Roy Ayers
Everybody Loves The Sunshine

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At Pourville, the beach where Jean Rollin ended most of his film

Andy Votel, appart from being a great DJ (check him when he’s in town, always worth it!) and a serious vinyl addict, is also at the head of forward thinking label Finders Keepers! Check and share the story of one of the busyest guy in the record bizness!

 
 
 

When did you start digging records?
Records were a forbidden fruit when I was very young, I wasn’t allowed to touch my parents records at all. But almost overnight they switched to cassettes (K7) and the records went in a cupboard. When I was around 8 years old my folks divorced and the records became plastic orphans! One day I took the LPs and did silly experiments like gluing toy cars to them and playing them backwards or painting them with Tippex or making loops by taping a lolly stick to the platter to make the needle jump, after that I used to ask everyone i knew if I could have their old records. Once I got a bin bag full of ex jukebox records including some early rap like Rhythm Talk by Jocko. I instantly identified with early hip-hop being about record abuse and from then it snowballed. I’m not entirely sure that I even liked music at this point.

What Lps did you buy at first? Do you still listen to them?
My dad had a flat that he rented out. One day a tenant skipped town and left his records behind. There was The Misfits, The Brothers Johnson and The White Album. I think that awkward mix has contributed to my eclectic taste. My first self-funded purchases were hip-hop albums but i almost instantly started buying the original samples… Cymande and Mandrill marked one significant early shopping trip in Manchester. Records were the absolute cheapest form of entertainment. I practically lived on car boot sales in my teens, but i grew up in a very white middle class area so the best i could muster was Funkadelic, George Macrae, James Brown, Bill Withers but i also saw expensive folk and easy listening. I learned to DJ using old turntables and speakers rescued from the tip / dump. Then started DJing at the school discos.

Do you have a particular style or favourite period?
Not one in particular, I would say 1972… but pop music progressed at irregular rates in different countries so it’s pointless reading dates any more. People used to be obsessed with dates but its all changed. I have a few specialist subjects now, Post 68 French concept albums, Turkish pop, female punk, i’d like to add Italian library to that list but it’s becoming progressively unaffordable. There’s no punk attitude in antique collecting.

Are you still digging, buying vinyl, visiting record shops?
Yes, it’s the only thing that keeps me out of the pub. Record digging is like smoking a cigarette for me, it makes me feel secure.

What was your first release on Finders Keepers?
Jean Claude Vannier’s – ‘L’enfant Assassin Des Mouches’ in 2005. Although I did a compilation called Finders Keepers a few years prior to starting the label… and the same people who run Finders Keepers also did a compilation called Folk Is Not A Four Letter Word at exactly the same time. I previously started Twisted Nerve Records in 1997.

Jean-Claude Vannier
Les Gardes Volent Au Secours Du Roi

Why did you choose this name: Finders Keepers? A kind of double hat?
It’s obviously based on the popular phrase (Finders Keepers – Losers Weepers) but i’m never sure how well that translates globally.
I was a rapper in my teenage years and this was the title of one of our tracks. Boney Votel (Mark Rathbone) and myself basically rapped about digging for records and not much else. There was a bit of arrogance with the age and culture, now I guess the label should be called Finders Sharers but it doesn’t have the same ring to it does it? To be honest none of us have the physical space to “Keep” anything anymore.

What could be the label’s leitmotif?
Well our slogan is “Making Global Sound Local” so I guess that means putting very obscure music in a palatable context (or making it widely available). I decided at an early age to simply stop buying English or American records just as a form of discipline and this turned into a bit of a religion. There was a time quite recently where there was a lot of xenophobia in pop music. For example The annual English TV coverage of The Eurovision song contest was borderline racist year after year. Even since the label started the climate is a lot different, people have alway loved Brazilian (Portuguese) and French language music, but releasing Welsh and Hungarian music 20 years ago seemed insane to some people. The other phrase is “Making Old Record Feel Young” which is also about recontextualising old records (old records that actually sound more progressive than most modern music).

How do you decide on the choice of reissues?
We are at our most successful when we find a recording that is like nothing else in your collection, which is increasingly difficult but very rewarding. People think we make up these absurd genres for fun (Krautsider / Welsh Rare Beat / Turk Jerk) but we genuinely search for records that are free from any pigeonholes. Obviously there is a stylistic thread that involves loud drums, fuzz guitar, primitive electronics and female vocals but as the label gets older these kind of trends, alongside rarity or dance-floor compatibility, become irrelevant. One thing we are passionate about is not physically manufacturing records that are already available which is why we mostly release very rare records by default or totally unreleased master-tapes that have never been pressed before, in this sense we are not technically a re-issue label anymore.

Ten years ago, you did a lot of reissues about Anatolian scene in the 70’s. What motivate this choice ? And what was for you the most amazing artist?
For me ‘Selda’ was by far the best record to come out of that scene. She was well respected by the younger community and all the best musicians assembled to help her create that amazing first LP. I naturally always gravitate to female musicians and there are far less female composers in the the domains of Eastern music (as well as electronic music or library music) but she was special and much more important than the many female pop singers who followed. The synth and saz combination was the huge cherry that tilted the cake. When I first heard Turkish music I was blown away by the incredible FUZZ, it was much bigger than that of Big-Jim Sullivan or Micky Karoli from Can but then I realised it was actually a Saz and not a regular guitar so I was hooked. We also admire that the music scene was in no way reliant on the Western major labels, it was genuinely independent which is rare (even Greece, Pakistan and Israel had labels like EMI and CBS attempting to control the market). We managed to meet all of our heroes in Istanbul within 12 months and they all agreed that it was the first interest they had had from the West EVER! We could have released 50 further Turkish albums but the trend went through the roof and the bootleggers started chasing all the trophy titles and spoiled things a bit. We try not to repeat our selves too much, but i still buy for personal use. About twice a year i do a 5 hour Turkish-only DJ set just to flex that muscle.

