The ‘Concertina and Squeezebox Magazine’ is long gone and has a semi-legendary status amongst button box freaks. I own a few copies but they are nearly impossible to come by these days. I just received the following message from a fellow concertina player in Australia. Perhaps some of you will be interested. I don’t have direct contact details but could easily get them. (I don’t need them, we in Aus. will be ordering as a group.) For anyone who likes boxes but has never seen the magazine, this is a fantastic deal.
If anyone is interested, copies of “Concertina &
Squeezebox Magazine” Volume Number 1, Number 1 thru
Issue Number 32 is now available in Adobe PDF format
on CD. (Which I’m told is 1,437 pages!)
The CD is available from a guy called George Salley in
the US, for USD$22, including postage.
Unfortunately George doesn’t accept credit card, and
only accepts US funds.
I want one of those CDs!!! Please let me know how I can get in contact with this guy…
So do you play English, Anglo or duet? (Or - gasp - melodeon?) I mostly play English, though I have a couple of anglos that I honk on from time to time…
I’ll ask on our local message board Aldon. Shouldn’t take too long to extract an address. The magazine is choc full of stories about old instruments, players, lots of old photos, how to date your Jeffries and so on .. The magazine isn’t biased towards Anglos; English and Duets get plenty of space.
I play a 32 button Anglo, a Kookaburra made by a local called Richard Evans who uses real concertina reeds he makes himself. I’ve played a very well-restored Jeffries and I’m not at all sure I’d prefer it to mine. Richard is pretty much the Australian Colin Dipper and had a waiting list about 3 years long when I last checked, probably 4 or 5 by now. He was going to build me his first Wheatstone copy, … actually come to think of it, he still might be. Oh well, if so I’ve still got about a two year wait at least.
When I scrape together some cash I’ll probably order a button accordeon, probably a B/C but I’m undecided right now. I like to talk to the maker who often has ideas that change my mind about exactly what I want.
The International Concertina Association just announced that they’ll have an online copy available for their members at the ICA website. I still want my own copy though!
Brett does seem to have the details right. I should add that this is the third legendary magazine in a series of three that, collectively, have done a lot to boost the concertina revival by filling in all the hidden knowledge lost through decades of neglect. The first was English and began in about 1970; the second was Australian and came out for a few years in the 1980s. I’ll do my best to find out if a similar reissue program has been launched for the other two. If you had all of them, you’d have just about everything known to enthusiasts at your finger tips.
