Hot Press, August 24, 1984: Difference between revisions
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Most people don't understand the love of records. It's not a fetish, a disease, a perversion or an addiction. It's a thrill. | Most people don't understand the love of records. It's not a fetish, a disease, a perversion or an addiction. It's a thrill. | ||
It's the allure of shiny sleeves that jump with graphic cut and class, liner notes filled with curious information and a fan-like devotion to detail — who played what and when and why it was never released in this form before — stacks of records lined up waiting to be played, to be flicked through and selected according to mood. It's the genuine pleasure and excitement inspired by good music — loud, soft, fast, slow, old, new, smart or | It's the allure of shiny sleeves that jump with graphic cut and class, liner notes filled with curious information and a fan-like devotion to detail — who played what and when and why it was never released in this form before — stacks of records lined up waiting to be played, to be flicked through and selected according to mood. It's the genuine pleasure and excitement inspired by good music — loud, soft, fast, slow, old, new, smart or naive — but it must in someway be real and sincere ... perhaps this is the only true criterion. | ||
Most people don't understand this. Even worse, most people in record companies don't understand it! They seem to labour under the misapprehension that records exist purely in terms of product and marketing. Drop this, sign that, release as much as possible and see what sticks to the charts. Sometimes (for these discerning people who enjoy sweeping generalisations) the record business seems like a giant advertising agency filled with upwardly mobile types dedicating considerable time and effort to creating an impression. (An impression on what or on whom? You may well ask, I haven't yet worked it out). Therefore it is a relief to hear Andrew Lauder, head of at least three record labels, say "I love records". | Most people don't understand this. Even worse, most people in record companies don't understand it! They seem to labour under the misapprehension that records exist purely in terms of product and marketing. Drop this, sign that, release as much as possible and see what sticks to the charts. Sometimes (for these discerning people who enjoy sweeping generalisations) the record business seems like a giant advertising agency filled with upwardly mobile types dedicating considerable time and effort to creating an impression. (An impression on what or on whom? You may well ask, I haven't yet worked it out). Therefore it is a relief to hear Andrew Lauder, head of at least three record labels, say "I love records". | ||
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"Sometimes master tapes are easy to trace, but others have bee real hard work because you either get the wrong version where somebody overdubbed something or it's a fake stereo which sounds terrible and you want the original mono. Sam and Dave (the soul duo) we had a lot of problems with and we had to dub from disc on loads of them because no one where the tapes are. So rather than not use the track, we've dubbed. Sometimes dubbing works out fine, you know, you can't tell the difference, unless it's not a very good copy. And usually when I've done that I mention it on the sleeve as well just to be fair. One of Sam and Dave's tracks was never actually issued commercially at all, it was just an album they put out free to radio stations which was trying to tell young black kids in America to stay in school and take their exams and not end up with no qualifications: and they put on like Otis Redding and people like that talking and Sam and Dave singing "My Reasons For Living," a track that for some never got used anywhere else and it's fantastic. So we put that on the record. And "I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down" we couldn't find a tape of — it was just a lesser known B-side until Elvis covered it, so I think we found someone in Canada who had a good copy we could dub from! | "Sometimes master tapes are easy to trace, but others have bee real hard work because you either get the wrong version where somebody overdubbed something or it's a fake stereo which sounds terrible and you want the original mono. Sam and Dave (the soul duo) we had a lot of problems with and we had to dub from disc on loads of them because no one where the tapes are. So rather than not use the track, we've dubbed. Sometimes dubbing works out fine, you know, you can't tell the difference, unless it's not a very good copy. And usually when I've done that I mention it on the sleeve as well just to be fair. One of Sam and Dave's tracks was never actually issued commercially at all, it was just an album they put out free to radio stations which was trying to tell young black kids in America to stay in school and take their exams and not end up with no qualifications: and they put on like Otis Redding and people like that talking and Sam and Dave singing "My Reasons For Living," a track that for some never got used anywhere else and it's fantastic. So we put that on the record. And "I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down" we couldn't find a tape of — it was just a lesser known B-side until Elvis covered it, so I think we found someone in Canada who had a good copy we could dub from! | ||
