Last weekend we took a ferry over to see Peter Haase and Mona Fertig of Mother Tongue Publishing. Peter was taught letterpress printing by Jim Rimmer and I wanted to film some of his shared stories on camera.

The weather during our short  ferry ride from Vancouver to Salt Spring Island was absolutely gorgeous. The three photos below were taken with a Loreo camera lens.

We had an hour or so to explore the town of Ganges before meeting up with Peter and Mona. There isn’t much antiquing to do in Ganges but I had the best clam chowder at The Oyster Catcher in Mouats Landing which made up for it.

When we arrived at Peter & Mona’s wonderful house we were greeted by chickens!

In the basement of their house lies Mother Tongue’s cozy letterpress shop.

The shop is filled with all sorts of wonderful printed materials. They have three presses, a Vandercook proofing press, a Chandler & Price platen press and a wonderful green Golding Pearl platen press.

Here are some of the many beautiful lino blocks Peter is currently working on.

Our trip only lasted a weekend, but we’ll hopefully be back in the summer time to enjoy more of the island.

This weeks Tune Tuesday comes from a mysterious purple labeled Russian record.

I don’t have the slightest clue what it says or when it was produced (1950s?). In any case, enjoy!

A top tune in 1945 played by Harry James and sung by Kitty Kallen, “Waitin’ for the train to come in” is this weeks Tune Tuesday. Enjoy!

Tune Tuesday will now become a bi-weekly feature on our blog starting with this song, Skywriter, played by the Band of the Irish Guards. I don’t know when this recording was made but it appears to date back to the 40s or 50s. The group was formed in the 1900s by Queen Victoria. According to Wikipedia:

“The Irish Guards (IG), part of the Guards Division, is a Foot Guards regiment of the British Army. Along with the Royal Irish Regiment, it is one of only two purely Irish regiments remaining in the British Army. The Irish Guards recruit in Northern Ireland, the Irish neighborhoods of major British cities, and in the Republic of Ireland (which permits its citizens to enlist in the British or any other forces, but forbids active recruiting.)”

If this song doesn’t get you marching, I don’t know what will. Enjoy!

Lately, we’ve been playing a lot of American Jazz and Big Band. I thought we’d change it up today and put on this old opera record from Russia.

I love the typography on this Soviet Union made label. Unfortunately, I can’t read Russian so I wasn’t able to find much online about it. In any case enjoy!

A few weeks ago I mentioned a bike in my post about vintage theater seats. Well, here is that bike. After tracing the serial number, I discovered that it is a 1941 CCM Rambler and is similar to the one currently on display in the Canadian Science & Technology Museum in Ottawa. It needs some work, but I’m looking forward to getting it rolling this summer.

The bike is in pretty good shape for being nearly 70+ years old. I was contemplating powder-coating the bike black, but after much thought I’ve decided to stick with the original paint scheme. It has too much character and charm to paint over it.

I love the CCM gear hub.

Another reason why I’ve decided not to paint it is because of the original hand pinstriping and 1945 Vancouver Bicycle registration sticker.

I’ll be blogging my progress with it over the next few months so keep checking back for updates. The first thing this bike is going to get is a new seat and set of tires.

Who is Jim Rimmer? Jim Rimmer was a typographer, letterpress printer and my best friend. I met him for the first time in Spring of 2004 when I was seeking some advice on letterpress printing techniques. That fall I arrived at his home in New Westminster, BC. I remember walking down the gravel path to the side of his house and peering into a very dusty window. In the back of his dimly lit shop, I could scarcely make out the silhouette of a person working on a large iron machine. Excitedly, I knocked on the glass pane door where I was warmly greeted and invited in.

The sight of large black iron machines, the sound of metal gears clinking in the background and the smell of ink and wood had me in awe as I stood at the entrance to his shop. As Jim worked, I witnessed his remarkable skill of transforming raw materials such as lead and paper into beautifully bound books bound by hand. I was fortunate enough to view one of these books and as each crafted page turned, I realized I was holding onto something incredibly special.

Jim inspired many students, including myself, that have come and gone through his shop. He took us to a place where the computer is not the only solution to every problem.

I was so inspired by Jim that shortly after meeting him I spent 2 years putting together my very own letterpress shop, Unison Press, pictured above. The machines in my shop currently lay dormant. I took a break from printing to pursue a documentary film on Jim titled, “From Lead to Gold.”  I hope to share with everyone through the film the same inspiration he did with me. There is currently no set release date for the film.

Jim lost his battle with cancer this past Friday. I was so fortunate to have had a final visit with him the evening before he passed away. It is rare to meet someone that can have such a positive impact on one’s life. Jim Rimmer is one of these few exceptional people.

I was born in the 80’s so I never really had the chance to listen to records growing up. By the time I developed my diverse taste in music, CDs were all the rage and my father had put most of his vinyl collection away. Over the years, I’ve become more of an audiophile and decided to begin listening to vinyl records. I purchased my first turntable (a Technics SL1200 MK2) and was floored by the sound. From that point on, I was completely hooked and began to buy lots of new LPs from my favorite artists. After a month or so, I began searching for vinyl on Craigslist and came across an ad for over a hundred old 78rpm LPs for a mere $20.

TWENTY DOLLARS.

At 20 cents a record I couldnt go wrong and immediately called the seller.

The conversation went something like this:

“Hello?”

“Hi! I’m Ryan, the guy that was interested in your 78rpm records. Are they still around?”

“Oh yes they’re still for sale. You sound like a younger guy though. A lot of the music is oldies and mellow stuff. It’s none of that “boom boom” loud stuff.”

“Haha, oh that’s okay. I’m still interested in seeing it though!”

I drove out to Burnaby (a suburb of Vancouver) to have a look and Harriette, a middle aged Asian woman greeted me at the door. The records were in her rec room, stored in a dusty, musty smelling trunk. I peered in and flipped through the records, recognizing a few – Frank Sinatra and Perry Como – but that was it. Many of the records were in good shape with stored sleeves and album booklets. Others were caked in dust and looked like they needed a good cleaning before playing.

Harriette had a puzzled look on her face that said, “Why in the world could a guy in his mid 20’s want an old box of records”.

Finally she said, “What do you plan to do with these records? They’re so old! Oh I know! You’re going to record them on your computer and sell the CDs!”

I wasn’t planning on selling them but will definitely be listening and archiving them to MP3.

With my new purchase, we’ll be doing a new feature on this blog featuring one song a week from this record find, but unfortunately I’ll be limited to what I can post due to copyright laws. I currently don’t have a proper record player or recording setup to play these on, but in about 3 weeks time I hope to have that sorted out. These 78rpm records can’t be played on most conventional players because they need to be spun at 78rpm (as opposed to 33rpm & 45rpm for normal records). I’ve done plenty of research on how I’ll be playing these and will share my findings in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!