Mustafa Ozkent
Burçak

You have released also such iranian productions, recorded at the same period. An objective link between those two scenes?
In some rare cases the same songs have come out in both Turkey and Iran, but its mostly the Arabesque stuff as opposed to the Anadolou pop. The main thing with the Persian records were that they were forbidden and often destroyed. The Iranian records have a more bitter-sweet story surrounding them and from my perspective they are more soulful whereas the Turkish stuff is more psychedelic and funky. Googoosh is quite possibly my favourite female recording artist of all time.

And was it difficult to obtain rights for those Lps ? How did you find all the people who owned rights?
Since the start of FK Doug and Myself have always had a wish-list and schedule that would keep us going for the next 5 years so we have never needed to bring other compilers on board. The two exceptions are Chris Menist and then Mahssa who runs the Finders Keepers office in Los Angeles, both of these people are mad vinyl junkies but understand the very important fact that it’s more important to connect with human being as opposed to pieces of plastic. Mahssa is Iranian and her family is part of the Iranian community diaspora in L.A. – The label owners were family friends.

Another part of F. K. catalog is more focused on early electronic stuffs, another global movement, like psychedelic. What is the unity between all those productions, from Lollywood soundtracks to T.R.A.S.E. (Tape Recorder And Synthesizer Ensemble)?
The Lollywood and Kollywood scenes were the poorer cousins of the huge Bollywood industry, so instead of huge orchestras they had to experiment with studio trickery, tape sampling and synthesisers. A lot of those ancient sounding strings are re-cycled off other old tracks which is why you find mono strings agains stereo synthesisers, it’s better if you don’t analyse it but there is a direct common thread between Massiera, Joe Meek and Ilaiyaraaja… in fact there is no difference apart from language, the indigenous influences are arguably the smallest detail. TRASE was a teenage synthesiser inventor, and an uncompromised one-man-band who worked on a pocket-money budget in a home studio… and there lies the unity.

You became one of the experts of French free jazz band avant-garde music developed in France. How can an Englishman dare?
It might sound a bit silly but I very rarely buy American or English records, I much prefer records manufactured in smaller economies. It’s really just a matter of paper and plastic. America has some of the greatest diggers in the world, living in Europe i’ll never be able to compete with people like Dante Carfagna, Johan Kugelberg and Egon on their own turf so I don’t bother. When I got interested in Free Jazz this became difficult so i turned to labels like BYG Actuel, Palm and Futura and then got a bit obsessed. I love the fact that bands like The Art Ensemble added the words “Of Chicago” so they could get gigs in Paris, i believe that France and the Pan African festivals played a huge role in free-jazz providing an appreciation that was not available in America and an unrivalled first hand inspiration for French musicians. I came to these records with French pop knowledge. I first heard Gilson because he worked with Gainsbourg’s drummer Pierre Dahan. I first heard Tusques because of his Jean Rollin films. AEOC via Fontaine. Also France’s history in musique concrete lead to the best electronic jazz music albums like Jacques Thollot and François Jeanneau (from Triangle). In a way French records have taught me about American music. You can also learn a lot by looking at all the people who Don Cherry has worked with on a global scale without having to buy American pressings

Googoosh
Talagh

What about your collaboration with cult producer Jean-Claude Vannier? And François Tusques?
When i was younger Vannier resembled The French David Axelrod, a few years later Tusques was like a French Mal Waldron. Axe and Waldron were staples of my teenage record collection, so after buying all their records I upgraded to French models. ‘L’Enfant Assassin Des Mouches’ is my favourite album of all time, it was the first record that Finders Keepers released and remains a benchmark for all of our records. He has also become a close friend. It feels like our relationship with Francois might go the same way.

In fact, do you believe this eclecticism of editorial line is a part of your force, of your identity?
Yes, I really don’t understand why people create specialist labels. It seems too calculated, too business-like.
The beauty of an independent label is you DON’T have to act like that. Our goal is for Finders Keepers to stand up as its own record collection which covers a lot of musical bases and hopefully for no two records to sound the same. I also think some FK records, like L’enfant Assassin Des Mouches and Holy Mountain, are almost like entire record collections in just one release. I love the way jazz labels like Futura and BYG randomly released experimental rock LPs like Gong, Ame Son or Jean Guerin’s ‘TACET’.

What is the Finders Keepers LP you are prouder? why?
The eclecticism makes this difficult so i’m proud for different reasons. I’m instantly proud of any album that was previously unreleased, that’s especially gratifying and life affirming for the label. Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders soundtrack and the Czech releases that followed are really important. Selda ticked a lot of boxes. Belladonna and Holy Mountain were both holy grails for the label and it took us 10 years to release them so i’m still very proud of them. We have lots of grails coming out in the next 18 months.

Most of your previous reissued LP’s are sold out. Do you plan to repress them?
Yes. There are just 1 or 2 artists that decided to double their fee so we had to let them go to other labels. And there’s even a couple of bootlegs of our FK albums out there!

Martial Solal
Electrodes

You work to release some tapes (K7). On one hand, we can consider that it is still about the vintage mode, on another hand, we can however consider it is the possibility to hear of the other unpublished sounds … Do you feel there is a specific market for that? And don’t you believe there is a kind of irony to publish K7 on vinyle in 2015?
The compact cassette was a great format for all types of DIY music from post-punk to PINA and allowed people to release music without too much financial speculation. If it wasn’t for the cassette a lot of music would have remained in the minds of constipated genius’. Most people we licence cassette masters from comment on how they always wanted to make vinyl but it was unaffordable or they couldn’t get a record deal to pay for it. My friend owns a successful cassette duplication company near my house, he has lots of vintage dead-stock raw material from all over the world, its a treasure trove. I sometime s DJ with cassettes fro special occasions.

Do you still discover a lot of unearthed obscure records these days? Where (on line, record dealers, flea markets…)?
Yes. I try not to buy records that are well known at all and don’t really buy records that Doug or any of my friends have. I’m aware that I have more records than i’ll ever get chance to properly listen too so there has to be certain disciplines. I rarely use dealers or boutique shops unless they are friends who are willing to trade, i don’t do much digging in the UK but i buy records every time i travel and mostly from that specific country. I much prefer messy unorganised shops to showrooms. The best place to dig is other peoples houses, or artists collections (including master-tapes). I also enjoy finding records in my own house, its always a good party trick!!!!

