| singles in bargain bins in 1965 (I was a premature, a very early vinyl junkie). I've seen a lot of the celebrities live in the late 60s and early 70s (Hendrix, Barret) so therefore I know a bit about how the 60s really have been (musically Shangri-La but otherwise a bloody tough time for us guys who didn't fit in with the bourgeoisie). I'm still drumming and writing songs now and then but my last steady band were The Prairie Magoos (a Metabolismus side project) some 4 years ago. As I'm working as a translator and author of books and articles on jazz and "rock" (oh, how I hate that word) I was chosen to write the liner notes for our vinyl stuff and more often than not I have to suck something out of my thumb, as really reliable information is hard to come by. I try to contact the original bands, whenever possible and had some great reactions in some cases, but mostly there's no reply or you can't even find out who to contact. Initially, we intended to do everything super-legally but soon found out that it would take years to finish even one volume. It's hard archaeological work anyway, and you're lucky if you break even (vinyl prices are horrendous these days) with an edition of 500 copies. Counting all the cash you spend on buying expensive stuff in auctions you lose a lot of money but even without that you don't make any. Admittedly, we know a lot more now than we did back in '92 and we'd do a lot of things differently today. I hate to be regarded as some kind of a bootlegger while I see myself as one of the |
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