Ian Dewhirst

That's because you look respectable Steve. Whereas I get busted every trip! Ian D

Yep. Generally the 'you'll be playing a few records at a friend's wedding' is the one.........until they ask you for proof! Ian D

Brilliant Val. I see this as a sales pitch in the future for record dealers: "Brilliant double-sider that will appeal to both Northern and Crossover crowds. Ideal for international DJ's who suffer airline weight restrictions".......... We should do a chart of the most airline-friendly double-siders! Ian D

Probably lynched LOL...... Ian D

It's the music that's the important thing, not the format LOL. Unless you have some kind of vinyl fetish that is.....? 100's not enough for me by a long chalk Steve (but granted we do different gigs). I like a massive choice to keep things varied. Plus how do you predict so accurately what the foreign crowd will like? Is there like a Top 200 newies so if you have half of them you're covered? I think you'll find that 98% of regular working DJ's who travel regularly use CD's and laptops these days Steve. It's only the serious physical collector's scenes that demand physical vinyl. Plus travel costs for lugging 2 x boxes of 12" records are simply way too prohibitive these days which I guess is the beauty of 7"'s. My mate Greg Wilson used to take a vintage tape machine everywhere with him until it cost him £600 to take to Australia LOL.... Ian D

It can happen in quite a few European destinations including France and Spain. I've never personally been stopped but some mates of mine who DJ abroad on a regular basis have quite a few tales. Plus a well-known DJ had his records nicked within 5 minutes of his landing at well-known destination. I guess it depends on the country. Ian D

Win some lose some Joan. At least you were an international DJ with a gig in Seattle LOL. I've never even been! Hope it was in Summer,,,,,,,, Ian D

Didn't they ask you why you were bringing U.S. 45's INTO the U.S.? Ian D

Seattle's a great gig. You could have nipped up to Portland and found a few goodies whilst you were there! Did they pay airfare or was it a freeby? Ian D

They're OK in the hold if you have a reasonably solid case and they're in a light 100 count box inside the case with clothes wrapped around. I prefer 'em in the hold to be honest 'cos it's makes for a heavy holdall to lug everywhere with you. Mind you, if you're carrying £30,000 around with you then I guess you don't want 'em out of your sight. Bloody inconvenient though. What happens if they start charging for carry on weight though? Ian D

I reckon 100 is about the minimum. The vinyl thing is really limiting. The last time I took vinyl abroad was earlier this year and had to check a case in hold with around 200 7"'ers and around 20 12"'s in. A pain in the arse and there's always something you wanted to play but couldn't have with you, so quite frustrating too. Whereas a CD wallet can hold a few thousand tunes and a portable hard drive 50,000, both of which you can fit in a pocket or carry on bag and not get busted for weight, or worse still, by local customs. The minute some local customs guy sees people carrying record boxes in certain countries it's like waving a red flag! It's often an immediate 'fine' or 'import tax' and they know all the tricks now. I've had mates get their records confiscated until they've coughed up the 'tax' on their DJ fee. Also I'd check your insurance too. Thieves often target people with record boxes in airports. It's a dead giveaway so be careful out there. Ian D

Yep, still here Kev. Open to offers if anyone wants it. Surprisingly it's never been a major fave of mine but that white promo was kinda irresistible when I picked it up........... Ian D

But surely the record company or whoever paid for the studio time and the musicians are the ones who should be concerned since they own the recordings or am I missing something? Once a musician accepts a session fee, then presumably they only get to receive performance residuals after that don't they, and only then if they register with the appropriate bodies (another grey area by the way) or unless they're credited as a writer. In other words, once they've done the session and been paid, then the performance doesn't belong to 'em anymore does it? Also, I'm not sure if it's against the law to sample either a bass line or a drum beat as long as it doesn't go over a certain length - maybe Paul can clarify. Clyde Stubblefield must be the most sampled drummer of all time...... Ian D

Since when have musicians ever listened to advice Paul? Also, I think I've always understood that Carl wanted to learn all the processes himself anyway 'cos that's what generally came across in his posts. Which is fair enough. You definitely learn what not to do, that's for sure. I don't blame him actually. I'm still confounded by the stupidity of the business on a weekly basis, plus the rules really are changing very quickly. For every company whch continues to charge ridiculous advances and royalty rates in the current market and every company that wants to charge $500 per track for 'tape retrieval' or take 6 months to clear a track, there's a bunch of bootleggers out there who are just laughing that we still put up with it all and that's what worrying to me. Ian D