You had published many compilations, selections… Is it harder to sell this kind of issues today ? How do you think the market has evolved on these compilations?
Compilations belong with mix-tapes. They are an important staple in the history of record digging but are now virtually impossible to do legally without losing money, the accounting process is also a long-haul commitment. I was brought up with Ultimate Breaks And Beats and later compilations like The Folk Funk Experience and Nuggets Of Funk shaped the way i continued to buy records. Regardless of legitimacy I still have A LOT of respect for the people behind those releases but sadly that era has passed. I agree that the process has evolved a hell of a lot. I regard the process of finding the artist and knowing their story first-hand as an integral part of collecting in 2016… diggers who release compilations without getting the rights are not doing the full job. Anyone with money can find records in the internet age… now it’s all about the social aspect… in my opinion. From a buyers point of view i think the age of the “tastemaker” has faded along with DJ worship, as a record seller i know that people are no longer comfortable buying into another persons opinion/taste, they prefer to find an original artist and focus on the work as intended… and probably make their own compilations, so FK caters for this need. Today compilations really have to have a very strong concept, or focus on a particular studio or small label or micro-genre. Various Artists DJ friendly pic ‘n mix comps simply don’t sell enough to cover costs.

Have you received many negative answers on some of the LPs, artists, unreleased tapes, you were trying to reissue?
I am very persuasive and always willing to visit people to share our enthusiasm. In the early years people were sceptical… many artists thought we were ridiculing them but when they look at our website and discography they begin to understand that we have very solid relationships with over a 100 artists. The only time when things have not run smoothly is when middle-men or major-label execs have tried to position themselves in the deal. Holy Mountain took ten years to release after Abkco had said NO five times… I just kept asking and asking like a child and offered to send them flowers. They have since thanked us for giving them the impetus to retrieve the masters. Some people just say YES so I’ll go away!

Mehrpouya
Soul Raga

There are more and more reissues of old LPs, and more and more record labels (major or indie) now release their new artists on LP, or EP. Do you think that the LP reissue market could ever reach saturation point?
Yes, when teenage clothes shops are selling £30 180g re-issues of classic records that are already available in charity shops you know you are at saturation point. The fact that small labels who have always been faithful to the vinyl format can’t get any records made for 4 month leading up to Record Store Day because of Ghostbusters coloured vinyl picture discs proves that we are at crisis point. I have known new artists that insist that their music has to be on vinyl, later to find that they don’t even own a record player themselves. I think it’s important to think responsibly when mass producing vinyl. Projects should be era-specific and genuinely unavailable before people add to the pollution. 180g virgin vinyl doesn’t really suit what my kids are taught at school about recycling and protecting the environment.

Price for rare records go crazy these days. What do you think of this trend?
Vinyl used to be a punk gesture, a throwaway creative format which matched table-topping at buying clothes from thrift stores. Now it’s got more in common with antique dealing. The culture has been gentrified. Sadly i’m addicted to vinyl so i sometimes have to pay through the nose to complete circles that I opened 10 years before the gold-rush… and with this i often think i’m contributing to the problem. But I’m also not going to sell my rare doubles for half the price of everyone else am I?. Its a catch 22.
I know alot of people who have been in this game for 20 years plus, many of whom initiated niche-buying trends in Punk, Library music, Iranian 45’s, dance-floor psych, folk funk, Krautrock and paved the way for further generations of collecting – sampling – and influencing modern music… but nowadays they can no-longer afford to be part of the game. There’s no respect. MAny of these new vinyl antique dealers push the prices up for fun from the comfort of there well paid 9-5 jobs… they remind me of The Duke Brothers in Trading Places. It’s in danger of becoming elitist, less creative and eventually a bit lonely.

What are your next releases?
Unheard out-takes from Jean-Claude Vannier’s ‘L’enfant Assassin Des Mouches’ 1972 session with different arrangements and extra instrumentation. A totally unreleased electronic jazz soundtrack by Swiss composer Bruno Spoerri about Zurich’s Red Light District. The incredible unreleased score to Jess Franco’s Les Demons recorded by French Library cognoscenti. Unreleased Buchla synthesiser exhibition performances by Italian American composer Suzanne Ciani. A comprehensive collection of Italian soundtrack work by trio Frizzi/Bixio/Tempera who recorded with Goblin musicians under the name The Magnetic System. Some mesmerising unreleased new age synth explosions from a Hungarian animation soundtrack. An entire LP of unreleased electronic / mechanical / folk from the UK 1983 version of The Moomins. Some very rare François Tusques music. Some unknown electronic Don Cherry soundtracks…. And a particular unnamed Gainsbourg/Vannier holy grail x 2!!!!

What is the LP you dream of reissuing?
There are so many but it’s probably best to keep them a secret, there’s much more competition now. I’ve been speaking to Francois Wertheimer for almost 10 years trying to release his Popera Cosmic LP, I came to visit him in Paris and he signed our contracts… unfortunately another well known French re-issue label also cut a deal with Guy Skornik (the co-writer) for the same record at the same time so we were stuck in checkmate! For a small fraction of time the music was almost liberated, but I think it might have slipped back into the clutches of a major label now… i really hope not. I think you’d agree that Finders Keepers is a good home for that record. If you don’t know Popera Cosmic well Finders Keepers are trying to Make It Local.

http://www.finderskeepersrecords.com/

Check The Andy Votel’s Top5

Finders Keepers Radio Show Psychedelic Soul Special

Each month, we are focusing on a record label founded by an active digger. This month, the Luaka Bop boss, long-time collaborator of Talking Heads David Byrne, is also a passionate record collector (check him in the Dust And Grooves book!) always happy to discover new music. Yale Evelev often stopped by the shop when he’s in Paris, mainly buying african LP’s. He took time to answer our questions about his label and his passion for records!

