It appears that Gil Mellé was starting to experiment with electronic music in 1959 and 1960. I wondered if there was any spillover into his model railroading work. All I could find was an article called Easy to Build Sound Light Unit in the March 1962 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman.
As the article's title says, the device creates sound and lighting effects, and can be inserted in just about any HO scale industrial model to give it an extra dose of realism. The article notes it generates sawing or grinding noises, erratic hammering noises, the sounds of motors, regular interior lighting, sparks of light as if coming from welding or grinding equipment, and diffuse light. Interestingly it isn't an electronic device, but an electro-mechanical one, in the spirit of those that can be found in Adolph Frank's Animated Scale Models Handbook.
Top: Tie Plant, RMC Apr '65; Bottom: Arch Bridge, RMC June '65
This model was built of styrene, requiring somewhat different techniques from the wood construction I normally employ ... Styrene is an interesting and different medium for the modeler. It works easily, is far superior to cardboard and has a surface, when desired, that gives the closest appearance to steel possible. It can be bent, cut, sanded, scribed, and scored with ease; and assembles with styrene cement. If you haven't worked with styrene, Kemtron's handbook by Alan Armitage is must reading.
So states Gil Mellé in what appears to be his first published scratchbuilding project that makes use of styrene, Build a Tie Treating Creosote Plant, in the April 1965 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. The project consists of a simple structure and a complicated piece of rolling stock. It's an interesting coincidence that E. L. Moore's first and only foray into using styrene also involved building rolling stock. In his article, Easy Narrow Gauge Coach that appeared in the March '69 issue of RMC Moore uses styrene to convert an N-scale AHM mine car to an HO-2-1/2 coach that ended up looking a lot like the Spumoni Club Coach.
Mellé carries on with another styrene project in the article Scratchbuild a Styrene Arch Bridge that appeared in the June 1965 issue of RMC. As well as restating his position on styrene he made in his previous styrene-based project, he adds a little more about how Al Armitage fits into the styrene story:
Much of the exploratory work in styrene scratchbuilding was done by Al Armitage, recently appointed as director of design research at Kemtron Corporation. Al knows model building well, since he was formally with Northeastern Scale Models, Revell, and Kadee. Al also authored Kemtron's book on styrene which I must strongly recommend to anyone who has not yet done any work with this material.
1959 has been noted by many as one of the greatest years in jazz history, maybe the greatest.
If you look online you'll see a lot of lists of great jazz albums that were released in 1959. Some lists have up to 10 albums, and those 10 can vary from list to list, but the 4 albums showcased in the video are in them all. They all agree though that 1959 was a golden year for jazz regardless of what gems are picked.
I’d like to say that 1959 was also a blockbuster year in model railroading. It doesn’t appear to be, but there were a few important articles published in Model Railroader that showcased important directions in the hobby for scratchbuilders, especially for those interested in structures and scenery like Mellé:
The Strathmore Story, William J. Clouser, Feb ’59
Laminated Styrofoam Scenery, William E. Eckhardt, Sept ’59
The case for styrene (Part 1), Alan B. Armitage, Nov ’59
The case for styrene (Part 2 - Conclusion), Alan B. Armitage, Dec ’59
So what was Gil Mellé doing in 1959?
In Aaron Steinberg’s interesting 2002 JazzTimes interview with Gil Mellé there’s this intriguing paragraph that appears in a discussion of where Mellé’s music and painting careers were going in the mid to late 1950s:
At the same time he was starting to have success with his visual art, his increasingly idiosyncratic music was confusing and shrinking his audience. “Nobody knew what the hell I was doing,” Mellé says. Record sales continued to lag with each recording. Then Mellé did something that made things much, much worse. “That’s the point at which I got into electronic music. Then [my audience] really didn’t understand me. Electronic music in ’59? That wasn’t music.”
Intriguing and infuriating. That’s the only mention of 1959 in the article, and the implication, ok, well, more than an implication, an outright statement from Mellé that he was seriously experimenting with electronic music in 1959. As well, in the pictures accompanying the article there’s a photo of a device called an ‘Elektar’ dated 1960. What is it? A guitar amplifier? Some sort of electronic guitar simulation device? Something else? It’s infuriating that the article doesn’t discuss any of the devices shown in the pictures. I know nothing about the roots of electronic music beyond a taste for Switched-On Bach, but, if I take the interview at face value, Mellé was working on electronic musical devices in 1959, and his first appears to be one called the ‘Elektar’, which was made in 1960.
