Mississippi Records (seriously, fuck them)

Was in a record store today and found a vinyl copy of the old Arhoolie LP by George Coleman, "Bongo Joe." I was about to buy it, but the tag said "new," odd for a decades-old album which, as far as I know, hasn't been pressed on vinyl for many, many years. I had a suspicion that this was another in a line of records from small labels (across the globe) that has been bootlegged by the Mississippi Records label and, it seems, distributed by some major indie distributor (based on how ubiquitous these pressings are). What makes this particularly irksome is that the music is still in print, legitimately, from Arhoolie.

Also, check this out:

Hi all,

I am sad to report that the exploitation of African musicians continues through the efforts of Mississippi Records, based in Portland Oregon, and run by Eric Isaacson and Warren Hill. Mississippi Records have recently released on vinyl a recording by the Orchestre Regional de Kayes, a group based in Mali. Mississippi Records do not have, nor did they seek to obtain, the copyright to the recordings, which were originally released by Barenreiter-Musicaphon in 1970. Mississippi Records are acting illegally by infringing the copyright of the musicians. Due to the lack of copyright, all sales and profits will benefit Mississippi Records exclusively, while the musicians of the orchestra will receive absolutely nothing and are powerless to prevent the release of their songs. Given the difficulties that many African musicians face, I find it repellent that Mississippi Records can profit from the sale of the LP without paying one cent in royalties to the original musicians.

Mississippi Records are acting in an exploitative manner, so please do not support their business or their activities.

Graeme Counsel
Radio Africa

And finally, while I admit that some of the Mississippi Records LPs look pretty nice, others are just lazy. The Washington Phillips LP that The Wire et al were raving out is just a bootleg of a compilation put out--in several iterations, the most recent of them in 2005--by Yazoo. Now granted the music is 80 years old and none of these labels are paying royalties. But at least Yazoo can boast of being run by the folks who collected the music, and they take care to use the best-available 78s and transfer them carefully (hence the reissue of the material when better sources and/or better remastering technology surfaces). As well, the Yazoo releases have detailed liner notes by Pat Conte that tell us as much as he or anyone knows about the musician. The Mississippi Records releases seem to play into hipsters' fantasies of the "old, weird America blah blah blah" by calculatedly avoiding including nearly any info on their packaging, suggesting that the music's provenance is more mysterious than it actually may be.

Do the people at The Wire really have such short memories that they don't realize that much of this stuff has been out--or in the case of the Philips stuff, is out--in other, better forms? Or does the whole fetishistic allure of limited-edition vinyl with outsider-art trappings just outweigh common sense?

Anyway. Fuck Mississippi Records and fuck whatever distributor is putting their stuff out there.

Here's the most recent Yazoo release of the Phillips stuff.

And for what it's worth, here's MR's Wikipedia page.

OK, I guess I'm overreacting. But what bugs me, aside from the ethical problem of not licensing music, is the whole ethos behind this label, which you can also find in recent reissues on Sub Rosa, Dust to Digital, Honest Jon's, etc. It's like the whole idea is to add further layers of mystification, or at least to replace those layers that had been peeled off by years of dedicated scholarship. Seems like a very dubious impulse to me, even though part of me must share it enough for some of these LP reissues to be moderately appealing.

The layers thing makes a lot of sense, but it also sounds like these guys are just casting for a quick buck.

If you'd looked closer at the Bongo Joe reissue, you'd have noticed that it's licensed from Arhoolie.

You invalidate by your own point by your admission that NONE of the labels putting this stuff out (for the most part) is paying royalties on the material. That's as far as the blues & gospel material is concerned--of course the Orhcestra Regional de Kayes LP is another story, and something I'm far less comfortable with personally. But I don't see what the problem is with issuing public domain material in a different format. None of the material they've put out is particularly easy to find on LP, and face it, Am, some people like to collect records--say what you will about the unhealthy collectors' impulse, but the people want what the people want.

And to paraphrase, "At least the guys at Yazoo have collected these 78s..." Well, that's about half true. Most compilations on ALL of those labels (Yazoo, Document, Mamlish, Herwin, County, Rounder) draw from the collections of a half dozen high-end 78 collectors. And yeah, so they know the other 78 guys and have been collecting 78s for over five decads and that's cool, but it also means that the raw material (that is, 78rpm discs) available to them in the sixties & seventies were much greater and more INFINITELY MORE AFFORDABLE, than it is today. If the MS records guys had spent a fortune on clean Washingont Phillips 78s, would that have made their project more respectable?

