Newly discovered ads featuring Zappa and The Mothers of Invention from the LA Free Press. Some, if not all of these, were designed by Zappa in his spindly lettered, collage style. I’ve featured some of these before but they are generally better quality and some crazy person has gone through all the magazines at the link above, scanning the Zappa/Mothers appearances.
I’ll be at the Leicester Print Workshop this weekend, helping Kvist Studio launch her new Fantasy 45’s screen and riso prints as well as new stationary, Buchla and Galt Toys-inspired risos. These are now online in her shop.
There will be loads of other artists selling and exhibiting with an open evening on Friday to start the weekend. Details on the last image. Come down and say hello!
Founded by Tony Prince and named after his radio show, Disco Mix Club began releasing tapes in 1983 to provide a promo service for DJs in the UK. Subscribers were vetted to make sure they were practising pro or semi-pro DJs and a subscription service provided promotional tapes and vinyl (and later CDs) of upfront dance music, megamixes and remixes by a cache of DJs working with the club. This cassette isn’t listed on Discogs and dates from just before any that are there (the first is February 1983), sounding more like a promo for the company at times, it could well be the first DMC tape or certainly one of the first. Initially the organisation would send out between two and four cassettes a month before vinyl versions arrived mid-1984.
Side 1
Tony Prince intro and interjections over Shalamar Megamix 1 by Alan Coulthard – 11.27 mins
Love the way he pronounces ‘genuinity’ (is that even a word?) and the address of DMC near the end.
The unexpurgated Shalamar mix is available on the February 1983 DMC tape
Excerpts from the K-Tel’s ‘Disco Dancer’ album interspersed with very of their time DMC jingles in between sections highlighting mix crossover points between tracks – 3.21 mins
Tracks included:
Evelyn King – Love Come Down
Rockers Revenge – Walking On Sunshine
Raw Silk – Do It To The Music
David Christie – Saddle Up (ooof!)
Shakatak – Easier Said Than Done
Imagination – Just An Illusion
The Sugarhill Gang – The Lover In You
Daryl Hall & John Oates – I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do)
The K-Tel album in question is this one, again, mixed by Alan ‘The Judge’ Coulthard (due to his training in law). One of the founding DJs of Disco Mix Club, Alan provided many mixes for the company from 1982-86 before he parted company with them, returning in 1992. He sadly passed away in 2021.
DMC advert inc. Indeep – Last Night A DJ Saved My Life – 0.42 mins
Excerpts from 22 forthcoming ‘disco’ releases introduced by Tony Prince
Each preview runs for approximately 3 minutes before Prince cuts in to introduce the next one and information usually includes the label and release date. Most are slated for January or February of 1983 hence my guess at the date of this tape as none exists on the cover although I’d also guess this was recorded in late 1982 making it one of the first DMC tapes.
Tracks:
Michael Jackson – Billie Jean (just the first of many singles from Thriller)
Ray Parker – Bad Boy (no hit here for Ray but Ghostbusters was only 2 years away)
Syl Johnson – Ms. Fine Brown Frame
Aretha Franklin – Love Me Tonight
Thompson Twins – Love On Your Side (their first big breakthrough pop hit)
David Jospeh – You Can’t Hide Your Love
The Peech Boys – Do Something Special (future classic)
Set The Tone – Dance Sucker (obscure post punk/ electro funk from Glasgow)
Side 2:
The previews continue…
Stevie Wonder – Frontline
Bobby M – Lets’ Stay Together (The Al Green classic later covered by Tina Turner to great effect)
The Dazz Band – Let It Whip
Icehouse – Hey Little Girl (minor hit here that’s stood the test of time)
Melba Moore – Mind Up Tonight
Kajagoogoo – Too Shy (which of course ended up going to No.1)
Bumble & The Bees – My Life
Level 42 – The Chinese Way (another huge hit to be)
Janet Jackson – Come Give Your Love To Me (no hit here but her time would come)
Howard Johnson – Say You Wanna
Stone – Girl I Like The Way You Move (absolute monster electro funk, check the B side Dub mix for some serious tweaking electro – sampled by many later)
Art School & The Mighty Motor Gang – Emotion Explosion
Jerome Jasper – I’ll Do Anything For You
Rockers Revenge – The Harder They Come (another cover but no follow up hit here guys)
I’ve just finished Matthew Worley‘s excellent Zerox Machine book about UK fanzines from punk into the late 80’s. It’s opened up a hidden world and had me going down several rabbit holes online.
