eevo1969
pfm Member
Going through some old house and techno records got me thinking about quality issues and some downright dodgy behaviour.
The one that immediately came to mind was Trax Records (Chicago), dodgy pressings could include parts of cigarettes, paper and even hair and other detritus and some pressings were unplayable and would hop skip and jump whilst the next could be just about be navigable with a rough enough cart, many artists never received any payments whatsoever from label boss Larry Sherman and credits were open to interpretation. Many were re-stamped from old records, you could often hear the old music from the original pressings at the beginning of the tracks but we carried on buying them regardless, you just had to have them.
I have a CD by a “artist” named Joe Lewis released in the mid 90s, contains 11 or 12 tracks of which Joe only made 3, the rest were stolen from a demo tape handed to him by one Jaime Read with the promise of release on Relief or Cajual Records in Chicago which obviously never materialised. The cheeky bastard even dedicated the album to his deceased brother.
Lots of similar artistic thefts abound in dance orientated stuff especially late 80s house and techno music, straight thefts and non recognition of credit due to contributors were commonplace, Discogs in the days when only electronic submissions were allowed was a riot with artists arguments going public in the forum or submission notes all the time. Very funny when the artists were attempting to change the release data to suit their own agendas and threatened the site with legal action if they didn’t alter the displayed information. Fun times.
The one that immediately came to mind was Trax Records (Chicago), dodgy pressings could include parts of cigarettes, paper and even hair and other detritus and some pressings were unplayable and would hop skip and jump whilst the next could be just about be navigable with a rough enough cart, many artists never received any payments whatsoever from label boss Larry Sherman and credits were open to interpretation. Many were re-stamped from old records, you could often hear the old music from the original pressings at the beginning of the tracks but we carried on buying them regardless, you just had to have them.
I have a CD by a “artist” named Joe Lewis released in the mid 90s, contains 11 or 12 tracks of which Joe only made 3, the rest were stolen from a demo tape handed to him by one Jaime Read with the promise of release on Relief or Cajual Records in Chicago which obviously never materialised. The cheeky bastard even dedicated the album to his deceased brother.
Lots of similar artistic thefts abound in dance orientated stuff especially late 80s house and techno music, straight thefts and non recognition of credit due to contributors were commonplace, Discogs in the days when only electronic submissions were allowed was a riot with artists arguments going public in the forum or submission notes all the time. Very funny when the artists were attempting to change the release data to suit their own agendas and threatened the site with legal action if they didn’t alter the displayed information. Fun times.