I do agree with you that more liner notes would be good, because I enjoy reading liner notes. However, the typical Yazoo-style dissection of a blues solo & abnormalities of its rhythm seems to be an unfashionable stylistic choice these days. OTOH, I wouldn't mind at LEAST session info (available in Rust & others.)

xp to Am's original post.

My third paragraph gets a little incoherent, but you get what I mean i think.

Uh oh, scrap my reply, please.

I think the Sub Rosa re-ish of the Burroughs LP has great liner notes, so I wouldn't include them in the same camp of obscurantist myth-builders. (a legit critique.)

and Yazoo of course, have been involved in their own levels of myth-making:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000E6UK9Q.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

And just the name "Secret Museum of Mankind" itself, for their series of ethnic music, implies a sort of mystical elitism.

I know it's unfashionable, and that seems a shame. I blame the whole late-90s "old, weird America" reissues (Revenant, etc.) that followed in the wake of the reissue of the Harry Smith Anthology. There was (is?) even an "American Primitive" (ugh) section in Other Music in NYC.

The whole attitude that seems to me exemplified by the M.R. reissues reminds me of the attitude toward "outsider" musicians, a sort of troubling patronizing--I guess that deserves several of its own threads, but it seems infinitely weird and probably distasteful to me to see music that has been the subject of much study, writing, etc. being reissued as though it was a tabula rasa just because hipsters like it better that me and don't want to get involved in the issues surrounding the music in its own cultural contexts.

Ian: I'm thinking of that Sub Rosa comp "Oh, Run Into Me" or whatever--the supposedly "rare" music by female blues singers that has mostly been reissued a few times on such "rare" labels as Sony, Document, etc.

A good thread on the issue of royalties in M.R.'s African reissues here: http://www.charliegillett.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7358

Well, the "Secret Museum of Mankind" is an allusion to a series of books. But yeah it indulges in a similar sort of mythmaking I suppose, though Conte makes sure to counter that (or at least to complement it) with a great deal of scholarship, thoughtful exegesis, etc.

Good examples of thoughtful, responsible recent reissues are those on the Soundway label.

I mean, there's always the danger--inherent I suppose in the academization of the study of most anything--of making it seem the property of "experts" who tell you how to understand it, how to interpret it, etc. But the whole idea of expertise, of knowledge, of literacy in specific forms of vernacular music seems to have been banished, for the sake of a dubious aesthetics, from the sorts of reissues we're discussing.

For a corrective to all this, see the rather amazingly involved reviews of music at the Musical Traditions website. Here are some recent examples:

http://www.mustrad.org.uk/reviews/living.htm
http://www.mustrad.org.uk/reviews/boggs.htm
http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/hammons.htm

Finally: I just don't like the idea that we've ceded the presentation of all these types of vernacular musics to the obscurantists at M.R. etc., just because the kind of stuff put out by, say, Folkways may seem hopelessly square to the beards-n-big-glasses set.

The whole attitude that seems to me exemplified by the M.R. reissues reminds me of the attitude toward "outsider" musicians, a sort of troubling patronizing--I guess that deserves several of its own threads, but it seems infinitely weird and probably distasteful to me to see music that has been the subject of much study, writing, etc. being reissued as though it was a tabula rasa just because hipsters like it better that me and don't want to get involved in the issues surrounding the music in its own cultural contexts.

It's a really good point, but would you rather have something you love & appreciate limited to academics? Even if the people buying MS records today don't know so much as you about the history of the rural south circa 1925, at least they're enjoying the music and getting exposed to it. Maybe some of the people who buy these MS reissues will feel compelled to search it out further.

Though of course labels like Yazoo & County are the gold-standard among pre-war reissue labels, mostly in part due to the great sound & liner notes, not all reissue labels have reached those heights of detail. Specifically I feel labels like Document (and their imitators) would benefit from more attention to detail, besides just the citations of recording dates. So to criticize MS for skimping on info while other, "more respectable" labels do it too is a bit picky.

more xposts of course.

similar arguments have been directed at this label
http://www.dragcity.com/catalog/catyaala.html

Do you have a problem with the fact that the material is being reissued, or just the way it's being done? I am interested in discussing this, because it's something I spend a lot of time thinking about. There was a huge discussion about similar issues regarding the Sublime Frequencies label.

lol @ "beards-n-big-glasses set"

http://www.citypaper.com/bob/story.asp?id=14537

The Yaala Yaala model is the Sun City Girls' Sublime Frequencies imprint, which releases a smorgasbord of recordings from far corners of the globe. The same ethical question has been raised regarding both enterprises: Are they capitalizing on the creative labor of obscure non-Western artists? In fact, Yoro Diallo, a fairly renown musician whose work appears on one Yaala Yaala disc, has spoken out on behalf of the Malian office of author's rights about music piracy. Usually the recorder/pirating distributor--in this case, Carneal--is assumed to be making money without the artists consent.