Above – Irish fanzine Blast #4 with a Savage Pencil cover, below the three covers of Juniper Beri Beri, a Scottish fanzine by Annabel, Peter McArthur, Jill Bryson and Stephen from The Pastels.
Hand-painted cover of Jungleland #9 – produced by Mike Scott of the Waterboys
A collage page from Adventures In Reality – issue G by Alan Rider
An Ian Wright illustration for 80s magazine The Catalogue
It’s been a vinyl kind of weekend, starting on Friday with a visit to Deptford where the hardcore diggers descended on new shop Perfect Lives for their opening. Run by Danny and Bruno, it’s a countercultural wonderland of books, magazines, fanzines and records, the likes of you which rarely see or have never seen before. It’s a small spot at 6a Florence Road, London, SE14 6TW and they’re open Wednesday to Sunday, not cheap but you don’t see some of this stuff every day unless it’s in a museum or a book.
Deptford’s really becoming a spot now with Upside Down Records on the high street and new vinyl listening bar, Jazu down the other end. In the arches on Resolution Way across from the train station you have The Shop which sells music gear and records and further up, the Villages bar where we went to hear Huw from Mr Bongos play a Halloween-themed set.
Saturday was the Groovy Record Fayre at the Mildmay Club on Newington Green for as much of a social catch up with a million friends as a dig for the black crack. Despite finding a few bits and pieces I actually managed to leave a clutch of 45s behind at the end because I was nattering.
Sunday was a day of rest but Rich Headland‘s Record Shop Stories has just published the jaunt to the Book & Record Bar in West Norwood that we took a few weeks back. Read it here, give Rich’s substack a follow and pay the shop a visit if this piece piques your interest.
It’s not all records around here though, next week is all about light shows and painting one of my son’s bedroom, then the print fair in Leicester at the Print Workshop next weekend.
It’s been a while coming but I’ve finally had some time to dive into the pile of cassettes I got at Revolution Records in Penge this summer. Just to refresh your memory; I found a stash of tapes that obviously came from someone who worked in the dance music industry in the 80s and 90s and the next round of posts will be my attempts at deciphering what’s on them. Most have little or no info on them but now we have Discogs and Shazam so finding out about their contents is a little easier than back in the day.
This first tape is simply entitled ‘Megamixers No.1 / No.2’, recorded on a TDK tape and most likely dates from 1986. It’s essentially two DJ mixes but there’s more to it than that. I’m putting these up on my Mixcloud Select subscription page so if you’d like to hear then sign up for £3 p/m for access including over 200 archive mixes from the Solid Steel days.
Side 1
Up until the Art of Noise track this mix is the 1983 Disconet Top Tune Medley from Vo.6 Program 9 – mixed by John Matarazzo and Mike Arato. Disconet was an American DJ pool series of albums with hot promo tracks and exclusive remixes or megamixes similar to the UK’s Disco Mix Club.
I’m guessing whoever made this tape had that record and added their own extras onto the end.
After Thomas Dolby you’ll notice that the pace of blends slows somewhat and the tracks are cut into each other rather than beat mixed, there was also a jump in volume when AON was introduced which I’ve levelled out here. Both Trouble Funk tracks are intercut back and forth before introducing the Beastie Boys’ ‘Hold It Now, Hit It’ (which samples a piece of ‘Drop The Bomb’ for its chorus – there’s the connection) and a big drop in tempo. There’s an extended section at the end where it sounds like the DJ is playing with two copies of the instrumental for a bit after the main song finishes and then we get an album cut by Lovebug Starski. This plays in full and, after a pause, the mix reconvenes in the middle of a couple of hip hop tracks, probably a previous set that was taped over.