When did you start digging records?
Hmm, you know when I started there was no ‘digging’, that whole concept is sort of recent, well ‘sort of’ recent in a way. I started ‘collecting records’ at about age 8. I bought singles. Kevin Healy, my best friend, had an RCA 45 player with the fat post. My dad had a Garrard turntable that played 78’s and LPs and a mono tube system where you could select what playback curve you wanted!
My dad had LP’s from Memphis Slim, Big Bill Bronzy, Louis Armstrong, Pete Seeger, and some show tunes and the blue column Colombia Classical albums that were the first LP’s with record covers! He like music a lot but I don’t remember him ever buying a record, so these where ones he had before I was born, or when i was very young. In writing about it now it looks like a pretty nice range of things.

What Lps did you buy at first? Do you still listen to them?
First album I bought was Earth Opera, must of been around junior high school. There was a sale at Sam Goody’s in Phila, where I was from – so Sammy Grunber, Mark Bobrowitz, Mike Magen (rip) and I all went down there with the sale coupons ripped out of the newspaper. Earth Opera had an almost side long song against the Vietnam war, which everyone in my world was protesting about. By high school I was buying enough records that I had to hide the record bags when I came in the house so my parents wouldn’t see them.

Do you have a particular style or favorite period?
Ok here the meat of the issue and why I don’t really consider myself a ‘digger.’
I am an old motherfucker. I go through/have gone through different periods (many!!). In the beginning of high school I mostly listened and went to see acoustic blues. I saw Son House, Mance Lipscomp, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Bukka White, Brownie McGee and Sonny Terry, Furry Lewis, Speckled Red, Buddy Guy with Junior Wells, etc. I also saw rock bands that played blues who played at Phila’s Electric Factory, Canned Heat, John Mayall, Ten Years After, Jethro Tull, etc. And I was also into ‘Oldies’ so I’d go to Oldies shows and see Fats Domino, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and others. There were also local bands I saw often because they played at street fairs in Phila. like The Nazz and Mandrake Memorial, and before them the Soul Survivors.
By the end of high school I was into Hound Dog Taylor and Eddie Harris’ “Listen Here” and John Klemmer “Waterfalls”. And then I got into the European art rock scene bands that were being played on the local radio station WXPN, and sold in Jerry Gordon’s 3rd Street Records; Faust, Can, Gong, Gentle Giant, Henry Cow, Soft Machine, Magma. And my jazz interest started to grow a bit as there was also a Jazz only station in Phila, WRTI, that played Calvin Keyes, Ahmed Jamal, Les McCann and Roy Ayers and that sort of thing, (I felt this stuff was most popular in Phila. because of this radio station).
I was of course buying albums this whole time, mostly from any store that was cheap! There was a store in Phila called Red Dot, that had big red dots on the records they sold which were almost all $2.99 cut outs. And then when 3rd Street opened, they would get a lot of promo stock from the local area record company promotion guys, who instead of getting records out to the radio and press, would bring a car trunk full of promos buy 3rd Street and Jerry would buy them and sell them for less then normal retail. I got all the Can records this way, plus many from the Black Jazz label, CTI things and so many others.
I moved to college in Boston (in the 1970’s!) with my collection of about 400 Blues, Jazz and art rock records. I had a good friend in college who was a jazz drummer, named Adam Nussbaum and I got a education from him on Jazz players like Booker Little, Wayne Shorter, Horace Silver. And I worked at a commercial radio station in, WBCN, so I got into the clubs Paul’s Mall and the Jazz Workshop for free. I saw; Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Charlie Mingus, Miles Davis (in a small club that was not full!), Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, Gary Bartz, Pharoah Sanders (my favorite), Sonny Rollins, Hugh Masekela, BB King, Chico Hamilton, Taj Mahal, Mongo Santamaria, Muddy Waters, and Sun Ra! (who was living in Phila. so when I went back home I would buy El Saturn records that the Sun Ra band guys would bring by 3rd Street Records to sell.) Later I also got to go to Sunny’s house in West Phila.

with Pharoah Sanders, as part of the Atomic Bomb shows, this one in Central Park, NYC (photo by Money Mark)

My college had an agreement with The School of Museum of Fine Arts, so I got to go there and take electronic music and video art classes. At art school I was exposed to Phil Glass who had made records on his own label, Chatham Sq., Steve Reich on DG, Terry Riley on Colombia (Poppy Nogood!) and Nonesuch Explorer series releases, like “Music from the Morning of the World.” During my college period I went to Morocco and had my eyes and ears opened by all kinds of music that was happening everywhere I looked. Snake charmer musicians who sounded like Coltrane, blind men in a row of four walking through the medina singing rounds, and lot’s of other things I don’t remember. What I do remember is that it taught me there was an amazing amount of great music in the world not just from Europe and America.
The end of college was the beginning of Punk, so friends formed bands like Human Sexual Response and the Sic Fucks. But I moved to NYC as a jazz person who also liked minimalism. (Luckily for me Phil Glass and Steve Reich played quite a bit with their ensembles in small NYC places with small audiences.) When I moved to NYC it was the end of the Loft Jazz scene. But I did get to see Don Cherry after he made the Brown Rice record at Rachid Ali’s club Ali’s Alley, (which was on the block I lived.) And I also saw the new generation of jazz players at that point; David Murray, James Blood Ulmer, Henry Threadgill, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Butch Morris, etc.

