Ian Dewhirst

I seem to remember leaving for the States with around £2,200 which was a handy amount in '76. I'm pretty sure that a lot of that was loads of £5/£10/£15 stuff but I did get some real surprises on the auction. I can't even remember what was on there now but from memory it was the bulk of my originals and lots of stuff which hadn't been pressed at that point. I'd be curious if anyone could put up a scan perhaps..... One thing I do remember was a guy phoning me up on the day the auction closed which I think was a Sunday and asking about "The Larue". He asked me to describe the label and asked me exactly what shade of pink it was (it was a U.S. Decca promo). He wanted to know what I'd been offered but I wouldn't tell him as I didn't think that would be fair on the other bidders so I just said that the auction was closing that day and did he want to put a bid in? It's all a bit hazy now but I seem to remember him ringing me @ 5.00pm and bidding £100 or thereabouts which was approximately 3 times the existing bid! So I told him that if that was a solid bid then he'd pretty much be guaranteed to win it. He then asked if he could pick it up that night, so I said sure. He said he lived in Milton Keynes and he'd drive up to Huddersfield immediately. In those days that was a good 4-5 hour journey. Anyway, at around 10.00pm that Sunday night the bell rang at my flat and I opened the door to greet the guy. First off he looked like a very effiminate male Hairdresser - a bit like Nicky Clarke but with long black hair. He was wearing a pink paisley shirt with a waistcoat and loads of neck chains and had an earing - not exactly the archetypical Northern Soul fan LOL..... I invited him in and the first thing he said was "Do you have the record"? I said sure. He then said "Do you mind if I have a look at it" and again I said sure. So I hooked the record out and handed it to him. He just stared at it for about 30 seconds and then said, "Do you mind if I look at it privately"? So I said OK and led him into the kitchen and then closed the door. So I was waiting in the lounge and he was in my kitchen with the record. After about 3 minutes I asked through the closed door if he was OK? There was a muffled reply from the kitchen saying "....Yes....I'm...OK....I'll.....be.....out...shortly". About 2 minutes later the guy emerged from my kitchen looking slightly flustered and counting a wad of banknotes in his hand. He handed over £100 and thanked me and said he better be on his way as he wouldn't get back to Milton Keynes until around 3.00am. As he got to the front door I said to him, "Wow. £100 and a 5 hour car journey. You must love the record"! And he said to me "I've never heard it mate". I said "Oh. Are you a big Lada Edmund Jr fan then"? He said "No, never heard of her before". I said "Well, out of curiosity, how come you've just bought it then"? He just looked at me "I've just got to have it" and then left. To this day I've never figured out what the hell that was all about. If anyone out there may happen to know why a slightly effiminate hairdresser from Milton Keynes paid 3 times over the odds for "The Larue" in 1976 and spent a 10 hour round trip collecting a record he's never heard by an artist he didn't know, then let me know 'cos it's one of the great unanswered questions in my life.............. Ian D

Allow me to echo that Phil. We're still in the process of recouping on Gary The Master Blaster which was plagued with pressing problems thus bumping the costs up and delaying the original release date precariously. Having said that, the record is now finding new audiences outside of the UK - 50 went to Japan last week for instance and we're getting regular re-orders again from dealers who ordered last year. It's interesting that almost any foreign customers who hear it immediately order it - is that because they're not unduly influenced by the production credits I wonder? I should probably make it clear that releasing 7" records at the moment is not an easy process and no one will make a quick buck believe me. All of us are out of pocket thus far, so it's gotta be love! I like 'em both but my fave's "Taking You For Granted". Great double-sider! Ian D

Yep, that's the bugger. I never got above the ground floor but people told me that all 6 floors were the same as the ground floor. There must have been 100,000,000 records there minimum I'd have thought. I seem to remember the metal crates holding the 45's being about 10 feet high and you had to go up a ladder to get into 'em. Does that make sense? I reckon you could have spent years in there digging every day and still not cover the lot. Am I hallucinating or was it really the biggest record warehouse of all time? Ian D