Tracklist:
Shannon – Let The Music Play intro
Men Without Hats – The Safety Dance
S.O.S. Band – Just Be Good To Me
Yazoo – State Farm (Extended Version)
Herbie Hancock – Rockit
Madonna – Holiday
Michael Jackson – Billie Jean
Freez – AEIOU
Shannon – Let The Music Play (12” version)
Lime – Angel Eyes (remix)
Irene Cara – Flashdance… What A Feeling (Extended remix)
Eurythmics – Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)
Thomas Dolby – She Blinded Me With Science (Extended Version)
Art of Noise – Legs (Inside Leg Mix)
Trouble Funk – Drop The Bomb
Trouble Funk – Pump Me Up
Beastie Boys – Hold It Now, Hit It
Beastie Boys – Hold It Now, Hit It (Instrumental)
Lovebug Starski – Say What You Wanna Say
Salt ’n Pepa – The Showstopper
Roxanne Shante – The Def Fresh Crew (cuts off near the end)
Side 2
This side sounds like it was a mix by the DJ rather than a pre-recorded megamix – sadly (or thankfully) it cuts off in the middle to make way for three Beastie Boys and Run DMC demos
Tracklist:
Rochelle – My Magic Man (Magic Mix)
(an unknown house track is mixing in near the end but then abruptly cuts off early)
Beastie Boys – Time To Get Ill (demo version)
Run DMC – Slow & Low (demo version)
Beastie Boys – I’m Down (demo version)
At this point the tape cuts into two Beastie Boys demos from Licensed to Ill – the acoustic version of ‘I’m Down’ (a cut that never made it onto the album) and a version of ‘Time To Get Ill’ – that are different to any of the other demos on the web that I could find, certainly better quality. Also inbetween the two is a hissy recording of Run DMC’s original demo of ‘Slow & Low’ which they originally wrote and the Beasties would later record. I ran these by my friend Noah Uman in the US who has an amazing archive of hip hop and a ton of knowledge and he came back with, “The song I’m Down was meant for Licensed To Ill but the Beatles blocked it, I’m pretty sure it showed up semi commercially on a CMJ release (College Music Journal) in 1986.”
This might be the more rock guitar-orientated version that’s out there on the web. The Run DMC recording would later surface in much better quality on an expanded version of King of Rock but I’ve tried to clean it up here as best I can, the tape sounds like it’s recorded through a sock.
About the Run DMC demo Noah said, “The Slow And Low demo of Run DMC doing it, I actually uncovered that from a DNU tape (do not use), whenever I saw that written on tapes I knew we had to check it haha…After I had it released on the reissue it started popping up on bootlegs, one of my few proud record industry moments!”
I’m guessing that whoever had access to these tracks had to quickly find a tape to record them onto from another industry source, hence the random inclusion in the middle of a side.
(The mix reconvenes in the middle of an unknown house track before…)
Kenny ‘Jammin’ Jason – Jam Tracks
Farley ‘Jackmaster’ Funk – Jack The Bass
Unknown – (more Jam Tracks?)
Mantronix – Hardcore Hip Hop
And that’s it, a snapshot in time from the early to mid 80s. Disco mix classics on side 1 with golden era hip hop cuts and a snatch of early house music on side 2 with some rap history interjected randomly in the middle. More soon, I’ll try to get them out on a weekly basis on a Friday morning as before and if anyone is interested in the actual tapes, they’re for sale if you want to make an offer (although this one is already sold).
Coming out of the Summer months and into Autumn there’s a slow trickle of new releases as we ramp up towards Xmas. Featured across the top are three Castles In Space acts including the Field Lines Cartographer performance at the label’s Levitation festival last month that I was was lucky enough to witness (possibly from just behind where this photo was taken actually as he was on after Graham Dunning and I).
I have to register an interest in the middle and middle left releases as I designed both covers; left is As One‘s new album (see previous post) and middle is Dave Barbarossa’s new venture, Third House and their Inside Outisde EP – out Nov 1st!. To their right is Fracture‘s SLOW860 – an ambient take on his 0860 pirate radio project, imagine the KLF‘s Chill Out recorded in Hackney rather than Memphis. So many sleeves with no titles on them this month, bottom left is Valentina Magaletti and Nidia‘s collaboration and far right is the new Floating Points on Ninja Tune. Tim Exile is BACK after his recent troubles (cancer, a failing business and newborn twins to look after) and has made an EP from his hospital bed as a thankyou to everyone who contributed to the fundraiser set up by his family. Good to hear he’s on the mend.
Oh and I probably should mention that there is NO Bandcamp Friday on the 1st but the platform is still your best bet for putting the largest slice of revenue into the hands of the artist and labels short of going to their shows or buying merch direct from them.
My latest ROVR radio show featuring some of these was aired on Friday Oct 25th and should be available to listen back to now via the ROVR live app APPLE or ANDROID
There’s obviously something about the word, ‘groove’ that ticks several boxes for me. My favourite record fair of the year is this Saturday, The Groovy Record Fayre at the Mildmay Club on Newington Green. The record fair is in the day until about 5-6pm then a pub quiz after 7pm followed by a party until 1am – all FREE!
