Is it possible to arrange an 'official' (or even unofficial) UK importer for these titles so that at least one seller and the associated profit is cut out of the equation? As it stands you are even more expensive than Mo-Fi here.
Thanks for the peek behind the curtain. Too few people understand this. Folks, if your goal is to make gobs of money, this is not the business to go into.
Just found out about The Flying Burrito Brothers album The Gilded Palace Of Sin being released by you in May and I am psyched!! Awesome!!
Wonderland is selling very very poorly. There are 20th anniversary LPs coming in from the UK and I think there's market confusion. The Circus is postponed and likely to be canceled unless Wonderland makes a turnaround in the next several months. Bums me out, we got great tapes and great sound. But I'm losing my shirt.
Are you able to license anything from independents like Merge, Matador, or Drag City? They tend to keep their warhorses in print on vinyl, though they don't always use analog sources or the best pressing plants. And another recommendation that has been desperately needed on vinyl in the US for some time: Loveless by My Bloody Valentine. This would sell like hotcakes, and is probably a moonshot sort of get, but Kevin Shields has been vocal about hating that the Plain reissue from 2003 or whenever doesn't use the analog tapes.
I've asked for Loveless many times, it's not available. One of my favorite albums EVER. Pavement is another fave, but their vinyl has been reissued by Matador.
+1 same with me. I've purchased every IR title so far, except the second Everclear album (I bought it on day of release and don't like it as much as the preceding albums). They've all been great.
Thanks for the answer that was in fact not needed (you owe justification to no one concerning what you do...) As I said directly, my reaction was expressing my frustration and not an "attack" on quality boutique reissue like yours or analogue production or msfl...I am well aware that a pricing of 35 dollars for a quality reissue of Gilded palace of sin is well justified, even more so when the price for common reissue from very big company is 20 dollars for records that we have already bought multiple times in multiple formats ...I was certainly not meaning your business model was to make "unjustified profit" with a pricing policy made way higher than the costs... And I was not aware than you generally have only the rights for the USA..; That can explain that's it's impossible to arrange a distribution deal in europe with a price in euro corresponding to the us price plus the import taxes only... And now if I move to the fact that one of you late reissue is perhaps not selling very fast, I am not surprised at all when I see that the band in question is Erasure...I tend to think the market for quality reissue done AAA is there for classic jazz, classic rock (even obscure band) and nineties group (because their records were butchered the first time or where not available at all on long player) but with no judgment on the quality of the music in question, the people that are waiting for quality reissue of eighties music are few when you compare to the aforementioned genre...So it's always risky to try to reissue that kind of records I think...
I believe Sean Magee from Abbey Road and Kevin Shields have been working on a Loveless vinyl reissue.
I think it's great you're so transparent about everything, not only what you said above, but about the sources of where your masterings come from (like you mentioning "from the best source available- a phenomenal sounding 1/2" safety copy of the original stereo master tape" for The Gilded Palace of Sin. You don't have to do that, but we all appreciate it.
Not that it has really impacted the quality of the Intervention reissues, which have been uniformly high quality, but it seems that several of them have used backup "safety tapes"...are the masters lost or misfiled, destroyed, or did the label or artist deny access to the master tapes?
I'd be curious if you played SMFTA today if you'd feel the same. Everyone involved with that reissues got hooked! Kevin Gray hadn't heard it and came away a fan, and even one of my web guys called me said they played it after seeing it on my site and were super stoked to have revisited!
It was definitely a risk. I didn't think it would sell through audiophile channels for sure, but I did think fans would find it and roll the dice on Amazon. That's exactly how Everclear has worked out, and those titles are going great. Live and learn. I don't think what's happened here is the result of low interest as much as a confused market. The UK imports are flooded in here. A friend sent me a pick of an Amoeba bin chock full of them, and he asked me if these were mine as he was going to buy one if so. When someone who knows my label and wants the title can't figure out if it's mine I'm lost.
That would be GREAT! I contacted MBV's management and they said Kevin was putting it out himself. That usually makes me wonder, but Sean Magee is terrific IMO. The reissues I have that I know are by him are tremendous.
I can't speculate in public on this, but Kevin Gray is vetted to receive masters from virtually everyone. And I have never been told that there is a master but that I can only use the copy. And let me add this, which is very interesting. All of the A&M titles I've done so far all had 1/2" safety copies made by the same guy- Ken Villenueve- in the 90s. For those keeping score at home that's two Stealers Wheels, three Joe Jacksons and now Flying Burrito Bros. Gilded Palace of Sin. It seems that when Universal or Capitol bought A&M in the 90s they had this guy make analog safety copies of the catalog. All say the source was the original master, and they all sound GREAT! In fact, when Kevin called me when the FBB tapes came in the first thing he told me was "your guy made these." I really want to meet Mr Villenueve! In any case, I can't speculate about where the masters are. And in any case, these copies have allowed me to make definitive LPs of every title so far, so if the next one is a safety copy from Villenueve I will again jump for joy!
