Hot Press, August 24, 1984: Difference between revisions
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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. | |||
"But some we do get in touch with. The Yardbirds have actually said they get far more involvement now from us, putting out old records, than they ever got at the time. Chris Dreja, the old Yardbirds guitarist did the artwork for their re-release and they get test-pressings — just things we would do normally they're quite surprised about! And The Action I believe are now earning money from record sales that they never did in the first place at all. I think they were probably showing a loss first time around. So basically we've covered their debt and now they've had royalties. | |||
"Some people are still going, of course. Del Shannon is still very good — he's in great shape and his voice is great and he's pretty much on the ball, he's invested his money and owns his own tapes. He's in Nashville at the moment recording country stuff 'cause he's always had a yen to do that. And Holland-Dozier-Holland — we've got the H-D-H label which is recordings from Invictus and Hot Wax, two labels they had from the late 60's to the mid-70's after they left Motown. They contactually had a hard time 'cause they got into a position where they couldn't write or produce under their own names for a spell. In fact they wrote a lot of material that came out with other credits on. In the mid-70's they did a Jackson 5 album, and they've done the 4-Tops for Motown and recently started working with Lamont again. We've got a new production they sent us 'cause they're pleased with the way we're doing it, so they said here's a new record if you're interested in putting it out!". | |||
Imp records, a subsidiary of Demon is Elvis' baby, comprising his back catalogue from ''This Years Model'' to ''Imperial Bedroom'' (which he owns) and things he wants to do or that are of interest to him, So far other projects have included Elvis impersonator The Imposter and Ireland's lost ex-Radiator son [[Philip Chevron]]'s unique Elvis-produced interpretation of Brendan Behan's "[[The Captains And The Kings]]." | |||
"That didn't sell huge amounts," Andrew reflects, "but it was talked about a lot! People either loved or hated it. It was one of those records. People either thought it was a long lost classic or just a dreadful record. I like it. Elvis was very fond of it. And Phil is producing an album now for Imp by Agnes Bernelle who he's known for a long time. It's a very interesting album, old words with more recent music in sort of Brecht's style. It'll be called ''[[Agnes Bernelle: Father's Lying Dead On The Ironing Board|Father's Lying Dead On The Ironing Board]]''." | |||
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-covered songwriter, he cotset 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 than they've ever been, but at the same time they suddenly find themselves without a record company. So more and more, | |||
Revision as of 21:32, 9 July 2014
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