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Black Randy and The (Elite) Metrosquad - 1978 - Idi Amin 7''.
DB: We're talking about April 1978 at this point, the X single and another Black Randy EP. I have to emphasize that at this point it was basically just us throwing a few thousand dollars away. Maybe at some point somebody thought we had money or backing or something like that, but this was totally garbage. I worked at my little job in aerospace. I think Pat was a design engineer at Hughes Helicopters. Very much the opposite from the lifestyles of most of the people making the music. We would go out night after night and just see what we could put out next because it seemed like we could do no wrong. We had very strong backing of the people at Slash magazine. I did typesetting for them, and they used to run my reviews of other people's things. We got good deals on advertising.
Right about this point I think the Dickies burst upon the scene and were able to throw together a major label contract with A&M. This was the first band from the Masque era that had really gone on. They had done it so quickly, it was like a coup. Suddenly a lot of the groups who were recording for us were sort of looking, I don't want to say askance, but sort of that their involvement with us should have been held off because there could have been some real money involved for them. So from this point on, we were sort of dealing with that kind of mentality. They just had this feeling deep down inside that they were the ones who were going to hit the big time. But, sad to say, it never really happened.
We had an interesting couple of visitations from some English management types that came over about the time that IRS records was getting going. In general it was getting harder and harder to get people who were willing to record for us. In particular, the X thing sort of started to fall apart because they didn't want Pat to do the production on that. It was kind of a resentment because Pat was clearly the guiding hand and clearly knew what to do. I guess you could say that the more talented some of these people were, the stronger their personalities were.
So, at this point it was sort of a downhill ride. Things weren't going as well with our interpersonal relationships with some of the bands. I guess you would have to know some of the personalities involved, particularly Black Randy, to get the full impact of this. Negotiations were between Black Randy, who was just a complete liar. He would go out and completely snow people. He would get away with it because he was very likeable. He was the ultimate con man. He was capable of just completely turning on you from one day to the next. Yet you'd sort of want him around because he was talented in a very weird way. I was, at this point, doing all the dog work. All the physical production. Schlepping up and down the freeway. Randy was lying to people, trying to get them to agree to things, and Pat was doing this really solid production. So it was just a really weird combination of personalities that allowed this, to begin with.
It's interesting to note that in the first week-and-a-half the Frontier reissue (Dangerhouse Volume 1) sold four times as many copies of anything we ever sold individually. Certainly the market was there, we just couldn't get to it. In particular we were dealing with sort of small, schlock distributors like Jem Records, Bomp Records. Of course Jem later went belly up owing everybody thousands and thousands of dollars. Greenworld and a couple of others. We tried to work out deals with people in other countries who'd sell for us. We couldn't afford to fly there ourselves and hustle them all the time. They were just as likely to keep the records and screw you out of the money. It seemed to be business as usual at that time.BMF: Black, green, and orange vinyl issued. The orange vinyl is particularly elusive. Like X's "Adult Books" 45, this EP was test pressed on clear vinyl. The test press labels are numbered out of 13 (of course) and graffiti'd by Black Randy. Three known copies.
Right about this point I think the Dickies burst upon the scene and were able to throw together a major label contract with A&M. This was the first band from the Masque era that had really gone on. They had done it so quickly, it was like a coup. Suddenly a lot of the groups who were recording for us were sort of looking, I don't want to say askance, but sort of that their involvement with us should have been held off because there could have been some real money involved for them. So from this point on, we were sort of dealing with that kind of mentality. They just had this feeling deep down inside that they were the ones who were going to hit the big time. But, sad to say, it never really happened.
We had an interesting couple of visitations from some English management types that came over about the time that IRS records was getting going. In general it was getting harder and harder to get people who were willing to record for us. In particular, the X thing sort of started to fall apart because they didn't want Pat to do the production on that. It was kind of a resentment because Pat was clearly the guiding hand and clearly knew what to do. I guess you could say that the more talented some of these people were, the stronger their personalities were.
So, at this point it was sort of a downhill ride. Things weren't going as well with our interpersonal relationships with some of the bands. I guess you would have to know some of the personalities involved, particularly Black Randy, to get the full impact of this. Negotiations were between Black Randy, who was just a complete liar. He would go out and completely snow people. He would get away with it because he was very likeable. He was the ultimate con man. He was capable of just completely turning on you from one day to the next. Yet you'd sort of want him around because he was talented in a very weird way. I was, at this point, doing all the dog work. All the physical production. Schlepping up and down the freeway. Randy was lying to people, trying to get them to agree to things, and Pat was doing this really solid production. So it was just a really weird combination of personalities that allowed this, to begin with.
It's interesting to note that in the first week-and-a-half the Frontier reissue (Dangerhouse Volume 1) sold four times as many copies of anything we ever sold individually. Certainly the market was there, we just couldn't get to it. In particular we were dealing with sort of small, schlock distributors like Jem Records, Bomp Records. Of course Jem later went belly up owing everybody thousands and thousands of dollars. Greenworld and a couple of others. We tried to work out deals with people in other countries who'd sell for us. We couldn't afford to fly there ourselves and hustle them all the time. They were just as likely to keep the records and screw you out of the money. It seemed to be business as usual at that time.BMF: Black, green, and orange vinyl issued. The orange vinyl is particularly elusive. Like X's "Adult Books" 45, this EP was test pressed on clear vinyl. The test press labels are numbered out of 13 (of course) and graffiti'd by Black Randy. Three known copies.
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source Break My Face (link)
2 comments:
hi boy,i very wanted this album the Users- Secondary Modern 1976 - 1979,please help me,
hi,piss on the users:)and help me,you know england punk band the zeros?please,very hard work,this is myspace,http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=67663401 ,album-THE ZEROS-ZERO IMPACT,thanks,czech guy
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