We also know from ads in 1958 and 1959 issues of Model Railroader that Mellé was running his model structures company, Industrial Model Works, at the same time he was experimenting with electronic music. Then later in 1960 his first articles in Railroad Model Craftsman were published. So, it looks like it was a very creative period for Mellé. Maybe he was at work on his paintings too? Now, maybe Mellé’s apparent musical sabbatical in New Jersey is not as well known as Sonny Rollins 1959 to 1961 one where he famously practiced his saxophone out on New York’s Williamsburg Bridge everyday, but like Rollins, there was something developing.
You’ve got to take the above with a grain-of-salt. I do. I’ve corroborated nothing. So far it’s just a string of interesting factoids, with the emphasis on interesting, and lots of questions about their factualness. In other words, the search continues.
As you’ve gathered if you’ve studied some of my previous articles, I’m a nut on mines and feel that mining and railroads go together much like ham ’n eggs, Stravinski[sic] and Bernstein, or Thalonius[sic] Monk and way out jazz.
The first sentence from the first part of Gil Mellé’s January 1964 RMC article, Mountain Flotation Plant.
Yes, that's the flotation plant with Gil Mellé in the photo.
Mellé's drawing of cleaning equipment in SP's Taylor Engine Terminal, RMC Dec'65
In 1965 Gil Mellé had 3 articles published in RMC about building various types of structures he observed on trip(s) to rail equipment servicing facilities and yards in the Los Angeles area. The articles are:
Los Angeles Junction Diesel Shed, May ’65
Diesel Fuel Tank, July ’65
SP Parts Servicing Depot, December ’65
I particularly like the opening to the Dec ’65 article:
For anyone who has been a rail fan for a long time as I have, nothing could be more rewarding than the five mile trip I recently took through the Los Angeles yard area of the SP. Perched atop a flat car I was immediately made aware of the space age changes that were present everywhere. I saw freight cars of mammothian proportions and unfamiliar design! Mentally I tried to see them negotiate a tight radius and (in error I’m sure) I doubted that they could. In some cases the weird designs were dictated by the very nature of what they must transport. There was an interlocking tower that more closely resembled a home for alien life than a yardmaster and his assistants. I’d like to do an article on that concrete beauty in the near future but for now shall describe how you can duplicate an operation on the SP that was installed a few years ago.
Various online biographies seem a bit vague on when Mellé relocated from New Jersey to Los Angeles and re-entered the music business. Based on my experience with E. L. Moore's articles, it appears that RMC would publish articles within a few months after their receipt, so I speculate that maybe Mellé relocated as early as 1964 and appears to have been there in 1965. I guess these articles could have been merely the result of a visit to Los Angeles, but hopefully I can find some corroborating evidence in the future. For whatever reason, he seems to have had his feet in LA in either '64 or '65.
The Dec ’65 article appears to be his last; however, that opening paragraph teases the reader with the spectre of a future article on the interlocking tower. I’m going to take another look and see if that article did materialize, and if there are others I might have overlooked.
Black spray: A technique for unifying the overall hue of a layout by over spraying with a mist of flat black spray paint.
Usage: Hal decided to black spray his layout a few days before the magazine photographer arrived.
Source: Gil Mellé appears to be the original source of this technique, and described it in his September 1963 Railroad Model Craftsman article, Scenery to Improve Your Layout. Mellé notes:
Have you ever looked at your entire layout and noticed that some parts of it seem to stand out in an unsatisfactory way. After two years of work every individual component looked satisfactory but when the whole of my layout was viewed it was not [sic] anything but a harmonious integration……Here’s what I did to correct this. It took two minutes, a spray can of flat black and a track cleaner……I covered my entire layout with a mist of the stuff. I aimed above everything so that the minuscule particles of wet paint would fall on everything as soot issued from the fiery stack of an iron horse, is hurled sky high and deposited on everything around. Of course the walls around the pike were protected with newspapers taped in place……It worked!
