|
A weasel, they say, is more weasily recognised than a stoat, which is stotally different. Telling the difference between an Edsel and a Demon is sometimes less straightforward... Although the theory is that Edsel releases generally relate to previously released items, and Demon LPs are new, or at least new to this country, the reality is that the distinction is sometimes blurred.
One might suppose that since Johnny Copelond's Copeland Special, a 1980 album by the Texan blues guitarist, is on Demon, having never been released in the UK before, that Pickin' Up The Pieces by Poco or Supersnozz by the Flamin' Groovies, neither of which had achieved UK release before, must similarly be on Demon. Not so — both are Edsels.
Andrew Lauder suggests that the label chosen is more a conceptual matter than a hard and fast rule: "John Prine's Aimless Love is on Demon, and so are Loudon Wainwright's recent albums, but his Album III is on Edsel. Suicide's debut album, which was released here on Red Star/Bronze a few years ago, feels like a current record, so it's been released on Demon." Tell Sigue Sigue Sputnik about it ..
By the some token, while Del Shannon's Runaway Hits and I Go To Pieces albums are on Edsel, his more recent Drop Down And Get Me, which was produced by Tom Petty, is on Demon. It's a little harder to work out why the first three George Thorogood albums, licensed from Rounder and released here some time ago by Sonet, are on Demon, and the same applies to the several T Bone Burnett albums, which are all on Demon, although some have been released previously, albeit with about as much promotion as an out-break of foot and mouth disease.
Mainly it's a question once again of whether Thorogood, Burnett and Ian Dury (whose classic New Boots And Panties, an early Stiff release, is on Demon,) are regarded by the Brentford boys as both still active and with a contemporary sounding album. Obviously, they are, as is Nick Lowe, the subject of two blisteringly good compilations (available on CD as well,) 16 All Time Lowes and Nick's Knack.
Of course, nothing's that straightforward down by the canal where the Demon barge is tethered behind the office/ warehouse, as Lauder mind-bogglingly reveals: 'We've just released two Roky Erickson albums, one on Demon and one on Edsel. Some of the material on the Edsel album is newer than the material on the Demon album — Gremlins Have Pictures, but the Demon album hasn't been out before, so it's new, and the one on Edsel's called I Think Of Demons, which is even more confusing. Ian Dury's New Boots is on Demon because it's always been available somewhere, and the some is true of T-Bone's Truth Decoy, which mokes it seem like a current record"
Joe Walsh used to say, when asked about the meaning of the title of his LP The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get that if you thought about it long enough, weird logic would appear. Perhaps the same is true of the Demon/ Edsel dividing line, although most afficianados of the output of the Demon group are probably unaware of the label on which some of the more borderline albums have been released, while they care not a jot.
WHEN CONSIDERING the legendary centres of rock music, several places come quickly to mind — Memphis, Liverpool, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, London, of course — but for the last five years, a most unlikely London suburb could make a justifiable claim to be included in the pantheon of rock resorts: Brentford, a small Thames-side area to the west, has been the home of a vinyl empire where past glories mingle freely with potentially heroic future somebodies.
The Demon Group of labels (incorporating Demon, Imp, Edsel, Zippo, Hi, HDH, Demon Verbals and with an umbilical connection to F Beat) has become a major force among record companies not just domestically, but internationally. This is their story.
An early version of the label existed at the start of the Eighties, releasing singles by acts such as Department S (Is Vic There? was a Top 30 hit in 1981), Bananarama and the Subterraneans (a group featuring well known scribe Nick Kent), but the label's main function of that point was to provide an outlet for new talent while its bigger brother, F Beat, looked after Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe and a few others. Although the Demon name remained, label head Andrew Lauder and Jake Riviera abandoned the original label because it was less than viable financially and was very time-consuming.
"New Acts" are quite demanding of their first label" says Lauder "and Demon at that time proved to be of more benefit to the A & R departments of major labels than to anyone else."
