Ian Dewhirst
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Posts posted by Ian Dewhirst
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If you do speak to him can you pass on that i for one thought he did a terrific job on that Jamie/Guyden CD 'The Northern Side Of Philly Soul' ! I thought he made some old standards sound even better ! Would have been so easy to have over cooked it & ruined them !
No great thing coming from me i know ! but appreciate if you could pass it on anyhow
It'd be a pleasure Bogue and gives me an excuse to ring the cantankerous old sod LOL! He's still the top guy for mastering the 70's gear to me, even though his apartment stinks of cat pee and master tapes - a perfect smell for us vinyl hounds in many ways.....
Ian D
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With all due respect this is tosh. Mine's Mint and Im sure there's a couple more round here within 10 minutes walk, albeit maybe not Mint.
Unless you are certain those at Sheridan's were boots I think it's highly likely that 2 can turn up on the same night. Some of these rare 45s are not that rare. It's just the demand and number of people who collect so that most disappear into collections.
ROD
I disagree Rod.
As long as I've known, the Jimmy Mack's been an incredibly difficult record to find. To have 2 mint copies turn up @ Sheridans doesn't make sense. Unless someone can tell me different, or a load turned up, I'd be very dubious about the odds of several of 'em turning up on the same night....
Presumably it's still massively difficult?
Ian D
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When I met Peter Brown in new York 3 years ago I asked about pressing records and said dont you have to have minumum number? He said no he goes in weekly to get a track pressed up - maybe 5 or 10 or 50 copies and they cost $2.00 each to make and he was selling them to local New York shops for $4- I know I was there when he was in the shop selling them. So although I personally havnt been in to get some pressed - I dont Disbelive a close associate of Patrick Adams when he tells me how he makes his living these days.
True. Peter's the king at bootlegging his own records LOL
Last time I was over in the U.S. I was staggered at the amount of P&P 12" rarities which were turning up sealed and virtually indistinguishable from the originals. Until I found out it was Peter that was wholesaling 'em, generally in person and to order.
I know all this too well since my partner at the time and I bought the rights to the P&P catalogue from Peter, only to find out that he'd sold the catalogue to Unidisc some 10 years earlier!
Also, there's just too many weird boots emerging, mainly from the U.S. - the New Yorkers 12" is another one which was turning up at all the usual shops, identical to the original and priced at anywhere from $50-$200. Some supposedly reputable sellers who were trying to sell them as originals too!
Also, another thing I noticed was some real oddball 7" 45's that, to me, were obviously brand new but still being sold behind the counter as bona-fides.
Also what about all these recent boots of quite a few major label rarities - the Amnesia connection or something? Anyone got any of the titles.....?
Ian D
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heres a 10" acetate of the players, ive always wondered about this note on the sleeve, anyway somebody wasnt too impressed with this, tom moulton ????
I think it is! It looks like Tom's writing. I'll check with him next time I speak to him and see if he remembers - I know Tom quite well following the Salsoul reissues in '02-'05 'cos he's still on the Salsoul payroll......
Ian D
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Babe Ruth wasn't ever 'an indie release', mate. They were actually signed to EMI (Bovema) Holland, from about 1971 to 1977, and their releases appeared on various EMI affiliates around the world throughout that time. Over here they were on Harvest first, then Capitol.
I saw them live in 1972, long before their brief 'adoption' on the scene and when they were touring to support the (very funky) single "Wells Fargo". The girl singer they had back then (Jennie Haas) was to drool for! I believe that the girl on "Elusive" was a 'later model' and an English girl, though...
The first week that "Find My Way" came through on import as the Players, they were on the white label that you've posted up here. But only the first week...
That's what I thought Tony. I think it was when Barry said "anyway is the bootlegged version I have a boot of the original independant release prior to Capitol picking it up"? that made me question it LOL....
Interesting band Babe Ruth - I think they had a breakbeat collectible as well with "The Mexican" I seem to recall.........
Ian D
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Good point Ian hadn"t thought of it that way.Ever seen a multi coloured one ? It is CC001 so is that the 1st Choc City release ?? The Cameo Choc City is also CC001Cheers Paul/quote]Typical innit. I have EVERY coloured label Cameo release on Chocolate City except "Find My Way" - probably 'cos I have The Players. I'm pretty sure it came out as Cameo on the multi-coloured label with the same cat no but I'm sure someone on here can confirm....Ian D
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I'm still trying to get my head around what constitutes 'crossover' 'cos a lot of things seem to fit into that catergory going by some of the lists I've seen LOL.....
So any of these any good?
