So I decided to tag along with some hydrology students going to a wedding in Santa Fe to visit my friend Andy to work on theremin stuff.
We were pressed for time so I was dropped off at the rendezvous point with all my stuff, waiting for Andy to pick me up. I called him, and he was running late because his car wouldn’t start. It was weird waiting in the Office Max parking lot completely alone with a theremin at my feet.
He picked me up in a 1929 Chevrolet. It was appropriate to ride in a car that was transporting something nearly as old at it (the Radiola 60 parts and tubes). How exciting. This was the first time he had trouble with the car in 26 years. It ran amazingly well and was so fun to see people staring as we drove by.
He was wearing a shirt with Lev Termen on it. I should have worn my theremin shirt. I didn’t want to be too much of a nerd. I was not nerdy enough.
i got to see and play my first true RCA theremin! I didn’t take any pictures I was so distracted by all the amazing stuff there and all the stuff to talk about. Crazy and cruel, I know. You’ll get your fill tomorrow.
We talked about a lot of stuff, but we did start testing the vacuum tubes. My rectifier tube was in really poor shape! It probably is one of the reasons for poor audio quality from my theremin. It also looks like I lost a 227 tube in transit!
While we sat testing tubes, Andy put on an old 78 RPM record from 1930 that featured a relative of an RCA employee with no musical background playing the theremin (I recalled this story from the Theremin book). It was really amazing, and the theremin playing was quite good too. Hearing it coming out of the old Victrola radio was great. Take a listen yourself—I made a recording of it with my portable recorder.
And something that would make my brother proud: When traveling in a unfamiliar or foreign place, make sure to get some takeaway from a different foreign place.
Now I’m going to read Andy’s full collection of RCA notes and documents he’s collected over the years!