Lauder at that point joined Island Records for part of 1981. "At that time, F Beat was having problems as Rockpile (a group which included Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds) had broken up, and things were getting tight, so I felt I'd better earn a living elsewhere, so it seemed logical to join Island" Looking after the shop of F Beat was Andy Childs, who worked on any F-Beat releases which emerged at that time, notably Trust and Almost Blue by Elvis Costello, plus albums by Carlene Carter, Clive Langer and the well-named Blanket Of Secrecy, the latter a duo comprising noted producer Roger Bechirian and singer/ guitarist Pete Marsh, formerly most notably of Twist, whose 1979 LP, This Is Your Life, included contributions by Elvis Costello and Steve Nieve. The sole Blanket Of Secrecy LP was released in the US, but no-one seems sure whether it crept out here, although in typically enigmatic Demon manner, the LP's UK title was Walls Have Ears, whereas the US knew it as Ears Have Walls.
Childs takes up the story: "F Beat started in 1980 with two highly active years. Get Happy was the first F Beat LP, and I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down (both by Elvis Costello) was the first single, and both were hits, so we got off to a flying start." However, the label experienced difficulties with the companies to which they were allied for the mechanics of making, selling and distributing their products, and when Lauder emigrated to Island, in the words of Childs: "F Beat had gone a bit flat."
Both Lauder and Riviera were restricted by contractual obligations from relaunching Demon - their agreement with WEA for F Beat stipulated that any Demon release which reached the chart would be taken over by WEA, which gave them little incentive - but Lauder's departure to Island effectively freed him from that obligation, and a fresh deal for F Beat with different terms left the field clear for Lauder and Childs to put into action the plans which had been formulated for a fresh start for Demon.
Notes Lauder: "It was financed internally through Riviera Global and F Beat - not that it was a huge investment just enough to get things moving. I had a couple of months off after Island, working out what I wanted to do, which didn't take long!"
As well as Demon, the inntention was to also launch a sister label, Edsel - named after a legendary and totally unsuccessful Ford car, but also, in rock terms, the name of the group - the Edsels - who recorded the 1961 US Top 30 hit, Rama Lama Ding Dong.
The theory behind Edsel was, and is, to make available great records from the past which might still have a future, but for various reasons were unavailable. This has not been a hard and fast rule, as the first Edsel releases included a compilation of collectable tracks by London Sixties mod band The Action, and a 10-inch LP by the Pirates, the erstwhile backing group for the late Johnny Kidd.
Lauder: "The Pirates told us they were about to knock it on the head and invited us to their last gig, so we suggested they use Nick Lowe's studio to record a final studio album with some Pirates rock-n-roll classics, but those two come out in early 1981, and there was nothing more on Edsel until I came back at the start of 1982. It was always considered that Demon would be for new stuff an Edsel for old stuff." Adds Childs: "The idea was to have the freedom to do reissues alongside the new things, because we all knew the problems of working with new acts, and felt that we needed a little light relief, while we also felt that certain records which weren't available out to be. Demon is more time-consuming - managers, agents, the acts themselves always ringing you up - and in the early days, the two of us did everything, from taking the orders, packing and despatching them, liaising with printers and factories, unloading vans, as well as negotiating contracts!
“It was easier to pump Edsels through and generate some income, although more recently, it’s been 50/50 between Edsels and Demons, which is the right balance,” says Lauder. Here it should be noted that talk of “pumping Edsels through” may mislead the reader unfamiliar with the care and love lavished on all the releases on the label. As Childs notes: “Edsels are still time-consuming, as you have to spend time on the sleeves and ensuring that the tapes you use are the best quality, but you don’t need other people for that sort of thing, so it’s possible to do things quickly, often at home in the evening. Also, one of the things which other labels seem to neglect is working on a record after it’s released, which is something I’ve been guilty of in the past. You’re so happy to see a record finally released that you can’t wait to get on with the next one, but that’s the time when you should be following up review, checking on radio play and so on. Having said that, there’s much less to do with an Edsel than with a Demon once it’s been released.”
In case it hasn’t yet become clear, Edsel is a label with a distinct sense of history, and Edsel compilations are frequently treasured equally by those featured and by purchasers, a good example being that of the Artwoods, a Sixties London R&B group whose leader, Art Wood, is the older brother of Rolling Stone Ronnie. The Group also included famed Deep Purple keyboard man Jon Lord.
Childs: “The Artwoods held a reunion for the night in a pub when the album was released – we got a very encouraging response from them. Art himself is a designer now, and works for the same company as the bass player, Malcolm Pool, so Art designed the sleeve, and Derek Griffiths, the guitarist did, the liner notes. It was great fun, and very rewarding”.