I think the Shirrelles feat Shirley Alston and the Dionne Warwicke are exceptional. The Dionne Warwicke writing credits are 2 x Hollands, 2 x Doziers and a R. Wylie for good measure LOL....
The CC & Co is a real weird one being a Theo-Coff production and a GREAT version of the David Cassidy song which may put off some people but it's just such a great soulful mid-tempo sing-a-longer.........
Ian D
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Is The Players a demo Ian?
Thought it was just the 1st issue prior to the Chocolate City one issued after they had to change their name.
Cheers Paul
Yeah, I think you're right - there's no promo info on the label after all. Very weird though as Casablanca/Chocolate City were always multi-coloured labels due to Neil Bogart (label owner) always spending lots of dosh LOL.....
It's almost like they figured it may be pulled, which it eventually was of course.....
Should've been a promo that's what I say LOL....
Ian D
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I have a few of those Ian (it seems that you have to say things like that in message board responses ), nice, but may I ask you, or anyone as it goes, about the Babe Ruth boot that I have - apologies if this is baby stuff but I'm sure you all know how it is (you can't know everything now, can you) - the Capitol release is the cleaned up version and in my opinion, the poorer version and not the version that I own on the boot.
I've recently bought the Babe Ruth album, after reading someones views about that LP version on here - and to my detriment haven't played it yet....!
Anyway is the bootlegged version I have a boot of the original independant release prior to Capitol picking it up?
Is that clear enough or have I done my usual job of clouding a very simple issue?
I've never heard the boot Barry. Now that you've said that I'll run a comparison between the UK promo and US one although they'll probably be the same won't they?
Plus I never knew that Babe Ruth was an indie release at all!! What label was it? I'm really curious as I thought they were signed straight to Capitol......
Also how much longer is the album version? You'd better play it LOL....
Ian D
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Love the Honey Cone and Originals 45s Ian got promos of both. Think they're both pretty well known.
Don't know any of the others
Cheers Paul
The Andre Brasseur is a quite dated straight Northern instrumental - quite weird but definitely got something about it.
The Casey & The Pressure Group is a GREAT handclapper and in my day would have been a HUGE instrumental. Never seen it before or since.
The Sensational Williams Brothers is straight Northern slightly messy Gospelly type stormer - once again never seen it around.
The Rhodes, Chalmers & Rhodes is simply a irresistible mid-tempo stormer - produced by Rick Hall. Some exceptional vocals and a straight-floorfiller IMO......
I figured the Honey Cone and Originals would be quite well-known but great records nonetheless. I've got a load of what I think could be 'crossover' which I'll stick up shortly - I'm still learning my way around it LOL......
Ian D
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Just done an exhaustive few hours but found some tremendous records along the way. So does anyone know these? I presume someone will but just interested if they've ever been on anyone's radar........
It's exhausting playing through stuff though innit? I'm knackered LOL....
Ian D
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I'm a sucker for white demos - especially oddball ones, so here's a few.........
Can anyone indulge me in a few more weird ones.....?
Ian D
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The PRS and PPL seem to have turned into complete ogres this last year, when I first bought my Pub it had no PRS or PPL licences, so I phoned them up and both were nice as pie and we got it sorted, in the following years renewals came up and I paid with not too much grumbling.
In June last year the Pub was up for sale so I spoke to them both and explained that I didn't want to renew for a full year as I was expecting an imminent sale (another story!). Both insisted I had to and said I would get a refund for any unused term.
I ummed and aahed and they both started phoning me repeatedly, at one point every day!
The imminent sale fell through in late July so I renewed the licences. I left in early september and wrote to them both, surprise surprise I heard nothing. After phoning every week I got a refund from PPL in December.
I am still being fobbed off by the PRS.
In my opinion both licences are a complete rip off - musicians writers etc get royalties from sales, playing music in public assists those sales. We should charge them.
Ta
Paul
Yep, it's the same policy as when you get a wrongly-issued parking ticket i.e. pay now whether you're innocent or not and argue about the money later. The arguing and chasing up generally costs more than the tickets, takes a lot of time and causes a massive amount of unnecessary stress which ultimately shortens your life and makes you die young. Is it any wonder that we've turned into a bunch of miserable bastards in the UK?
I had to laugh when I read about the Masai warriors who are visiting London this week:-
Official government advice to six Masai warriors on what they may expect on a visit to London: "Many of them work in offices, jobs they don't enjoy, so they don't smile as much as they should".
Is it any wonder, when people get sucked into things like this? You have my sympathy Paul. Best of luck with the refund....
Ian D
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Yes the reggae people have lost thousands over the years.
Many of the big publishers neglect their small songs because they're so focused on the big hits. In those cases it's the writers who suffer.
