Ian Dewhirst

Was over your way a couple of years ago - I went into New York and then swung down to Newark/Princeton area before heading up to Buffalo to check a load out. Didn't find much Northern but did pretty good on rare 12"'s (but even those are drying up now it seems). I hit a lot of out-of-way little towns and found some basements full of stuff but it was very hard work to dig out anything heart-poundingly exciting. Also, the WORST thing these days is the fact that the shops/dealers want YOU to do the hunting and then, after several hours of digging, you take 'em the pile over and they just key in the titles to a computer and check on E-Bay/Gem etc and then base their prices on that! It's taken a LOT of the fun out of things IMHO. I was in Toronto last year and went into one shop and asked how much the 12"'s were and the guy said a dollar each. I then spent 2 hours and dug out some FANTASTIC goodies, took 'em to the counter and started counting out dollars and the guy said "can you give me, like, 15-20 minutes? I need to check with the owner"? I said" "what do you need to check with the owner for? You told me they were a dollar each" He said "well, the owner told me that if I saw anyone who knew what they were doing, then I needed to check with him". I said, "you should have told me that BEFORE I wasted 2 hours of my life pulling these out". TWAT! Everyone's so clued up these days LOL..... Anyone ever checked out Salt Lake City? I just have a feeling....... Ian D

Haha LOL! Thanks Kev. I was waiting for that one! Was this one the cellar in Baltimore you told me about or did you have an earlier hit? I'm sure you went to the States before that didn't you.......? Ian D

Yep, the Japs were out in force in the mid 70's mainly looking for different stuff from us at the time. In fact, the very first store I went to in L.A. had three Japs going through the 25 cent box and they passed a couple of copies of "Seven The Loser" - Eric Lomax (big at the time) which I snapped up once they'd finished. Things got worse in the 80's I think. I went to the Austin Record Fair and they were queuing up with U-Haul trucks @ 5.30am and basically going from stall to stall saying "how much for everything?" A pain in the ass LOL..... I had a brilliant hit about 15 years ago at the Wimbledon Record Fair when I found a guy who had a stack of Amy/Mala U.S. promos - he used to a label manager @ RCA and had the stuff from the 60's....... Also, one of the best finds of this type was the original UK Decca/London library which had everything in there, both U.S. and U.K. I got in once for about half-an-hour and got Lee Roye, Johnny Caswell, Jean Carter and Sweet Three for my trouble. A few years later Decca got sold and I think the original label manager got most of the gear 'cos he was advertising in Record Collector for a few years after..... Who knows how many garages, lofts and lock-ups still have stuff in? The next great hit could be round the next corner......... Ian D

I left my missus on the beach in L.A. whilst I checked a place out and returned to find a Jesus-Freak hitting on her! On the next trip, we went to Clearwater in Florida and I left her on the beach again and came back just before sunset to find half a dozen Latino guys surrounding her saying she reminded 'em of Sam Fox! Nope, girlfriends and wives don't make crate-digging easy that's for sure! Ian D

Oh my God Mcleanmuir - you're gonna give a lot of SS'ers nightmares over the Chinatown story! It's funny but there were tons of distributors in downtown L.A. when I was there at the time but I seldom bothered going through 'em 'cos there was too much Latino gear to go through. I think West Pico was where a lot of 'em were.... Also I went to House Of Oldies in Philadelphia once and there were simply too many records!!! If you can imagine a huge building one block long, one block wide and five stories high packed with thousands of 20' x 20' wooden crates on every floor with circa 50K of 45's in each you have some idea of what was available at the time. I spent 3 hours in one crate alone but it was all Country & Western and I got demoralised too quickly! I hit a few places about 18 months ago but it's all changed with the Internet, E-Bay and the Price Guides these days. I had a guy in New Jersey trying to convince me that the Total Eclipses was a $1000 'rare Northern Soul' record LOL........ Mmmm. Well this has livened up an otherwise dullish day! Happy Easter..... Ian D