So, what was your job at this period?
I got a job in my local record store, the Soho Music Gallery. It was owned by the Boston mob who wanted to bootleg cutout records. As a cover story they distributed ethnographic recording labels, Ocora, Bärenreiter and Tikva (an Israeli Folk dance label). The basement was full of these albums that had been returned to the store, I got so many great records this way. The store was such an education. I was the buyer for all my interests; Jazz, World, Contemporary Classical, pretty much everything but rock. I was able to listen to every record in the store and learned about so much music that I was barely familiar with. I remember when the first while label I had ever seen came in the store, written on the cover in pencil was just the words “Dub Plate”. What the fuck? We listened to it and it sound like half the recording session was missing. We sold the three copies we had pretty much right away. We also had BYG albums by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Chatham Sq records by Phil Glass, Richard Landry, Jon Gibson and Michael Snow. We had the Pyramids Records, we had a record of Gurdjieff playing Gurdjieff that his followers would stream in and buy, all the Jorge Ben albums on Philips, Strata East, Mbari, Black Artists Group, AkBa and all those small label jazz and new classical things people look for today were just new records easy to find in a bin. And I would spend a portion of my salary on records every week.
The store was a place that all kinds of people went to as it was quite large and had a very good selection. It was an in an arty neighborhood so lots of interesting people would come by like David Byrne, Brian Eno, Loren Mazzacane (who would just give us his records to give away as absolutely no one cared about him at the time), and artists like Mati Klarwein, Tony Conrad, Bryce Mardin and we hired musicians to work there like John Zorn, Anthony Coleman and even the actress Karen Jane Allen, (damn I was in love with her), before she was in many (or any?) movies.

Shuggie Otis
Strawberry Letter 23

After work, Zorn had a little club under an aquatic pet store in the West Village that bands would use for rehearsals and small gigs, called Studio Henry. Zorn and Eugene Chadbourne, Wayne Horvitz, Christian Marclay, the Golden Palominos, and of course much more. There were also shows at a place called Soundscape where I saw Peter Brotzman and Han Bennick, Derick Baily, Marion Brown etc. And the Tin Palace where I saw a trio with Ronald Shannon Jackson, David Murray and Blood Ulmer, a sort of downtown jazz super group, put together to make big bucks on the European festival circuit. I was so excited to see this and so disappointed on how hollow it felt that I walked out and went half a block down the street to CBGB’s where the Ramones were playing and that had all the honesty and true emotion I was looking for.
After three years at the record store I left on a three months trip to South East Asia; Indonesia, India, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia… When I came back I got a job at the New Music Distribution Service, replacing Kip Hanrahan who was leaving to travel. New Music Distribution was started by Carla Bley and Michael Mantler to distribute a series of large ensemble jazz albums they had gotten funding for, on a label they created called J.C.O.A. They had convinced some New York musicians to play in each others ensembles so they could work with bigger bands. Along with Mike and Carla’s records there were releases by Don Cherry, Clifford Thornton, Roswell Rudd, Grachan Moncur and Leroy Jenkins. And in the JCOA Orchestra included Cecil Taylor, Pharoah Sanders, Gato Barbieri and many others. By the time I got to NMDS in 1980, JCOA was pretty dormant but we had an amazing catalog of every private press Jazz, contemporary classical and other non describable record you could ever think of – because that was the only thing we distributed, literally 2,000 artist produced records. All those ones that are so valuable now was because no one wanted them then. Of course this is where Soho Music Gallery got all those cool records as well. There might be one store in each major U.S. town that would buy from us.

What did you sale?
We sold records by the Residents, (and I met Homer and Hardy), Negativeland, (whose record covers were individually made of cut up Life Magazine pictures), Opus One label, (whose covers were printed in day glow inks), Beaver Harris’ 360 Degree Musical Experience, India Navigation (run by a lawyer for Western Union who let him build a studio in their building), Parachute (which had Zorn’s first records), Nels Cline & Vinny Golia had a label called 9Winds, Mother Mallard’s Portable Masterpiece Company, the U.S. Steel Cello Ensemble, and the Nihilist Spasm Band; labels; Titanic, Mission, Armageddon, Cold Blue, Wizard, Beep, Land Mammals, all the Bruce Haack albums and much more.
Some of my favorites were Harry Partch on CRI, Gary Wilson “You Think You Really Know Me”, Arthur Russell “Tower of Meaning,” Allan Bryant “Space Guitars”, Jon Gibson, John Bender “I Don’t Remember Now,” Michel Redolfi “Sonic Waters” I could go on and on. One day someone came in wanting to know if we knew anyone who would release a soundtrack to a movie that he had commissioned by Ornette Coleman. Hell yes, I would! So I started a record label of my own, ICON Records. Ornette came by work the next month. I thought he wanted to talk to me about the soundtrack, (the movie was called “Box Office”), but no – he wanted NMDS to release his unreleased tapes and pay him $50,000 a year. We didn’t have that kind of money and since he wasn’t happy with what I was paying the filmmaker for his soundtrack, that was the end of that. (As far as I know this album never came out.) But I had registered the label name, opened a bank account and for all intents and purposes started a record label.

So you could release other productions…
My first release was something I had heard in Indonesia in 1979, a small gamelan ensemble called Group Gapura. This did pretty well, I sold 8000 copies and it funded my label at the one release a year level that I was doing. My next album was by Daniel Lentz. And then I produced a record of John Zorn playing the music of Ennio Morricone called The Big Gundown. While working in the store with Zorn I had suggested we do this Morricone album and in 1985 he told me ok, let’s do it. The last album I produced never came out, it was Big John Patton, David Murray, Steve Nelson, Anthony Carillo and Bill Frisell arranged by Butch Morris. The record had issues because Patton had a drug problem and I had a drummer problem. First I hired drummer Lloyd Knibbs (from the Skatalites), but that wasn’t working out. Then I did another session with Ignacio Berroa on drums and George Freeman on guitar but that wasn’t working out either, and then Patton’s dealer slashed his right arm ending the whole project, (and the label, as all the money I had to make records came as each one supported the next one).
I had about 10,000 records by this point, with different periods of my life lending themselves to different focus. While at the record store some guy would come in and buy African ethnographic records. He was always talking about how James Brown was directly related to the African music we liked and said there was a Sam Goody remainder store in the westside who had all the James Brown King records, new, sealed, cheap. Bam! I also went with Zorn up to 125th street where stores had zillions of copies of Maceo Parker records as well as JB records on People, because no one wanted them. I went to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and saw Bobby Blue Bland which got me totally into that style of soul music. I got into dub records, Chutneys (from Trinidad), surf music, Derrick May and the Detroit electro thing, Googie Rene, Frankie Stein, John Cage (who I got to meet), tons and tons of Latin Music as NYC was a center for that. And of course more and more and more. Each part of my life represented by a new music interest and exploration.
I was At NMDS for eight years and it was always a struggle for us. When our fund raiser Taylor Storer got cancer in his 20’s and died over a three year period, Michael Mantler and I hired a South African guy named John Baskind to replace him, everything quickly started to go south. Of course this was the beginning of the end of the first LP era, so all the stores started returning LPs instead of paying for them. I fought a lot with Baskind and saw the writing on the wall format wise and left.
At this point my wife, who was an architect, had her cousin build us a wall shelving unit for the books and records which had been in crates stacked on the floor. She asked if I wanted anything to hold CD’s and I said no I hate CD’s!, I’ll never buy those. I was wrong and that was near the end of me buying vinyl for the most part.