Damn. You kept that quiet Neil! Almost sounds like the Midlands equivalent to Bradford Market. It's really unbelievable how much U.S. stuff was over here in the mid 70's and brought over by people who had no connections with the Northern scene at all. Funny the way that loads of Northern stuff managed to gravitate to the North of the UK, as if by osmosis or something. Great story Neil! How's Joi Cardwell going? Ian D

Actually I am aware of these things Ric-Tic. Someone actually posted the Vespa DVD up on a Music Biz forum and it was then subsequently reported to the MCPS, where, as per usual, nothing has happened, or at least nothing that I'm aware of. However I'm afraid that we're now living in age where I think all bets are off. To put things in context, you could easily have gone into HMV in Oxford St anytime over the last 10 years and freely bought bootlegs of most major label stuff which was displayed on the wall! I've actually been there with a guy from Universal and literally picked up half a dozen 'import' bootlegs of their repertoire and stuff which we were in the process of legitimately re-issuing. He bought the offending items and........nothing ever happened. And then you look at the latest International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry report and read that 95% of all music downloads are illegal where 40 billion illegal music files were shared last year - https://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jan/1...legal-downloads. I actually think that figure is b*llocks. By my reckoning it's at least 10 times that! So given the above and the fact that I can walk into half a dozen shops within 30 minutes of here and see bootleg RnB, Hip-Hop and Rare-Groove albums on display and being sold, I'd say that the E-Bay stuff is at the bottom of a long, long list. In 1994 I put out a TV advertised Al Green compilation called "Al" which caused me a considerable amount of stress because of the huge level of investment which was required - we needed to sell around 30,000 copies to break-even with the cost of the TV campaign. In the second week of the albums release I happened to be in Camden on a visit to Rhythm records and I noticed a street stall selling bootleg CD's and right in the middle of the CD's on display I saw a badly photocopied copy of my album which was selling @ £3 or 2 for £5. So I went up to the stall and picked the CD up and examined it and said to the bloke, "Do you realise this is a bootleg"? He said, "If I were you I'd f*ck off mate" so I tipped his stall over and then got in a fight with him and two other blokes who appeared out of nowhere. End result? I was arrested for causing an affray! And the CD stall carried on selling bootlegs, seeminly immune to any kind of law enforcement. So I'm pretty cynical about the enforcement against bootleggers. Most record companies don't want to bother going through the legal processes of busting bootleggers and incurring the legal expenses which they'll probably never recoup. The majority of small bootleg busts lead nowhere, so I guess they try and target the bigger operations. It's a pisser but there's seemingly little we can do about it. I worry about how long the legitimate Record/CD business will last........... Ian D

I think somebody mentioned earlier in the thread that he's reformed his ways and now become an ordodox Jew........? Ian D

The wall-to-wall Doo-Wop gaff sounds more like Val Shively's in Upper Darby Andy? Val's was a shop with tons of Doo-Wop whereas House Of Sounds was just a huge block-long building filled to the brim with millions of 45's..... That House Of Sounds was ridiculous - it was a full block long with huge industrial size crates full of 45's - maybe 50,000 to each crate and there were 100's of crates and I think there were actually several floors if my memories correct. To get to the records you had to literally climb into each crate and just dig and dig. There were actually too many crates and it seemed like every crate I got into had 1000's of Country and Western crap. It's the one time in my life when I thought there were actually too many records. I only spent half a day there on the way back from L.A. and didn't find jack, so I went up to Val's and hung out there instead - stayed at his house in fact. Did I mention I'm allergic to C&W 45's LOL? Too many Merle Haggard and Ferlin Husky records @ Bradford Market put me off for life! You got a steak dinner out of John! Well done lad! That sounds like a first LOL..... Ian D

Was that pre Jumbo when it was in the arcade then? I'm struggling to remember HMV on Vicar Lane........? And good point, where is Swish these days? Ian D

