What is "Scorpio"?

Can you list the 8 Columbia albums in question?

 

I'm guessing these are the 8 Columbia titles @ShockControl is referring to:

Kaleidoscope:
Side Trips
A Beacon From Mars
Incredible
Bernice

The United States Of America:
The United States Of America

Joe Byrd & The Field Hippies:
The American Metaphysical Circus

KAK:
KAK

The Head Shop:
The Head Shop

 

I had forgotten about:
The United States Of America
The American Metaphysical Circus

But I don't remember if they were on CD or not at the time.

The eight I was referring to are:

Baby Doll - Kenyon Hopkins - reissued on CD by Sony only years after Scorpio's LP
Delirium in Hi-Fi - Andre Popp - reissued on CD by Basta in Europe only years after Scorpio's LP
Sorcery with Sabu - Sabu Martinez
Portrait of Leda - Leda Annest and Phil Moore
Wild Orchids - Rex Kona
Twilight Zone - Marty Manning
Tropical Fantasy - Michel Magne
Bird Watching - The Nutty Squirrels

We might also add The Electric Lucifer to the list, unless that was already on CD at the time.

And how about The Drum Suite by Art Blakey? Was that on CD in the late 1990s?

My point is that Scorpio could not have lifted these from CDs, because most if not all of these titles were not yet released. They must have been working with CBS/Sony.

 

Wow! Most of the 8 titles in your list I'm not familiar with. I guess I was a bit off base. The Bruce Haack - Electric Lucifer would qualify since the Omni CD debut was in 2007.

I had hoped that Sony/Columbia/Epic would have been more generous back in the early 90s, at least here in the US when some of this stuff started coming out on CD but many did not get a US CD reissue, so the more expensive imports were the only other option.

 

Mostly late-50s/early-60s space-age bachelor pad or exotica. If this stuff was ever going to come out on CD, that would have been the time.

 

'Working with'? Intentionally or unintentionally?

But how can you be 100% sure, that there were not any in house digital masters made at CBS/Sony, for whatever reasons, that may have been a part of intended, yet aborted projects, that conceivably were just 'laying around', that some how 'magically' found their way out into the wild?

This is even presuming that these CDs you sight, are even actually pressed from true digital masters.

You are somewhat familiar with how these types of things make it out into the wild, yes?

 

The Scorpio releases I am discussing are LPs, not CDs. I have no idea if they come from analog or digital sources. They certainly were not lifted from old LPs.

 

Ok, my mistake sorry.

But how can you be so sure that were not lifted from LP sources? Or maybe they could even been sourced from 'recovered metal parts', yes?
Though conceivably they could possibly have been, sourced from LPs correct?
What proof is there either way, as to what the original source of those Scorpio pressings is/was?
It could be 100% totally legit.

From my albeit very limited understanding, of Scorpio, all of these source options, are possible concerning the way Scorpio did business.

As an example, I had heard from people, at the time, that said they knew. That in some type of capacity, Scorpio had had 'some hand' in the Beatles 'Let It Be' counterfeits, that flooded music stores in the mid-to late 1970s.
After LIB had gone out of print in the mid 1970s, for a year or 2, but before Capitol had reissued it.
If one buys the fact that they, Scorpio, were involved, and again, who knows for sure if they even were, at all, right?
What part did Scorpio actually play, concerning manufacturing of those 'unauthorized' copies of LIB?

Was someone 'given' the masters to sell on a 'black market'?
Did someone inside the manufacturing chain, just 'borrow' the masters?
Or perhaps someone broke in and 'found' some old, about to be destroyed, 'metal parts'?

Any of these are possible, amongst many other of a myriad of scenarios.

In my experience Scorpio was kinda quite like Pickwick Records, also located in NJ at one time.

They were both known to manufacture/sell 'budget' wholesale records of somewhat dubious origin, and/or license, and of usually, but not always, of somewhat inferior quality.
Pickwick Records - Wikipedia

 

Re:
Delirium in Hi-Fi - Andre Popp - reissued on CD by Basta in Europe only years after Scorpio's LP.
The Basta LP is from 1987 and from a DAT-copy. I bought it back then.

 

Here is another great book that explores the connection between organized crime and the music business.

https://www.amazon.com/Peppermint-T...d=1520407601&sr=1-1&keywords=peppermint+twist

 

My point was there was not a readily available CD in the 1990s that Scorpio could easily clone.

