Putting the Bootleg In

I'm usually a fairly chilled out person, but today, I'm angry. Why? Because I've been taken for a ride. Played like a fool. Have been told bare-faced lies. I acted in good faith when I was researching that recent piece on bootlegs. I let the shops that were selling them have their say. One of the owners hung up on me -  thanks Piccadilly, that guarantees I'll never buy a single item from you again, what a great piece of advertising for your shop. However, I feel much angrier with Phonica. Its boss, Simon Rigg, was decent enough to take the time to talk to me, to reassure me as a customer (that's where I bought the records) and as a journalist that his store had made a genuine, honest mistake. He gave me some interesting insights, but more importatntly he promised me that Phonica would no longer sell or stock these dodgy products. Naively, I believed him. I assumed that he was a music lover first and a businessman second and that he would act in good faith. That was nearly two months ago. I was keen to see if people liked the piece, so the other day, I checked the comments section on RA. I was really flattered by some of the responses, but then someone posted that Phonica was still selling the records. If you follow the links, you can see clearly that they are still for sale and worse still, the poster claimed that the shop had actually gone and re-stocked the bootlegs. What does this say about Phonica? Given the opportunity to come clean and send the bootlegs back to the distributor who supplied them, they seem perfectly happy to lie to me about their plans, appear to be unfazed that there is an article on one of the biggest electronic music websites that points out that they were selling dodgy stock, and despite the possibility for all the bad, negative publicity that it could generate, they proceed to sell and stock the bootlegs. One of the people who contributed to the piece said that in such a small scene, you can live or die by your reputation. As far as I'm concerned, Phonica's actions (or lack of actions) means that they are dead to me. I will never shop with them again, I advise anyone I know not to shop with them and I urge anyone reading this site not to shop with them. Of course, in the interests of fair and balanced journalism, it is possible that there is a legitimate explanation for all of this, and if there is, I'd love to hear from Simon Rigg, either here or on RA's forum where the claims were made. Maybe I'm being naive, but surely Phonica wouldn't try to fool me for a third time.... would they?

Comments

[Z]

I don't find this surprising about Phonica, but I am surprised that you believed them. Whether they truly want to stock the products or not, they are...and it's obviously for money. Record shops obviously aren't gold mines, so I view this as a stint of despair.

[oliver]

i was recently offered some of the 12"s you mentioned in your article for our store and had i not read the piece would definitely have brought them in. thanks for the informative article.

[tom/pipecock]

repost from a comment i made on ISM:

"i have to say that in a way, shops stocking boots is a blessing. then you know when buying a copy to be on the lookout! imagine if you didnt know, the kind of havoc one could run into on ebay would be insanity. youd be paying top dollar for something worthless.

[Manny Z]

Although I've probably only bought around five bootlegs in my life, I must confess that I bought two of these recent bootlegs from Phonica, after reading your original post.

The Zsa Zsa La Boum record is one I've wanted since it originally came out (but either never saw it or found it too expensive). And I also bought the Risque III record as I had until then not known who the track was by, so it was a nice discovery.

But the thing is, I knew they were probably bootlegs even before I went into the shop... I just had a feeling about it based on the way it was pressed, what the tracks were, and the price.

I've always been pretty anti-bootlegs... on my label I've released a John Davis compilation of tracks from 1984 and I sent John an advance before release. This is the only way I'd ever release old tracks.

It still surprises me how many labels rip their artists off. Even records that are officially licenced may never pay the artist, so there ends up being no difference between "official" and bootleg... in fact that's probably worse because the label has been dishonest with the artist.

It's also worth remembering the following point to get things in perspective: the obvious problem with bootlegs is that the original artist doesn't get any of the money... but when you buy an original pressing on eBay or discogs.com the artist doesn't get any of that either. Sometimes the seller of the record makes a killing (and there are a few eBay sellers and guys at record fairs who I regularly buy from who I know I've probably given several hundred pounds to).

This isn't the same as the artist getting ripped off... but the money definately isn't going to the rightful place.

The sad thing is that a lot of these old house/techno/electro artists have been getting ripped off since day one. Ed DMX of Breakin Records told me that when he licenced Hip Hop Be Bop (Don't Stop) from Man Parrish and sent him a royalty cheque, Parrish told him that that was the first royalty cheque he had ever received in his entire life.

As for me buying bootlegs from Phonica... well, kharma gave me what I deserved... my Risque III record skips.

[qtel]

Course there are pro's and con's. But for me without bootlegs, copies and associated mp3 samples, I don't have to get through the front door of a wanker with a record collection to have some idea of whats been happening. Cheers to the musicians and the bootleggers.

[gmos]

you can get the Risque III track Essence Of A Dream on this OFFICIAL reissue, that came out BEFORE it was bootlegged
http://www.discogs.com/release/740769
sound is great

I just personally think it's gone way way too far. It's at the stage where you just don't know what you're buying any more, that's one thing I cannot stand. Take a look at the disco 12" section of any vinyl shop these days and I'd say about 50% or more are "replicas"/bootlegs.

Plus, there's a lot of people trying to do this properly. There's a lot of worthy official reissues out there, and you generally get far better sound quality on them so why not stick to them as much as you can? eg, Clone, Skylaxx, Flexx, House Music Records, Funky Chocolate, etc....

It really pissed me off to hear that Clone had to change their mind on reissuing something because it got bootlegged, that sucks!!