I understand your frustrations with publishers who just act like bankers. We also sign new British writers and do sync deals for movies so we're doing something for our clients.
I hate to see music companies turn into financial institutions. That applies to most of the majors these days.
Maybe the high street banks should start selling records.
Paul
Maybe they should LOL.
Hope the banks do better with records than they managed with mortgages!
About 10 years ago I had a plan to re-educate some of the major publishers about some of the unexploited gold that was sat in their vaults. The plan was for me to approach them and hand-pick a number of their unknown and unxeploited copyrights and then work the hell out of them in return for a small percentage of the income. I was in an excellent position to get some covers and some possible TV ads at the time.
None of 'em were interested. The songs in question remain unexploited 10 years later, thus not making any money for either them or the writers. So basically a dead loss.
It was then when I realised that most of the big publishing houses only actively 'exploit' maybe 1% of their catalogue at best - probably much less with the biggest of them. Which I think is a lazy approach to looking after the interests of their writers and keeping to the terms of a publishing contract. And that's the problem in a nutshell. They seem to have lazy unimaginative policies for the most part so there's very little incentive for 'em to work the deep catalogue.
As the late Hunter S. Thompson so lucidly pointed out:
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side".
Ian D
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Too right Ian.
They seem to have targeted a large industrial area around our firm in Sheffield as several other factories have had a similar letter & we have checked them out through the local Chamber of Commerce.
If our firm is taken as an average from a payment point of view it works out at £72 per person.
I'm pretty sure the majority of employers are going to say sod that & if it gets followed up will just take the radio's out of the workplace.
Won't affect me personally but it will mean Joe Public will be deprived of hearing a hell of a lot of new releases so already low sales will be even lower thus affecting the whole music industry.
Sickening mate.
I've seen a lady friend of mine reduced to tears because she couldn't have the radio on in the basement kitchen where she slaves for hours on the basis that customers in the shop upstairs could hear it!
What next? If there's 4 people in a car listening to the radio on the way to work will that require a licence? Or similarly someone playing a radio in their own garden?
I would have thought they'd have bigger fish to fry. This country is just going down the tubes with all this ridiculous beaurocracy......
Ian D
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Edited by Ian Dewhirst
Hello Ian,These days MCPS don't actually charge royalties for mechanical reproductions of songs that aren't registered, can't be traced or are published by non-members. No money is collected and no licenses are issued in those cases. In theory it means the manufacturer doesn't actually have permission to reproduce the song.
So there isn't a pot of undistributed money these days, just a list of unlicensed works which have been manufactured without anyone paying mechanical royalties.
If a belated registration is made it can trigger off a retroactive claim but it has to be within six years.
With PRS, by the way, it's worth noting that each songwriter needs to pay £100 to join the society. Many obscure writers might feel there isn't much point because they might only earn a few pounds each year - if anything.
Publishers pay £400 to join PRS and of course some small publishers may not see the point. It's sometimes better for them to get the benefits of PRS membership by being administered by a bigger publisher.
We have six MCPS memberships and two PRS memberships because we have several catalogues and also represent other publishers. But I can see how frustrating it is for anyone to think their royalties are either being uncollected or are ending up in the pockets of bigger players.
Things are better than they were but there's a long way to go.
If anyone knows a writer who feels he has unclaimed royalties I might be able to help.
Best regards,
Paul
www.millbrand.com
Hi Paul,
Yep, you're absolutely right about the MCPS no longer charging for Cop Con these days - I stand corrected. However, in my experience it doesn't stop anyone manufacturing. In fact, I'm amazed at the amount of Cop Con's on many CD releases these days - ever checked many of Sanctuary's reggae releases for instance? They're ALL Cop Con LOL......
In fact the last forms I did for the MCPS when I was running Salsoul, I did by going through the MCPS database and duly noting everything which was on the system and putting either Cop Con or the US Publishers on anything which wasn't.
Cue a stampede of Publishing Houses which suddenly decided that they did own the tracks in question but 'forgot to register them' with the MCPS!
As per usual, when I complained that if a Publisher enters into a contract to represent a writer in the UK, then surely the very least they can do is make sure that everything is entered on the system it was put down to, yawn, 'administrative errors'!
What annoyed me, as a record company, is that we took all the risk in re-issuing piles of stuff at great cost, whilst the publishers merely sat back, looked at our packages and then decided that they did in fact own something which they'd never bothered registering in the first place.
Sloppy at the very least and probably in contravention of their contract with the writer at best.
Is it any wonder that we sometimes get frustrated?