Then on November 19th it’s the UK launch of the Dust & Grooves vol.2 at the BBE Store in Hackney – could this be the line up of the year? Also FREE but you have to RSVP here
Here’s a look at the artwork I made for As One‘s new album, ‘Requiem’ (I think this is the third album I’ve designed for them now). As One is now Kirk Degiorgio and Catherine Siofra Prendergast and the duo have created eight new tracks for this album which you can pre-order and preview here. The vinyl comes in the usual black and coloured variants and is out on December 6th.
Listen back at https://www.rovr.live/show/3723
Download the app to get archive access. APPLE or ANDROID
Show #8 Oct 2024
DJ Food – Electrik Collage #3
Paul Cousins – Floating Arithmetic
Pete Sasqwax Beat Cult – Initiation Ritual – Part 14
Beautify Junkyards – Raridade de Contrastes
Calibro 35 – Nautilus
Lo Five – Unbecoming You
Listening Center – The Death Of Group D Meter
Paul Cousins – Dismantling The Millieu
DJ Food – Electrik Collage #37
LL Cool J – Murdergram Deux (feat. Eminem)
The Gaslamp Killer with Jason Wool – Hiccups
Listening Center – Cold Panorama
Elestre – Oiseau Tempête
Pete Sasqwax Beat Cult – Initiation Ritual Part 05
Nídia & Valentina – Andiamo
Dave Lombardo – Initiatory Madness
DJ Food – Electrik Collage #2
LL Cool J – Praise Him (feat. Nas)
Move 78 – The Emperor’s New Jazz
Roland Shaw & His Orchestra – Peter Gunn
Beautify Junkyards – Black Cape
Floating Points – Afflecks Palace
Healing Force Project – Mechanical Concept in the Mental Fluid
Pittsburgh Track Authority – Allegheny Acid 01
Mach – Disco Brake
Various – Fear Medley
DJ Food – Electrik Collage #19
Dave Lombardo – Maunder in Liminality
Nídia & Valentina – Nasty
Jem Stone – Serendipity Blues
John Lennon – Seed (Mind Games Meditation Mix)
Elestre – L Abysse
Communication Arts, 1966
I think this is the back cover of Morals ’68
A book of experimental music scores, essays and notations – view it on the Internet Archive
Print magazine, US, 1961
Robert Lockhart has nearly a hundred Discogs entries for his design work and could turn his hand to many different styles. Above is his interior gatefold for Gene Harris of the Three Sounds LP from 1971 which displays a fine grasp of the airbrush as well as collage. Below, his Bloodrock sleeve mixes S. Clay Wilson with Milton Glaser and comes up with something in the middle.
Above’s Bob Seger LP back cover displays more affection for the Milton Glaser style that was so popular back in the early 70s and below Lockhart whips up a fine collage for the front and back of Quintet’s ‘Future Tense’ LP, then channeling Michael English/Richard Hamilton for the cover of Steely Dan’s ‘Can’t Buy A Thrill’.
I’ve shown this before; Ravi Shankar goes psychedelic (for the cover at least) and below that an oddity of the Pablo Light Show providing visuals for a ‘Heavy Organ’ recital of Bach in San Francisco with cover illustrations very reminiscent of Victor Moscoso.
Whilst looking for Gene Harris records I came upon this series of Blue Note sleeves by designer, Bob Cato. I’d seen a few of these over the years but didn’t realise how many of them there were. Cato was an art director, designer, painter and photographer for many major US labels who designed over 550 sleeves, with many of them becoming classics. These torn collage close-ups of halftone prints are more punk than jazz but originated in the mid seventies, the oversaturated colours bring to mind Pop Art rather than the classic Reid Miles era of the label.
I was in TenPinRecords in Purley the other day and the owner, Lisa, had this beautiful 13th Floor Elevators 7″ on the counter which I had to take a photo of. It’s a bootleg from 1978 of ‘You Really Got Me’ and don’t all jump at once, that £1.50 price sticker was the original, it’s nearer £50 these days. In a bid to find out more about it, including the cover artist (Michael Beal) I went down the Discogs rabbit hole and found a few more nice 13th Floor sleeve designs, not least this great 7″ picture sleeve for ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me’ (front and back shown below).
