We collect the popular music of all cultures throughout the world.
How to permanently preserve audio materials is a major concern of archives around the world. Us included. After all, isn’t that why we’re here? But ARC does not migrate, i.e; make a copy of an audio object in another medium, ideally more… read more >>
It is a little known fact that the ancient Nabataeans were early adaptors of new sound recording technologies. They began with cylinder discs (called columns) but found them awkward. Later, around 70 BC, they sliced the cylinders into wafer thin segments, well… read more >>
The New York Times has a new article about the newly recovered, mid-nineteenth century recordings of Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, a Parisian “tinkerer” who invented a recording device called the Phonautogram YEARS before Edison (that bad bastard) ever even thought about… read more >>
By now you’ve all seen our collection of French pulp paperbacks at ouiouipulp.com, but did you know we also have pulled together a few of our favorite paperbacks pertaining to music? Oh sure we have 25,000 old fashioned popular music books here… read more >>
Today is the 25th anniversary of the compact disc. Although there seems to be some consensus that today is indeed the CD’s silver anniversary, astute readers may note that different sources disagree over which one of the above three CDs was… read more >>
Wandering around the internets recently I found a really well done blog entitled = VITAPHONE VARIETIES = Observations On Film, Music & Imagery of the Past ARChivers, as inveterate fans of antique recording technology (and rabid ukulele heads) will dig these pages… read more >>
Brian McNamara, Tim Collins* and Michael Rooney Yep, the craic was good and the tunes were flying this week at the annual Irish Arts Week in East Durham New York. We were only able to manage a last gap weekend visit,… read more >>
Edit: ALL SYSTEMS GO NOW! GO HERE TO HEAR! Yes, the iPhone’s out and I can’t read anything without having to wade through all sorts of iPhone crap. I’m sure our readers have had enough about the iPhone as well, so in… read more >>