when the war begun and their mother's position became increasigly fragile, the whole Lescano family escaped to a mountain village where they lived under false generalities. It is also known that some jewish cats (jazzmen) were killed).

Just as you said, almost all foreign tunes were translated in Italian and disguised in one way or another, sometimes with funny results, like in the case of St. Louis Blues becoming Le Tristezze Di San Luigi.

Almost all books on Italian swing feature at least one chapter in which it is argued and discussed how it is possible that a musical genre that was officially hindered by the regime, in a country with severely restricted liberty, actually flourished and peaked under these circumstances.

Sorry for the OT, this was possibly a matter that deserved a thread of its own.

I easily carried my newly purchased HMV 102C about 3 miles on a Brompton folding bike. It fit nicely in the Brompton carrier that securely snaps onto the front of the bike.