Misplaced Pages

#955044

42-517: ATOS consists of regional member-chapters, and is led by democratically elected leaders. There are currently over 75 local chapters of ATOS, and membership is made up of musicians, technicians, hobbyists, educators, and others who enjoy the music of the theatre organ. The ATOS Board of Directors is the main governing body. ATOS was founded as a group called the American Theatre Organ Enthusiasts by Richard Simonton . He

84-447: A cinema organ ) is a type of pipe organ developed to accompany silent films from the 1900s to the 1920s. Theatre organs have horseshoe-shaped arrangements of stop tabs (tongue-shaped switches) above and around the instrument's keyboards on their consoles . Theatre organ consoles were typically decorated with brightly colored stop tabs, with built-in console lighting. Organs in the UK had

126-576: A common feature: large translucent surrounds extending from both sides of the console, with internal colored lighting. Theatre organs began to be installed in other venues, such as civic auditoriums, sports arenas, private residences, and churches. There were over 7,000 such organs installed in America and elsewhere from 1915 to 1933, but fewer than 40 instruments remain in their original venues. Though there are few original instruments, hundreds of theatre pipe organs are installed in public venues throughout

168-626: A gathering at his home on February 8, 1955, where he and several other organ enthusiasts founded an association called the American Theatre Organ Enthusiasts , later shortened to the American Theatre Organ Society , which is still highly active. During the remainder of his life, he helped preserve and promote theatre organs and the music played upon them. His home contained two organs, a church-style Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ upstairs which

210-665: A third organ, the Wurlitzer pipe organ from the New York Paramount Theatre , which has been considered the greatest Wurlitzer pipe organ ever built. It had been the favored instrument of Jesse Crawford. Simonton acquired it with the idea of buying the Belmont Theatre in Los Angeles and installing the organ, but the deal for the theatre fell through and the organ was never set up in Los Angeles. It

252-410: A traditional pipe organ, a theatre organ uses pressurized air to produce musical tones. Unification and extension give the theatre organ its unique flexibility. A rank is extended by adding pipes above and below the original pitch, allowing the organist to play that rank at various pitches by selecting separate stop tabs. The electro-pneumatic action was invented by Robert Hope-Jones. Up to the turn of

294-745: Is now in the civic center in Wichita, Kansas . For a time Simonton also owned the Rogers touring organ. This was one of the touring organs used by Virgil Fox. In 1957, Simonton took his family for a river trip aboard the Delta Queen , a 285-foot steamboat then operating on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. Built in the 1920s, the Delta Queen had begun as a California riverboat operating between San Francisco and Sacramento. After Simonton's cruise,

336-734: The Welte-Mignon piano rolls and for founding the American Theatre Organ Society . Among piercing enthusiasts he is also known as an early pioneer of the contemporary resurgence in body piercing . Richard Simonton was born in Evanston , Illinois , in 1915. His father died when he was three, and his mother subsequently moved to Seattle , where he grew up in the difficult conditions of the Great Depression . He showed an early aptitude for music and audio engineering, earning money in high school by tuning pipe organs. He later worked for

378-444: The 20th century, all pipe organs were operated by a tracker , tubular pneumatic , or pneumatic Barker-lever action, where the keys and pedals were physically connected to the pipe valves via wooden trackers , except in the case of tubular pneumatic, where all actions were operated by air pressure. Hope-Jones' electro-pneumatic action used electric solenoids to operate the pipe valves, and solenoids and pistons to control and operate

420-621: The ABC affiliate. He became a successful businessman and built an elaborate home in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles , where he lived until his death in 1979 at the age of 64. The house included two organs and a 63-seat home theatre, where he showed movies to large audiences every week for many years. Outgoing and sociable, Simonton was popular in the Hollywood community. Friends and visitors included people such as Groucho Marx , Laurence Olivier , and

462-461: The Delta Queen in 1958 when they learned that the boat was in financial distress and was not accepting reservations. Due to his children's demands, Simonton bought a controlling interest in the company and made it profitable. He also founded Pacific Network Inc. (PNI) and California Communications (CCI), firms that rented motion picture sound equipment to studios. In the early 1970s, Simonton had an emergency operation for complications of appendicitis;