Glad ya like 'em Bearsy. Missed you at Prestatyn but I'll catch up next time....... Couldn't really miss with this thread on SS though could we LOL? It's really all we want to read about innit? Including me! I love a good record story...... Ian D

No luck in it Kiddo! Dedicated hunting and being in the right place at the right time and making my luck LOL..... Also, any success stories need to be tempered with the not-so-good tales. So here's one..... I got to Philly on my way back from L.A. in December '76. I had two large suitcases with me and went from the airport into the city centre. It was so cold my hands were freezing up just carrying my cases. I then decided to visit Val Shively's place in Upper Darby and made the mistake of deciding I could get there via public transport (Philly's version of the tube). What I didn't realise is that a suntanned English white guy carrying two cases stood out like a sore thumb on that particular tube journey which went through the worst parts of Philly on the way to Upper Darby. Also, I was the ONLY white guy on the tube and everyone was flat-out staring at me and whispering "he must be crazy", "is he asking to be mugged" etc, etc...... Anyway, I got off at Upper Derby, came out of the station and realised I was being followed by a nasty looking guy. So I got around the next corner and legged it halfway down the street and jumped into a shop entrance. About 20 seconds later, the guy went past the doorway almost running and I thought I'd got away with it but he must have caught me out of the corner of his eye and he stopped and walked back towards the shop entrance. I was shitting myself.... He approached me and said "Hey man, have you got the time......" But I was nervous and thought he was going to knife me and my arm shot up in a kind-of reflex action and my little finger caught him square on in his right eye. Just at that point, a cop car pulled up and two cops jumped out and asked me if everything was OK. It turns out that they'd seen me come out of the station with my suitcases and wondered what the hell a white guy was doing walking around with two suitcases on that particular line. They told the guy to get lost and ended-up dropping me off at Val's. Val was great and I ended up stopping at his place where he spent the whole night telling me some FANTASTIC stories about the rare Doo-Wop scene and the lengths that some people went to just to get hold of a record - guns, threats, intimidation etc, etc. If I get time I'll bang a couple of 'em down...... The next day I was in the back of Val's shop when I suddenly heard a commotion with Val shouting out "Hey f*%k you. Get the f*%k out of my shop NOW! You ain't buying anything else here ya scumbag". I walked around the racks and looked over and Val was facing off a huge black guy with an Afro and a full-length black leather coat. Eventually the guy left and Val told me that the guy was a collector from Toronto and had messed all his filing up on previous visits and was an asshole to deal with. Anyway, I had to leave for the airport and my cab arrived about 2 minutes later (once bitten, twice shy LOL), so I said to Val I'd catch him next time, grabbed my cases and got in the cab. Just then the black guy who'd been kicked out of Val's shop came over to the cab and said, "Hey man. Which way are ya going? If you give me a lift I'll split the fare". I said, "Well I'm going to the airport....." He said, "Oh cool man, I'll drop off on the way" and he jumped in. Anyway, he redirected the cab in the direction of where he was going and the cab driver looked at me and said "Are you OK with this"? I said, "Yeah, we're gonna split the fare, so it's OK". In the cab the Black guy told me that he travelled from Toronto around the U.S. and bought a lot of stuff to re-sell to the Japanese collectors - he had a few things on him - Mike & Bill records on Botanic and quite a few little label things which he said were Deep Soul collectors items in Japan. About 20 minutes later he started directing the cab down some dodgy streets and halfway down on of 'em, he turned to me and said, "Hey nice meeting you man" and then opened the door and hurled himself out of the cab whilst it was doing 20-25mph. The cab slammed the brakes on and stopped as I looked out the back window to see an afro-ed Black guy picking himself up off the road, shaking himself down and running off into the ghetto. And no, he never gave me any dosh, the bastard! So, it wasn't all roses. More later...... Ian D