The technique strikes this editor as a bold and unforgiving one with serious consequences if not properly executed.
from The Dictionary of Non-Existent Model Railroad Terms, 2nd ed., 1999.
I'm now rereading Gil Mellé's 1963 Railroad Model Craftsman articles. In the April issue I stumbled across the kitbashed project shown in the top half of the photo on the left, his so-called Split Level Lumber Yard. I immediately felt some deja vu. It was Art Curren's Artz Lumber Co. in his 1988 book, Kitbashing HO Model Railroad Structures, I was remembering.
Mellé's project made use of Atlas' then relatively new #750 Lumber Yard and Office kit and #704 Signal Tower kit, with the #801 Street Light kit thrown in for some extra detail. Curren's used 3 of the #750s and an AHM #15303 American farmhouse kit.
Art Curren preferred to call what he did kit-mingling instead of the more commonly used term kitbashing, which the publisher of his book used in the title. I think kit-mingling is more accurate, and I prefer it, but the market is what the market is.
Interestingly Mellé doesn't use any special terms to refer to what he's doing other than noting the resulting model is a hybrid and a customization:
This month I shall proceed to show a new plastic kit trick. In previous articles I’ve shown you how to customize many of the plastic buildings currently available. This time, if you want to try your hand we’ll not only do that but we’ll also throw another kit into the batch and really come up with a hybrid.
But, just look at the picture up there. The model is clearly a species that much later would be referred to as kit-mingled. Did Gil Mellé invent kit-mingling? Maybe not. I'd have to read back more into the late 1950s and early 1960s to know for certain. However, he clearly was one of its early practitioners.
Mellé's painting guide for Revel's Sandhouse Pumphouse
I've been rereading Gil Mellé's Railroad Model Craftsman articles from 1961 and 1962. I'm looking for something, but I don't know what I'm looking for. A clue of some sort.
Mellé has a very get-down-to-business writing style that's quite different from E. L. Moore's. The only part that has so far seemed to stray into the land of background information was this brief sentence from Customize Those Plastic Buildings in the April 1961 issue of RMC:
It is my habit to buy virtually every new kit that comes out on the market be it plastic or otherwise, and there are few available that I have not built.
It was no doubt still possible in the early 1960s to buy and build every new kit on the market. Although, when he says this I think he's referring to kits of buildings as many of his articles deal with improving and superdetailing structure kits. This is in stark contrast to E. L. Moore who hated "like poison to put a kit together." let alone write an article on how to superdetail one. The early 1960s was the era of quite decent plastic kits of buildings finally hitting the market, so I guess it isn't too surprising RMC was interested in articles about improving those kits.
With the Malcolm Furlow post I’ve started to think again about some of the lost - or maybe just under appreciated - roots of model railroading. I’ll get back to Furlow, but I’ve been wondering again about Gil Mellé because of something Furlow wrote.
There’s about a 10 year period from 1957 to 1967 where Mellé recorded and released no records, but as readers here know he was becoming a major presence in model railroading. The various biographies I’ve been able to find online don’t go into what he was up to during those years. Maybe there’s something in print. I’m thinking of putting together an integrated timeline that shows his transition from jazz musician to model railroader to musician again. I'll combine whatever I find music-wise with his model railroading publication list.
I noted Malcolm Furlow wrote that he believed going into model railroading was a “natural extension of my music career”. I wonder if Gil Mellé thought the same, or maybe he entered model railroading for different reasons? I wonder if, like Tom Daniel, railroading was an early interest, and Mellé for some similar reasons decided to return to it? Maybe I’ll never find out, but maybe there are some clues out there.
So, timeline. It looks like the last album Mellé recorded and released before his long hiatus from music was Quadrama in 1957. The album is on the Prestige label, # PRLP 7097. On it he plays baritone sax. I don’t own the album, but I’m trying to track down either an LP or CD for a reasonable price. Although, on YouTube I did find this recording of the piece Quadrama, that Wikipedia tells me is the very last track on the Quadrama album.
The last track of the last album before hiatus. Significant? I doubt it, but I don’t know. Here it is for your listening pleasure:
Gil Mellé at the 1960 HIAA trade show; RMC Apr '60
The April 1960 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman contains a report on the 1960 Hobby Industry Association of America trade show held in Chicago during February of that year. The article notes that Gil Mellé was there with his company, Industrial Model Works (IMW):
Industrial Model Works' Gil Mille [sic] takes a breather. IMW released 19 new items at the show including old time structures and styrene building material.