On the reissue front there’s this book cover from the Sign of the 3 Eyed Men compilation, not sure the designer here
Today is release day for my good friend Eilon Paz‘s monster of a book Dust & Grooves vol.2!
A decade after the first volume and after over two years of tireless work and globetrotting, he presents this follow up tome, clocking in at 650 pages. It charts the world of record collecting in all its myriad forms through Eilon’s incredible photography (this man cannot take a bad photo).
I’m yet to see the finished book but being asked to contribute and come along on some of his adventures was the stuff of dreams. From interviewing Alex Paterson about the contents of his live DJ boxes to navigating the tidal wave of Andy Votel‘s collection to picking Kid Koala‘s brains about his methods to visiting Peel Acres and hearing vinyl hoarding stories you wouldn’t believe from Tom Ravenscroft.
The latter three are all in the book and the Alex Paterson interview is on the Dust & Grooves website in full. Still to come: long-form interviews with Zoe Luckycat Baxter, DJ Format and Trevor Jackson – see some behind the scenes photos here.
You can buy the book right now as well as a revamped volume 1 and there’s still the companion Portable turntables book to come!
Congratulations Eilon – hardest working photographer I know, what an incredible thing you’ve created.
The monthly round up: Mostly new music here, the centre image is the new Gaslamp Killer LP, to it’s left is the new Paul Cousins album ‘Oxide Manifesto’ on Castles In Space and below it, Benedict Drew‘s new one on Thanet Tape Centre, ‘Tone Works (for film and video)’. Dave Lombardo‘s ‘Rites of Percussion’ is a killer drum album from the Slayer/Fantomas legend that actually came out over a year ago but I only just discovered and it’s always nice to see a new Space Oddities collection, this time focussing on Bernard Fevre aka Black Devil Disco Club. Not pictured here (because they’re not on Bandcamp) but well worth tracking down are Beautify Junkyards‘ ‘Nova’ on Ghost Box and LL Cool J‘s amazing return on ‘The Force’, produced by Q-Tip. Also check out Skylab International‘s cover of Hot Chocolate‘s ‘Emma’ from the list below, it’s a treat. It’s also Bandcamp Friday at the end of this week, so fill your baskets in readiness…
My latest ROVR radio show featuring some of these was aired on Friday Sept 27th and should be available to listen back to now via the ROVR live app APPLE or ANDROID
Unbelievable work on this new video for Sculpture‘s ‘Cross Processor’ by Reuben Sutherland. High resolution needed and even then the detail in this is mind boggling. One of the album’s of the year packaging wise, ‘Max Ax’ comes as 2x 10″ zoetrope picture discs in a gatefold sleeve. Find a copy here
Also this month I’ve been bowled over by the new LL Cool J album, ‘The Force’, produced entirely by Q-Tip, that wasn’t something I’d expected to happen in 2024. There’s so much great music coming out at the moment including several releases that I couldn’t fit in here or didn’t arrive through the letterbox in time for inclusion, there’s always next month though.
Listen back at https://www.rovr.live/show/3332
Download the app to get archive access. APPLE or ANDROID
Show #7 Sept 2024
DJ Food – Electrik Collage #9
LL Cool J – Black Code Suite (feat. Sona Jobarteh)
Bugseed – ash
Elestre – Cosmogramme
Dr Rubberfunk – Shadows Lengthen Into Darkness
Pete Sasqwax Beat Cult – Initiation Ritual Part 02
Lo Five – Unbecoming You
The New Library Sound – Coastal Area
Paul Cousins – Blueprint
DJ Food – Electrik Collage #30
LL Cool J – Basquiat Energy
Elestre – Whizz & Fuzz
Dr Rubberfunk – Slowly, Surely
The New Library Sound – Shipwreck pt.2
Larry Manteca – Securing the Scene
Sculpture – Wave Scroll
AK + MF + UR – E2 E4 303
DJ Food – Electrik Collage #14
The Gaslamp Killer & Jason Wool – Chaos in the Brain
Floating Points – Ocotillo
Healing Force Project – Point Of Oscillation
A’Bear – Glammy Racket
Twilight Sequence – Birds in General- and the Rook
Loula Yorke – Anecdoche
The Soundcarriers – Already Over
DJ Food – Electrik Collage #38
James Adrian Brown – Limbic System
Stone Anthem – In The Forest
Field Lines Cartographer – Enceladus Shine
Jo Johnson – It just is the love it feels
Here’s the new Robert Leiner album I designed for De:tuned which also happens to be their 50th release!
