Ian Dewhirst

Well you said it mate! It looks like you'd been ingesting the crate-diggers diet - a constant diet of burgers and coffee 'cos it's QUICK LOL..... I put on a couple of stones after 6 months in L.A. due to a chain of Burger places called "Fatburger" which did what it said on the tin! Ian D

Just booked the plane ticket - I'll give Jerome your regards Sean! Ian D

Hi Paul, You've bought a few of mine over the years I seem to remember! I did EXACTLY the same thing in St Petes. Dropped the missus off in the Howard Johnson's hotel (you can see where my priorities lie) and shot round to Bananas just intending to have a quick browse. Got in the warehouse round the back and got dug in. I found a Tartans and John Rhys on Impact and a Lou Kirton white promo in the first 5 minutes. I thought I was set but then nothing for the next couple of hours..... Lucky the missus fell asleep 'cos I left @ 3.00pm and didn't get back till 8.30pm....... Still worth it though. I always work on the basis of never expect too much and then you can be nicely surprised. Naturally, after the Dobards hit, Johnny probably realises that the chances of ever getting a hit like that again are remote to say the least, which has probably dulled his future expectations........ .......only until the next hit! Ian D

100, 000 dynamite 45's and you couldn't raise a smile???? Brilliant Johnny - the stuff that dreams are made of! Ian D

LOL. Ain't that always the way Ady..... Also I wish I'd known what I know now back then. I can plainly remember leaving lots of L.A. little label stuff in L.A. garages back in '76 because they were too slow or too RnB for that period. And I think there's probably still some decent stuff archived away in some of the bigger publishing house. I had a mate who had access to Southern Music's library and he'd pull out interesting stuff from time to time.... Incidentaly, I just gave a rave review for "The New Breed With Added Popcorn" for Manifesto, so I'll PM it over...... Best, Ian D

No, it's perfectly normal behaviour to sit in a damp, smelly basement covered in rat shit looking through hunks of plastic for that one elusive moment LOL! Great story John! Many thanks mate. I wonder if there's any other ex 60's Black Music DJ's who have their records in storage somewhere? George Woods must have had a few 'cos he was involved in labels too. E. Rodney Jones or Frankie Crocker anyone? I once went to Nashville and had a stunning Album/12" hit from a C&W store. It was a Chicago DJ from the 70's and he'd moved to Nashville and just dumped a lot of his stuff in this one place. 600 items @ 50 cents apiece. Makes you wonder what he sold 'em for.... Ian D

How come the Dobard's haul didn't turn up 'til '05 though? Had no one bumped into this stuff before? What was the story there John? And , more to the point, will there ever be another Dobards? Questions, questions........ Ian D

Absolutely Brilliant!! THIS is EXACTLY what we are looking for on this thread!! Information GODDAMMIT! Whoops, drunk now but having fun. Let's keep this thread rockin'....... Best stuff I'd read in years LOL..... Ian D

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

I actually re-issued the album when I was @ Simply Vinyl which is why I have the masters so easily at hand LOL!. Been playing through hours of stuff over here - so much of this stuff was great but not necessarily Northern and I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the Mike Post Coalition had everything exactly perfect for our purposes. Which leads us nicely back onto the Mike Post thread again......... Would really like to know more about why the track was recorded so going into research mode....... Ian D

Oh blast, gotta go.....Alexander Patton on the other line LOL..... Ian D

Yep, can do all of them over the next few weeks Urrrs - we're big Roy, Family Of Eve and Leroy fans anyway. And Alan will be chuffed at the 'Fluff' Freeman comparison - he's into that sort of thing! Ian D

Blimey, we have exactly the same taste Ady. Who's your other 3? Ian D

Oh, forgot, now posted in Radio section but for the benefit of those on this thread here's the link:- https://www.sixmillionsteps.com/6MS-2008-03-23-Starpoint.mp3 And his name's Alan Champ Urrrs, hence the sledgehammer wit! Ian D

This is what I have to deal with every week! Strange breeds down 'ere....... 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

"Slink" - The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Ian D 17_Slink.mp3

"Run Spy Run" - The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Ian D 18_Run_Spy_Run.mp3

"The Invaders" - The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Ian D 09_The_Invaders.mp3

This is my fave guys from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. sets - "Off & Running"..... A stomper with a great sax break...... Will post the others for comparison purposes... Ian D 15_Off___Running.mp3

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

Worked like a dream mate! Never seen dance floors expend as much energy as when AOTR came on! "Rona's Theme" was difficult to find as well. An L.A. release and I only ever found one in all the time I was there. 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