21
PRESTO
April 19, 1924.
COINOLAS
FOR
RESTAURANTS, CAFES and
A M U S E M E N T CENTERS
Style C-2
FROM THE BIGGEST
ORCHESTRION
RADIO MUSIC DETERRENT?
Critic Derides Gloomy Views of Musical At-
traction Promoter and Cites Similar Fears
About Phonograph When Introduced.
Edward Moore, music critic of the Chicago Tribune,
asks: "What is the cause of the present musical
slump?" and proceeds to say: "Anyone who finds
the correct answer to this question, also the way to
obviate it, has a secret readily salable on the open
market for about as much money as he cares to ask."
The critic admits there is a slump in attendance at
musical attractions, while theatrical ventures with
merit are not complaining. "Evidently, then, it is not
a bad season for entertainment generally," he argues.
Promoters, managers and artists have different views
of the causes, Mr. Moore says, "but they all join
hands and gravely declare the radio has wrecked
everything." Mr. Moore continues:
"As this is the one item on which* there is any
agreement, it is worth investigating. When you
come to investigate, however, there is strangely little
evidence, plenty of opinion, but a small amount of
proof. Within a comparatively short time two oper-
atic managers and one orchestral manager have told
me the same thing in almost the same language.
They have said that if they permitted a performance
of theirs to be broadcast, people all over Cook
County and the surrounding neighborhood would put
on their ear pieces and not come to the hall, leaving
an expensive performance with no income.
"It can be conceded that radio fans would not pay
money for tickets if they could hear without paying,
but whether they would come at all is something of
a Scotch verdict, not proven. Offhand one would say
that, deprived of this particular operatic or orchestral
performance, they would tune in on St. Louis or
Pittsburgh or make an attempt at picking Los
Angeles out of the air to find out what is doing there.
At any rate they have not been coming to the opera
house and the concert hall. That, too, is undeniable.
"On its face the radio question as applied to concert
patronage has a striking resemblance to the talking
machine question, and one's memory does not have
to go back so many years to recall that precisely the
same arguments were used for these devices. At
that time heads wagged in the market places, declar-
ing the records would ruin the concert business for
ever and aye.
"But it worked out in precisely the reverse form.
W r ith little respect for predictions, the record busi-
ness and the concert business began to increase to-
gether. Recitals spread as they had never spread
before. Even in this unprosperous season now wan-
ing the recital artists who have drawn the big audi-
TUNERS"
enecs have without exception been the ones whose
records have had the big sales.
'"Then the psychologists began to evolve their
theories. They discovered that records were educa-
tional. They learned that whereas in former times
anyone able to whistle an operatic aria was regarded
as a queer person who spent much money in the
strange expense of going to the opera, now people
were learning to whistle them on every side, having
learned them from the records; also that a certain per-
centage of those who took their music from the rec-
ords had a new impulse, that of going to the opera
house to find out how beautiful the music was when
done in a big way; finally, that hearing a singer on
a record was quite likely to arouse a desire to get a
close-up sight of that singer.
"Records have more than revitalized the business
of giving opera, concerts, and recitals. They have re-
made the industry. Tt is now the day of the radio."
REMINGTON OFFICIALS ON TRIAL
Officers of Defunct Phonograph Company Before
Urrted States District Court on Fraud Charges.
Memories of the defunct Remington Phonograph
Company were revived last week with the opening
of the trial of six of its officers and directors on
charges of fraud and misrepresentation in the sale of
the company's $1,000,000 capital stock. There is
every indication that the case, opened in the United
States District Court in Philadelphia, will take sev-
eral weeks before it goes to the jury.
The defendants placed on trial are: Philo C. Rem-
ington, president; James S. Holmes, vice president,
director and general manager; Marc B. Thomas,
treasurer and secretary; Robert W. Dunlop, director;
Lyndon D. Wood, stock sales manager, and Morris
Pomerantz, salesman.
The company was organized in 1919 and failed in
1921. It had an original capital of 100,000 shares at
a par value of $10 but this was later increased to
200,000 shares of no par value.
AMERICAN PHONOGRAPHS IN CHILE.
Phonographs and talking machines have now
reached a stage of popularity in Chile where homes
of the better class are not considered complete with-
out them as a means of entertainment, writes Rollo S.
Smith, secretary to Commercial Attache, Santiago.
The Chileans are fond of good music and the mod-
ern craze for dancing has also taken a strong hold on
them. The Chilean people, even in the metropolis of
Santiago, arc not given to frequenting public places
of amusement after dinner in the evening, and prefer
to devote the later hours to home life. It is these
hours spent in the home that have contributed most
toward making the phonograph popular.
A music goods department has been added by the
Frick Furniture Co., Evansville, Ind.
Here are
BASS STRINGS
Special attention given to the needs of th« tuner and
tb« dealer
OTTO R. TREFZ, Jr.
2110 Fail-mount Avenue
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
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FAIRBANKS
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