Pre Civil War recordings?

I had no idea until this morning that the earliest known recording was recorded as early as 1860.

The recording of “Au Clair de la Lune”, recorded in 1860, is thought to be the oldest known recorded human voice.

A phonograph of Thomas Edison singing a children’s song in 1877 was previously thought to be the oldest record.

You can hear the creepy, ghostly sounding track here.

- Stephen Lee Canner

The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar

A nice little piece from This American Life about a pre-WWI, southern mystery:

The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar

- Stephen Lee Canner

SXSW 2008

I had initially intended to blog about my entire SXSW experience, but after writing out what was basically an abbreviated version of Day One I realized that each post would be very long, even in abbreviated form, and that each day seemed like one big name drop. So instead, I’ll just list the highlights of my week here:

Meeting Kim Fowley and spending much of SXSW with him. The man’s been everywhere and done everything and has some amazing stories.

Seeing Roky Erickson receive his Austin Music Award.

Meeting the Belfast contingent that were in town: the band Driving By Night (all very, very nice guys,) promoter Joe Dougan, and a few others.

Seeing the Teen Sensations, The Stems, and Muck and the Mires.

Meeting Art Fein, Danny Fields, and the Cowsills.

Seeing a riveting set by The Builders and The Butchers.

And most of all coming out the other end not so much with any big industry connections but with a very clear sense of what needs to be done at this point. I kept telling everyone I knew over the last month that this SXSW was going to be epic. And I can honestly say it really was.

- Stephen Lee Canner