universal fire

[bruce talbot]

My friend at SONY reports that another industry authority told him that the fire was much more catastrophic than admitted. He said that not only Impulse, but also A&M source material had gone up in smoke as well as "a lot of masters by people like Connie Boswell" (sounds like the Decca archive) and thousands of hours of video material from the 50s and 60s.

Universal will happily take the insurance money and be relieved that they no longer have to carry all that old crap that they didn't know what to do with and Accounting kept telling them to get rid of.

[Bright Moments]

ugh!

[Cliff Englewood]

Fuck.

[jazzbo]

[#@%@!

Edited August 4, 2008 by jazzbo

[zen archer]

Why would they store that stuff on a Movie Lot ?....and did they back all that stuff up ?

Edited August 4, 2008 by zen archer

[BruceH]

And some more history goes up in smoke.

[sidewinder]

Heck ! This is a bad dream..

[Dave James]

What I don't understand is why Sony is being so secretive. If this is stuff that they'd just as soon be without, then why not just own up to was lost and be done with it?

Up over and out.

[Chuck Nessa]

Not Sony.

[bruce talbot]

Why would they store that stuff on a Movie Lot ?....and did they back all that stuff up ?

I found the following on the San Francisco Chronicle website:

'.......The fire also destroyed a portion of Universal Music Group's recordings, primarily big band and jazz recordings on the Decca label and video copies of Universal movies and television shows.

Music stored in the vault also had backup copies, said Peter LoFrumento, a spokesman for Universal Music Group, now a subsidiary of Vivendi SA. It was unclear if the recordings were originals, he said.

Gardner said the company has insurance for the damage and lost business. She had no further details on the extent of the coverage or when it might be paid.

General Electric referred questions to NBC Universal.

In such cases, corporations often take short-term writedowns on losses as they await reimbursement.'

Who knows what 'backup copies' might turn out to be.

[Daniel A]

What I don't understand is why Sony is being so secretive. If this is stuff that they'd just as soon be without, then why not just own up to was lost and be done with it?

Because they don't want anyone to know that from now on, second generation tape copies will be the source for "remastered" reissues?

[paul secor]

Gardner said the company has insurance for the damage and lost business. She had no further details on the extent of the coverage or when it might be paid.

.

Even though you can't place an insurance value on things that are priceless, I'm sure that Universal has.

[AllenLowe]

DECCA!

oh god, this is really bad...

[Adam]

Hey, aren't already released CDs "back-up copies?"

[seeline]

I just did a bit of Googling and... people on the 78-L are sounding grim.

I found this post on The Fedora Lounge:

More than just Bing, unfortunately -- word on the 78-L list is that pretty much the entire Decca archives have been lost. That includes not just the best-known Decca acts like Crosby, the Andrews Sisters, Judy Garland, and their contemporaries, but also all the other master recording material owned by MCA, including the Brunswick, London, and World Transcriptions holdings. If the damage is half as bad as they say, this could be one of the worst catastrophes ever to hit pre-rock American popular music.

and hope against hope that it's not true....

[AllenLowe]

there is a ton of pre-Decca stuff that Decca owned for years and that came out sporadically on LP (of which I have most) - there was a jug band CD, and another of old 20s and 30s black bands - I have this stuff, and the sound is the most amazing of ANYTHING I have heard of that vintage (you feel like you are in the room with these guys who are recording 60-80 years ago) - it is fantastic stuff, and there was probably tons more never released, on metal masters and god-knows-what, that we will now never hear in this kind of fidelity (another incredible one is the Bunny Berigan session from the 1930s) - there were Brunswicks they put out and other stuff, who-knows-what, now we will never know - to hear some of this stuff is to ride in a time machine. But now its over and gone - we will never get the unreleased stuff, as a matter of fact they probably didn't even know what they had - not to mention some glorious Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson, King Oliver, Joe Turner, Mildred Bailey, Chick Webb, Stuff Smith, Duke Ellington - a lot of which was put out only in horrible stereo with reverb - so save whatever LPs you have. It's like finding cave paintings that are then destroyed by a flood -

[JSngry]

Not to diminish the scope or the seriousness of this loss, but isn't it a typically human conceit to think that everything will last forever, even though reality clearly & unambiguously shows otherwise?

[AllenLowe]

not worried about forever - just maybe 80 years -

[RDK]

there is a ton of pre-Decca stuff that Decca owned for years and that came out sporadically on LP (of which I have most) - there was a jug band CD, and another of old 20s and 30s black bands - I have this stuff, and the sound is the most amazing of ANYTHING I have heard of that vintage (you feel like you are in the room with these guys who are recording 60-80 years ago) - it is fantastic stuff, and there was probably tons more never released, on metal masters and god-knows-what, that we will now never hear in this kind of fidelity (another incredible one is the Bunny Berigan session from the 1930s) - there were Brunswicks they put out and other stuff, who-knows-what, now we will never know - to hear some of this stuff is to ride in a time machine. But now its over and gone - we will never get the unreleased stuff, as a matter of fact they probably didn't even know what they had - not to mention some glorious Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson, King Oliver, Joe Turner, Mildred Bailey, Chick Webb, Stuff Smith, Duke Ellington - a lot of which was put out only in horrible stereo with reverb - so save whatever LPs you have. It's like finding cave paintings that are then destroyed by a flood -

Not that I wish to diminish the seriousness either - if it, in fact, is true - but what were the odds any of this would have been released anyway? We're at the tail end of the CD reissue boom, the future of digital distribution is still questionable (at least in regards "ancient" archive stuff that wasn't fit to be released on CD in the first place), the congloms are buying up more labels than they know what to do with already...

[RDK]

I meant to add that much of this stuff would probably be better off in the public domain or in the hands of the "illegal" reissue labels.