SECTION 10

#1732780780956

504-555: The Masterphone Sound Company, which installed sound systems in silent theatres adapting to the new talking pictures. Always of an inventive and entrepreneurial mindset , before the age of twenty he had patented a circuit for electronic organs. In time he made his way to Southern California , where he was licensed as a professional engineer by the state and worked for Peerless Transformers and subsequently for RCA . In 1939, Simonton went to New York to meet with

546-595: The Netherlands. After the development of sound movies, theatre organs remained installed in many theatres to provide live music between features. After the "golden years" of the 1920s and 1930s, many were scrapped or sold to churches, private homes, museums, ice rinks , rollatoriums , and restaurants. The British Broadcasting Corporation bought and installed its first organ in 1933 in Broadcasting House, London . The first full-scale BBC Theatre Organ

588-584: The Simonton family for a time. After the initial purchase, Welte and Bockisch also found a Steinway-Welte piano for Simonton. Many of the rolls have since been re-recorded from that piano and issued on CD. Simonton ultimately donated the rolls to the music library at the University of Southern California . Richard Simonton is best known in certain communities for his interest in alternative lifestyles. In 1932, he met and became inspired by Ernest Holmes ,

630-605: The T&;P Group—short for tattooing and piercing—an association of tattoo and piercing enthusiasts based primarily in Los Angeles. In 1977 Malloy visited the German tattooist and piercing pioneer Horst "Samy" Streckenbach in Frankfurt am Main. He documented this meeting by means of a tape recording, which has been preserved. The upsurge in interest in body piercing had created enough interest that Simonton advised Jim Ward, who

672-553: The Welte-Mignon legacy and as unique witnesses to the playing styles of the prominent musicians who played for the originals. These include Mahler , Debussy , Fauré , Ravel , Scriabin , and others, playing their own compositions, a historically invaluable resource. (They are particularly interesting when they make mistakes playing their own works.) The Welte firm and its founders suffered heavily in World War II. After

714-495: The author of The Science of Mind and founder of Religious Science , a metaphysical movement. Throughout his life Simonton was interested in similar topics, travelling to India and the Philippines to explore non-Western ideas. His interest in body piercing would also have been considered shocking at the time, and as he explored these interests later in life he adopted the name Doug Malloy to preserve his privacy. His family

756-418: The basis of the primitive techniques used at the time and his network of contacts was instrumental in spreading the popularity of body piercing. Ward perfected these techniques which have become industry standard the world over. In 1978, Gauntlet obtained a retail location. Doug also provided extensive notes that were ghostwritten by Ward into full articles for Piercing Fans International Quarterly ( PFIQ ) ,

798-481: The composer Aram Khachaturian . His best friend for many years was the silent film star Harold Lloyd ; He was a trustee of Lloyd's estate. Simonton and his wife Helena had four children: Richard Jr., Robert, Mary, and Margaret. He was an involved family man, taking his family to live in Hawaii for some months and on other travels. They regularly spent summers on board the Delta Queen. The children convinced him to save

840-412: The console so huge an organist could not possibly reach all of them while playing. Thus, the horseshoe console was born. Based on a curved French console design and using stop tabs instead of drawknobs , the horseshoe console now allowed the organist to reach any stop or control while playing any piece of music, eliminating the need to move around awkwardly on the bench. The smaller stop tabs also permitted

882-651: The design for their own theatre organs. The Rudolph Wurlitzer company, to whom Robert Hope-Jones licensed his name and patents, was the most well-known manufacturer of theatre organs, and the phrase Mighty Wurlitzer became an almost generic term for the theatre organ. After some major disagreements with the Wurlitzer management, Robert Hope-Jones committed suicide in 1914. In Europe, the theatre organ appeared in cinemas after World War I. Some came from Wurlitzer , but there were European organ builders like M. Welte & Söhne and Walcker in Germany, and Standaart in

