Telephone Love

The Holmes Archive of Electronic Music

Episode 87

Telephone Love

Playlist

1. June Carol Lodge, Telephone Love from the 12” 45 Telephone Love (1988 Pow Wow). Produced in Jamaica and featuring Reggae singer, actress and fine artist Lodge. 6:17
2. Laurie Anderson, “Telephone Song” from United States Live (1984 Warner Bros.). United States Live was recorded live at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York City, Feb. 7-10, 1983. Voice and electronics (telephone), Laurie Anderson. 1:27
3. Helen Myers, Telephone (1950) from Let’s Play (1950 Victor). A 78 RPM shellac double disc set billed as, “Exciting action games with true-to-life sound effects.” “We dial the operator with our imaginary phone and there she is!” intones the instructions. This simulated telephone operator places a long distance call, sends a telegram, and connects for a call to South America. 3:40
4. Bell Telephone Systems youth commercial, 1969. 0:35
5. Barney Bernard, “Cohen At The Telephone” from Cohen At The Telephone / Goldstein Goes In The Railroad Business (1916 Victor). 3:23
6. A∀A∀A, “Telephone Song” from A∀A∀A (1991 A5 records). UK release featuring Bass Guitar, Andy Pile; Composed by, musician, producer, Derek Timms; Guitar, Voice, Dzal Martin; Noises, Producer, Steg Read; Percussion, Kwaku Dzozornu; Piano, John Jolliffe; Voice, Barny James, Cid Bishop, Ellen Parry, Steve Norchi; Voice, Bass Trombone, Trombone, Lol Cottle; Voice, Drums, Gary Ferguson. 5:41
7. Kraftwerk, “House Phone” from The Telephone Call (1987 Warner Bros.). 45 RPM EP with three variations of The Telephone Call from the album Electric Café (1986 Warner Bros). This song has some variations on the phone sounds and is quite a different compostion entirely. Synclavier programming, John Mahoney; written by Schneider, Bartos, Hutter. 4:56
8. AT&T, Telephone Tunes: Pre-Recorded Outgoing Announcements for Telephone Answering Systems (1992 AT&T). Cassette of pre-recorded novelty answering machine messages. The tape begins with instructions then plays two of the eight tones I’ve selected (“No Bones Rap” and “Phone Blues”). 1:20
9. Art by Telephone, complete transcript, Museum Of Contemporary Art Chicago (1969). From the liner notes: "Shortly after its opening, the Museum of Contemporary Art planned an exhibition to record the trend, incipient then and pervasive today, toward conceptualization of art. This exhibition, scheduled for the spring of 1968 and abandoned because of technical difficulties, consisted of works in different media, conceived by artists in this country and Europe and executed in Chicago on their behalf. The telephone was designated the most fitting means of communication in relaying instructions to those entrusted with fabrication of the artists' projects or enactment of their ideas. To heighten the challenge of a wholly verbal exchange, drawings, blueprints or written descriptions were avoided. A key role in producing this exhibition has been played by the museum's curator, David H. Katzive. He not only conducted and edited the crucial telephone conversations but directed the production and enactment of the works in the exhibition." (Jan van der Marck, from liner notes). An exhibition organised by the Museum of Contemporary Art under the sponsorship of the American National Bank and Trust Company of Chicago. November 1 to December 14, 1969. I have excerpted 10 minutes of the artist proposals. I couldn’t help but notice that the only contributors to the exhibit were male artists, so I apologize in advance for this slice of chauvinism from the late 1960s. Still, the conversations are interesting. 9:44
10. Thom Holmes, “Telephone Work” (2022 Privately Issued). I thought it would be fun to gather some telephone sounds from the 70s, 80, and 90s and remix them into a piece of music. All of the sounds originated with the extensive library of archival sounds collected by Evan Doorbell and made available on the Telephone World website. I worked with various network sounds from different generations of phones and networks plus many examples of operator voices, especially that of Jane Barbe, the most frequently used recorder of general operator messages for AT&T. 5:08
11. Matteo Uggeri, “Upside Down” by Comaneci from The Telephone (2022 Grey Sparkle). Matteo Uggeri is an Italian visual designer and composer from Milan. Uggeri made phone calls to a variety of musicians and asked them to sing a song on the telephone. This is one result. The album was released in three formats, from an extremely limited to 15 copies "Dial Box Edition", that includes a real old hacked (but working) phone handset with a true 3.5mm audio jack; a limited CDr with 85 different black and white postcards covers included; and an edition of 30 cassettes. 3:32
12. Hal McGee, “Kitchen Sink Sinfonietta” from Tapegerm Collection Volume Five (2007 HalTapes). Loops Didgeridoo, Voice & Guitar, Ed Drury; Loops Organ, Hebephrenic; Music By "xxxxx", The Joke Project; Noises Collab Fragments, Zan Hoffman; Noises Miscellaneous Audio Fragments From Videotapes, Andrew Chadwick, Blast, Brandon Abell, Charles Smith, Christopher Miller, Gina Vivinetto, Jen Abell, Ron Palachik, Tom Miller; Noises Sound Files, Cjjbrozt; Theremin, Keyboards Casio Va-10, Jen Abell; Vocals 1986 Telephone Conversation, Charlie Goff, Debbie Jaffe, Hal McGee. 11:17
13. Yoko Ono, “Telephone Piece” from Fly (1971 Apple) 1:01. The closing track on this double-LP by Yoko. 0:32
14. D.C. (Techno Dance Club), “Your Telephone (Radio Edit)” from Technonation (1994 Anima Vox). Russian techno dance music with the telephone theme. T.D.C. is performed, arranged, and mixed by Вадим Угрюмов, Дмитрий Машуков (Vadim Ugryumov, Dmitry Mashukov). 4:08
15. X-Ctasy, “Call Me Mr. Telephone” from Call Me Mr Telephone (1990 Smile Production). Italian release written and produced by L Nicolosi, Tony Carrasco. 6:09
16. Phil Milstein, “Telephone Symphony” from Tapeworm: SFX By Phil Milstein (1990 50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Watts Records). US-based artist and tape manipulator, Phil Milstein. 1:01
17. Kraftwerk, “The Telephone Call Remix” from The Telephone Call (1987 Warner Bros.). Synclavier programming, John Mahoney; written by Schneider, Bartos, Hutter; Remix by Francois Kevorkian, Kraftwerk, Ron St. Germain. This is an extended version of the original album track and includes different languages and other operator messages not heard in the original. 8:12

Opening background sounds: Network sounds originally recorded by Evan Doorbell and arranged/edited by Thom Holmes.

Opening and closing sequences voiced by Anne Benkovitz.

Additional opening, closing, and other incidental music by Thom Holmes.

See my companion blog that I write for the Bob Moog Foundation:

For additional notes, please see my blog, Noise and Notations.