Hi Russ, Wow. I wondered whatever happened to Chris Peake. He was actually one of Soussan's great sources in the early 70's along with another guy called Darryl Stolper (?) who had a collection to die for but wasn't selling when I bumped into him. Chris Peake actually told me that the word 'punk' was invented at his school when an unruly pupil got asked to leave the classroom and, as he left, he took a piss into a wastepaper basket by the teachers desk. This kind of behaviour was labelled punk thereafter. Chris was into early to mid 60's 'Garage' or 'Punk' bands from L.A. e.g. The Seeds etc, so he had tons of small indie west coast labels in the hundreds of thousands of 45's in his 3 bedroom bungalow in L.A. We used to go crate-digging together on the basis that he'd keep all the 'Garage/Punk' stuff and I'd keep the Soul gear. I used to like hitting places with him 'cos he scared the shit out of most people, so when I spoke in my polite English accent people would bend over backwards to sell us the records just to get away from him LOL... He was one scary guy and when I say he had records in his larder and fridge I really wasn't kidding. I think I found the Willie Hutch in his loo........... I shudder to think of what Dave and Carl got from him 'cos the last time I saw him was '76 and so much stuff came through after then. I can clearly remember leaving tons of future small L.A. label biggies because they were either too slow or considered too R'n'B at the time! Also I spent a few days in Frisco with Disco Bob in Daly City in '76. As you say an incredibly nice guy with a ton of great stories about local acts. One of the abiding memories of that trip was me going to what was then the hottest club in the world, San Francisco's 'Dance Your Ass Off' (as made famous by the Pop-A-Groove record) and realising very quickly that it was a gay club (I was just 21 and 'hot' apparently). I managed to get out with my ass intact LOL..... Also, I remember deciding to go to San Jose purely because I've always loved the Dionne Warwicke record "Do You Know The Way To San Jose". It was a lousy drive, it pissed down all the way there and all the way back and I didn't find jack! Win some, lose some! Keep 'em coming guys....... Lovely thread..... Ian D

I think it would be a great read because the whole crate-digging thing has theoretically been going for nearly 50 years now. The Jazz, Blues and Doo-Wop collectors were at it in the 50's, Alexis Korner, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were picking up rare Blues stuff in the early 60's, I guess the Rock & Roll/Rockabilly collectors and Soul boys took the baton from the mid 60's and Northern guys from the 70's give or take a year or two. So it's very much instilled in UK culture anyway. Could also be to do with our colonial past and the fact we're an island which has always been pretty plugged in to other cultures. Plus. there's always that incredible buzz of excitement 'cos you never know what's gonna be around the next corner or what you might find next.... And once it's in your blood it seldom goes away..... C.V.D. - Compulsive Vinyl Disorder. I'll be opening the clinics shortly.......... Ian D

Yep, yer right Alan. We've always been nice chaps haven't we? Maybe a little obsessed with bits of plastic though...... Which reminds me, from this month's Manifesto:- "In years to come there will a booming business in 'Vinyl Therapy' dealing with a new breed of illness which will be primarily known as 'CVD' or Compulsive Vinyl Disorder. The prime patients will generally be aging, stubborn men, predominantly from the North of England who seem to have an unhealthy interest in pieces of 7" radius vinyl with badly printed labels. Most of these patients will have been submitted by their long-suffering female partners who are fed up with dusting several yards of dust-attracting plastic every week". Ian D

LOL. I can't tell you how many times I've been invited to go into a basement of a junk shop to look for records and had flashbacks of the 'gimp' scene from 'Pulp Fiction'. I spooked my mate out last year when we we were invited into the basement of some leather-attired freak record collector in Buffalo. My mate actually rang his parents and gave them the address in case we were abducted! Mind you it didn't help when I asked the freak, "where can I get a fag round here mate?" Ian D

Ian D

Brilliant story Chris. I bumped into a Charles Manson lookalike called Chris Peake in L.A. who was similar to Eddie. His whole bungalow was filled to the brim with records - even his fridge and larder had records in 'em. However, in amongst all that junk, I found the first copy of Willie Hutch "The Duck"/"Love Runs Out" outside of Soussan's, so it was worth it for that alone. Keep 'em coming lads...... Ian D