Carneal is quick to point out that he has tried to contact the musicians he's released so far--in fact, he has planned a trip back to Mali this December to meet with a few musicians to reach an agreement for release. He has also formed the Yaala Yaala Rural Musicians' Collective into which all profits from CD sales will go. "I'm hoping to go over with some money and give it to the artists," he says.

But he acknowledges that any profits are going to be small, as music distribution has so radically changed over the past decade. Just because Yaala Yaala is working with rural Africans doesn't mean they're automatically being shystered by a crooked businessmen with a get-rich quick scheme; more poignantly, nobody--nobody--is getting rich by selling albums in 2007.

"I will be lucky to make any money off this--any, zero," Carneal says. "We're covering mastering, manufacturing, production, and distribution. And I am totally in the hole right now. If I make my money back, fine. And if I don't, then I'll keep on doing it.

"The major world music distribution system that enriches this infinitesimal portion of the population of musicians in a country like Mali is a good thing," he continues, referring to the likes of established artists like Keita and the late Touré. But the kind of releases that Yaala Yaala and Sublime Frequencies are putting out, he contends, are part of "an admirable and inevitable movement--there is so much great music out there that needs to be heard. The internet has blown apart so many old paradigms of music distribution, and in many ways made the old paradigms seem kind of ridiculous. There's another label, called Mississippi Records, they actually have a thing on the back of their LPs that says, `Record everything you can and give it to as many people as possible.'"

Certainly Carneal found that his Malian friends were just as hungry for interesting sounds as he was. "My friends back in the United States were voracious listeners of music, and I found people in this incredibly rural town had the same attitudes of being very curious about other styles of music," he recalls. "This one friend of mine [in Mali] loved Led Zeppelin, he loved Bob Dylan, Deep Purple, and ['70s prog group] Argent. He would play a Led Zeppelin tape and then play a tape of local folk music, and to him, it was very similar--this desire to hear any kind of music that sounds good to him."

In fact, as Carneal discovered, any exploitation in this situation runs both ways. "The `commercial' Led Zeppelin tape my friend had included the sounds of the record needle dropping at the beginning and stuck in the groove during fade-out," he explains in an e-mail. "Recorded straight from a record somewhere, slapped onto a bunch of tapes with a Xeroxed photo on the front, sent to numerous West African countries, et voilà!"

Ultimately, it's a common fact of the actual global music market: People find a way to share the music they like--with money changing hands only as needed to keep music in circulation.

"I have no idea how much money Drag City makes," Carneal says. "But the people who run it are into making just enough money to continue putting out music. Isn't that what we're trying to do? Isn't that the point of being an independent label--trying to bring interesting music to people?"

Hi Ian. What follows after this paragraph is a big XPOST. I have several problems, not all of them always overlapping. There's the issue of not paying royalties to living musicians. There's the issue of irresponsibly curating the material. And there's the issue of the hipsterati only paying attention to the music if it's packaged in a certain form, which is less an ethical issue itself than an aesthetic issue which rubs up against larger ethical issues.

----

Yeah the Yaala Yaala stuff is weird---basically just field recordings, sans ethnographic detail, stuck on CD by Drag City. There's a certain honesty to that label, in a way --the guy doesn't know anything about the musicians in most cases so, y'know, here's the music. (I should note that the guy from Soundway actually does make extreme efforts to track down the original artists, but then again he reissues stuff that was originally on 7" or LP, whereas Yaala Yaala is frequently recordings off the street à la Sublime Frequencies). Whereas in the case of a lot of the stuff on Mississippi Records et al, the info is out there but they refuse to use it, or pretend it doesn't exist. They want to recreate the ambience of a Herwin Records LP from 1959 or something--one of those earliest reissues of old prewar blues stuff. Which aesthetically makes a certain sense, but seems ultimately dubious to me.