Releasing Vickie Baines would have meant dealing with the notorious Alan Klein (ex Beatles and Rolling Stones Manager at one time), owner of Abko which owned Cameo-Parkway and he was the most litigious person in the history of the Music Business. I doubt very much if he'd have even bothered about a small release on a little UK label, so John saved himself a whole heap of bother by not releasing that one! Ian D

Yeh, I think probably Colin & Keith got there first 'cos it was pretty much on their doorstep. I seem to remember Colin telling me not so long ago that he and Minsh cleaned up there around the Torch era I think. This could have even been pre M62 days which would have made Telford a pain to get to back then for anyone from Yorkshire. And Andre Maurice for Stanley Mitchell and Sam Ward looks like the steal of the century with hindsight doesn't it? Musta been a matter of weeks before the Andre Maurice turned up in quantity. Nice when you get 'em right isn't it LOL........? Ian D

I found a Kaddo Strings and a Lew Kirton promo in the Bananas warehouse in the mid 90's. Usual story - didn't have time to dig deep due to a none-vinyl friendly bored female caterwalling about going to the beach! Ian D

Weird how all those Lenny Curtis's ended up in the U.K. I found mine @ Bradford Market which makes me wonder whether the bulk of 'em were originally from Bostocks? I got to Telford but long after it had raped and pillaged by Mr T, Rick, Curtis and Minshull and a few others from the Midlands - I think I may have been there in early '77 or even later from memory - just before I did my Vinyl Junkie list I think. Would you believe I left a 100 count box of Lou Kirton's "Heaven In The Afternoon" 'cos I thought it was crap at the time plus I used to see the 12" in every other shop back then...... Curious how you could walk into all sorts of oddball places back then and find 1000's of U.S. imports. I always remember going into a shop in Morley, near Leeds which was run by a Hell's Angel and there being circa 25,000 early to mid 60's U.S. 45's. I didn't do a detailed examination of 'em 'cos frankly the stuff looked too old and a lot of the gear looked more Doo-Wop than Northern. Years later when a lot of earlier stuff started being played I often wondered whether a lot of 'em would have been in that shop as almost every record was a tiny label.......maybe one for a thread called "Potential Hits You Could Have Missed"..........? Ian D

I'll flog you the other half for £200 if you like....... Ian D

LOL, I go back to the night in 1971 when I went down there with my girlfriend (June Allett from Ravensthorpe) at the tender age of 16 and had a drunken Irish bloke smash and grind his 1 pint pebble glass beer mug into the table in front of me and tell me the next one was going in my face! Bit of a theme going on here, namely, I pint pebble glass beer mugs/Dewhirst's face...... Dodgy bloody pub that Gary! Could be pretty scary just going the 200 yards up the road to Wakefield Tiffanies in those days.......... Ian D

Blimey. Some major hits there then Smudge. Brilliant stuff! One of the problems I had with him was that I met him via Simon and he obviously never trusted him LOL. Even though I got down to his house a few times he never left me alone to just dig through and only gave me a limited amount of time anyway. I knew there were literally thousands and thousands of records there but he wouldn't let me into certain rooms so it was always kinda frustrating. That stuff you got was probably always at his place in L.A. but I just couldn't get to it dammit! I actually went digging with him a few times on the basis that I'd keep the Northern stuff and he's keep the Rock/Garage/Psych stuff. It actually worked out quite well as he knew a lot of people with records in storage and I got the benefit of that. I'd say that he almost certainly had all of the L.A. label stuff back then. Also I plainly remember finding Ray Agee and Eddie Foster ("Closer Together") and TONS of other West Coast rarities there but leaving 'em 'cos Simon said they were either "shit", "repititive gaaaarbage" or "too slow baby boy".......which they probably were in '76. If only I had a crystal ball....... One thing I do remember is him telling me how the term "punk" came about. Apparently the term was invented when a kid at a school in California was being told off by a teacher and right in the middle of the teacher screaming at him, he calmly got up walked over to the teachers desk, pissed all over it and left the school forever. Dunno how that stuck in my mind but it's EXACTLY the sort of tale you'd expect from Chris Peeke....... He was one weird guy - even gave me the creeps and I don't frighten that easily........... Ian D