[AllenLowe]

probably right, but as long as it EXISTED there was always the chance somebody would get in the vault and either put it out or "liberate" it, as we used to say - look, there's tons of stuff in the British museum that you or I will never see, but it is THERE for scholars or anyone who wants to know about this stuff - there should be preservationist laws for recordings, like there are for buildings -

Edited August 5, 2008 by AllenLowe

[bruce talbot]

I just did a bit of Googling and... people on the 78-L are sounding grim.

I found this post on The Fedora Lounge:

More than just Bing, unfortunately -- word on the 78-L list is that pretty much the entire Decca archives have been lost. That includes not just the best-known Decca acts like Crosby, the Andrews Sisters, Judy Garland, and their contemporaries, but also all the other master recording material owned by MCA, including the Brunswick, London, and World Transcriptions holdings. If the damage is half as bad as they say, this could be one of the worst catastrophes ever to hit pre-rock American popular music.

and hope against hope that it's not true....

this was on the 78L list:

Unfortunately, yes. I visited that vault with Steven two years ago, and

with his authority was able to "check out," lending-library style, about ten

metal parts. There was a corner of the building with metal racks that contained

hundreds and hundreds of them in a lot of cardboard boxes marked "Hoffman."

That would be Steve Hoffman, who worked for MCA in the late '70s and early '80s,

producing LP reissues of hot stuff. Steve cherrypicked the vast archive of

Decca metals, pulling every Gennett, Vocalion and even Paramount mother or

stamper he could find. He took these home to transfer, and then KEPT them! MCA

busted him for possession - I don't know his punishment for this "crime" - and

returned it all to the vault. The metals were never re-intergrated into the

files, and in 2006, were in exactly the same state - packed willy-nilly in

their cardboard boxes - as when they were repossessed. This should tell you how

much MCA really cared about them. They would have been a lot better off in

Hoffman's house.

Anyway, with Steven's help, I took home and transferred the parts for "West

End Blues" by Zach Whyte's Chocolate Beau Brummels; two sides by Pine Top

Smith, including an unissued take of "Now I Ain't Got Nothin' at All" and eight

others. I almost but for some &(^%$( reason DIDN'T take the two Gennett sides

by Carmichael's Collegians, "Walkin' the Dog" and "March of the Hoodlums." I

can still see them leaning against the box where I left them. I had reason to

hope that Steven and I - or Steven alone - could return there on a regular

basis, but for reasons he never made entirely clear, he wouldn't and we didn't.

Now, as far as we know, all that metal is SLAG. Along with all the acetates

and tapes that I presume were also still there.

[bruce talbot]

I just did a bit of Googling and... people on the 78-L are sounding grim.

I found this post on The Fedora Lounge:

More than just Bing, unfortunately -- word on the 78-L list is that pretty much the entire Decca archives have been lost. That includes not just the best-known Decca acts like Crosby, the Andrews Sisters, Judy Garland, and their contemporaries, but also all the other master recording material owned by MCA, including the Brunswick, London, and World Transcriptions holdings. If the damage is half as bad as they say, this could be one of the worst catastrophes ever to hit pre-rock American popular music.

and hope against hope that it's not true....

this was on the 78L list:

Unfortunately, yes. I visited that vault with Steven two years ago, and

with his authority was able to "check out," lending-library style, about ten

metal parts. There was a corner of the building with metal racks that contained

hundreds and hundreds of them in a lot of cardboard boxes marked "Hoffman."

That would be Steve Hoffman, who worked for MCA in the late '70s and early '80s,

producing LP reissues of hot stuff. Steve cherrypicked the vast archive of

Decca metals, pulling every Gennett, Vocalion and even Paramount mother or

stamper he could find. He took these home to transfer, and then KEPT them! MCA

busted him for possession - I don't know his punishment for this "crime" - and

returned it all to the vault. The metals were never re-intergrated into the

files, and in 2006, were in exactly the same state - packed willy-nilly in

their cardboard boxes - as when they were repossessed. This should tell you how

much MCA really cared about them. They would have been a lot better off in

Hoffman's house.

Anyway, with Steven's help, I took home and transferred the parts for "West

End Blues" by Zach Whyte's Chocolate Beau Brummels; two sides by Pine Top

Smith, including an unissued take of "Now I Ain't Got Nothin' at All" and eight

others. I almost but for some &(^%$( reason DIDN'T take the two Gennett sides

by Carmichael's Collegians, "Walkin' the Dog" and "March of the Hoodlums." I

can still see them leaning against the box where I left them. I had reason to

hope that Steven and I - or Steven alone - could return there on a regular

basis, but for reasons he never made entirely clear, he wouldn't and we didn't.

Now, as far as we know, all that metal is SLAG. Along with all the acetates

and tapes that I presume were also still there.

[Neal Pomea]

This is bad news for the preservation of Cajun music and culture as well. The Decca recordings by Joseph and Cleoma Falcon in the 1930s are some of the most cherished.

[AllenLowe]

"Anyway, with Steven's help, I took home and transferred the parts for "West

End Blues" by Zach Whyte's Chocolate Beau Brummels; two sides by Pine Top

Smith, including an unissued take of "Now I Ain't Got Nothin' at All" and eight

others. I almost but for some &(^%$( reason DIDN'T take the two Gennett sides

by Carmichael's Collegians, "Walkin' the Dog" and "March of the Hoodlums." I

can still see them leaning against the box where I left them. I had reason to

hope that Steven and I - or Steven alone - could return there on a regular

basis, but for reasons he never made entirely clear, he wouldn't and we didn't"

Bruce: just fyi, as I recall (and I would have to go through my LPs to confirm) at least these particular cuts did come out on Decca LPs, in excellent mono sound - some good news, than -

Edited August 5, 2008 by AllenLowe