Jorge Ben
Ponta de Lanca Africano Umbabarauma

What’s hapenning?
In 1989 I got a job at The Brooklyn Academy of Music where I programmed; Cachao, David Lynch’s Industrial Symphony, The Butthole Surfers, Negativeland, Pete Cosey, The World Saxophone Quartet and 500 others including Moondog!! (in his first concert back in NYC since he had left for Germany). All this happened in one 10 day period in NYC for a festival called New Music America. When that was over I left BAM and David Byrne hired me to run Luaka Bop.
I guess I don’t think I’m a digger, because I didn’t have to dig. I bought much of this shit new!

Are you still buying vinyl, visiting record shops?
In a word, no! But as I just spent $700 in your store perhaps I shouldn’t be believed when I say that. I try never to buy records in NYC where I live. Only when I travel, I don’t want more records! But If I am in another country I feel – I’ll never see this record again I better buy it now.

What was the first release on Luaka Bop?
“Beleza Tropical”, which came out in 1989.

Why did you choose this name: Luaka Bop?
David choose it, probably because he liked the sound of it. It was a Sri Lankan tea he found in the UK.

What could be the label’s leitmotif?
Perhaps someone else would better at this question then me. Someone once said we were wonderfully impure. I guess we always want to be surprising, not do the same types of music, not exist in any genre or be part of any scene. In fact we don’t expect as a label to have any fans. It’s not that people don’t like what we do, but they should feel they might not understand the record that comes out after the one they loved.

What is the role of David Byrne in the label? Does he still suggest compilations ideas? Doest he still dig LPs?
He doesn’t, in 2003 he decided that he had enough of having a record label so I have run it without him ever since.

How do you decide on the choice of reissues?
No idea, there isn’t really a set way to answer this. Anything that fits within what we like as a label, I guess. That’s not really an answer I don’t feel.

Luaka Bop is well known for his ability to rediscover forgotten artists : from Tom Ze to William Onyeabor, from Tim Maia to Silvio Rodriguez, what is the reissue your are prouder?
Hmmm, certainly the Onyeabor was such a surprise in terms as how well it did, and the fact that we got to work with his entire recorded output is amazing. Tom Ze is super important to me because we were able to rescue him from oblivion in Brazil. And he is so worthy as a musician and a person who has now gone on to become an important part of the Brazilian music scene.

With the great Tom Ze

Tom Ze
Mae Mae Solteira

What about your serie titled World Psychedelic Classics ? Any new for the future ?
We started that with Os Mutantes. The whole idea that there were Psych bands from places other the the U.S. and the U.K. was not something most people had ever considered. We wanted to challenge peoples preconceptions. At that time it surprised a lot of people in a way that is almost inconceivable today. No idea what the future holds for this series.

While Luaka Bop was more established for compilations in the 90’s and 00’s (from Black Peru to New sounds from NorthEast Brazil), since few years, there were less compilations. Is it an artistic decision? or is it a realistic choice because this part of the market is now really « over » covered?
Both, David started the label doing compilations, and though I did a few, “African Psych: Funky Fuzzy Sounds of West Africa”, “Telling Stories to the Sea” (the Portuguese African one), and for the most part the Black Peru one, the compilations were really his thing. Nowadays I’m just not as interested in doing them; the hellish negotiations that take forever, and competing with the internet, which is a societal compilation.

These days you seems like buying a lot of african records. Is it a new thing or have you always been into african music?
Yes I have always been into African music and at the same time it’s a new thing. Because when I was into African music before I could only buy the records I found in NYC, or somewhere in the U.S., or in a store in London or Paris, which were not so many compared to now. When you guys are bringing in so many records and collectors are buying up everything that moves, there are so many great records available now, it’s blowing me away.
When I worked at the record store, John Zorn and I used to go to the African Record Center in Brooklyn on Nostrand and buy records they would import for the store, they also had their own label too, Makossa Records, (were those all legally released?). My small collection of African Funk stuff I mostly got from them and I used that to make our Funky Fuzzy compilation. Since I bought every album of this type of thing I could find I had no idea that years later so many bands playing this sort of music existed! As much as you think you know about something it’s so great to realize you don’t know shit! The beauty of being into music and records is that there is always something new to learn about, to be moved by. Much as my record collection is a personal history, it’s not static, or frozen in time. Of course these days I have no more shelf space!

Ofo & The Black Company
Allah Wakbarr

Long time ago, you released a fabulous record of Waldemar Bastos… Any news of the great voice from Angola ?
We did one record with Waldemar, David asked Arto Lindsay to produce it. He recorded with his band of lead guitar, bass, percussion and drums. When he came back to NYC to pay a week of shows in one venue, he had a different guitar player from Guinea Bissau who was incredible. The shows were amazing, each night building from the last and so fulfilling to have experienced. At the end of the week I said to Waldemar, we really have to do your next record centered around the new guitar player. He fired him the next day. We never did another Waldemar record (not because of that). I have tried to figure out who that guitar player was to this day. I bought so many Guinea Bissau records from you last time I was there, always thinking that a guitar player on one of them must be that guy!

