In last week’s post, I described how Jake Riviera had moved from Stiff to Radar Records and taking Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, and others with him. However Radar didn’t last long, just 2 years (I don’t count the short revival during the mid-90s) and Jake moved on…
This time together with Andrew Lauder to start F-Beat Records which released quite a lot of albums and singles in their 6 year lifespan.
Unlike Radar though their number of artists was relatively small: Nick Lowe, Carlene Carter, the Blasters, Blanket of Secrecy, and a few others. The album and single sleeves were mostly designed by Barney Bubbles.
In 1986 Jake pulled out the plug of F-Beat and some of its artists ended up on Demon Records. Similar to Radar, no ‘Best of F-Beat’ ever materialized, therefore once again Jokonky stepped in, and our 28 track promo compilation includes:
Nick Lowe & Dave Edmunds
Nick Lowe
Kenny Pickett
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
The Coward Brothers
The Costello Show Featuring The Attractions
The Costello Show Featuring Confederates
Clive Langer & The Boxes
Carlene Carter & Paul Carrack
Carlene Carter & Dave Edmunds
Carlene Carter
The Blasters
Blanket Of Secrecy
Steve Nieve
The Attractions
Enjoy!
Did International Artists release one? perhaps in the second incarnation , but the first run till 1971.
ReplyDelete1971? Maybe you have a different label in mind?
DeleteThat label with Thirteenth Floor Elevators, only ran till 1971. In 1979 it got revived and Radar re-released their stuff after that it was brought back again by Charlie Records in the 2000s. The original 1965 1971 label is what you look for.
DeleteAh I get it, my mistake. They actually released a lot I see now: https://www.discogs.com/label/33286-International-Artists
DeleteAha, here's an International Artists compilation: https://www.discogs.com/master/313454-Various-Epitaph-For-A-Legend
Plus https://www.discogs.com/release/2918526-Various-The-International-Artists-Singles-Collection
Interesting label for sure, no doubt about that!
Ok, after the label died, it was dug up again in 1979. At that point some pokey little fingers tried to squeeze a buck by getting out a sampler. or maybe just to get more attention to the nice music. You can't blame a corpse for what one does with it afterwards, anyway, I stand by my claim, that the original label never released a (various artist) compilation album.
DeleteI stand (actually sit) corrected, Richard, technically you are right!
DeleteAnother winner, Koen. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThat's a great question. I wonder when that started to be a standard practice? It seems it would have to be around the time albums (rather than singles) became popular. I'd guess the easiest examples would be independent labels that didn't release albums, leaving it to reissue labels like ACE Records to do many years later.
I thought earlier reissue labels like Lost-Nite (sometimes Lost Nite is unhyphenated) who did all those WFIL & WCBS comps might have, but I can't find an example where they focused on records that were released on a single label. Their history is pretty cool though: https://www.bsnpubs.com/philadelphia/lostnite/lostnite.html.
It's easy to forget that someone had to be the first to do things that are now ubiquitous. After all, Johnny Mathis's Johnny's Greatest Hits was the first "Greatest Hits" album, and that wasn't THAT long ago!
Thanks for the Lost Nite link, Stinky, that was all new to me! Same for Johnny's Greatest Hits, that was in 1958, my birth year ;-)
DeleteCan't get the file to unzip. Is there a problem with it Koen? SP
ReplyDeleteSorry for the screwed-up link, my computer is about to kick the bucket I'm afraid...
ReplyDeleteNEW LINK: https://mega.nz/file/Cds1hQKD#xVoaWRyxlZO7qeSC8_zDMXxTIzHdWf0zNwSSo8etfEM
Question: Do you know any other record labels that never released a various artists compilation?
Note: 27 of the 28 tracks are relatively well-known, although some more than others, but Nick Lowe's is an oddity!
His Cool Reaction appeared twice on the Tanque-Rae 12 inch's B-side; the Commercial Version & the Non Commercial Version (according to the sleeve) but Regular Version & Irregular Version (according to the label!)...
The short Non Commercial Version is the album track, the longer Commercial (a kind of dub) Version was a B-side only which until now never got re-released.
Thanks Jonder....excellent collection.
ReplyDeleteThis is all Koen's work, and we hope you enjoy it!
Delete