“His Master’s Voice”: Celebrating My Father’s Memory and My Love of Music

I’m so, so excited to share a new addition to my home! I had a fun idea, did some research, and had great success.

I’ve always had a warm fondness for the “His Master’s Voice” Nipper painting and RCA logo. My late father had a tiny shadow box ceramic dog paired with a vintage 1:12 scale miniature gramophone authentically modeled after the Victor M phonograph. I’ve kept them front and center at my music workstation for all the years since his passing.

I got curious and started looking around at full sized 1:1 scale antique Nipper statues. They were produced between 1911 and the early 1930s and I found one I absolutely fell in love with for sale online. Here is a century-old large chalkware official RCA Victor “Nipper” based upon the legendary painting, for which I was able to find a complementary full-scale replica of the 1911 His Master’s Voice Monarch Model V gramophone bearing the original RCA Nipper emblem.

I purchased a Thomasville writing desk so Nipper can listen intently on display in my dining room front and center of my tasseled stage curtains which frame him handsomely. This iconic figure is a celebration of my love of music and recording history and will bring me great joy every time I look at his adorably inquisitive little face. ❤

Here’s the 1:12 scale miniature of my father’s which inspired the project.

Manhattan Research Inc: The Magic of Raymond Scott

 

Tonight’s magical listening comes following a heartwarming post by The Bob Moog Foundation and The Raymond Scott Archives. The Archives had recently published a recording of Bob Moog talking about his time with Raymond Scott in the 1950’s when Bob was barely 20 years old. Scott was one of the first musician clients that Bob had direct exposure to, and the experiences with Scott marked Bob’s early thinking about the expansiveness of the musical universe.

It inspired me to pull my copy of the Manhattan Research Inc 3LP set issued by Basta Records in The Netherlands to revisit the wonders of Raymond Scott’s work.

For those unfamiliar, you may know Scott from the recording, “Powerhouse” famously used in several classic Rube Goldberg machine sequences in Merrie Melodies cartoons. The track was also sampled in the intro of Soul Coughing’s “Bus to Beelzebub.”

Here is the original recording:

And here is an official “machine montage” cut by Warner Bros and hosted by The Ramond Scott Archives:

And Soul Coughing’s classic track:

Here’s my copy of the 3-volume set.

Fortunately, the entire set is archived on YouTube – check it out!

It is also worth mentioning that the set features a collaboration with a young Jim Henson from around the time of Henson’s existential college film, The Cube. You can watch the full film here –

The short was titled, LIMBO: The Organized Mind and an animation sequence was produced for it in the early 60s.

Enjoy!