"I don't know if it's always a good idea to try to track down the artist though!" he adds bemusedly. "Sometimes you feel you don't need to, you can get all the information you need and they're in America ... it starts to make it non-profitable if you start phoning America too many times! (laughs). But I sometimes deliberately haven't got too involved because I'm a bit worried sometimes that they might think there's a whole career blooming ahead and finally they're gonna be a star after all there years and you don't want to disappoint them! You tend to get people saying "Well actually I've got some new tapes that are much better than that" you know? Which isn't quite the point of doing it. We had some demos from Screaming Jay Hawkins this year actually! They weren't really songs but he's still got a great voice and he's still screaming. | "I don't know if it's always a good idea to try to track down the artist though!" he adds bemusedly. "Sometimes you feel you don't need to, you can get all the information you need and they're in America ... it starts to make it non-profitable if you start phoning America too many times! (laughs). But I sometimes deliberately haven't got too involved because I'm a bit worried sometimes that they might think there's a whole career blooming ahead and finally they're gonna be a star after all there years and you don't want to disappoint them! You tend to get people saying "Well actually I've got some new tapes that are much better than that" you know? Which isn't quite the point of doing it. We had some demos from Screaming Jay Hawkins this year actually! They weren't really songs but he's still got a great voice and he's still screaming. | ||
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Demon mainly handles new releases picked up from American labels and reflects a contemporary taste very much akin to the classics feel exemplified by Edsel: blues, soul and rock'n'rollers, singers than can really sing, songwriters who know what songs are about. "Basically they're people I like. I always liked Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Johnny Copeland, [[Dr. John|Dr John]] has two new albums on Demon as well as one old one on Edsel. [[Loudon Wainwright III|Loudon Wainright]] I had done one album with on Radar. Sometimes it seems amazing people like Loudon and Dr John don't have major deals. They're important artists and they've all been with a variety of majors, I think. There's more and more people like that who the major companies aren't really interested in because they feel they've been around and they're not gonna become million selling artists anymore, so they're not interested. Which means there's more and more scope for someone of our size". | Demon mainly handles new releases picked up from American labels and reflects a contemporary taste very much akin to the classics feel exemplified by Edsel: blues, soul and rock'n'rollers, singers than can really sing, songwriters who know what songs are about. "Basically they're people I like. I always liked Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Johnny Copeland, [[Dr. John|Dr John]] has two new albums on Demon as well as one old one on Edsel. [[Loudon Wainwright III|Loudon Wainright]] I had done one album with on Radar. Sometimes it seems amazing people like Loudon and Dr John don't have major deals. They're important artists and they've all been with a variety of majors, I think. There's more and more people like that who the major companies aren't really interested in because they feel they've been around and they're not gonna become million selling artists anymore, so they're not interested. Which means there's more and more scope for someone of our size". | ||
[[Paul Brady]], who has experienced almost unceasing record company blues, recently recorded a live album which, incredibly for a critically acclaimed and internationally | [[Paul Brady]], who has experienced almost unceasing record company blues, recently recorded a live album which, incredibly for a critically acclaimed and internationally covered songwriter, he couldn't get anyone to release, until Demon came over the hill like the 7th Cavalry at the eleventh hour: "We're going to put Paul's album out in October: I think Demon can provide a label for people like that who are probably more popular concert-wise that they've ever been, but at the same time they suddenly find themselves without a record company. So more and more we feel there is a need for someone like us whose more interested in those kind of people who're gonna be around making records for the next ten years or more. An they I think are starting to feel they're maybe better off with someone like us rather than looking in vain for some kind of fantastic new deal with someone who's really not gonna be interested." | ||
Demon and Edsel are now being fully distributed in Ireland by WEA, who will be promoting such home acts as Paul Brady and Philip Chevron with their usual gusto, as well as making the full Demon catalogue available for the first time, so that record lovers won't have to search vainly through expensive import shops for almost legendary Californian group Kaleidescope's seminal psychedelic recordings (collected by Edsel on "Bacon From Mars" and "Rampe Rampe") and other such deserving curiosities. | |||
"Our records find their way around the world," says Andrew. "Some of the material we have sells more on export than we do here. Elvis was just in [[Concert 1984-06-05 Tokyo|Japan]] and he went into a record shop there and they had loads of Edsel and Demon things, and we don't sell to anyone direct in Japan! It's difficult to tell sometimes how they get to where they get to. But we're setting up in Ireland since Elvis roots are Irish roots anyway, and obviously it makes sense to promote Paul Brady in Ireland." | |||
Revision as of 22:08, 9 July 2014
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