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This is a big update about everything that has happened with the Organ Grinder documentary over the past 22 months, plus what’s coming next, and how people can help me complete principal photography. Correction: In the video I refer to Howard Vollum as the “founder of Tektronix”. There were in fact four original co-founders of…
As mentioned in our post about the Kenosha Theatre, the story of the Organ Grinder is also the story of the movie palace and the theatre pipe organ. We’ve previously been lucky to obtain and restore rare footage of the Oriental Theatre in Portland, Oregon. The Oriental’s Wurlitzer was the basis of the instrument in…
Jeff Baas is a man on a mission. A mission to save one particular movie palace, and a broader mission to preserve the history of all of them – and the legacy of one of their greatest proponents. You can’t tell the story of the Organ Grinder and all the other “pizza and pipe organ”…
Last Wednesday, during our revisit to the Midwest, we spent the whole day with Fred Hermes, Jr. at the “Basement Bijou” – a private home in Racine, WI, which notably features a movie palace, complete with balcony, in the basement – it really is a sight to behold, and as you walk down the stars…
What do you do when you’re interviewing folks in Denver about the Organ Grinder, but one person you’d really like to talk with doesn’t live there anymore? Well – if you’re lucky – you just wait a bit and then they come to you! In June, we interviewed Los Angeles-based performing artist John West while…
DeLoy Goeglein was about ten years old when his musical journey began, learning to play both piano and organ. He would play in church and go on to play at venues all around the Denver area. During our Denver Road Trip, we sat down with DeLoy at his daughter’s home in a Denver suburb, to…
(*Editor’s note: The title of this piece is a poorly-constructed pipe organ joke. Explanation at end.) You wouldn’t guess from his tough, tattooed, motorcycle-riding aesthetic today, but Frank Perko III holds the distinction of having been the youngest-ever staff performer at the Organ Grinder, hired to play at the Denver location at the age of…
Justin Adams had an early and indelible introduction to the Organ Grinder restaurant in Denver: “My earliest memory of being at the organ grinder was when I was five years old. This was around 1977, 1978, the same years as Star Wars came out. My whole world exploded with wonder and awe, and the mighty…
(Post updated 2025-07-13 with technical info.) In this newly-acquired footage from the 1970s, organist Jonas Nordwall performs a full set at the Organ Grinder restaurant in Portland, Oregon. This compilation is from vintage video tapes which were recently provided to the documentary project. Sometime around 1977, representatives from Sony visited the Organ Grinder to test…
During our Denver Road Trip, we interviewed organist Jim Calm about his experiences at the Organ Grinder. Jim comes from a musical family. He started taking piano lessons as a child – his parents bought a piano from a neighbor down the street, and rolled it up the road to Jim’s home. “I was playing…
Steve Spangler literally grew up in a magical household. Steve’s parents were both professional magicians, running a magic school in Denver. Steve opened our conversation with this classic joke about magicians: “What’s the difference between a professional magician and a pizza? And the answer is a pizza can feed a family of five.” The same…
Helene and John McGuire are an unlikely pairing – John’s a major Star Trek fan, and Helene is really into Star Wars. And yet, through their love of music and pipe organs, they have somehow managed to endure! When asked “Which is Better”, Helene jumped right in: “Star Wars is Better!”, to which John replied…
Andrew Novick is an eclectic character. An electrical engineer and metrologist, one could argue that he controls time itself, as a manager at station WWV, which is the time signal broadcast from the National Time Standards Lab in Boulder, Colorado. Andrew is also a documentary filmmaker, having produced the autobiographical film, JonBenet’s Tricycle, a reflection…
As the final stop on our Midwest Tour in April, we visited Organ Piper Pizza in Greenfield, Wisconsin. Founded in 1976 by Jim Bringe, Organ Piper is special in that it is one of three remaining establishments where you can enjoy live theatre pipe organ music with your pizza, and it has been open for…
In April, as part of our Midwest Tour, we visited Organ Piper Pizza in Greenfield, Wisconsin. Organ Piper is one of three remaining establishments where you can enjoy live theatre pipe organ music with your pizza. Organist Zach Frame kindly allowed us to film a complete 45-minute set, in order to portray what it’s like…
In Franklin, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee, there exists an ordinary distribution warehouse in a large office park. To the average passer-by, this is just one of several buildings in the community owned by Carma Laboratories, the makers of the famous yellow tins of Carmex lip balm and other products. But listen closely, and over…
On April 8, Toby Washburn stopped by Carma Labs in Franklin, Wisconsin to demonstrate the unusual pipe organ constructed in the warehouse. As part of our Midwest Tour, The Organ Grinder Documentary project visited Carma Labs (which you may recognize as the manufacturers of Carmex lip balm) to explore the wild and over-the-top things people…
After visiting Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana, the next stop on our Midwest Tour was Beggars Pizza in Lansing, IL. Beggars Pizza is a regional franchise chain in Illinois and Indiana, with about two dozen restaurants. The Lansing location is unique because it was originally a cinema – the Lans Theater, which first opened in 1947….
There’s a lot that drives this project: A passion for an amazing story, a sense of nostalgia, and the desire to deliver a complete, compelling feature-length documentary. But there’s also the literal drives. Hard drives are the modern equivalent of film canisters – but more fragile. That’s why for this project, there’s four sets of…
While we were recording interviews at Shawn Kenney’s residence as part of the Midwest Tour, a visitor dropped by – organist Richard Gregory. As is becoming an emerging theme in this documentary, Richard became hooked on theatre organs as a toddler – in this case, at just one year of age – after visiting Roaring…