Lauder explains: “With the Yardbirds, when we did the Roger The Engineer album, Chris Dreja did the sleeve just as he;d done with the original, and Paul Samwell-Smith, who produced it, mastered it for CD.” Childs: “When Cliff Bennet discovered we were doing a compilation of his work, he popped into see us, because he runs a shipping company, and he’s up and down the Great West Road out there going to Heathrow several times a week.” Lauder: “Steve Young wrote a sleeve note for the reissue of his Rock Salt and Nails LP. Usual artist/label relationships can be a bit fraught, but as we’re not disappointing anyone since they don’t have career expectations for these records, they’re just happy to see them out, and are pleased to help if they can.”
In addition to sales through conventional record shops, Demon/Edsel permit certain acts signed to the labels to sell their own albums on gigs, a good example being Loudon Wainwright III, one of the few semi-established artists whose brand new records come out through Demon, while selections from his back catalogue are reissued via Edsel. Lauder: “Loudon sometimes actually sells his own records after gigs and signs each one, and Dr. Feelgood often sell theirs. This sort of thing has never happened before to major acts, although we don’t do it with Elvis Costello, of course”. (13 of Costello’s early albums are now available through Imp, part of the Demon label). “The Neville Brothers sold their records when the played the Shaw Theatre, and when Loudon played there, he sold hundreds. It’s a question of making records available to people conveniently and at a time when they’re enthusiastic, just after a gig, and there are certainly many people today who don’t enjoy going into record shops.”
One particularly impressive aspect of the Demon/Edsel empire is their full colour 52 page catalogue, which is sold (price: £2 including postage in the UK, £2.50 overseas) to both dealers and other interested parties. Says Childs: “At dealer level, everyone seems to find it useful, particularly as a sizeable proportion or our total sales occur outside the UK, which we do ourselves from here, along with a few exporters like Caroline, Windsong and Lasgo. The catalogue definitely stimulates business and we wanted to do one that would be kept and not immediately binned. It’s obviously not cheap to produce, but it has a good effect.”
Such attention to detail is equally reflected in the suppliers used by Demon for the various processes necessary in the release of an album, as Lauder relates: “The quality of our reissues is very important to us. We use three main cutting rooms. We’ve always been with George Peckham at Porky’s Mastering Room, almost since he left the Fourmost! That was when I was at United Artists, Tim Young of CBS Studios has always been involved since we started, and Paul Riley, our ‘technical supervisor’ has a relationship with Tape One. They all understand what we want, so we work together well.” Peckham, apparently is good on loud, rowdy records – as Child adds: “Many of the American acts on Zippa have said that our mastering of their records is better than they’ve had in the US or elsewhere, because George whacks the volume up, being a great rock’n’roll fan.” Young, according to Lauder, “is more of a soul fan, so we do things like the Hi label reissues with him. Overall, it’s a question of horses for courses.”
Next comes the pressing of the records, for which Childs is responsible, selects the plant which he feels is most appropriate, although in certain cases as with material licensed from CBS, there is a contractual commitment to press such material at the CBS factory. Not that Childs finds such requirements restrictive – as he remarks: “We also press a lot of other things there, because quality-wise, what they produce is great. I don’t think it’s a good move to only use one pressing plant, because at busy times, you end up competing with yourself. They ring up and say “Which one of your albums do you want first?” and the answer, of course, is all of them.”
Due to the fact that at any moment in time, around 25 different titles are being re-pressed in addition to several new releases, Childs splits pressing requirements between three pressing plants: “CBS, because of its size and efficiency, get the lion’s share, and we also use Damant, because they’re very conveniently placed geographically for us, and can give us a very fast turnaround if we need it, and then there’s PR in Wimbledon, who aren’t so quick, but as they check 100% of their pressings, the quality’s amazing. Apart from those three we still put stuff through Mayking. If things were pressed there, originally, we go back to Mayking for re-pressings, but sometimes Mayking’s at a disadvantage and at the mercy of exchange rates, as it buys vinyl in francs, which makes it difficult for me to justify the extra cost, even though the quality of pressings is very good, and we’ve never had any problems with that aspect of its work.”