I know there's the danger--inherent I suppose in the academicization of the study of most anything--of making a kind of music seem the property of "experts" who tell you how to understand it, how to interpret it, etc. But the whole idea of expertise, of knowledge, of literacy in specific forms of vernacular music seems to have been banished, for the sake of a dubious aesthetics, from the sorts of reissues we're discussing.

For a corrective to all this, see the rather amazingly involved reviews of music at the Musical Traditions website. Here are some recent examples:

http://www.mustrad.org.uk/reviews/living.htm
http://www.mustrad.org.uk/reviews/boggs.htm
http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/hammons.htm

Finally: I just don't like the idea that we've ceded the presentation of all these types of vernacular musics to the obscurantists at M.R. etc., just because the kind of stuff put out by, say, Folkways may seem hopelessly square to the beards-n-big-glasses set. Document--who I think are either out of business or just not bothering to put out anything but reconfigurations of stuff they're already put out--were just in a race to get everything out and cut many corners, famously. They aren't the gold standard, unless the standard is for exhaustiveness.

I don't mean to hold M.R. et al to the highest standards (though why not?) but to suggest that rather than aiming high and falling short, they are aiming precisely to recreate an aura that demands a great deal of mystification -- which I see as detrimental to our understanding and appreciation of the music and the people who made it.

xp i can't understand such vitriol being directed at mississippi, although this might be because of details that appear to be absent from your post, through misinformation or whatever:

while i can't say for sure that it's the case with the orchestre record, i know that in the case of the comps, they made efforts to track down the artists or descendents, and if unsuccessful, set aside money in case ("Part of our philosophy was that we put aside a bunch of money that the label takes in, in case anybody does come forward, and if nobody does than that money will eventually go to a charity"). i'm sure there are people who know way more than i do about the practice of making compilations, but i think it's probably more important to wait and see what happens with royalties for the (great) biennale record than to assume that because royalties weren't assigned that it's a bootleg. i don't know, who knows.

secondly, i think there's an ignorance of the mission of mississippi; there's a real emphasis on vinyl reissues. calling out the washington or bongo joe discs because they're in print in other forms seems to be phrased as you having rumbled their scheme; stuff like the thai orchestra, malcolm x concert and the above two are chances to own hard to find albums, or things only available on cd, on record. i think there's a forthcoming michael hurley reissue, which will mean that instead of either tracking down expensive lps, or buying cd-rs from michael hurley, people will easily be able to own the record as it was issued at the time, with the same artwork, etc etc. if this feeds into the desirability thing, as in people wanting to own some mystic artefact devoid of information, then whatever, but i don't think that's really the point. a few of the records have sleevenotes. mississippi seems a weird label to level these complaints at, as while i have the same issues with the limited-vinyl scene, and of the fleeting opportunities available to own stuff on vinyl, mississippi tends to keep stuff in print pretty well.

anyway. i love mississippi records, because their comps have been so educational, if nothing else in turning me onto the original lps that they're sourced from, and because instead of finding two washington phillips sides on a screening the blues comp and having a cd i didn't much like putting on, i can go buy their records. if there's some royalties issue i hope like fuck it's sorted out properly, but if it's just 'these people are just re-releasing cds onto vinyl!' then that seems to be missing the point.

The thread for discussing the amazing Life Is A Problem comp on MISSISSIPPI records

Sorry for redundant sentences. The posts are coming fast 'n' furious and I'm finding it hard to keep up. Will bow out for a little while and see what people have to say.

Sorry BTW for the inflammatory thread title, but I guess it did get people's attention...

XPOST

Schlump, you make good points and I'll think about them. I understand that for many folks this M.R. stuff will be like a gateway that will lead them down other paths (sorry for hopelessly confused metaphor).

I have to admit I'm dubious of the fetishism that's implied by the recent (?) boom in vinyl-only releases. I grew up with vinyl, and still buy a lot of it (usually stuff that's not on CD at all), but I've never fully understood the dedication to a particular format. THough that of course is another thread.

And now I really will bow out for a spell.

I think we might differ in your feelings about a labels responsibility to curate material. In the age of the internet, anyone can plug "Blind Mamie Forehand" into google and get all the info they need, if they care enough to check it out. Like I said though, I like liner notes and wish MS made more of an effort to incorporate background information into their releases. The gospel comp "Live Is A Problem" that they put out did attempt to include at least cursory background information in the form of an insert with the LP.