Prior to seeing this note I had thought IMW was more-or-less a garage manufacturer, but having a booth at America's premier hobby industry trade show seems to suggest much higher aspirations.
I didn't trust myself and went back through the 1961 issues of Railroad Model Craftsman and found 7 more Gil Mellé cartoons, as well as 2 Right o' Way Models columns that I had overlooked. The bibliography has been updated. So, there were 15 Gil Mellé cartoons published in '61. I also found 3 other unsigned cartoons that appear to have his style, so maybe the actual total is greater than 15. I think I've found all the '61 cartoons, and feel more confident in looking through the other nearby years for more.
[18 September 2020: It looks like '61 and '62 were the high point for cartoons by Gil Mellé. '63 has none. I'm about to review '64 and '65, but it's looking like cartoonist Bill Baron replaced Gil Mellé sometime in '63.]
I was doing some digging in Railroad Model Craftsman to see if I could figure out when the Weekly Herald first came available for sale, and quite by accident I found a cartoon in the Feb '61 issue signed by Gil Mellé - it's that one over on the left. As I worked my way through 1961 I found a total of 8 cartoons. I've updated the Gil Mellé master index to make note of them. Cartoons are tricky things to find in old RMCs because they aren't listed in the table of contents, and the only way to figure out who drew them is by the signature in the cartoon itself.
I don't think his cartoon publications were limited to 1961, and I need to try and figure out what his total output was. Stay tuned.
MetaFitler recently ran a post about Leigh Martin's craft magazine index, and it reminded me that I had contacted her a long time ago with a question about whether E. L. Moore had any articles in Creative Crafts. In '67 Hal Carstens tried to cajole E. L. Moore into writing an article about wood-burning for the new magazine, but I couldn't find any manuscripts that indicated Mr. Moore submitted anything. Leigh graciously took the time to look through her collection and confirmed there didn't appear to be anything. After the MetaFilter prodding, I went back and looked through the updated Creative Crafts index, but still didn't find anything by E. L. Moore. Although, out of the corner of my eye, I did see two Gil Mellé entries! Apparently he had two cartoons published: one in the inaugural Fall 1967 issue, and another in Winter 1967. So, they're something to add to the Gil Mellé publication index. Leigh's doing a great job compiling those incredibly valuable indexes, and I wish her much success with the project.
Recently I was in need of some light escapism and stumbled across The Vinyl Detective at just the right time. And much to my surprise found in its pages not one but two discussions of Gil Mellé recordings in this wholly satisfying tale of lost-and-found, vinyl LPs, beautiful women, Los Angeles, London, plumbing, eccentrics, cats, coffee, jazz legends real and imaginary, bus passes, serious analog turntable setups, and a very fine Barracuda. No streetcars, but hey. Nothing too mentally strenuous, just a few hours of good fun.
Awhile back I read in a biographical note RMC ran in 1964 on Gil Mellé about a model railroad structures company he once ran called Industrial Model Works. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but I’ve started to wonder what the company produced, and where it was located. There doesn’t seem to be much information out there, and I wouldn’t even know about the Gil Mellé / Industrial Model Works connection if I hadn’t read about it just by chance in that ancient issue of RMC. I’ve done a little digging, and here are a few things I’ve found so far.
I looked around for ads. I couldn't find any in RMC or Model Trains, but did find a few in Model Railroader. That one on the left is from the November '58 issue.
The Loco Service Terminal kit could be bought complete, or as individual pieces. The complete set up gave you a boiler and pump house with a horizontal oil storage tank, all for $2.95. There were also vertical oil tanks and sandhouses you could buy separately. In December 1961, RMC ran two Gil Mellé articles: one was called Vertical Tank, and the other, Pump & Boiler House. Likely the kit and the articles are one in the same. Also, an article for the horizontal tank appeared in a April '62 RMC called, Horizontal Oil Tank.
And, last but not least, down in the ad's lower right, the company is located in Lodi, New Jersey.