Also, I should add that I've just had a horrible week in making a stupid attempt to try and clear 2 Jackson's re-edits/remixes. One is Onur Engin's 8 minute extended version of "Show You The Way To Go" - The Jacksons (which never even had an extended mix or 12" release ever) which is a work of art that he spent 18 months finessing and the other is Julien Love's fantastic re-edit of "Living Together" by the Jacksons which is a huge record around the world and much bigger now than it ever was 35 years ago. The processes that one has to go through in getting the necessary legal clearances are long, torturous, painful, very stressfull and often much more expensive than the actual project is worth. That's why bootlegging is increasing faster than anyone realises which will turn into a much much bigger problem soon. There needs to be a clear cut, simple way of clearing for remixes, samples and useage. It's too complicated by far. It's far easier to bootleg and the chances of you getting caught are less than 1% I reckon. I say that after having been told that it will be virtually politicially impossible to get the above re-edits legally cleared for numerous reasons. Plus the process would more than likely take 'years' and need to go through approvals via 5 different parties. So unfortunately no one will ever get to be able to buy those tracks legally. So they'll simply get bootlegged and no one will see any money apart from the bootleggers. What sense does that make? It's not been a good week for me fellas. I do everything by the book and generally get slaughtered for it. Right now I'm STILL waiting painfully for clearances on albums that should have been out in 4 weeks which means that I spent most of last week begging U.S. companies to clear tracks before the CD disappears completely! The business part of the music business needs overhauling completely. It's like a dinosaur and far too complicated for it's own good. The music bit is fine in comparison! Ian D

Well I feel a lot more comfortable with remixes to be honest. Probably because I'm essentially a DJ and quite like the different angles that some mixes, remixes and re-edits can take. Also, some of these efforts significantly improve on the originals in terms of beefing up certain areas and making the songs more attractive to different audiences. So I'm generally always interested in what other mixes bring to the equation. Also, we're living in an age now, where re-edits are opening up huge audiences for people who never heard the original in many cases, so they're certainly creatively valid in my opinion. Probably 60% of what I actually play out to serious Disco audiences these days tend to be re-edits, which makes it more interesting for eclectic audiences. It's a similar thing to some of the new releases which sample key parts of old records. The biggest record for me this summer has been the Jack Splash remix of Cee-Lo's "I Want You" which liberally samples piece from a Saint Tropez track from '79. Is it a better for it? Yes, totally. Would I have ever played the Saint Tropez? No, never - mainly because apart from that great background chorus, the song is unplayable. So, legal and moral issues apart, I think good remixes and re-edits are a positive thing generally. That Pied Piper remix of "Soul Rece$$ion" is actually great. It's obvious that a lot of time and effort has gone into it and I'd take that as being a credit to your vision. He's taken a mammothly positive attitude to the song and could potentially break it out to a much larger audience. Have you had a chat with him? He's a good friends with my mate Jay Negron, so if you wanted to talk it probably wouldn't be difficult. But I don't know if there's been any communication between you guys. Thinking about it, he probably knows half the guys on the record 'cos he's been around a while......... Ian D

And no sooner do I go on Facebook today, then the latest post is the Pied Piper remix of "Soul Rece$$ion" by Double Exposure 're-loaded' by public demand'. Looking at the credits I'm curious as to whether he actually overlaid the additional strings and horns with the players credited? In other words, like a whole other recording session....... Mixed by Pied Piper Additional production by Pied Piper Additional strings by: Cees Van Schaik & Opera Strings Additional Horns: Tenor Saxophone – Rolf Römer Trombone – André Paquinet Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Bernhard Jobski, Horst Larisch, Milo Pavlovic, Rolf Ericson Additional guitar: Ingo Cramer Original Lineup: Drums: Earl Young Bass guitar: Jimmy Williams Keyboards: T Conway & Bobby Eli Guitars: Bobby Eli & Dennis Harris Percussion: Rikki Hicks Tambourine: Chiquita Green Additional percussion: John Morales Additional backing vocals: Chiquita Green, Janice McClain Executive Producer: Carl Dixon Written by: Bobby Eli/Chiquita Green/Carl Dixon Produced by: Bobby Eli I know it's a contentious issue Carl, but Pied Piper is pretty respected in the remix community and he's definitely taken a shine to this tune without a doubt, so could it be worth doing a limited 12" and offering legal downloads on this mix? Plus the title's actually bang on for this moment in time isn't it? . Ian D

I could make a million quid out of publishing if I could team up with a workaholic adminstrator. There is so much money just laying around waiting to be collected with the proper tools and administrative processes but it is a very time consuming and I just can't get very excited about the actual work. I also know all sorts of interesting things about the murky world of publishing and collection agencies, many of which I don't agree with and would undoubtably have moral problems with too. There's some very unsavoury elements to parts of the UK publishing business which I just feel happier not to be involved with. I like the million quid bit though........ Ian D