And isn't it a tough to pick between one kind of obscurantism and another? I don't think the folks at MS records want to make their product seem mysterious so much as they know that most of the people reading don't want to see a chord chart for every tune. It's likely neither one nor the other of those possibilities, but something less well-defined. I wonder what kind of intent Eric & Warren have in releasing the music--it seems counterintuitive to market something you want to keep secret. xp xp xp

Life* is a problem.

Seems to me that they're just a business that knows its audience. If you make an ugly, uninteresting package, it's less likely to sell.

You could add up all the money owed to every artist in Africa and it would still be less than the Beatles' managers stole from them.

Mississippi Records is probably just trying to share obscure music that they think deserves to be heard. I don't believe for a second that it's highly profitable to do that.

http://ian.macky.net/secretmuseum/

Yeah, I think any concerns about the MS Records folk "making a quick buck" are a bit of a stretch. They sell their records very cheap. You can get the Washington Phillips LP cheaper than you can get the CD, as most Yazoo CDs are in the $15-18 price in retail shops. And I'm sure the CD was cheaper to manufacture.

If we really want to spew vitriol, I'd save it for the various creeps who charge $30+ for bad-sounding psych rock bootlegs.

also, Was in a record store today and found a vinyl copy of the old Arhoolie LP by George Coleman, "Bongo Joe." I was about to buy it, but the tag said "new," odd for a decades-old album which, as far as I know, hasn't been pressed on vinyl for many, many years.

So either it's a repress and you're sad you didn't get the O.G. real deal LP, or you're mad because it's been reissued on LP even though a CD is still in print? If it were a boot, sure, but it's a legitimate licensed release! If you have the CD but were excited to buy the LP, well, shouldn't you go back and buy it? It's being responsible to the copyright holders of the material. Not to mention the fact that it'll be cheaper than finding a used copy, and NONE of that money will ever see the 'hoolie folks (who still have tons of their own LPS as well as Document LPs available at reasonable prices fwiw.)

i would think pressing records would be at the bottom of the list of get-rich-quick schemes

I hadn't realized it was licensed; I figured it wasn't since most of the other M.R. LPs to date hadn't been licensed.

I don't presume that M.R. are making any or much money on this -- that isn't the point. That seems like a cop-out, honestly, to say that nobody's making money. It doesn't absolve anyone of their responsibilities, ethnical or otherwise.

The assumption is that this was a get-rich-quick scheme: copy "1,000" (actually 994) photos and captions verbatim from various sources with no credit, print them badly on cheap paper, sell thousands of copies for $1.98, make a bundle, then take the money and run. Yet, it was still for sale in 1942, seven years after first being released. Why wasn't it shut down by the parties who were infringed? Were they involved? It's a mystery.

I hadn't realized it was licensed; I figured it wasn't since most of the other M.R. LPs to date hadn't been licensed.

As far as I know, the majority of LPs released by MS early on were not of material that was even under copyright.
Also, it says "Licensed from Arhoolie" right on the jacket.

I wonder what your ethnical responsibilities to the material are, Amateurist. in your opinion, if I do not fully annotate the mix CD of upbeat music of the 78rpm era that i'm making for my roommate, if i package it in a plain sleeve with an inkjet tracklisting, am i shirking my responsibility?

what about if i blogged about it, or distributed the CD among friends?

i'm sorry i'm being such a devil's advocate, i just like talking about this stuff.

Do you think the Kalama's Quartet (or their families) got any money from the use of their material on an early Folklyric LP? Folkyric of course being an Arhoolie sub-label.

i would think pressing records would be at the bottom of the list of get-rich-quick schemes

― eman, Monday, December 29, 2008 2:27 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

Time-L@g & Sh@doks might have something to say about that.

I would just like to say that while I share a general suspicion of cultural fetishism I don't know that Dust to Digital really deserves to be described as such - are people not supposed to make their stuff look cool for fear of being described as fetishists?

I think amtst's main complaint is about a perceived unscrupulousness on the label's part.

Folkways Records was pretty notorious for negelcting royalty payments and had its share of licensing issues, too.

pete smith to thread to tell infamous folkways shower story.

the history of recorded music is basically also the history of people ripping each other off.