We should have a natter mate. There's a lot of stuff to claim on since 2002. It's just very time-consuming and expensive to get all the paperwork signed by the right people for all these agencies but a bit of detective work would probably throw a few obvious ones up.....
Best,
Ian D
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Got a letter at work from the PRS a couple of months ago asking for £288 yearly as we have a radio on in the workshop.
Our firm only employ 4 people & 1 of those is deaf!
It's a welding/fabrication factory & is not open to the general public.
Who the f##k do they think they are when they try to stop folks just listening to the radio at work.
Which is patently ridiculous Cunnie!
They're really scraping the barrell if they're targeting workplaces. What on earth is going on in this world? It's just money, money, money and it makes me sick.......
Ian D
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Hello,
It's worth remembering that it's writers and publishers, not artists, who get income from PRS. And only if their works are registered in specific territories of course, as Ian pointed out.
These days the PRS system is pretty good for broadcasting (for the bigger stations at least) and is far more accurate than the systems used by BMI and ASCAP in the USA. But the public performance side of PRS is based on "sample surveys" which can't be very accurate so major writers benefit at the expense of less successful writers.
I suppose they have to use blanket licensing for public performance royalties until something more scientific can be devised. It's a bit like the TV license you pay for the benefit of the BBC but you could be watching other channels most of the time.
In the USA at the moment ASCAP are taking legal action against many small clubs and bars who refuse to buy a license. Most of the club owners claim the only music performed on their premises is by unsigned bands who play their own songs, therefore they shouldn't have to pay a license fee which will benefit the Michael Jackson's and Paul McCartney's of this world. It isn't always as simple as that but they have a point.
Things get even worse when some club owners try to pass portions of their license fees on to the artists and DJs or promoters who use their premises. That's out of order and probably illegal in some cases.
Paul
Agreed Paul.
I think it probably is illegal to pass on a portion of the licence fee to promoters - the PRS annual fee should be part of the venue's fixed overhead surely?
But I don't think the 'one size fits all' template works any longer. The whole music biz is changing almost on a daily basis, so I guess it's only a matter of time before the collection agencies will have to update anyway.
Can't be soon enough for me.
Ian D
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Ian - I agree. The guys wanted a local hit and never saw the bigger picture. This is why I feel it is omportant that Kent records continue their sterling work with re-issues. It gives worth and credence to projects from yesteryear that would otherwise be gone forever. I am sure Kent's payments to recording owners are a nice surprise, and for them to get their work acknowledged 40 years later must be a thrill.
Also another point mentioned from 45cellar. Without the piarates in the 1960's, who would ever have heard of Motown. Thanks to the likes of Tony Blackburn and Dusty Springfiled, who were instrumental in getting the sound heard! I guess it is a paradox. I just wish that some of the high prices paid for records could filter some cash back into the music business to fund new creativity. However, on saying that I understand there is a massive specialist industry financing all sorts of positive things, like memorabilia, flying the guys over here to perform etc.
Thanks for coming back Carl.
One thing which I think the agencies could do which would re-align some of the present inequities, would be to maybe set up something like an 'unpaid' artists benevolent fund where a small percentage of PRS income or MCPS Copyright Control income could go into a pot and maybe help out some of those artists who haven't fared so well over the years. We know most of 'em so tracing 'em won't be so much of a problem LOL...
This would be similar to the Rhythm & Blues Foundation which was set up to address the problem of royalty payment inequities in the U.S. in 1988. For further information please check https://www.rhythm-n-blues.org/
I mean it's all very well the agencies doing what they're paid to do but I'd be much happier with it all, if I knew that the payments were going to the people who deserve them the most - especially in the world of Northern Soul. I'm sure Paul McCartney would be fine with that.
Let's face it, the Beatles owe a lot to the Isley Brothers, Smokey Robinson and the Marvellettes.
But it was that bloody Berry Gordy Jr that steered 'em the wrong way with "Money (That's What I Want)"!
Boy, this thread started off with a simple question from Jayne LOL...
Jayne - one other thing you could check is: what is the actual fee that the council pay the PRS? Has it mammothly ramped-up just lately or something? Maybe the PRS has become even more complicated then it was? I thought it was a one-off annual fee in most cases unless someone can tell me any different.
I'd look into it myself but I hate all this stuff - I can't be arsed with filling in forms and studying small print which I seem to do on an almost daily basis these days. Life's too short for all this LOL.........
Ian D
Counterfiet 45s
in Look At Your Box
Yeah, you're not wrong there Dave! Some of 'em are so obscure I questioned why anyone would want to boot 'em until I saw 'em everywhere from Baltimore to Buffalo LOL.....
Ian D