In the December '58 issue of MR there was an ad for a Norfolk & Western Coaling Tower for $2.95. This kit was also the basis of his article Norfolk & Western Coaling Tower that appeared in the April '62 issue of RMC.
This ad for a vertical tank and a free tool shed ran in the January '59 issue of MR. The tank looks like the one that came with the loco service terminal. There's no mention of See Your Dealer First. This time the ad has a P.O. box in Lodi for you to buy direct. Maybe he wanted to get rid of odd stock that dealers didn't want to handle.
This is the last ad I've found so far. It appeared in the March '59 issue of MR. Maybe that sandhouse is a repackaging of the one offered in the loco service terminal?
The March issue also ran a review of the loco service terminal in the Trade Topics section. The review sticks to describing the kit, and doesn't make a recommendation, although it does state the model is based on a prototype found along the Louisiana & Arkansas RR at Shreveport, Louisiana. I should also note that the November '61 issue of RMC ran a Gil Mellé article called, Old Time Sand House.
On the right is the box for the old time sandhouse kit. On the left is what looks like a 'BLAW-KNOX Concrete Plant' kit, also from Industrial Model Works, which I haven't come across an ad for yet.
That Concrete Plant / Cement Plant seems like a more involved kit. The plans look amazing, and, interestingly enough, they state: A product of Industrial Model Works of Carlstadt, New Jersey. Some more internet searching shows that Carlstadt is around 10 miles south of Lodi. And Lodi is around 15 miles south of Ramsey, NJ, where the RMC office was located in the 1960s. So when Hal Carstens noted in the February '62 issue of RMC that RMC author Gil Mellé dropped into these hallowed walls recently with his latest creation,if Mr. Mellé was living in Carlstadt or Lodi or somewhere thereabouts, dropping by was fairly easy to do. Gil Mellé's IMDb entry states he didn't move out to Los Angeles until 1969, so I suspect he was living somewhere in New Jersey until then. Maybe he ran Industrial Model Works out of his basement or garage?
Image sourced from this ebay entry - looks like a good deal!
It looks like what might have happened to IMW and its kits is that Mr. Mellé produced a number of them in the late '50s, maybe couldn't make a go of it, closed down the company, switched to writing articles in late '59 or early '60 (his first publication was in RMC in October '60), and used a few, or all, of the kits created by IMW for several articles. Maybe articles were the best outlet for him because he wrote about a number of very sophisticated projects that might never have seen the light-of-day if he was concentrating on mass-market kit production. But, this is all speculation.
I thought compiling this bibliography would be a simple task, and maybe a little tedious. It turned out to be a bit more demanding than I had expected. RMC didn’t appear to have the highest standards for copy at the time. There were numerous instances of table of contents titles not matching story titles, mismatched attribution, and attribution given in the story, but missing from the table of contents. Hopefully, I’ve straightened things out for the Gil Mellé stories. In particular, I should note that as far as titles are concerned, if there was a conflict I’ve used the ones printed on the stories instead of the ones in table of contents. If you see problems with this attempt at a bibliography, please leave a comment so I can fix them up.
1960
Oct: Oldfield Coal & Supply Co.