^Real talk.

this thread is spitting tangents: i was wondering where to put something i read in uhhh vice about sublime frequencies being the modern equivalent of folkways, but i guess that's for another thread.

i'd never given any thought to the absence of liner notes for mississippi stuff, but with the importance of the aesthetic - i think it is an outlet for good music, lovingly and attractively packaged, but as an end in itself rather than specifically as a money hungry sales ploy - it is a salient point.

with ian's metaphor about passing something on to a friend unannotated, it seems pretty apposite, because the label's thrust is just getting things into record buyers' hands. the two african comps come with a disclaimer that they should be copied, encoded and distributed for others to hear. while this is probably more fodder for confusing royalty discussions, i think it supports the idea of it just being music geeks putting good stuff out there.

to go back to the vinyl boom - i think recent is appropriate, as the collision of the wiring of the world and the quest for some kind of anathema to high-technology means that records of iraqi folk songs etc seem appealing now. i can't draw the line between desirable and fetishistic, but it's great that there's a drift towards being able to get stuff on vinyl again. i was arguing somewhere else on the internet about the merits of each format, etc, but on the basis of preferring it as a listening experience, it's just nice to revive some of the stuff (like early nineties hip hop) that was only ever cd.

nb "the overriding philosophy of the label would be that we want to make old music available on vinyl for an affordable price - everything's less than 10 bucks. It's really hard to find that kind of stuff on LP. That was kind of the start of it and then... we just wanted to put out records that we would have liked to find, really."

"Part of our philosophy was that we put aside a bunch of money that the label takes in, in case anybody does come forward, and if nobody does than that money will eventually go to a charity"

Maybe I'm out of my element here because I don't run in these kinds of obscurantist vinyl fetishist circles, but this smells like bullshit to me. 'We're gonna sell a stranger's music, and if they ever catch wind of it and contact us, they can come collect their cut'!? The thing is, it's never been easier to distribute and share music without pressing up records of it and selling them, and while it might be kind of crazy to just say these guys should just outright pirate the music online or post it on blogs, in a way that seems more honest than what some of these labels are doing.

'We're gonna sell a stranger's music, and if they ever catch wind of it and contact us, they can come collect their cut'!?

it's gotta be difficult though, right? what do i know but i guess. i wish this thread was about sublime frequencies rather than mississippi, because it seems a better case study.

FWIW re. Dust-to-Digital, I was thinking of that Climax Golden Twins "Victrola Favorites" thing (a bunch of 78s from all over the world, jumbled up and coupled with an elaborate booklet with snippets of reprints of vintage record-related ephemera) more than the "Goodbye Babylon" (which is its own weird fetish object) stuff.

Maybe I came on too strong earlier. Obviously you can do whatever you want in terms of sharing music with friends in terms of how you present it. I guess I shouldn't blame M.R. or the other labels for presenting music in a way that appeals to them (putting the ethics of the African stuff to one side for the moment). It does imply a whole way of appreciating music that I suppose rather than condemn I'd just like to take a kind of pointed exception to. Hope this isn't too vague.

One thought: people have pointed out that a lot of reissues (Yazoo, Folkways, etc.) have, at various times, traded in various amounts of mystification, projection, etc. with regard to musics that are distant from us in time and/or geography. Certainly John Fahey, while being an iconoclast to a great extent, was also heavily invested in mythologizing the old blues, etc. music in his own fashion. So I suppose it's a question of degree, and how much the presentation even seems to interface with a kind of folkloric expertise (not just academics but non-academic mega-aficionados like Dick Spottswood) and how much it just wants to remain gloriously recondite in terms of where the music comes from, what it means, etc. In choosing the latter approach I guess I feel that many labels seem to reify whatever half-formed notions people might have about this old music and the people that made it.

Maybe I'm just ambivalent about my own interest in cultural artifacts from the recent past. It seems useless to deny that their very past-ness (and hence strangeness) is an integral part of what draws us to them. The question seems to be whether we just sort of stop there, or whether we press on and try to, to continue a metaphor, peel through layers of confusion, mystification, or just obscurity to better reach the even more profound mysteries of the music and its making.

Sorry for confusing writing, it's late, I'm sleepy, and I need to go to bed.

Yeah the Yaala Yaala stuff is weird---basically just field recordings, sans ethnographic detail, stuck on CD by Drag City.

Actually it's a Towson University professor who went to Mali and got Drag City to issue the cds. Elsewhere me or someone else linked to interviews with him and he (and folks here I think)discussed the flack he got. He said he was going to try to funnel any money made back to the artists, and for his most recent releases he has taken additional steps in that direction including releasing cds by specific artists.

