Thanks, I´m happy you found something interesting here. Likewise: Thanks for your blog, a great site to get educated about jazz. I enjoy reading it very much.

Cool cover art! I’m totally digging all of the music that you share. Having a good time listening to your selections. Thanks for sharing. Keep up the excellent work!

Thank you very much. Actually a lot of records that I post, I bought because of the cover art. At best the music is enjoyable too…

Like I always say, there are simply not enough songs about polyester out there to listen to! Thank you for this boon to mankind.

Ha Ha! You´re cracking me up! You´re the funniest writers of all of the music bloggers. Maybe you´re already occupied with writing your big novel, if not: Please blog again!!!

Thanks! I like this song in version Juloi Iglesias.

Very catchy … this song is going to be in my head all day … cotton-o, cotton-o, cotton-o-va

Hi Andreas, here’s one more who disagrees (and it’s a good friend of yours, too). Perfectly correct Mr. Miff who states that MONEY – be you a fan or not – is playing its part and has always played it (I know so many punks who lived on cassettes in the 70s simply because they couldn’t AFFORD records). Moreover, cassettes were perfect to fight against an industry never aiming to quality but to maximize profits (remember Malcom and M30-M60-M90… GO?). The truth is, if you buy records eventually you support the industry, not so much the artists (go ask them about their contracts….) (Forges says The Grateful Dead – who always supported bootlegs – are amongst the richest artists of the whole business). Free download-services have forced industry to improve its products (packaging, booklets….) and is the most DEMOCRATIC tool I can think of (and I don’t mean blogs posting compilations made by FANS who have spend much energy and passion on it). Finally, I disagree with ” .. go to your record-shop!” (but WHERE if even in an “international city” like mine there’s only dump-yards like VIRGIN or FNAC?) and “… buy a record!” (maybe a high prized re-edition in heavy vinyl, conceived for FETISHISTS, not for real fans). Pop will eat itself, I can’t wait for it, and music created for mass-consumtion will finally end where it has to: in oblivion! Long live BBB, and long live 60s (mostly ) Uncomped!

Hi Michael,

I was hoping you would respond to my article. You say: Death to mass consumption.Long live the blogs. Others, like Mr. Miff, say: Death to illegal downloads. Long live the industry. Interestingly, both of you say: I don´t have money for records.

I don´t know what to say. I´m somewhere in the middle. I love records and without some sort of “industry” there would be no records. My blog would not exist either. Excellent labels like Bear Family Records, Rhino, Sundazed and even Norton Records are part of that same record industry. They do a fantastic job at digging up, remastering and reissuing lost music. They´re my heroes. Why should I want to see them gone?

One thing I know, is that I´m deeply confused by the whole digital world and all the people that seem to feel so comfortable in it. I wished listening to music was simple again. Like, if suddenly the power went out for enough time to send us way back in time like in “Escape from L.A.”. Without electricity I would still be able to play some records on my battery-run record player for a few years, while all the other people would be crying into their dead Ipods, Ipads, cellphones and all these other stupid devices that I will never want to own. Until they would pick up instruments and play live music again.

Then I would be happy….

You played good music. The two songs I liked most: the Get-up, Stand-up-Cover and the duet that came instead of the announced Nat King Cole. What are the band´s names?
The sound of the radio microphone is quite tinny (blechern).

Hi Andreas – Scott Soriano here. I understand where you are coming from but there are two things that I very much disagree with.

The first thing I take issue with is your contention that “it was the dominant electronics industry that created this mess.” Perhaps, the electronic industry created the means to digitize and upload/download media, but they did not force people to ignore compensating musicians or songwriters. Technology exists but we are not slaves to it. Technology might allow us to do something easily but it does not guide us to do so. In other words, a gun might make killing simpler than strangulation, but the gun didn’t create an impulse to murder any more than one’s hands do.

If technology isn’t the cause, who is? The greedy record companies and the music industry? Again, through their greed & corruption (specifically the price fixing and artificial high prices of CDs) and their insane overreaction to the early days of file-sharing (when they should have been figuring out a way to market music cheaply instead of wishing for maximum coin and taking 18 year olds to court), the music industry might have created a climate where people could express their hatred for the industry by file-sharing, but, again, they did not coerce anyone to engage in freeloading and did not force people to ignore musicians or songwriters.

