Advertise on podcast: Charnel Bells

Fair warning: this one's a smoker! Heavy, weird and gloriously profane, Viola Curtis' seánce channeling Darvon Bluedeer has always been a favorite among a certain set of spiritualists with a penchant for the psychedelic. Truth be told, I just figured Guarrault never recorded a reading of Bluedeer's seánce because of the restrictive radio culture of the '40's and '50's, but then I found it on a reel mislabeled as...well, I'll save that surprise for a later date, once I've gotten it cleaned up and restored. In any event, the echoes of other wars, clashes of other cultures in different eras is well-known in Miss Curtis' seánces of the '40's, but the reading here by one Oliver Holloway brings a strange corrosive rattiness to this famous transcript that, I hope, will evoke appreciation for the Charnel Bells vision, even if it never made it to the airwaves in its day.

From a set of reels labelled "Studio Black Catacomb Presents" comes this little gem. From a subset identified as "Five Minute Fictions", this brief piece seems to be another effort by Van Guarrault and his little studio staff to popularize the very short audio story, just about the length of two pop songs of the era. Though the effort never took off, as with several of Guarrault's innovations, there's also something genuinely delicious in these tiny brushes with the world of weird and dark storytelling. Though it's difficult to connect names to voices, especially with the spontaneous pseudonyms the Black Catacomb crew seemed so enamored of concocting, that's clearly Guarrault reading the copy for the "Yarborough's Atomic Silver" there in the middle of the radioplay. As for the narrator, it's uncertain just who is playing our lead on this piece, though my best guess would be Robert Gary Terrace, who enjoyed a fine career as a studio regular on the famous "Boston Blackie" series.

Recorded in April of 1949, Van Guarrault of Studio Black Catacomb here gives us a fascinating glimpse into the unspoken traumas of his generation's soldiers. Though famously tight-lipped on the subject of mental and psychological hardship, the WWII generation's storytellers occasionally set aside the covenant of silence to whisper an artifact such as this story into existence. A look into service records for the time and location show that all the names in the story are fictionalized, but are a mix of recombinants and phonically similar names of actual servicemen with whom Guarrault served. And, hauntingly, a record for a Pvt. Ivan R. Lewis of Guarrault's unit is filed as missing in action. Still.

Keen-eared listeners will note that Van Guarrault refers to the show as "The Black Catacomb", not just his studio. This may have been recorded before Guarrault had settled on a name for the show, or it may imply that he had other shows on the drawing board. It is something of a forbidden fruit, too, to hear a segment from his "Illustrations" translation. In 1951 Hoover's FBI raided the Golden Goblin Press offices on the pretext of "printing literature detrimental to the moral sanctity of America". Nearly the entire print run of Guarrault's "Illustrations" was confiscated and destroyed, along with the works of Justin Geoffrey, Fletcher Grey and Hassan bin Zaiid. Ah, the McCarthy years...

The 1949 "Sketch Reel" continues to surprise with odd pieces that may have been Mr. Guarrault's early demos and tests for what would ultimately become Charnel Bells. This one is interesting in that it hints at a possible literary review or book spotlight show. There probably wasn't much of a market for a show about how H. P. Lovecraft wrote a weird dark riff on "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", but then Van Guarrault never seemed much concerned with whether John Q. Public got what he was trying to do. As for the literary comparison, it's worth a listen for those who appreciate both works. For fans of both weird fiction and dusty radio, it's probably just as well that Guarrault took his show in a more narrative direction.

Found on what must have been a test reel, this strange little story has all the telltale elements of a Van Guarrault original. Perhaps it was an exercise, a dark story of supernatural murder with an undeniably absurd premise. In any event, this bizarre fable was never developed into anything more, and sits as the first of several odd one-offs on a reel marked "VG Sketches '49-'50".

This listing can only have been either a demo ad read, or more sadly, wishful thinking on Mr. Guarrault's part. BRS never gained the footing to compete with the network titans of the era, and didn't actually carry any of the programs named in the ad. Though most of the named performers were noted talents of the day, the shows were almost certainly fictitious. Also of note, the tape reel containing this ad read doesn't name the reader, though his voice bears a blushing resemblance to Roofton Edwards of "Gallant Fischer, Cryptocartographer" fame.

Another example of the kind of weird dark poetic prose of Lovecraft's post-Dunsany phase, this was recorded (according to the date pencilled on the tape reel) on Halloween, 1949. Desmond Lawrence's ashy, desolate voice is in fine form on this brief recording, and it is to be lamented that Studio Black Catacomb had so much going against it; else his might be another name well-known to listeners of today.

This piece is a real enigma; it seems likely that this was a satirical piece that Mr. Van Guarrault, the producer of Charnel Bells, recorded sometime in late 1950 or early '51 in frustration at the rise of jingoism and censorship of American radio. As the fear of Communism pervaded all aspects of life in 1950's America, any sort of non-conformity was at risk of being treated as a crime. This may have been the intent behind Guarrault declaring himself a Satanist. Or -and this must not be discounted- the man may have simply been a Satanist! Either way, this one almost certainly never made it out of Studio Black Catacomb's walls. It would surely have meant a swift end to the whole business.

This interesting episode offers three pieces of verse written by Banquo Walker, read by the poet, along with Charnel Bells creator, host and producer, Van Guarrault, and the gravel-voiced Briton, Roman Clifford, who achieved some small renown during the London Blitz as the voice of several public service announcements warning citizens not to approach unexploded German munitions. His menacing, heavy intonations became one of the most-imitated voices of that awful time. Banquo Walker sadly, left very little imprint outside of the long-forgotten reels of Charnel Bells. In another time and place, who knows; maybe his name would adorn collections of weird and dark poetry. Alas, we can at least hear some small portion of his strange work still, and in his own voice, no less.

An excellent example of the weird atmospheric fiction abroad in the pulps of the '20's and '30's, Lovecraft's "The Festival" is that rarest of joys: truly literate and artistic horror fiction. An appropriate (if somewhat morbid) piece to air at Yuletide, Charnel Bells' production of it was never aired for being "unholy pagan poison". Incidentally, the purported reader here, "Desmond Lawrence", seems surely to have been a stage name for the English-born Percy Phipps, who is known to have been a friend of Van Guarrault. Mr. Phipps was a sales clerk at a musical instrument shop along the same block as Guarrault's Studio Black Catacomb.

This ad read seems to be Van Guarrault, host of the Charnel Bells radio show and producer at Studio Black Catacomb, doing his best to sound like a snappy salesman instead of himself. As the likelihood of Charnel Bells making it past the censors to the air dwindled, Guarrault took on more and more of a role, reading ads, writing scripts and even masquerading as other people. This ad read, for instance, is credited to a "Marshall Innsreef", though no record of so unlikely a name can be found.