Bloody hell. Please tell. The guy looked like Charles Manson and had records in every conceivable area of his house - even in the larder, the fridge, the loo, the bathroom etc. That's where I found the second copy of Willie Hutch and the first Judy Streets! He took me to see Ted Nugent @ the Colloseum in L.A. and that permanently wrecked my eardrums. Is he still around? When did you last see him? Ian D

Of course we're not! Too many years of Northern Soul frazzled our brains. Believe me the yanks thought I was crazier than them. Also Northern Soul got us all into travelling around - sometimes hundreds of miles on a weekend. It's also worth pointing out that a Saturday night on Manningham Lane in Bradford or the Mitre pub in Wakefield was a lot scarier than an average night in New York or L.A. Northern Soul was a great training ground for globe-hopping. One reason why we have a load of ex-pats on board and why we're spread right across the globe! Ian D

The reason why I decided to bite the bullet and go was, believe or not, because record prices were soaring LOL. It was the beginning of the era when record prices started to go nuts and being inherently tight it made more sense to stop paying inflated prices and simply go over there and find 'em myself. I'm sure I mentioned it earlier in the thread but I think the actual catalyst was when I got in a bidding battle for Bernie Williams. At the time it was a pretty reasonable £40 (at mid 70's prices) and I thought I had it locked. But then I remember a series of frantic telephone calls where the price slowly crept up to £120 and then ended at £120 + a World Column and a Rosey Jones which put it at around £150 which was too much for me. That would have been around 6 weeks wages at the time (I think I was earning £22.50 a week at my Mon-Fri job and probably around £15 a gig back then). That's when I realised that it didn't make a lot of logistical sense to keep buying the mega-rarities. Also, as a DJ you had to keep buying killers and there was no guarantee that the record wouldn't be bootlegged within weeks. To pay £150 for a record (maybe £1500 by todays standards) and only get 3 or 4 weeks play out of it was infuriating. Also once you became well-known as a deejay, you couldn't get bargains or decent unknowns anymore without the dealers or collectors wanting to jack the price up. I got sick of finding something that looked REALLY interesting in a box and asking how much a the guy wanted for it only for him to, "Well.....if YOU get it you'll play it so you'll have to be realistic". In other words, I was paying a premium simply because if I got a decent record, it would be played @ Wigan, Cleethorpes, the Central and Samanthas within a couple of weeks and would have a good chance of breaking big and then the price would leap. So I was effectively being penalized for being a DJ! Plus I'd had 5 years of gigging all over at the height of a brilliant scene. That 5 years had cost me 3 written-off cars, half a dozen girlfriends, the inability to do a 'normal' job (Mondays were a real bastard after 2 all-nighters and a Sunday all-dayer) and continuing poverty in the cause of keeping ahead. I was ready for a new adventure, so the States looked good to me. So that was it. I remember my Mum and Dad dropping me off at Manchester airport and my Mum (god bless her) giving me her last piece of motherly advice just before I vanished through to the departure lounge.... She said, "Now when you get to New York you don't want to be spending all your money in those expensive hotels, so check into the YMCA". So I did and what a bloody nightmare THAT was on my first night in New York! Two years later the Village People record came out and everyone knew what the deal was but to a kid from Mirfield who didn't know jack-shit it was a nightmare experience. I spent my first night in New York barracaded in my room at the YMCA with the wardrobe wedged against the door! But that's a whole other story LOL........ Ian D