Dec: Polyurethane for Scenic Construction
Lehigh Valley Icing Platform
2 single panel cartoons
1961
Jan: Lehigh Icing Platform, Part 2 2 single panel cartoons
Feb: L. V. Sandhouse 1 single panel cartoon
Mar: From Engine Shed to a Superdetailed Powerhouse 1 single panel cartoon
Apr: Customizing Tru-Scale's Blacksmith Car and Jail House into a
Superdetailed Blacksmith Shop and Flat Car
Customize Those Plastic Buildings 1 single panel cartoon
May: Rail Cutting Shed
Jun: Black Bart Mine
Transformer Poles
Jul: Gondola Loads 2 single panel cartoons
Aug: Highways are High Points Park Statue 2 single panel cartoons
Sep: Build this 50 Ton Composite Hopper Cartoon
Oct: A Dust Collector Industrial Chimney 1 single panel cartoon
Nov: Old Time Sand House Industrial Smokejacks 2 single panel cartoons
Dec: Vertical Tank
Pump & Bolier House 2 single panel cartoons
1962
Jan: The Security Fence
Customizing and Superdetailing Suydam's Chemical Factory
Feb: Americanize the Airfix Traveling Crane
2 single panel cartoons
Mar: Easy to Build Sound Light Unit
A & S Wheel Foundry
1 single panel cartoon
Apr: Horizontal Oil Tank
Norfolk & Western Coaling Tower
2 single panel cartoons
May: RR Police Headquarters
Jun: Customizing a Faller Freight Station
Jul: Quickie Quonset
1 single panel cartoon
Aug: Wayside Stock Yard
1 multi-panel cartoon
Sep: Water Car
1 multi-panel cartoon
Oct: Lehigh Valley Office and Crew Quarters
Nov: Portable Car Jack
1963
Jan: Air Raid Warning Signal
Feb: 100 Ton Coaler
Mar: 100 Ton Coaler [JL: Part 2 of the Feb story]
Apr: Building a Split Level Lumber Yard
May: Operating Factory
Jun: Oak Hill Pit Head, Part 1 of 3
Jul: Oak Hill Pit Head, Part 2 of 3
Aug: Customizing the Oak Hill Pithead, Part 3 of 3
Sep: Scenery to Improve Your Layout
Portable Studied Clutter
Oct: Mine Site Detailing
1964
Jan: Mountain Flotation Plant
Feb: Mountain Flotation Plant, Part 2
Aug: A Car Barn For Your Layout
Sep: Car Barn, Part 2
1 single panel cartoon
Nov: Customizing a Tru-Scale Factory Dec: Signal Tower, part 2
1965
Jan: Logging Mill, Part 1
Feb: Logging Mill, Part 2
Mar: Howe Truss Bridge
Apr: Build a Tie treating Creosote Plant
May: Los Angeles Junction Diesel Shed
Jun: Scratchbuilding a Styrene Arch Bridge
Jul: Diesel Fuel Tank, Part II [JL: Although it says Part II it's a single part story]
Dec: SP Parts Servicing Depot
If you drop by 30Squares frequently you know that I think everything somehow relates to E. L. Moore :-) and this bibliography is no exception. The thing that struck me as I was compiling it was that during Mr. Mellé’s high output years in the first half of the ‘60s, Mr. Moore’s publications were more-or-less equally spread out across RMC, Model Railroader and Model Trains. E. L. Moore wasn’t predominately being published by RMC; it was just a smattering of stories, and his output in RMC was quite low in comparison to Gil Mellé’s. But when Mr. Mellé’s run ended in ’65, E. L. Moore’s publication rate in RMC took off from then until the end of the ’60s. My speculation is that when Gil Mellé stopped publishing in RMC – likely because his musical career was taking off again - E. L. Moore was his de facto successor since he could also produce stories at a high rate. Going further with the speculation: if Gille Mellé hadn’t left the scene, it’s an open question as to whether E. L. Moore would have had the impact that he did, and whether any of those AHM plastic kits based on a number of his RMC projects from ’67 and ’69 would have been manufactured. Well, that's all for now. I leave you with Gil Mellé and his awesome Percussotron.
[4 March 2019 update: Vince cross-checked my list against the online model railroad index and found Mr. Mellé's Dec '64 story was missing from my list, so I've updated it. Turns out Dec '64 seems to be missing from my RMC collection :-( I note that the online index leaves out the Gil Mellé articles that appeared in RMC's Right o' way Models column. It's easy to miss because Mr. Mellé is only credited in small print at the bottom of each column, and not in the magazines' tables of contents - indexing tools would likely have a problem with that, score one for us humans! From what I've read so far, it appears that all stories that appeared in Right o' way Models were by Gil Mellé.] [12 September 2020: Added references to cartoons Gil Mellé published in 1961 as well as a project from Nov '61 that I had overlooked.] [14 September 2020: Added more cartoons to 1961 as well as 2 missing Right o' Way Models stories. He published 15 cartoons in 1961.]
[16 September 2020: Added 7 cartoon references to 1962.]
[17 September 2020: Added the article Portable Studied Clutter to Sept 1963.]
[18 September 2020: Added 2 cartoon references to 1960.]
[19 September 2020: Added a cartoon reference to 1964.]
[30 September 2020: Added a cartoon reference to Mar '62]