Oi! I'm 53 so I have an excuse LOL. In the UK we used to call 2 lanes in each direction a 'dual carriageway'. Plus we invented the language so that's what it's called OK? OK, time for a fag.......... Ian D

Rather that then Two-Bit Tumbleweed Hicktown, Texas! Ian D

"I love the smell of rat piss, damp vinyl and rotting paper in the morning"! Ian D

I used to get it all the time! Don't forget that a massive 93% of all Americans never leave their own shores LOL..... Young Foggy

Blimey, that's pushing it Sean - it was only 30+ years ago! I think they were demos. Someone told me a while back that the 'b' side was OK on TT. Wasn't it called 'Mojo Hannah' or something......? Ian D

Haha LOL! Cheers Alan. GREAT story and like you say, totally surreal. I once went to see a guy that was an ex-promo man for Bell/Amy/Mala and was also Lou Ragland's manager at some point. He was in hock to the mob and paying such a huge amount of vig that he was having to sell-off his personal collection. Naturally everything on those labels was there plus more........ And I don't blame you for holding the copyright! There some great stories around and they should be collated. It is a bit of a fairy tale after all - lads from the working-class 70's North of the UK going to America to find their seam of gold - rare Northern Soul records! And it's all true! I could read this shit all day...... Ian D

Dammit! The good Mr Manship has just pointed out a slight factual error in my work of art. As Johnny quite rightly points out: "Heartless Lover" by the Dick Baker Combo is not on Kool Kat (the L.A. Kool Kat, not the Detroit one) Before some smart-arse pulls you up on it, It was on Kit Kat (and not the Roundtrees one)" Doh.....! But pretty funny and a l'il embarassing 'cos I've been spealing that info out for years! But whilst Johnny's in factual mode, I'm hoping he can unveil a couple of his own tales along the line.. As he points out, the greatest record find of all time was Ray Dobard's Music City Load out of Oakland in 2004 - 250,000 mint 45s 95% SOUL and 50% Northern Soul.. there has never been and never will be anything to get anywhere near those piles of 45s. Now THAT must be heart-stopping stuff. And could there ever be another hit as good as that????? Also he had a Fort Worth hit when he found mutliples of all the Dover distributed Northern Soul New Orleans 45s which I'd love to hear about plus I'm sure there were some goodies he found in Fresno and California way back. All great stuff and this thread makes interesting reading on a lazy bank holiday weekend for some of us! Ian D

Yep. Night, night. Wasn't kidding though. Check the thread. They're words I use for sure from time to time but not in that order.... Anyway, time for one more "Curb Your Enthusiasm" then crash.... Ian D

Oh shit. I know what's happened here! I never actually said 'it was phenomenal every day'. Somehow that combination of words got dumped at the bottom of the page by mistake, so it was a sort of typo LOL. How weird is that? Anyway, I agree LOL... Ian D

God, I hate to sound like an old bastard Max, but really those were the days LOL......... I had Bradford Market, Leeds Market, Wakefield Market and Huddersfield Market right on my doorstep with a chain called Bostocks which had bought a few million 'cut-out' records from a US bulk wholesaler. Tons of MGM/Verve/Columbia stuff which is where the Tymes, the Shalamars, Dottie Cambridge, the Triumphs, the Charades, Alice Clark, the Righteous Brothers Band, Clara Ward etc, etc all came from. Manchester had Global which always turned out stuff - Rick Scott found some beauts there and didn't they have the Edwin Starr's and Vonettes LOL.......? Nottingham had places (that's where all the Ila Vann's came from). And that place in Telford, I didn't get to until after you guys had plundered it LOL... I even found Northern records at travelling fun-fairs back then ("I Can't Help Myself" - Don Gardner). Do you remember Steve Glover - a massive UK collector back then. He was from your way wasn't he? And what was it with white demos with you guys? I once went through Pep's box and EVERYTHING was a white demo......... Ian D It was phenomenal. Every day

I need a break now Blake, but I'll be back mate. And I've probably left more than I ever brought back. I used to be too choosy back then! Ian D

Yep 'Commitment' was my middle name when I realised what I probably left there! Ian D