 

I have some LPs mastered from LPs, and there are a number of tell-tale signs when this is the case. The Scorpio LPs exhibit none of these characteristics.

Metal parts? The etchings in the runoff area would be the same between original copies and Scorpio releases, correct?

 

"Grey releases?" That implies something legal. If someone is manufacturing copyrighted material in the U.S.,without permission,that isn't "grey".

 

My Columbia/Scorpio of Harry Partch sounds like it has been copied from vinyl.

 

Do we know that 'Scorpio' and 'Scorpio Music' are the same?

 

I don't have that one. I will spin some of my Scorpio LPs this weekend and report back.

 

I still have about a dozen of these. I've kept the titles that I haven't been able to acquire on LP for a reasonable price. Mostly long out of print soul records like Harlem River Drive and Sinbad by Weldon Irvine. They are not necessarily sonic wonders but I've certainly seen worse from legit labels.

 

This will be an extended Scorpio weekend.

I just spun side 1 of Marty Manning's Twilight Zone. It was crystal-clear, no signs of surface noise excessive hum, and inner grooves were completely smooth, with no distortion.

EDIT; Just spun side 2. Ditto.

Either this comes from a tape or digital source, or it is the best vinyl-to-vinyl LP I have ever heard.

More to come.

 

Next up:

Wild Orchids by Rex Kona.

This album seems to have more compression than typical Columbia albums from this period. Once again, I am sure that this comes from a tape source, or a digitized tape source. It has none of the tell-tale vinyl-rip signs.

I don't have originals of either of these to compare. I will get to one or two of those shortly.

 

Next up: Bird Watching by the Nutty Squirrels.

By the way, anyone who is not hip to this album needs to hear it. It is by Don Elliott and Sascha Burland, two New York-based guys who were big in the jingles biz. This is their take on the Chipmunks, but jazz. When they scat sing, it is hilarious, because they sang the parts not only an octave lower, but at half the tempo, so when sped up, they are flying.

Anyway, of the three Scorpio albums I've spun today, this does not sound as quite as good as the other two. This could result from a variety of things. I still would bet that it was not mastered from vinyl, but if one of these three albums was mastered from vinyl, this one would get my vote.

 

Last night I played both the Scorpio and mono 2-eye pressings of The Drum Suite by Art Blakey. The Scorpio pressing, interestingly, has CSP labels. Again, zero evidence that the Scorpio was taken from the vinyl source.

 

That is a weird link with PREX, doesn't really go anywhere, but it is there. The video connected is with the new owner doing the intro, but shot possibly when he was just the manager.

I always thought Scorpio had a link to Performance Distributors out of New Brunswick, NJ. who used to advertise in Billboard through the 80/90s.

 

This came up in the cut out thread we currently have going. Drill hole in the jacket ...leave in the rack or buy???

La Monte did not serve time, infact turned states evidence went into witness protection, but came back out. Story here: Moldea: MCA Music & the Mafia

Same company?

United States v. La Monte, 455 F. Supp. 952 (E.D. Pa. 1978)

The investigation which gave rise to these proceedings began in New York as the result of a complaint made to the FBI by the President of Bearsville Records, who reported that counterfeit recordings of the album "Runt" by Todd Rundgren had appeared on the market. The FBI traced the counterfeit recordings to Scorpio Music Distributors, Inc. ("Scorpio"), a record outlet in Croyden, Pennsylvania. A search of the business premises of Scorpio was conducted on February 8, 1977.[1] This search uncovered approximately 50 counterfeit "Runt" albums and business records which showed that during the period from January, 1976 through December, 1976, Scorpio had received over 41,000 "Runt" albums from HOS. These business records revealed that approximately 10,000 "Runt" albums had been shipped within the preceding two months.

 

I would like to add this link but I don´t know If I infringe some rule here, sorry but english is my second language, ( I am from north Spain, Basque Country.)

MCA Sued by N.J. Distributor of 'Cut-Outs'

have a nice sunday!!!

 

What's nauseating about these low quality Scorpio counterfeits is that people are actually paying high prices for them, as if they are legit pieces.

see: Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band* - Trout Mask Replica

That's the vinyl-me-please generation of collectors for ya.