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Unsung Forum » Radioactive Records: the enemy? |
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krautymckraut 110 posts |
Jun 02, 2006, 22:06
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Everybody gives them shit for being a bootleg label, but at least they're making this stuff available on cd. Any thoughts?
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aswyth 78 posts |
Jun 03, 2006, 00:53
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Quite a few labels have had to abandon plans to release material after Radioactive rushed it to market. That means the master tape-quality sound, bonus tracks and better liner notes disappeared in favor of poorly mastered crap. Congrats to Radioactive!
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Popel Vooje 5373 posts |
Edited Nov 20, 2012, 23:32
Jun 03, 2006, 22:16
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Given that Radioactive is fundamentally illegal and that those labels have licenses for the material though, couldn't they just go ahead and re-issue it anyway? Surely if the quality of their releases was better Radioactive would be priced out of the market (in the same way that the EMI reissues of Neu!'s albums made Germanofon's versions redundant). Admittedly the sound quality on Radioactive's re-issue of Henske and Yester's "Farewell Aldeberan" is highly dodgy, but with the Straight Records catalogue in seemingly eternal legal limbo it's better than no re-issue at all.
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aswyth 78 posts |
Jun 04, 2006, 06:26
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If you're in the process of licencing something which needs to sell 2000 copies to break even, and you suspect you can sell 2200 copies at best, it's a risky proposition for you to go ahead. If Radioactive releases their CD before you and you reckon it will cost you 500 sales of those potential 2200, you know you'll lose money, so you withdraw from your plans. It's happened several times to labels already. Many reissues of the sorts of things Radioactive does have very slight audiences; even a little weakening of the perceived market makes a release impossible. Neu! were different in that their influence and market was bigger; with a marketing campaign such as the one that Astralwerks (here in the States) undertook, awareness of the band was raised to the point where the "legit" Neu! CDs were, presumably, profitable. It's not possible to do that with every band, though.
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anthonyqkiernan 7087 posts |
Edited Jun 04, 2006, 10:55
Jun 04, 2006, 10:55
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I'm assuming this isn't the subsiduary of BMG, then?
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Popel Vooje 5373 posts |
Edited Nov 20, 2012, 23:36
Jun 04, 2006, 16:09
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That's a fair point, but even re-issues with a limited potential audience tend to appeal to audiophiles, many of whom I suspect would be prepared to shell out for the same album twice if the sonic improvements were that drastic (to go back to my previous example, I would buy "Farewell Aldebaran" again if it was remastered from the original tapes with informative liner notes). As another for instance, pretty much everyone I knew who bought the Sony CD of Skip Spence's "Oar" (which was legit, admittedly, but had been drastically remixed and thus sounded nothing like the vinyl original) bought it again on Sundazed due to the authenticity factor of owning the original mix. Also, I'm sure with a good deal of the Straight stuff like Tim Buckley's "Starsailor" and "An Evening With Wild Man Fischer", legit re-issues would sell enough to cover costs as these records have a massive cult reputation already, and are only unavailable due to legal complications between Herb Cohen and the Frank Zappa estate. But yeah, I can see how your argument could apply to a lot of good records that don't yet have that degree of critical kudos.
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embryonomore 853 posts |
Jun 05, 2006, 12:05
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I'm guessing it has nothing to do with The Fatima Mansions either...