For CDs, most Demon/Edsel titles are manufactured by Nimbus, and Childs reports few problems with capacity now. Notes Lauder: “We leapt in quite quickly into CDs for a smaller company, and brought Paul Riley in early on to supervise CD mastering, as he’d had experience assembling and running Nick Lowe’s studio (Ampro). Also, we ensure that we get the best master tapes available for our CDs.” However, contrary to the experience of the UK record industry in general, the cassette market is not greater for Demon than its vinyl sales, although Pinnacle (now sole distributors after the demise of Making Waves, who until recently jointly distributed Demon/Edsel etc, with Pinnacle), have claimed that it will be able to improve cassette sales now that it has a clearer field in which to operate. An experiment is to be undertaken with the Best Of Al Green album shortly, which will be released simultaneously on record, cassette and CD, and sold in simultaneously, to give a clue as to what ratio of cassettes might be expected for future releases.
Notes Childs: “We tried cassettes, especially with some of the Edsel things, but they didn’t sell as well as we’d hoped, so we’ve been very choosy about what we release on cassette, which his seemingly quite different from the rest of the industry in this country.”
Adds Lauder: “I think many of the people who buy our albums like the vinyl form, as we ourselves do. Speaking personally, I think cassettes are good to have in the car, but I wouldn’t have one in preference to an album. Loudon sells OK on cassette, and the Demon releases are fine, but the Edsels are harder, except for the better selling acts like Screaming Jay Hawkins, Sly & The Family Stone and things like that, but it’s still the same ratio (about 80/20 LPs/cassettes) as they’re our best selling albums.” For the cassettes which are produced, the main manufacturers are CBS and Damont.
The sleeves of Demon/Edsel albums may in many cases be of less importance to customers than what’s in the grooves, but even when he was with United Artists during the late Sixties and much of the Seventies, Andrew Lauder was well known for the taste he exercised in sleeve design, a quality which has been continued with Demon today. In much the same way that ex-members of the Artwoods contributed to the reissue of their work, experts and enthusiasts are invited to write often lengthy and highly illuminating sleeve notes – often this can produce problems for designers in incorporating the mass of interesting information on a 12-inch square jacket, but two main designers serve the labels in this respect, and are both well aware of what is expected of them. “We now have our own in-house art guy, Mike Krage” says Childs. “His first job for us was Elvis’ King Of America sleeve” (and his latest job is that which you are currently reading). “We advertised and got lots of letters from art students, and his was the most interesting.” Lauder: “He sent a letter with test tubes attached to it containing blood, sweat and tears, so we gave him full marks for ingenuity, and we liked his work too.” Childs: “Sometimes he rolls his eyes when I say I need an album sleeve in 45 minutes, but he has actually done one, the repackaging of Elvis’ The Man TV album, which is out again. He’s very good and works well to order, but still comes up with good concepts.
“He also does stuff for Riviera Global, like the Blood And Chocolate sleeve and all the bits that went with it – boxes, cassette inlays, CDs, advertising, posters, tour stuff, point-of-sale material. The other person we use is Phil Smee of Waldo’s Design, who also runs his own record label, Bam Caruso. He’s based in St Albans, and he’s great because he’s a music fan who knows his stuff, and has a feel for a lot of what’s put out by us. We can sometimes just give him a bunch of pictures and stuff, and he’ll come up with a cracking sleeve. If we’ve forgotten to tell him to identify people in a picture, he’ll do it correctly – it’s a very good relationship.
Demon/Edsel tend to use Robor for sleeve printing, having decided after inspecting the personal record collections of Childs, Lauder, Riviera and Costello that that company produces the best results. Lauder has been a Robor fan “since those early Island sleeves. When I was with United Artists, I’d asked why we couldn’t use Robor, thinking, for example, of a Mott The Hoople sleeve. I knew it as more expensive because they use white-backed card, whereas at UA, they seemed to use thinner board of poorer quality. “No-one else uses the board we use, which has to be specially acquired – it’s a particular thickness and white-backed, so that it takes colour better, and the print is clearer than with more absorbent board, where it tends to blur,” says Childs. “Robor have done nearly all our sleeves since the start of F-Beat, although there’s a newer firm called Senal, who provide a very quick turnaround and do our singles bags.” Gatefold sleeves are provided by Howards, another part of the Tinsley Robor group.