Up for pre-order now and released on Nov 8th on black or bottle green vinyl.
Here’s an audio preview of the whole album
OK, so here’s a little story I’d like to tell as it’s led to some frustration over recent months.
*UPDATE – if you read this before, scroll to the bottom
Readers of this blog will be very familiar with my weekly Mixcloud Select posts each Friday where I digitally encoded a cassette from my archive of old Solid Steel radio shows. This lockdown project ended up lasting four years and led to over 200 sets being posted online for a monthly subscription, ending earlier this year when the cassettes, DATs and CDRs were at last exhausted. My mix archive was digitized at last, hooray! There are some of them above, the red stickers denote ‘done’.
But what to do with the old media filling up my drawers? I put the word out that if anyone wanted to make me an offer for the original tapes or discs then I’d rather they go to a fan than landfill. The first person to ask was Greg from Germany, we struck a deal for 55 cassettes and I duly boxed them up and off they went this summer via courier to Germany. There they are below, two layers tucked into a well- packed and sealed box.
A few weeks later and Greg still hadn’t received the package, tracking was consulted and it seems it never made it to DPD’s processing centre after it was picked up from my doorstep by the courier, Transglobal Express, who acted as a broker in the process. Never even made it out of the UK. After contacting them and a lot of back and forth for a few weeks they agreed that they had lost the package and reimbursed me for the amount Greg had paid me as the value of the contents. I in turn repaid Greg so we were quits, I’d lost some money on postage costs and I had no tapes – not the end of the world but annoying. I should add, I’ve used TE for years and this has never happened and I’ve never had a problem with them.
Fast forward to last Friday when someone contacted me via Facebook asking for info on this tape that he’d found pictured on my blog
I told him the tale above and he replied, “I buy from an auction site that deals with lost parcels and returns” adding that, “They are mixed up in a lot with some other rare dvd’s that I wanted but this seems important to you so I’ll just send you the link”.
Well, that’s where the parcel went then, no disputing that those are my tapes. After a further bit of chat the informant agree they wouldn’t stand in the way of me trying to get my tapes back so wouldn’t bid on the lot. Weirdly Facebook would then not let me message them anymore and a look at his profile reveals only two photos and no posts – maybe they’d blocked me or something? Weird, anyway…
I contacted the auction house, bearing in mind that this is a Friday night and their office hours are Mon to Fri and the auction ends Sunday, saying that this was my property, offering proof, dates, photos etc. No reply of course, I’ll be ringing them Monday.
So, against my better judgement, I put in a cursory bid for the lot on Sunday but was outbid and it eventually went for £60. This would have incurred a further 50% buyers premium, VAT and delivery charges, at least £90 to get my own property back, fuck that.
Here’s the final lot URL, not sure how long it’ll be up but I can’t see or message the winner in any way. Who are these John Pye Auctions? How did they get my parcel? A parcel I should add with a return address on it. Isn’t it illegal to sell other people’s post? Apparently not it seems. Lost or not, it’s certainly illegal to open someone else’s post without consent. A look at the rest of the auctions reveals all sorts of items including a lot of electrical goods and even some brand new vinyl (box loads of Taylor Swift albums anyone?). This all looks dodgy as hell so I’m not expecting much comeback but how is this legal?
I’m putting this out there in the hope that whoever got them will do some research, see this and contact me so I can get my stolen property back. If anyone sees these tapes for sale elsewhere can they please get in touch because this is bullshit.
UPDATE:
So, what’s happend since I posted this? Sunday I lost the auction to someone else, Monday I rang John Pye Auctions and explained my predicament to a very helpful member of staff who advised me to put a paper trail together proving I was the original owner. She also stopped any further movement on the auction, and I submitted my evidence the same afternoon. Shortly after I’d posted my story I was also contacted by a very helpful gent named James who was also in the auction business and offered to speak to John Pye personally to outline the case. Within two days and a couple more phone calls from the auction house I was informed that they would be sending the tapes back and paying postage. And here they are, I have to say a big thanks to James, John Pye (who were very professional in all of this) and everyone who messaged or commented. Now I just need to find a reputable courier to send them to Greg in Germany…
PS: If you’re new here and wondering about the contents of all these, it’s all on my Mixcloud – 200 uploads, all tracklisted and notated, 4 years of work, you just need to subscribe for access
https://www.mixcloud.com/strictlykev/
