“We have televisions made to celebrate the launch of the Space Shuttle and school projectors from the beginning of the visual instruction movement in teaching. There’s even an EP record about David Lange signed by David Lange just after the 1984 election.”
Brookie said there’s an “inexhaustible array of topics” for the museum to focus on, and they will take pride of place at future open days.
On September’s open day the museum will be playing rugby records from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. These locally pressed recordings played match commentary and sporting songs. There will also be classic New Zealand newsreels screening in the cinema, hand-picked by projectionist Gavin Cowern. The cinema was more closely linked with rugby than many realise, as back in the 1950s audiences could buy a freshly printed copy of a weekly sports newspaper at the Saturday evening screening, said Brookie. The sports press was so influential that the New Zealand Rugby Union delayed provincial matches by 15 minutes to suit the publishing deadline.
Brookie said one of the rarer items to be featured at September’s open day is one of the earliest recorded New Zealand songs. Its special feature is that it was recorded by means of holes punched though continuous paper, just like early systems of binary computer programming. The finished roll was then played back by a Player Piano – commonly known as a Pianola.
The piano roll is titled The All Blacks: Fox Trot Song – A Song with a Kick in it! and was cut by the Auckland Reliance piano roll manufacturing company in 1925. Made long before karaoke was even thought about, Word Rolls like this one provided both the lyrics and music for singing along. Friends and family would crowd around the player piano to read the words and sing while the operator pumped the pedals and the automatic piano played the notes.
The roll belongs to Jim Harper, a MAVtech volunteer and passionate collector of mechanical music. Brookie said this particular roll must have survived plenty of parties and gatherings during the 1920s and is still in good condition, meaning MAVtech’s player piano can bring the 99-year-old song to life at the open day, with the stirring lyrics passed around for any who would like to sing along.
There will be plenty more rugby stories on display, including a camera which was used to photograph All Blacks matches in the 1930s and All Blacks footage. Radio Foxton will be broadcasting some classic rugby songs on 105.4FM during the open day. Brookie said if anyone has any classic rugby audio-visual technology they would be interested in donating, the MAVtech team would love to hear from them.
The Details
What: MAVtech open day
When: Saturday, September 28, 1-4pm
Where: Avenue Rd, Foxton.
Admission: Adults $6, under-12s free.
Details: Newsreels screen at 2pm. Piano roll plays at 1.30pm and 3pm.
Visit www.mavtech.org.nz to keep up to date with future open day topics.