Another part of your catalog is dedicated to new talents, as Kings Of Forth, Javelin or +2 project (Kassin, Moreno, Domenico)… How do you find brand new talents? On the internet? On stage? Through friends?
The last way, almost always through friends.

And who is the next?
Floating Points & Doug Hream Blunt…

What is the best deal/business: to make reissues or to produce/coproduce new records?
Hard to answer this. I will say when you release something that is already recorded, you are getting to pick something you know you really like. New recordings are so much riskier because they often as not, don’t turn out as perfectly as a reissue chosen from someone’s complete recorded history. So if you make a new album that isn’t what it should or could be you have to continue to spend money to make it better, unlike a compilation with fixed costs.

What do you think about the brand new fashion of vinyle ? Only fashion or a real and long term tendency ?
I thought it would fade, but it hasn’t. So what can I say?! And now that Apple has taken the cd drives out of all their computers, and streaming is catching on with more and more people perhaps the LP will be the only hard format, perhaps. Maybe CD’s will come back too? I never thought the LP would come back and the fact I have a wall of them is because I realized its in a way an audio journal for me and my collection serves as a piece, if you will. I didn’t make the records but I spent my life assembling them. The LP seems to lend itself to that sort of viewpoint, not sure the same can be said for a file.

Have you received many negative answers on some of the LPs, artists, unreleased tapes, you were trying to reissue?
Hmm, there was a Japanese album I was trying to do that just seemed too difficult and three times I have tried to do a Jorge Ben album but each time it started and then, stopped.

What are your next releases ?
There are two albums we know about right now and the artists are about as different from each other as could be: the first is by Doug Hream Blunt: “My Name is: Featuring the Hit Gentle Persuasion”. Doug learned to play music at the age of 35, by taking an adult education class in the late 1980s. The class was organized by a high school music teacher and his wife, and held in their small garage in the Golden Gate Park neighborhood of San Francisco. The other students of the class became Doug’s band members and they recorded a record of Doug’s music, with the teacher on drums and vibes, and the teachers wife on bass. To promote his music, Doug would play acoustic, solo shows for patients and elderly people at a hospital where he worked as a nurse’s aid. On a few occasions, he also brought the other students together to play on the City Visions Public Access television show in San Francisco.
The second is from Sam Shepherd under his artist name Floating Points with an album called “Elaenia”. As unknown as Doug is Sam is somewhat known, as unschooled as Doug is Sam is very schooled in classical and jazz (with a doctorate in neuro science). “Elaenia” is a dazzling score which puts Sam Shepherd in the spotlight as a composer who has produced an album that bridges the gap between his rapturous dance music and formative classical roots that draws upon everything Sam has done to date. He has made it over the last five years and recorded it in his own studio with an ensemble of 11 people.
There is actually a third album we know about as well, some time next year we will release our second album by Sierra Leonian musician Janka Nabay.

What is the LP you dream of reissuing?
We still want to do more with Tim Maia. The situation though is quite difficult.

http://luakabop.com/

Tim Maia
Quer Queira Quer Na 0 Queira

Don Cherry
Words Can Not Explain

« From an improvised concert Live Show at the Modern Art Museum in Stockholm, This tune reminds me a Sun Ra but the whole LP is based on his “Hear & Now” album released on Atlantic. Definitely the most accomplished work of Don Cherry. »

Mal Waldron & Lafayette Afro Rock Band
Bits & Things

« A beautiful deep jazz funk tune by one of my favorite pianist Mal Waldron with Franck Able on Fender Piano and Lafayette Hudson on Bass. This track comes from Candy Girl, his unreleased album with members of Lafayette Afro Rock Band. This LP was pressed in France on Calumet as a promo copy but was never properly commercially released. »

Louis Xavier (Synchro Rythmic Electric Language)
El Gason

« Another incredible tune by the mighty Synchro band that was pressed on Moshe Naïm but never commercially released. Composed by Louis Xavier this uncommon caribbean spiritual jazz is really an amazing gem with a baroque twist given by harpsichord. (Thanks to Louis Xavier and Paulo for hooking me up on this) »

Baligh Hamdi
Gada part.2

« Simply one of the most beautiful record by Egyptian composer Baligh Hamdy. This 7″ EP is an amazing piece of modern oriental music I choose the magical “Gada part2.” for this selection but the whole record is fantastic. »

Walid Gohlmieh
Doolab

« A record I was lucky to find a few years ago at the regretted Mike Vital Shop at les Puces de St Ouen (R.I.P) includes many groovy oriental/belly dances tracks but the best is really “Doolab” a monster oriental groove with amazing arrangement by this great lebanese composer. Who was also the director of “The Lebanese National Higher Conservatory of Music”. He was considered one of the most prominent Middle-Eastern conductors and composers tough his recordings are extremely hard to find. »

 
 
 
When did you start digging records?
I started circa 1995, almost 20 years… Ever since I was a kid I have always bought 7inches, LPs or later CDs, but only new realeases. In the mid 90’s I really got into the “DJ” world with the acid jazz movement and I wanted to discover more black music. At that time, there was no internet and it wasn’t so easy to discover new artists. There were no proper record shops specialized in this type of music in my home town of Lyon, so we had to do trade with friends or DJs to make new discoveries. Also, as I didn’t have too much money back then (I was a student), the only way to buy records for cheap was at flea markets. We didn’t speak about digging at that time, it was just about being curious and buying unknown records for 1 or 2 french francs with a small financial risk, just because the cover looked good or the name sounded cool.
This early curiosity still motivates me for digging nowadays, to discover new records which I would never have listened to if I had not found them in a crate. When you wake up early on a sunday morning to go digging, you are always dreaming about finding some “holy grails” that you have been looking for for years and finally you come back at the end of the day with some totally different records you never thought you would buy. That’s the game.