Those responsible for “this mess” are those engaging in the action of freeloading, whether it is you or me doing our blogs or our followers downloading material. Before I go on, I should explain what I mean by “this mess.” To me, “this mess” is an atmosphere where the people who create music – musicians and songwriters – are not compensated for their creativity or their labor. Additionally, I think it is wrong that people have so little respect for the artist that they make no attempt to seek him or her or them out and ask them if they mind that their music is used. (A couple things here: First, doing Crud Crud, I have been contacted by artists responsible for some of the songs I’ve posted. Every one of them have been gracious. I have no doubt that if I had attempted to contact them and asked for permission to post their work, they would have said “yes.” Second, in my experience with my record labels, tracking down artists is not very difficult, especially not with google and facebook. Of course, this does not apply to dead people!) The issue is two-fold but related: Compensation for an artist’s labor and respect for his/her work.

Respect is a simple issue of courtesy, as far as I am concerned. Compensation is one of labor. Making music takes time, it takes work, and it take resources. Recording music is laborious and good recordings cost money (whether you invest in the recording technology or you go to a studio). Making music might be something people love to do, but it is also work, and those who chose to do it for a living should be able to make a living at it if the demand for their music is there. The situation is akin to cooking for the enjoyment of it or in order to make a living. If you are lucky, you the eater has a friend who can cook well and you get to eat for free. Or perhaps you bring the food and he cooks it for you. Or maybe you go to a restaurant and have someone cook for you. Do you leave without paying or do you pay the cook for the food he made? “But food should be free,” you say. And I don’t agree, but the person who cooks it for you should do it of their free will or be paid to do it! Otherwise, you should cook it yourself or eat your meat raw.

Please note that I did not mention record labels or the music industry in my rant about labor or respect. Record labels – good or bad, honest or dishonest, indie or major – act as an agent for the artist. In some cases they treat the artist well, in other cases they screw the artist. But that is an arrangement between the artist and the label. The label might create a physical product (record or CD), finance the recording or an artist’s tour, etc. but it is the artist that creates the work, i.e. the music. Record labels could disappear tomorrow and the artist would still be feel the effect of “this mess.” Yes, “digital” might be worthless, but music is not. Digital is the technology, but music is the “product.”

Now, I appreciate that you take care in choosing the music you post. I did as well. And, while I do not agree that we are not “taking business away” from the artist (it is something that is impossible to gauge), I think that the interest our blogs generate is minimum, especially compared to torrent and filesharing sites. I do believe that we are more like curators than pirates. That said, we also create cover for pirates. We provide the philosophical excuse for others to steal en mass. It is not “digital” or “technology” that has created “this mess,” but you and me. We put the bullet in the chamber and encourage others to pull the trigger. We are responsible.

So, what to do about “this mess”? I’ve thought about it for months and I have come up with something that satisfies me. First is I will make every attempt to seek out and obtain permission from an artist. If I have established that they are dead or anonymous or impossible to track down (for instance, their material appeared on a state-run label of the USSR or pre-dictatorial Burma), I think it is fair to present their work. I also believe in “public domain.” Current laws regarding copyright are said to be weighted toward the artist, but they are not. They are weighted toward the rights holder, which in many cases is not the artist. That isn’t just song publishing but the recording of a song. Finding out who owns what takes some work but it can be done. However, for me what is important is finding out when the work was created. I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect a work to go into public domain after a set amount of years after the creation of the work. In the US a work is under copyright until 95 years after the creators death! That was used to protect Mickey Mouse from going into the public domain. I think the US law is against the public’s interest. Italian copyright law protects a work for 50 years after it’s creation and then it goes into public domain. So anything made before September 13, 1962 is fair game. Since I am officially both an American and an Italian citizen, I’ll go with the Italians on this one…to a point. If the artist has died or remains unknown or impossible to contact (see USSR/Burma example), to me the work is public domain.

So between the 50 year rule, my death/anon. stipulation, and obtaining permission from an artist, I figure that I would have had no problem using that guideline since day one of Crud Crud and publishing at least 90% of what I have posted. This is what I will do going forward. The difference between how I will do it now and how I was doing it is that I now have a stated ethic. I am not pretending that there is no “mess” or that I am outside the mess because I have good intentions. No, I want my actions to be conscious. I want to give the artist the respect that they deserve. After all, if I am truly a fan of music, I must treat the musician with respect…and in the case that they ask to be paid for their music, if I want to use it, I will pay them or not use it. As a listener, I’ll either buy my music or go to blogs or sites (like WFMU’s Free Music Archive) who go by a similar ethic. I think this is a small step toward maybe some day doing away with “this mess.” I invite you to do the same.

Best regards
Scott Soriano
Crud Crud/S.S. Records/Sol Re Sol Records

Dear Scott,

Thanks for your detailed reply to my confused angry mumblings. Amen to everything you wrote. Especially the reasoning that: “We provide the philosophical excuse for others to steal en mass.” Resonates with me completely. It always did felt odd to spread material without seeking permission first. I have also been contacted by a lot of artists or their relatives after I posted their music. In five years not one has complained.