They did both to my knowledge. I was involved in a load of re-presses in the mid 1970's and would often go down to Monarch to pick up stuff which included vinyl 7"-ers. However, I always associated Monarch with styrene pressings mainly because of the Highland, Vault, Canterbury and tons of other West Coast labels which tended to be in that format and were pressed @ Monarch. Styrene was probably cheaper. They delivered one bunch of vinyl records to me which had to be rejected due to ridiculously bad quality, but after that they got it right. But I don't know if they sub-contracted vinyl pressings to another plant. My Gloria Jones is a vinyl issue - the same as the one in Roger's scan. It's a good question though. Also I'm wondering if all the Brice Coefields on Omen were Monarch pressings? I don't think I've ever seen a vinyl copy. Ian D

Mmmm. Interesting piece from Bob Stanley (coincidentally a massive Northern Soul fan) of St Ettiene in the Guardian today. He makes some good points which I probably concurr with....... https://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/sep/15/copyright-extension-cliffs-law-beatles Ian D

It makes total sense to me. My house is groaning under the weight of multiple 1000's of records and multiple 100's of books. And the end of the day, I want to listen to music and read books as easily as humanly possible via electronic means whilst luxuriating in the luxury of knowing that, if I'm so inclined, I can dig out the physical copy if I want. But I'm dying breed....... Also, I'm not sure if a lot of my favourite (but maybe little known) books will even be available on Kindle. What appeals to me is the fact that I can probably find a book quicker on Kindle, then I could wading through the piles of physical books over here. Ian D

Actually, it's fantastic holiday reading along with....... "Too Big To Fail" - Andrew Ross Sorking https://www.amazon.co.uk/Too-Big-Fail-Inside-Battle/dp/1846142385 ...which I know you'll love LOL. Actually, if you ever manage to get a holiday, then feel free to pass by here and I'll stock you up with books 'cos I've got a great library over here. I'm thinking about getting a Kindle actually. There's something reassuring about having your entire book library with you at all times. But hang on......? Isn't that exacty what happened to music..............? We're in the middle of a media revolution and the rules are changing by the week. It's like the wild west right now. Ian D

I hate Spotify even though I'm told it's a key plank in everyone's 'digital strategy'. I think it's absolutely ridiculous to allow Spotify to stream music without adequate compensation to the owners and creators. Same with You Tube really. Same with i-tunes dictating what the price would be to the people who friggin' OWN the repertoire. Ridiculous. If I'd have been running the show, I'd have told Steve Jobs what he was going to be paying for the use of the repertoire. I'm not really a fan of the 'big picture' merchants in the music biz. In my view, they've managed to get it wrong every single time over the last 20 years. If anyone's interested in this kind of stuff, I can highly recommend the following book:- "Appetite For Destruction: The Spectacular Crash Of The Record Industry In The Digital Age" https://www.amazon.com/Appetite-Self-Destruction-Spectacular-Industry-Digital/dp/1416552154 The only reason I'm still in the business is because I'm into music and there's not much else that interests me so much. So basically I'm doomed to be in perpetual torment.......... Ian D

I'll tell you what Carl. You're one of the few people who has experienced all sides of the equation, as financier, artist, producer and record company combined. A multitude of roles that very few people would ever experience or even want to pursue. As you were setting up the whole thing I could see some really obvious potential pitfalls which, from experience, generally happen with new labels. I've made every mistake in the book so I'm an expert. However, I honestly believe that many labels get a lot of unnecessary bad press. The spotlight is always on the artist who generally have an inbuilt platform to express their views, unlike the labels. I know many label owners that ended up much more impoverished then their acts. Some sad stories are out there that will probably never be exposed, but there's undoubtably a lot of bitter ex label founders too. It's not all one-way traffic. Read Hitsville USA - the Stax story to see the other side of the coin. I don't think Jim Stewart got much return on his vision in the end. Ian D

Well, it's deffo the Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes sample with a rap over it, so it could be one of the following...... Common’s “Food” Funk Flex & Cormega’s “Freestyle” Hurricane G’s “Mama” Poets Of Darkness’s “21 In The Ghetto” Prodigy’s “?” Raekwon’s “Rainy Days” Two Kings in a Cipher’s “You Know How to Make Me Feel” Wyclef Jean ft Xzibit & Juvenile "25 to Life"’s “Wyclef Jean ft Xzibit & Juvenile” Process of elimination I'm afraid........ Ian D