What Lps did you buy at first ? Do you still listen to them ?
The first LP I bought as a kid was Imagination and I still have and love this album. I love the grooves and the keyboard bass. After that, it was probably some Depeche Mode or Wham records, music from this mid 80’s era. I still listen to it with pleasure… bot not so often. What I love with music and records is that each LP is linked to a period of my life and makes me remember about some moments, happy or sad. At the end of the day, my record collection is just the story of my life.
A funny story about digging : in the first flea market I went to, on a lazy sunday at around 2 PM, on top of the first crate I looked at there was a big afro cover LP; that was ‘Malik’ by the Lafayette Afro Rock Band. I listened to it back home and thought : “Great music, I think I will find plenty of albums like this every Sunday from now on !” Finally I never dug it again and that’s still one of my favorite albums ever.

Do you have a particular style or favorite period ?
Not really, it’s always changing. First, I was really into classic rock, after indie pop, then trip hop, soul, funk and jazz. With the creation and development of the label I got more into jazz, especially spiritual jazz and now I’m really into West Indian music. I think the end of the 60’s and early 70’s were really a golden age for many kinds of music, loads of experimentations, but each period has its classics and some ahead of their time albums. I’m always listening to some new music, I want to stay in the present, to avoid ending like some of, those old crazy collectors you can meet who are only living in the past. I’m happy to live in this time, especially exciting for music lovers thanks to the internet. It has never been so easy to discover some good music now, thanks to blogs, reissues, soundcloud, bandcamp…

What was your first issue ?
The first album we released was Doug Hammond. That was such a sign and honor to start with such an underground legend. The album was recorded by my business partner Antoine Rajon. That was the first album Doug recorded in 20 years, and it was done in Paris in just one day with Kirk Lightsey. Some really simple but emotional music. Just one man, with drums, words and a sanza. “We People” is still one of my favorite song of the labels. Timeless.

Why Heavenly Sweetness ?
The label was created by Antoine Rajon, who did the Philly Series just before initiating Heavenly Sweetness. The 4 albums of the Philly series (I strongly recommend) were recorded with and under the spirit of the great Byard Lancaster, ‘A Heavenly Sweetness’ was the title of his album and that’s a direct reference to theories like “Love Supreme” by Coltrane. Byard played with Coltrane and that was a kind of tribute to JC. Having Byard Lancaster as the godfather of the label was a good thing too, and we are missing some heavenly sweetness in this tough world that’s for sure.

What is the editorial/esthetic line?
First it was really jazz oriented, with spiritual jazz and some mixing with world music (like our don cherry reissue ‘Music/Sangam’) but later the exciting projects we got involved in were not jazz anymore, like the Blundetto albums). The question became : do we want to create a new chapter, among many others… ? Finally we decided : f..k musical boundaries, let’s release music we love. And that’s still the case now. The idea is to create a catalog, with diverse styles and artists but always with quality, so people who already bought some of the label’s albums can trust us and buy some new ones in different styles. Exactly like Soul Jazz or Numero Group are doing. You know you can trust these guys for good music, even if that’s not the music you are focusing on.

‘The Ruins Of Britain’, Webster Wraight Ensemble

How do you decide on the choice of reissues?
We have a list of albums we love and we’d like to make rediscovered by a larger audience than just the “happy few” record collectors. We’re trying to reissue some albums which are globally interesting, the whole album not just for one track. Otherwise it’s better to do compilations. Then usually that’s more a matter of opportunity, you meet the musicians, or the producer or somebody who can help you reach the original artists or rights owner.

What could be the leitmotif of your label ?
What a difficult question… Trying to release quality music, in different styles but with a common spirit.

Why did you choose to start a crowdfunding campaign ?
For two reasons! One is philosophical: I like the idea of a common project, people getting together to help a creative project to see the light. The other is financial: for one of the projects, it was the only way to achieve them as we are a small label and it can be expensive to make an artist’s dream come true, like the collaboration between Anthony Joseph with Meshell Ndegeocello and her band, or Guts’ record with many hip hop legends featured as guests.

‘Alice Of The River’, Anthony Joseph

Have you received many negative answers on some of the LPs you were trying to reissue?
Yes, especially with major labels. They don’t want you to use their catalogue but they don’t do anything with it. Masters are sleeping in a warehouse, stored and forgotten… Otherwise, the hardest thing is to find the rights owners of really tiny releases or private pressings.

There is more and more reissues of old LPs. Do you think that the LP reissue market could ever reach saturation point?
Yes I think so. For me there are two phenomena in parallel. The “back to vinyl” movement is just short-lived. With the development of digital musical, it’s cool & trendy to listen to vinyl. So majors and big labels are reissuing all the best sellers in all genres, just to make it available again on Amazon or retail chains. To my point of view, it will not last, a few years only. Regarding the other phenomena, rare or unknown albums reissued by quality labels, with quality products, it will stay strong and alive. It is a good opportunity to discover some new sounds, new artists. But all old records are not necessarily good, and there are so many reissues that’s it is hard to stay visible with such a big amount of records. I think this trend will go on but mathematically the number of old records is limited, so one day you will reach it. But there is so much music to discover and your musical taste is always changing, I’m listening now to some sounds I didn’t like before.

What are your next releases?
We just released a new Guts album called ‘Hip Hop After All’ and we went back to our jazz roots with the Florian Pellissier Quintet album ‘Biches Bleues’. For 2015, we will release a compilation of creole jazz (from Martinique and Guadeloupe) with our man Diggers Digest, a new album by The Rongetz Foundation and finally reissues of french spiritual jazz holy grail albums by Chene Noir !

‘La musique d’Orphée’, Chene Noir

What is the LP you dream of reissuing?
There are many. Jef Gilson on Palm with the original covers, even if Jazzman Records did a great boxset but without the artwork.

TOP REISSUES EVER

Terry Callier ‘The New Folk Song of Terry Callier’
Bobby Matos ‘My Latin Soul’
Billy Parker’s Fourth World ‘Freedom of Speech’
Henri Guedon “Cosmoszouk Percussion”