Up and Down Like the Assyrian Empire!

Time runs away, it’s May 2012 already. Some have mentioned and asked why I’m waiting until 2030 to exhibit and ask why would it take so long to put a collection like this together.

It is mentally exhausting sometimes and I still constantly question why I’m doing this. I laugh at myself at the futility of picking something so random out of life to fill the gaping whole many of us have. Some have children, some find religion, some spend their lives devoted to easing the suffering of others. A record collection is hardly going to compete is it. I shall not be remembered, or revered, for putting a music collection together will I?

It is funny when you look at comparisons of mood and trying to keep up a strong sense of purpose. When I started this blog it took me to a new sense of direction, boosted my purpose. After a couple of months I was getting a little despondent, wondering what I was going to be able to carry on talking about regularly. When I hit the thousand views mark on this blog and then to have the privilege of the Pieter Nooten interview, the fervour hit a new high and I became determined again as before.

The determination has waned again, which is stupid really. The Pieter  Nooten interview gave my viewings a huge boost, but then they slumped down again in recent months. But typically this a glass is half empty / full scenario. I’m still getting about 500 views a month, how am I not going wild with excitement at that?? A year ago I would have been wetting myself at the prospect of having that kind of audience.

So here I am telling myself to stop whinging and get on with it. Then what do I notice from my blog stats? Another review on someone elses site of my humble blog.

http://4ad.20six.co.uk/

This is the second I’ve seen and always fills me with delight when someone takes the time to take a look

http://nightmares-on-wax.blogspot.com/

http://www.darklinks.com/2012/02/5-dark-blogs-im-currently-enjoying.html

What also adds to the up and down moodswing is the over enthusiasm of wanting to do it all, and do it all now. I’m back on with the idea of doing a website and have been for a couple of months now. The original thought was to have a database referenced website. But that seems very complicated, expensive and basically a replication of what Discogs is doing already. So the idea got dropped (at a typical low point). Then I had some great ideas, (at a high point of course) for a fantastic website design with quite a unique idea. The more I thought about it, the more ideas I came up with. When I do get ideas they come thick and fast and I generally have to write them down before I forget them in the melee. Then, of course, when the next down point comes I ask myself, how am I going to do this, I don’t quite have the skills. I also realise the size of the task I’m taking on. I’m so excited about it all, but I’m also wary of giving too much away.

I also wanted to get many interviews onto this blog with artists, fans and people who worked for 4AD in the first decade. On a high point this is really exciting, when low the realisation of trying to get hold of anyone that may be interested seems like an impossible task. Adding any interview would be greatly enhanced if done on video and uploaded to youtube for instance. But if I can’t get any interested interviewees, then videoing the interview is an even greater pipe dream. Of course that would also mean getting some equipment with some level of quality as well.....

......and I haven’t even started on what happens every time I try to do anything involving technology. AARGGH, this blog is enough to send you crazy! If it doesn’t take long enough to write an entry up, bloody Google blogs then screws up any formatting that takes sometimes two hours to find a workaround for, just to post a blog with one picture in it. (IT people should be shot within seconds of touching a PC, that of course then includes me, as I work in IT)

This months’ brainy and dumb idea has been to have a go at selling on Discogs. What am I doing, as if I haven’t got enough going on?? I’m already starting to see some of the issues sellers have on the market, which I think may become more of an insight into why sellers do some dumb things sometimes (like inflating promo prices just because). It may also help source 4AD in another way too.

So to finish, if anyone ever wants to help in any way, if you're any good at websites (particularly flash), or if you know any 4AD artist contacts, or any people who worked for 4AD 1980-1990, or even if you are a long time fan and don’t mind having an interview, throw me a lifeline.....

Find me on Facebook - Jonny Halfhead

Beg, steal or bootleg?

I’ve taken it upon myself to have a go at trading online. Maybe it can help fund this epic project at least in some small way. I have therefore been buying in stock where I can find it cheaply. While doing this I noticed and bought an item that has brought up interesting questions about authenticity and bootlegging.

The greater problem I have is with defining at what point does a demo or promo start to look dodgy and counterfeit? The cost of making vinyl and the equipment needed to do it, meant that a counterfeit copy had to make more than the cost of making it. So to a certain extent very common and generally easy releases didn’t justify the effort needed to copy them. But cassette tapes and CD’s are very cheap to copy. An issue arises when you see a demo tape or promo tape for sale. Sometimes these can be quite polished and well finished, looking as professional as the full release it promotes. These aren’t too bad to take a risk on as they would cost more to replicate, so a counterfeiter may not have bothered to replicate one of these. Some demos and promos though, are little more than a TDK tape with handwriting on the label and a cover of handwritten song names.

The big problem is knowing what is genuine and what isn’t. The TDK tape with handwritten labels may be genuine, but is it worth part of a collection. It’s not a release, it’s just a promoter at the record company copying the album onto tape and sending it out for review.

Then there’s bootlegs. These are unofficial releases. They can be either a counterfeit copy of an album or an interview or live performance cut onto vinyl. The Birthday Party’s Junkyard LP is  a fine example. The album was released in Germany on the GeeBeeDee label. But there is a white label version (which you may think would be a test pressing) with the same GeeBeeDee label on the cover. The only real giveaway is the poorer quality of the sound and the poor reproduction of the cover of poor quality card, it also has no matrices on the run out. It does make you wonder why someone does this. But then I found and bought it for 15 Euros (Muppet!). Should these be collected, well I think I need it so as to be able to distinguish between what is real and what is counterfeit.

http://www.discogs.com/Birthday-Party-Junkyard/release/2495539

Then there are other bootlegs that have more value. These are demo versions, live recordings, interviews etc. For me these are valuable in a collection. They don’t steal work from the record label, as the record label could easily release stuff like this themselves.

They add another dimension to the portfolio of work from a band. The greater downside is that the band themselves don’t receive any loyalties. But then they don’t always from the label either.

http://www.discogs.com/Cocteau-Twins-Night-Must-Fall/release/1868594

The other downside to some of these recordings is the state of the production. Live recordings are usually made by a guy stood at the back of a venue with a little tape recorder and a cheap handheld microphone. The quality can be atrocious, and can be mixed in with the general chit chat you usually find at the back of gig, some drunk arsewipe singing badly to the songs, or some dimwit boasting to his mate about how he took this “bird” home last weekend. I used to see the bootleggers at record fairs in the eighties. Rows of cassettes with badly photocopied covers of all the gigs the guy had been to with his trusty tape recorder.

So I suppose the question is what should I collect and what should I not. I include some bootlegs and not others. My argument at the moment, is that straight copied releases such as the Birthday Party example are fraudulent and illegal copies. The example such as the Cocteau Twins interview picture disc, are not copyrighted releases by the label and so are a greater insight into the artists themselves.

Saying that though, I still went and bought the Birthday Party bootleg. At least I know the difference now though between the bootleg and the actual release it copied.