SECTION 20

#1732780780956

924-478: The fantastic came together in this document, which contains some fictional and/or speculative information. Many of the theories regarding the practice and origins of various piercings historically have been distorted by the widespread circulation of this document or later documents which quote it. Theatre organ A theatre organ (also known as a theater organ , or, especially in the United Kingdom,

966-509: The first exemption. Although the boat never went to sea, it would have been subject to Safety at Sea laws because it was built of wood from the water up. Bill Muster and company vice president Betty Blake led the effort to list the Delta Queen on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. President Carter campaigned from the Delta Queen and was on board it in 1979 on the day Simonton died. The Welte-Mignon Reproducing Piano

1008-637: The first magazine devoted to the subject of body piercing, a Gauntlet publication. One of Simonton's other notable contributions to the development of body piercing in contemporary society was his pamphlet Body & Genital Piercing in Brief Archived 2008-05-16 at the Wayback Machine , which is responsible for a large portion of the myths surrounding the origins of many piercings, most notably genital ones. Simonton's personal enthusiasm for body piercing as an erotic practice and his love of

1050-538: The founders of the Muzak Corporation , which had been founded some five years before. He proposed that Muzak begin franchising, which it had not previously done, and ended up buying the franchise for the seven Western states, which he held until the 1970s. On the strength of this success, he began acquiring holdings in TV and radio stations, which included KRKD radio in Los Angeles and KULA radio and TV in Hawaii,

1092-445: The operation went wrong and he suffered brain damage. He spent several years struggling to regain full command of basic skills, including his speech. He largely retired from public life, although in time he was able to continue his love of travel and his wide community of friends. He died in 1979 from a heart problem, possibly related to the damage sustained in the operation. As a tremendous fan of theatre organ music, Simonton arranged

1134-403: The orchestral versions of these instruments. Wurlitzer added other effects, such as drums, cymbals, wood blocks and other non-chromatic percussions and effects to allow the theatre organ to accompany silent movies. Examples of sound effects included car horns and flings. A traditional organ console was not adequate to control a theatre organ, as the large number of draw knobs required made

1176-529: The owners of the Delta Queen found they could not keep the business going. Simonton had so enjoyed his trip aboard the boat that he saved the enterprise, buying a controlling interest in 1957–58. With partners including E. J. Quinby, he turned the enterprise around, and even added an 1897 steam calliope rescued from the sunken Island Queen . For forty-two years, the boat ran on a series of Congressional exemptions from Safety at Sea laws. In 1966, Simonton sent his employee Bill Muster to Washington, DC to obtain

1218-584: The pit area. These were photoplayers . Robert Hope-Jones 's concept, which he called a "unit orchestra", was developed and promoted, initially by the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company of North Tonawanda, New York. A new type of instrument, the Wurlitzer Hope Jones Unit-Orchestra, or simply theatre organ, was born. Soon, hundreds of instruments were being ordered from Wurlitzer and other manufacturers who copied

1260-471: The remains of the factory, which had been completely destroyed by bombing in 1944. Nothing remained standing; only the hidden master rolls in the Black Forest had survived. Simonton worked with Welte and Bockisch to rescue the legacy of the rolls. They played the rolls on Bockisch's Steinway-Welte piano and Simonton recorded the sound onto a tape recorder , an invention which was also extremely rare at

1302-464: The theatre organ. It can be streamed through the ATOS website 24 hours per day. Richard Simonton Richard Simonton (April 29, 1915 – August 22, 1979), also known under the pseudonym Doug Malloy , was a Hollywood businessman and entrepreneur, known for his involvement in the Hollywood community, his rescue of the steamboat Delta Queen , his work in preserving the work of musicians in

American Theatre Organ Society - Misplaced Pages Continue

1344-417: The time. These tapes were released as LPs by Columbia Records in 1950. Welte and Bockisch selected and sold the best of the rolls to Simonton in 1948; some of the boxes arrived with straw from the barn still in them. He bought more from Bockisch's widow in 1952. Simonton remained in correspondence with Welte and Bockisch for many years, sending food parcels and other supplies, and Welte's daughter lived with