Another long relationship produces record labels, as Lauder explains. “When I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down by Elvis was originally going to come out on 2-Tone, Chrysalis told us to get the label information to their label printers, CRS in Bedford, and we’ve been with them ever since. They’re great and they’ve grown with us.” CRS also provide cassette inlays and CD booklets, while Robor produce printed inner bags, although the catalogue and any inserts required for albums are the work of local (Acton) printer Anthony Walker. From the point of view of lengthy mutually advantageous relationships, it would be difficult to better the team used by Demon/Edsel to ensure that their products are the best any record buyer could reasonably expect.
Elvis Costello’s IMP Records
The IMP label, album for album, is probably the best selling of the Demon group’s repertoire, due entirely to the fact that the vast majority of the records released on Imp are by Elvis Costello, while the others (currently only two albums) consist of material that Elvis was the prime mover in having released.
The label’s name seems appropriate in view of that of the parent company, although it was not conceived with that in mind, as Andrew Lauder relates.
“All the Elvis Costello catalogue is on the Demon numbering system, although it’s on the Imp label as those projects relate primarily to Elvis. We got the name Imp because Elvis made a single, Pills And Soap, as The Imposter, and we numbered it IMP 001. Then we thought ‘Imp?’, ‘Demon?’, ‘Great!’.
“It was a total coincidence, on accident, although Elvis enjoyed being on Demon but with an independent name. That single’s an interesting story, as we deleted it on election day. Elvis went on the radio and said there would only be 5,000 available, but we’d decided we’d press it until election day, then immediately delete it.”
So Imp was born, after which all involved felt that Costello, a director of Demon, should have his own label identity both for his own records and also for projects upon which we were particularly keen.
Lauder says “We didn’t want him to have the pressure of people thinking that everything put out on Demon or any of the other labels necessarily had Elvis’s approval, which is not the case. He likes some things and dislikes others.”
Surprisingly perhaps, neither the albums by Costello’s long-time backing group, the Attractions, nor Keyboard Jungle by Attractions ivory tickler Steve Nieve, are on Imp. They’re both on Demon.
The two Imp releases not featuring Costello are Father’s Lying Dead On The Ironing Board by Agnes Bernelle and the debut album by The Men They Couldn’t Hang, Night Of A Thousand Candles.
Notes Andy Childs: “Not everyone at Demon liked the Agnes Bernelle record, but Elvis put his money where his mouth was and paid for the whole thing himself.”
Lauder adds: “It wasn’t a great commercial success, but a number of people really liked it, while a number of others thought it was lunacy.”
There is talk of a second LP by Steve Nieve, since the first one did quite well, according to Lauder. “It was recorded digitally, so we’ve released it on CD – it was very cheap to make, with no rehearsal as it was simply Steve playing the piano. But he actually had bleeding fingers at the end.”
After the comparative success of their Imp debut album, The Men They Couldn’t Hang have signed with MCA, for whom they recently charted their first LP for the label.
Lauder says: “We put their LP on Imp, although it was to all intents and purposes a Demon record, because it was something Elvis wanted to do, and we both saw the group for the first time on the same evening.
“There’s no long-term plan for Imp. There might not be another signing to Imp for five years, or there might be three in a month. It’s a facility for Elvis to have his own identity within Demon. He can do what he wants with it, and it prevents him getting blamed for what we do.
HI Records … The Sound Of Memphis
One of the more inspired licensing arrangements made by the Demon group has been that for the catalogue of the Memphis-based Hi Records.
While perhaps not as well known as rival Memphis labels Sun and Stax, Hi has been bereft of proper British representation since its deal with London expired, although some items were released by PRT.
In Andrew Lauder’s eyes, a tie-up between the Demon group and Hi, with the latter acquiring its own UK identity for the first time, was a marriage made in heaven.
“It’s been a favourite label of mine for some time, and they had always gone through London Records here since they started in the very early Sixties until 1977.
We felt they weren’t being treated as well as they should have been, and coincidentally, Hi was bought be Al Bennett, who I’d known when I worked for United Artists and he was president of Liberty.
“We did a long term deal with Hi for its whole catalogue, and we’ve been steadily putting everything out. Obviously, we try to license material for as long as possible, because it can sometimes take a long time to sell a respectable number of records.”
|