Nevertheless this whole digital/downloading mess has seriously damaged my simple love for the music. Therefore I will follow your invitation to seek permission first. Out of fairness and even greater curiosity.

Let´s see where that road will take me…

Best wishes
Andreas

yea… this also means that this blog will be officially dead soon. I never meant this to be a permanent download archive anyway. Like I always said: I don´t give a fuck about MP3s. I´ve got the records. Right now I´m in Athens, Greece but I will be back in Berlin next week.
If anyone wants to download some of the music on this site, do it now. Next week it´s all gone.

Hello Andreas –

In a way, I think killing off your blog, my blog or similar blogs is not the way to go (unless you are sick of doing it); but rather to stick to the ethic. I figure our blogs are the kind done by informed music lovers who care about the music enough to actually write about it. We do not simply post songs or albums. I really feel that we actually do serve a purpose other than giving pirates cover and by adopting the ethic that I suggest and being up front about it, we no longer give cover to people who give no thought about what they do or, worse, use others’ music as content in order to generate money for themselves (through ads or paypal donations). If we disappear, all there will be are pirates and profiteers.

As I wrote, I have been contacted by many artists or their relatives, and I, too, have received no complaints. In fact, I have had one post lead to me reissuing a record. Others have resulted in the artist sending me unreleased stuff to listen to (and post if I want). That good word and will does not justify not seeking out permission, but it does tell me that contact the artist might not just result in a “Yes,” but in uncovering the back story to a song, unreleased and forgotten material, and/or a relationship with the artist – all which would make for better blogs.

best
SS

PS To avoid being a download archive, I’ve always taken down the MP3 I host after two or three weeks. People complain and write me demanding that I repost songs, but they can fuck themselves…or seek out the god damn record.

Hi Scott,

I will not be killing my blog but just the MP3s. Unfortunately a music blog without music is still pretty much dead. Nonetheless, I´m far from being sick of this blog and I will continue to do it. It will just take some more time and effort to go by the ethics before I can post music again. It will take me on a whole new journey and I´m excited to go.

Some of the practical consequences of that route are still unclear to me though. My favorite records that I posted so far are private and budget releases.Finding some traces of people who initially privately released their own material should be a little easier. I suspect that they also hold the rights to their material. Tracing and contacting them will be a pleasure.

Budget releases should be more difficult. First I will have to give GEMA or BIEM a little money to release the material because they hold the copyrights, but I´m confident they don´t know anything about the true identities of the anonymous artists or the story of the defunct labels. It´s just some dead data buried deep down in their archive. None of the anonymous artists will see any money from them. But that´s just the first step. The true detective work will begin with gathering all information from books, archives, other collectors and contacting people who were close to the artists. Solving some of those puzzles would be really cool.

When I´m back I hope the blog will indeed be better.

Best wishes
Andreas

Check out the band’s other UK single, “Sin City”, also issued on Carrere.
Well worth checking out and much better than ‘Born To Be Special’ in my opinion.

Yea very cool pictures! Thanks a lot for sharing!

BREAKING RAMMDAMMANEWS: Having my touch-down in Jeremy Thompson and Mary Blount’s amazing book “Wired Up!”, New York, USA: 7 pages German Glam Rock – http://twitpic.com/axzf5i . Read Ramma Damma the story-story, Part One http://twitpic.com/axzhk2 and Part Two http://twitpic.com/axzjod. OMG, it’s not usual for a by far unknown rock singer to appear in an American Superultraultimate docu-collection of Glam, Proto Punk and Bubble Gum – European Picture Sleeves 1970-1976. You can bet!

A Note From KL in NYC:
These tracks are more 1950s-style, and it’s still possible to do the traditional Merengue step when dancing to them (really easy steps).
The later merengues, especially the ones in the 1990s, are more melodic but very, very fast — it’s only possible to step to them when dancing (left-right-left-right).

We have a lot of immigration from The Dominican Republic and Colombia, so Merengue and Cumbia are still popular Latin musical styles here.

I remember when you posted about taking swing dance lessons, so I figured I’d tell you the dance part of it (It’s one of the easiest Latin dances to do besides The Pachata). There are probably examples on YouTube, or whatever equivalent you have in Europe. …
Maybe you should ask your girlfriend to do the research on it to keep her busy so she won’t tease you about buying records

Would you believe that there’s a lot of similar music in parts of Canada, like Saskatchewan?
And that there were Midwestern-US garage bands in the 1960s that used an accordion instead of an organ?

Life can be stranger than fiction.

We´re both Lindy Hop dancers, but I´d like to try learning some Latin dances one day! Thanks for the information. Glad you like some tunes here.