Elsewhere on ILM I think I linked to Jace DJ Rupture Clayton on this and Sublime Frequencies and others weighed in.

Drag City is an interesting example. A fairly large indie label who have seen fit to issue things of more specialized interest as well as distribute (& manufacture?) small label goods--like that Nimrod Workman LP, whose only previously available work afaik was a few tracks on a Rounder LP compilation (and who wants to guess what compensation he got for that?) At least the new LP has extensive liner notes detailing the history of the recordings (made by Mike Seeger.)

(And Mike Seeger got a large portion of the LPs pressed.)

pete smith to thread to tell infamous folkways shower story.

― ian, Monday, December 29, 2008 3:04 AM (14 hours ago) Bookmark

recorded in a NYC shower

been here all my days is killin me right now

LOL @ social music releasing music on vinyl and cassette. too hip to breathe.

jamaican gospel comp looks interesting. i have a studio one gospel LP called 'man from galilee." it's good, but by no means great.

Curmudgeon -- Not me but I was thrilled about that one, actually. The way that went down made me very proud to just be pals with this label.

Hawkwindz -- Yep that happened.

Amateurist -- Please, do not hyperventilate on my account. Personally -- I am 42 years old so I can never be hip, no matter what I do. This is kind of exhilarating, except for those times when I find myself hitting on disinterested twentysomething and then I just feel a sad sorry cliche of a man afterwards [/ emo]. Kids like tapes, at least here in Kidville (Portland, OR). People have signed up for the tape version steadily, much not to my surprise. The Jamaican gospel comp. is going to be killer but it's very strange stuff -- really wonky. Took me half a dozen listens to admit I liked this material then a dozen more later I loved it. Unsure as to whether other people will feel similarly...

Not me but I was thrilled about that one, actually. The way that went down made me very proud to just be pals with this label. -Mike

As I recall there was no information on the Irma Thomas album sleeve indicating that it was an authorized re-release. I guess you are implying that Irma knew of this release though, and somehow got paid if it made any money. Interesting that the Mississippi Records guy who posted once upthread is not spelling out the specifics.

he's like, too busy ignoring the internet, cause it's boring, man

Curmudgeon -- Please understand -- this is just me saying that. I personally know it to be true. But I am not the label nor am I in any way a representative, just trying to back up my friends who I know to be doing very, very awesome work in a way that I know to be as ethical as possible (barring a few minor, "youthful" early mistakes).

Also I didn't even realize that Eric had posted when I wrote that; I didn't read back to then even though it was just a few days ago.

Destroyer -- Personally I respect that Eric isn't online and on chat rooms and Internet message boards hardly ever. I would like to be on Facebook less but it's like where a lot of my friends are. I basically live inside the Internet, and I like ILM, and I can barely keep track of a few threads on here at a time -- how folks can find so much time to post here is really something (and I have a lot of friends/ people I respect on here -- Brian, Ian, Ned, Matos, etc.).

So can everybody chill out now and start directing their ire back at Radioactive or somebody like that? I mean seriously, the dude gives folks his phone number, address, and hours that he's there. Any artists or lawyers that still have beef can take it from there.

for future reference:

The thread for discussing the amazing Life Is A Problem comp on MISSISSIPPI records

jamaican gospel comp looks interesting. i have a studio one gospel LP called 'man from galilee." it's good, but by no means great.

The Jamaican gospel comp. is going to be killer but it's very strange stuff -- really wonky. Took me half a dozen listens to admit I liked this material then a dozen more later I loved it. Unsure as to whether other people will feel similarly...

WANT this but don't think i can spring for record club and shipping fees. guess this is like those ten cd country classics box sets that are NOT AVAILABLE IN STORES.

No, it's like a record club -- one that's not for people who only like one kind of thing. So if you like Jamaican gospel or think you might -- go and find it yourself, maybe?

i like grouper, and abner, and trust your taste plenty mike; had just wondered if it might be available without a fullscale pledge of allegiance on my part. not hassling you - it sounds fun.

this solitary jam is all i know of jamaican gospel, fwiw.

yeah, the social music thang looks awesome, mike, but I'm in the same boat -- not sure if I can afford it this year ...

I can understand people being broke -- just trying to do this kind of thing as cheaply as possible (one reason it's inexpensive is we're sending out three main batches to save on post and mailers).