1386-565: The various stop tabs, controls, keys and pedals on the console. This action allowed the console to be physically detached from the organ. All signals from the console were transmitted by an electric cable to an electro-pneumatic relay, and from there to the pipes and effects in the organ chambers. Another feature of theatre organs is the addition of chromatic, or tuned percussions. Hope-Jones added pneumatically and electrically operated instruments such as xylophones , wood harps, chimes , sleigh bells , chrysoglotts and glockenspiels to reproduce

1428-528: The war, Simonton wrote to Edwin Welte in an attempt to locate music rolls for his pipe organ. Welte answered that he had only managed to save about sixteen organ rolls, which he would exchange for food. He added that he and Bockisch had lost nearly everything in the war, but had managed to hide some of the piano rolls in a barn in the Black Forest . In 1948 Simonton travelled to Germany and went with Welte to

1470-475: The world today, while many more exist in private residences. Originally, films were accompanied by pit orchestras in larger houses, and pit pianists in small venues. The first organs installed in theatres were church organs . These organs were ill-suited to accompanying the film and the performance. The earliest concepts of the theatre organ were modified pianos with a few ranks of pipes and various sound effects, housed in one cabinet, and typically located in

1512-511: Was a Hollywood businessman, and entrepreneur. He arranged a gathering at his home on February 8, 1955, where he and several other organ enthusiasts founded what would later become ATOS. ATOS hosts an annual convention, held at various locations across the country. ATOS has outreach to young musicians, and funds several musical scholarships for youth members. It also sponsors an annual Young Theatre Organist Competition. ATOS sponsors ATOS Theatre Organ Radio, an internet radio station dedicated to

1554-480: Was a sophisticated cousin of the player piano , a mechanical instrument that could reproduce the subtleties of master pianists' styles by means of paper rolls. Invented by Edwin Welte and his brother-in-law Karl Bockisch in Freiburg, Germany, in 1904, the system was applied to organs with the "Welte Philharmonic-Organ" in 1912. The rolls, recorded between 1904 and 1932, are now historically significant as part of

1596-421: Was dedicated by Virgil Fox , and a Wurlitzer theatre organ downstairs in the theatre, which was equipped with professional recording equipment. Film showings at his home were often accompanied by live organ, played by some of the great theatre organists of the day, including Gaylord Carter , Jesse Crawford , Gordon Kibbee and Korla Pandit , all of whom performed and recorded at the house. Simonton also owned

1638-403: Was largely sheltered from his involvement in the piercing movement and in aspects of the gay or bisexual lifestyle. As Doug Malloy, he was an instrumental supporter and patron of the early body modification scene. By 1975, he had published a short, largely fictional autobiography entitled Diary of a Piercing Freak Archived 2004-04-04 at the Wayback Machine under his assumed name, which

1680-430: Was sold to a fetish publisher and released in softback under the title The Art of Pierced Penises and Decorative Tattoos . He had also established contacts amongst body piercing enthusiasts both in Los Angeles and on a global scale, including London tattooist Alan Oversby (also known as Mr. Sebastian ), Roland Loomis (also known as Fakir Musafar), Sailor Sid Diller, and Jim Ward . He and Ward started what they called

1722-539: Was used for broadcasts in 1936 from across the road at St George's Hall . In the 1950s, the development of high-fidelity recording and the LP phonograph record created new interest in the theatre organ. This period also saw the formation of the American Theatre Organ Society (ATOS), originally the American Theatre Organ Enthusiasts (ATOE). These were the major builders of theatre organs, listed in order of production. The numbers listed here are for theatre organs only. As in

American Theatre Organ Society - Misplaced Pages Continue

1764-591: Was working as a picture framer at the time, that he should start a body piercing business. In 1975, Simonton advanced Ward the money to start Gauntlet , originally a home based business, and Jim began to produce body piercing jewelry and learn how to pierce. This business began in November 1975, and it is considered the first of its type in the United States and was the beginning of the body piercing industry. Simonton's experience as an amateur piercer formed

#955044