Took me by surprise as well Drew - betcha didn't think it'd still be trucking almost a year later LOL....... Soussan had several trips over here in the early to mid 70's where some of the DJ's would travel to London and meet him at a hotel on Park Lane and do swaps - I wouldn't mind hearing about those. Mike Ritson mentioned meeting him in these circumsances......... Also I'd be curious if anyone actually got a bargain off him - I'm sure some of the early dealers must have had some large shipments from him that turned out to be good - are you reading this Julian B or Brian 45.......? Ian D

But Britain is full of obsessive losers like you Boba! This country was built on the romantic notion that being an obsessive loser is a noble art. That's why we're the kings of preserving other people's cultures...... Time to get busy and get some public funding from a Northern town which needs regenerating methinks! Ian D

Yep, totally agree Boba. But I still can't understand why my digitized scan of the Mona Lisa failed to draw any kind of crowd at my viewing at the Carshalton tea rooms....... Ian D

He was always evasive about his record collection. He always maintained that he had a temperature-controlled storage facility in L.A. where his main collection was stored. He would NEVER leave me alone in his office, where he had a set of fitted lockable cupboards which ran the length of the room which contained the records he kept at his apartment (which I suspect was actually his complete collection). He certainly had some incredibly rare records though. Every so often a record would come into conversation and he'd say something like "Well have you heard ze Four Crests on Dandelion baby boy"? He'd then scuttle into his office, unlock a cupboard and pull out a record and play it. And it would almost always be great. Also his obsession with only having the best possible copy of everything was obviously because of his bootlegging activities - he needed pristine copies for copying and mastering. The amount of records he prised out of people on the basis that he need 'ze best possible copy' was ridiculous........ Also it was difficult to guage the quality of what was in those lockable cupboards. In the same way that he'd pull out ridiculously rare items, he'd also pull out run of the mill Dramatics or O'Jays 45's from the same cupboards. We were once talking about male harmonies and he said, "Baby boy, I'm gonna play you the greatest male harmony record ever made. Zees will TOTALLY unblock your sinuses" and he pulled out the O'Jays "Unity" - a 10 cent 45 at best in 1976! Ian D

LOL, he'd have been the king of the E-Bay conners. I guarantee that he'd have set up several aliases, different address drops, multiple bank accounts and simply multiplied things to a far greater scale........... Ian D

Both mate! Fact is back in '76 you couldn't fail with an English voice in L.A. I used to get marriage proposals every couple of weeks or so from lovely latino ladies who thought I could get 'em a green card. Whenever I went in a place I'd head straight to the part of the bar where there were some interesting females and when the bartender asked if I'd like a drink I'd say in a very polished, exagerated English voice, "Yes please old boy, a scotch on the rocks if you'd be so kind. Thankyou veeerrry much"........... It never failed. Immediately, one of the girls would say something like, "Golly gee, are you English? I just luuuurve your accent......" And I'd turn to her, give her the killer look and say, "Actually my dear, 'tis not I that has the accent but rather you that has the accent. I'm English. We invented the language.........". All very Austin Powers but stuff like that used to work back then LOL......definitely a better result then "Fancy a pint luv".......... It was very surreal. I'd be in Watts, Compton or South Central risking my life finding records by day and carousing around Beverly Hills and Hollywood by night. I went from living in Mirfield, West Yorks to the hotspots of L.A. so the culture shock was huge to a 21 year old. But what a ROCKIN' time I had. Easily one of the best periods of my life and for that reason I can't be too bitter about being ripped off by Soussan. Hell, I'm still writing about it some 33 years later........ I've been back dozens of time since but I don't think anything could beat that first 6 months I spent there. Just the sheer elation of waking up every day just KNOWING I was gonna find a bunch of rare records was excitement enough. So glad I bit the bullet and went 'cos it was a great experience in pretty much every way.......... Ian D

Perversely enough, threads like this actually help 'cos I end up remembering stuff that I'd long forgotten about and end up having to bang down the story so it doesn't feel like 'work'....... All I have to do is compile all the stories and then do some serious editing and, hey presto, instant book LOL..... Ian D