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achuma 503 posts |
Jun 06, 2006, 02:57
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A friend forwarded me this a few weeks back. He found it on the net but I don't have the url... Radioactive Records is a pirate label -- a criminal organization. Radioactive is responsible for more than 200 unauthorized reissues of rare and collectable psychedelic records -- private press items by legendary artists like Relatively Clean Rivers, Fraction, Starfire, and George Brigman, and major label records from acts like Silver Apples, Jake Holmes, Grodeck Whipperjenny, Fifty Foot Hose, and even Jimi Hendrix. My favorite artist to get the Radioactive treatment is Bobb Trimble. Amongst the few people with any opinion on the matter, Trimble is unanimously considered the best psychedelic musician of the 80s. Although his two records sell for $500-$1,200, Bobb is in poor health and lives off government assistance. Right after I started strategizing with Kris Thompson to put together legitimate, original master recording reissues of Trimble's two albums Iron Curtain Innocence and Harvest of Dreams, Radioactive Records released a completely unauthorized copy of Harvest from a vinyl source (call it a "needledrop"). Like slander or identity theft, piracy is a sinister, maddening crime that is difficult to correct even when you have a lot of money to take someone to court. After going into Amoeba the other day and finding the Harvest CD there, I decided it was time to let anyone who cares know the facts about Radioactive. Radioactive is based out of England. It is run by a wealthy man named James Plummer. The label deals most of its wares through traditional, major distributors. They also do direct mail order through Blue Orchard, a second company suspiciously dedicated solely to Radioactive releases. To the passive consumer, Radioactive looks and acts like a legitimate company. They advertise in Goldmine, get their products into the best music stores, and they create and move an impressive amount of product. Rumors about the legality of Radioactive's business are nothing new, but Plummer has never made any sort of public statement on the matter. I doubt very much that he will start now. Another venue for Radioactive's business is ebay. Periodically, sellers, usually British ones, will offer large numbers of Radioactive releases with "buy it now" pricing. Through ebay's VeRO (Verified Rights Owner) program, we've been able to put a stop to pirated Bobb Trimble CDs being sold this way. It's also worth mentioning that following a string of negative feedback, Radioactive's very active ebay account was removed from the site sometime around 2003. It seems that in addition to four-figure psych records, Plummer also has a fetish for ridiculously expensive first edition Harry Potter books. Since I got on this case, I've been disturbed to realize just how many "reissue" labels are in fact nothing more than well-packaged pirate operations. Of course, in most cases, without this cavalier attitude towards artists' rights, we would be missing out on a lot of great music, and the truth is many artists simply don't know, or care, what's going on in the current market, and left to their own devices would never get around to putting their work out again. Still, we should be able to agree on a couple of basic principles: • Every attempt should be made to contact the owner of a given work. • If this attempt fails and the release proceeds anyway, a clear statement of the situation and contact information should be included with the release, and royalties should be held for the artist. I believe this was the case with The Wild Places' 2001 reissue of Linda Perhacs' Paralellograms, which resulted with Ms. Perhacs emerging from obscurity, and to a second release with superior sound and bonus tracks from her original master tapes. Honesty is indeed the best policy, and can be very profitable. • If an artist is found and doesn't want there to be a reissue for whatever reason, then the label needs to move on and find something else to do. No one has the moral right to reissue a work just because they find it awesome, historically significant, too good to be left out of print, or what have you. I think some reissue labels confuse their own desire for cash or glory with the more altruistic aims of preservation and popularization of good music. This may be what has happened with James Plummer and his Radioactive Records company. Another notorious label specializing in music of the 70s was the contemporaneous TMOQ, which stood for "Trademark of Quality" and featured a caricature of a smiling, cigar-chomping pig in sunglasses as its logo. Of course, TMOQ was a 100% illegal bootleg company specializing in live recordings of major acts like Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones, but at least the responsible parties had the good humor to make light of their own their own thieving. And as they say, here's the world's smallest fiddle playing for the well-paid artists they ripped off. (At this point, it's worth noting the distinction between "bootleggers" and "pirates" as the terms apply to music, as these terms are often considered interchangable. Bootleggers deal in otherwise unavailable, mostly live recordings. Pirates sell copies of existing material.) The facts concerning Radioactive's Bobb Trimble Harvest of Dreams CD are simple: No attempt was made to contact Bobb, who is the sole owner of his music, and who has been diligent in keeping his copyrights current and in good order. When Radioactive was politely asked by Kris Thompson, Bobb's legally-appointed representative, to stop selling this CD and to reimburse Bobb at a reasonable and modest rate, Plummer hemmed and hawed, killing time to give his CDs time to make their way to distributors and shops, and then ceased all communications on the matter. Oh yes, I almost forgot – Plummer's first response was to try to get Bobb's master tapes so they could do full-fledged versions of his two albums. How ironic that the label's slogan is "the hottest releases are Radioactive." When I see the Radioactive Bobb Trimble in stores or online, I try to contain my outrage and be nice when I ask the seller to stop offering it. After all, what are they supposed to do