Perverse Refusal to Release or Reissue Good Material

it'd be nice if that first Talking Heads live LP circa 81 got the digital treatment. dunno if that's being held back by anyone/thing or just willfully ignored.

but i think zappa's family owns the rights to it (wasn't it on straight, or bizarre or whatever the hell that label's called??)

I was suprised to find out a couple of weeks ago that all of the Uncle Tupelo records have gone out of print. I was talking to someone about them and he asked me to burn them for him, as they are currently unavalable. Weird...I would think that would have a decent back catalog worth.

It is also a shame that Subterrenean and Flipper don't get along, as their two studio albums are out of print. At least "Generic" was pressed around 10 years ago, so it isn't too hard to find. "Gone Fishin" is really hard to find and the couple of times I did, they wanted too much for the copy, so my old album tape dub still matters.

"No New York" is a similar case, but I have heard their is a recent Japanese cd pressing.

"Lick My Decals Baby" by Captain Beefheart is another one that has never been in print for very long and is kind of hard to find. There was a recent new vinyl reissue in the past few months, who knows how long it will last. I've got a German vinyl pressing, I think from the 80s. The original "Bat Chain Puller" has yet to ever to be pressed, out side some boots.

One of the best bands whose albums haven't been in print for a long time is The Effiges. If I owned a reissue label, I would reissue all three of their studio albums. They were a good band.

I have no complaints since Lifter Puller's back catalog has been reissued. Huzzah.

Plus I'm still waiting for anything approaching an adequate Dolly Mixture reissue.

I'm pretty sure there's a re-release planned to follow up on the best-of/career overview released this year, on the same label that put that one out.

It's a shame, but I'm pretty sure T. Rex's Slider is out of print in the States. It's hard to find at least, meanwhile there are a million different singles/best-of/rarities sets floating around.

Interesting post...

I don't know, I am generally of the opinion that the artist should maintain that right to suppress any work (barring no other legal obligations), if they feel THAT strongly against it being released.
As one who has dabbled in writing/recording over the years, I know I totally cringe looking back at many things I wrote 10-15 years ago, and would categorically NOT want it shared with anyone, no matter how big the perceived demand or considering that hmmm some people might like this even though it's still an utter embarrassment to me. So, I think sometimes the artists have their reasons, and no matter how personal it seems, or how much it makes us ache, sometimes we just have to respect it and move on...

However, I think once the work IS out and through legitimate means, then maybe that might be another story. For example, I've heard a story that Allan Holdsworth has refused to sign copies of his "Velvet Darkness" album for any of his fans, because though it counts as an official release (Columbia Records), he disavows it as nothing more than a jam session from early on in his career that he never wanted to be released. There, I think that he should probably just suck it up for the sake of the people who own and like the CD and since it's out already and there's nothing he can do about it...

Nope, it's around -- the Polygram bunch released the Edsel pressings over here fairly recently, and you should be able to order it readily.

Neat, thanks! I think I own a sketchy copy of my own released by some weird label, but it's good to know it's back in-print.

and JAKE HOLMES - if anything deserves a decent reissue it's his first two albums... "above ground sound of jake holmes" should be reissued just so the world could hear the original version of "dazed and confused."

monoton's "produkt 07" and "weiss/rot" would also be nice to see.

I wish you could get The Cure's Carnage Visors and the Standing On A Beach b-sides on CD. But I doubt Robert cares enough to have banned either...

Isn't all that JAMMS stuff out of the question for copyright reasons? It would be nice though.

Clarke - All the Au Pairs stuff was rereleased on CD (on RPM?), although it's probably out of print again. I have PWADS and the second album on CD with added singles. The vinyl is all easy to find.

Mitch, try half.com for their compilation _Americana_ on Luaka Bop -- I got my copy for 75 cents, and it's amazing. As for the individual albums, those I think are harder to come by (I have _69_ on vinyl and don't own _i_ -- yet!), but you might try amazon.co.uk; since they were more readily available there in the first place, they may have some used copies.

gygax, Felt LPs are in bargain bins all across this fine country of ours.

Clarke : I could burn you a copy of the Au Pairs stuff. Plus I know someone who has just closed his recd shop down and is trading over the net. He did have a CD copy of PWADS in stock, and might still have it - his stock is not listed on the net in full yet. He'll sell you it for £10 I should think. L:et me know if you want his e-mail address, and I'll e-mail you off-board.

If the master tapes no longer exist, yr only real option is to master from vinyl. It would sound worse mastering from a CD.

Buy the Contortions

You can buy the reissue through 2.13.61's web site. Plus, Tigerstyle is putting out a 4 CD James Chance box set next year, so it's closer than you think.

no. I NEED evry single rec evah released. so that i stop making assumptions abt things of course.

Dr. C speaks in riddles and I know not what he means.

Clarke: you silly boy, if you need more gaze stuff, why are you not talking to me more? ;-)

Having Fun with Elvis on Stage.

Bah. Both "Elvis' Greatest Shit" and "Having Fun With Gene On Stage" are widely superior.

i bought an old secondhand cd of 'til the band comes in (scott walker) which was lucky -- you can't get anything of nite flights except the four scott tracks hidden on another album -- because bowie and eno were so into nite flights it's hard not to see it being re-released for the same commercial reasons that precluded some of these others from being re-released -- part of the myth ?

i think that when artists like beefheart or walker abandon a label after one album there'll be a falling out between the two parties, so bloody-mindedness and maybe liquidation conspire to create a no-win situation

neil young banning on the beach is just poseur singer-songwriter sell-out -- neil young is no stanley kubrick -- no he's so out of touch, so obsessed with his own talents -- so that album shows him up in a rare moment of tenderness, confusion, fear -- well the thirty other neil young albums just re-assure his crosby/stills/nash/young middle class audience -- it's not as if it's banned because it's bad, no, the opposite, it shows up most of his back catalogue for the hack he is, rockin' in the free world etc.

(I think this is what people mean when they say "collector scum" though I don't consider myself a proper collector since I don't take good care of my collection: it's more a hoarder than a collector mentality.)

My counterexample: I've got everything the Chameleons seemingly ever recorded and those songs can still knock me dead. And that includes demo collections, weird early live albums, the works. But this might not be the exact point of comparison?

You're not alone, Ned ;). I dislike *completeness*. I don't want *everything* by any artist - I like having gaps to be explored at some point in the future if I get round to it. If not, then fine - there's so much good stuff around that I want that I've never seen the point of chasing rareties *that* hard. If stuff falls into my lap - great.

no what I mean is my best album is the one I never released that only five or six people have ever heard ;-)

I used to think this way too. Then I left the teenage years behind.

Also, pretty much everything that Infinite Zero reissued in the mid-nineties is out of print again, as are alot of the things that got big reissues becuz of the alt-rock revolution (rokk 4-evah! *****!), Cobain namechecks (The Raincoats for instance).

I do wish Rhino had made more copies of the Funhouse sessions box also.

warning:

some of my best "bargain" finds over the last 5-10 years have been us$3 cut-outs that'd been dumped, and i figure the situation is only going to get worse
the record companies have no confidence in their own future so obviously they'll be ditching their most interesting stuff first, and re-issues are out of the question aren't they, with the i.t. bubble burst, the economic down-sizings, small re-issue outfits no longer able to ride any of that, mindless consumers, etc.
i.e. i think we enjoyed access to lot's of weird stuff served up on cd during the mid-nineties that will never be re-issued again