Wow, thanks for that link -- never heard that song before it's AWESOME. Jamaican gospel is from fucking Mars, man.

Schlump -- Just bought that 7" + almost thirty more like it from a British Jamaican specialty website I'd never heard of before. Thanks again! Also, curses -- this money was supposed to go elsewhere (do I *really* need brakes on my pickup?)

webmailin you mike.

the rise of record clubs is a neat thing; i'm bummed to be missing out on new christina carter and islaja stuff courtesy of rootstrata, but it's still better that it's getting released with good homes to go to. some of the forthcoming social music stuff sounds great anyhow-

WAIT 'TIL I PUT ON MY ROBE: More Rare, Raw + Otherworldly African-American Gospel Double LP (basically the sequel to the Fire In My Bones comp.)

Jamaican gospel is from fucking Mars, man.

and in seven words you've neatly summarized the attitude that irritates me about mississippi releases.

seven words that shook the world

http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/25/12125-004-D7ADE904.jpg

i just wanted to post that.

And then you went ahead, and did.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3057/2367515373_515ff7a325.jpg

Amateurist -- I'm only tangentially related to the label, and that was definitely an offhanded comment that's not my finest moment but the music is very ... whatever. Yes that was not the smartest thing to say I can see that. I love this music and can't wait to find out more about it and for other people to hear it.

Mike what you said was fine .. it's the kind of offhanded talk among friends that people on ILM use all the time, and of course you just meant to convey enthusiasm ... amateurist just has something up his ass for whatever reason

ultmately i feel like:

http://www.amoeba.com/dynamic-images/blog/WestCoastAllStars.jpg

up against the wall, motherfuckers

a British Jamaican specialty website I'd never heard of before

any chance you could reveal which website?

scott give it ten years and that cover will be xeroxed

and in seven words you've neatly summarized the attitude that irritates me about mississippi releases.

― by another name (amateurist)

are we supposed to be so erudite and cosmopolitan that nothing ever takes us by surprise? or so ashamed of actually belonging to a culture that we fear voicing our sense distance from another?

Don't have much to add to this discussion, but I noticed Mississippi have done a joint reissue with Slumberland of a lost C86-era indiepoppunk classic Chin Chin - The Sound Of The Westway RIYL Shop Assistants etc.

Stirmonster -- Reggae.co.uk: still a bunch of Jamaican gospel 7"s listed with scans, info + sound samples on there now. Also a lot of other great blue beat/ dub/ what you'd expect stuff, but prices a bit beyond me.

Jamaican gospel is alive and well in Pentecostal churches all over Jamaica, Britain and America - every Sunday morning!

thanks mike!

Jamaican gospel is alive and well in Pentecostal churches all over Jamaica, Britain and America - every Sunday morning! - on Mars!

― The Clegg Effect (Tracer Hand), Monday, May 24, 2010 6:20 AM

fixed

Oh, fucking hell.

Perhaps Mike meant that gospel is an area in which Jamaicans excel, or 'come from Mars'

:)

Mike was doing a take on a line from the movie doc Heavy Metal Parking Lot, but I think he meant it in a more endearing way than the zebra-striped shirt Judas Priest loving guy who proclaimed his dislike of Madonna, by saying she "comes from Mars."

Or maybe he was quoting that Jamaican parking lot attendant in that movie short who is amazed at the metal folks wild antics. I forget.

wish we had a less negative MISSISSIPPI thread

'whiskey, you're the devil' is fuckin rad

We do, dude.

The thread for discussing the amazing Life Is A Problem comp on MISSISSIPPI records

test

$17 for Staples Singers vinyl (does Mavis or sister see any of it?)

they better!
finally got michael hurley's fatboy spring last month and man, it is really good.

I don't think it worked xxp

fatboy spring's so much fun

Firebombed!

No one was hurt, but there is significant damage and mess at Mississippi Records as a result of the arson attempt yesterday.

I'll be by to help clean up later this evening, and I'm sure they would appreciate anybody else's help as well. 💖 pic.twitter.com/N3ipsYB8nd

— Just Some Fucker (@just_somefucker) September 30, 2023

Was this random or part of a string of arsons in the area or anything?

seemingly random afaik (I live 2 hours south)

I wish this misbegotten thread was locked and this was used fwiw:

The thread for discussing the amazing Life Is A Problem comp on MISSISSIPPI records