with a product they can't sell? I also get this a lot: They claim that Radioactive is 100% legit. They're sure of it. This can only be for two reasonable explanations for this: that they've been fooled by the high-quality print reproductions, the UPC code, and the fancy Radioactive logo sticker; or they've otherwise convinced themselves that no pirate label could get away with producing nearly 200 unauthorized releases. Let's address these points. First of all, let us note the conspicuous absence of bonus tracks and historical notes in the Radioactive catalog. How many times do you remember seeing a Radioactive release with additional content, printed or musical? New liner notes, archival photos, bonus tracks? There are rare examples of these (see below), but let's be honest, we're not talking about Sundazed here. The added value of Radioactive releases is almost always zero. Secondly, how hard is it, really, to get away with ripping off 200 obscure artists with no public voice? Pure artists who in most cases never knew anything about making money to begin with and never learned since. In many cases damaged souls who for a brief moment got it together to do something special, received little recognition, who then moved on and may very likely rather forget about the whole thing. Stealing from people like that is definitely not the same as pulling off an operation like TMOQ. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. As for the occasional ripoffs from major labels like Capitol Records, as anyone with any experience in dealing with the multinational conglomerates who own these recordings will tell you, major labels never pursue legal action when the cost of doing so is greater than the potential rewards, as is always going to be the case for any CD selling less than, say, 20,000 units. So getting away with stealing from these behemoths hardly compares to the feat of shoplifting ten CDs from Tower Records in a single go. Now consider this: As a British label, how many reissues of British acts has Radioactive done? Perhaps three or four, mostly culled from previously unreleased material, which implies that the label did work with the artists in these rare cases. Have you ever tried taking someone in another country to court? Doesn't sound so easy, does it? Radioactive knows this, and that is why, despite their nation's status as possibly the finest and most prolific producers of psychedelic music on earth, Radioactive has hardly anything to do with British music. Because they would be out of business very quickly if they did that. There's a third reason dealers cling to the notion that Radioactive is legit, and to me it's the saddest of all, and that is the climate of graft we all live in. Call it looking the other way; call it see no evil, hear no evil. I call it bullshit, and it's the currency of a world run by people like George Bush. It's a defeated attitude that says "everyone's doing it," or claims "there are two sides to every story" without honestly examining what those sides amount to. Piracy is widespread, and there are a lot of companies I've left out of this little essay. I am not a crusader against the entire dishonest system, but rather someone who cares deeply about Bobb Trimble and is determined to expose the people stealing from him to the light of day. If you're still reading this, there's a good chance that little I've written here is news to you. The question now is, what are you going to do about it? Douglas Mcgowan
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achuma 503 posts |
Jun 06, 2006, 03:05
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Also see the comments about Radioactive in the liner notes to the official Bona Fide label CD reissue of George Brigman's 'Jungle Rot', which was bootlegged by Radioactive. The guy who runs Radioactive sounds like he doesn't give a shit about the musicians or the people who own the rights to these things. I myself have mixed feelings about all this. I agree with all of the anti points, but at the same time, like krautymckraut said, they have put out lots of great albums that may never have seen the light of day as legit reissues, and I am grateful for the chance to hear some of those things. For example, 'Momento' by Australian group Bakery is one of the rarest Australian records, and even most of the hardcore collectors I know here in Australia have never even seen a copy. It's also one of the best Australian progressive albums ever, and if it weren't for the Radioactive version, which was one of their first releases, I may never have got a chance to hear it. If I ever did come across a copy on vinyl I probably would have to pay so much money that I simply couldn't afford it. Incidentally, it was from doing a web search for this album that I first discovered Radioactive, back before they had actually put anything out, because they listed plans to do this album. I e-mailed the guy to say "hey, I know this is a bootleg (because I knew that according to the guys at Vicious Sloth Collectables, the master tapes and reissue licensing were unobtainable), but thanks for putting it out, I've been after this for years", but he never replied. Anyway... of the stuff I'm interested in, I try to buy only the Radioactive titles that seem unlikely to be legitimatelty reissued, and for anything else, I'll go for a legit reissue every time, as with 'Jungle Rot' and the Concrete Rubber Band album. I do feel a bit guilty about buying Radioactive titles at all, though! But, folks like me find it hard to control their music cravings.
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Popel Vooje 5373 posts |
Edited Jul 17, 2008, 15:54
Jun 06, 2006, 13:17
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Just out of interest, what have they issued by Silver Apples and Fifty Foot Hose? I know there was a boot of the two SA albums (which I'll admit I bought, but then replaced with the MCA issue when it finally came out legitimately), but it was on a German company called TRC (who also put out albums by the aforementioned Jake Holmes and the The Moving Sidewalks amongst others). My copy of Fifty Foot Hose's "Cauldron" appears to be legit as it's on Big Beat Records and claims to be remastered from the original tapes.
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