Kevin Bresnahan

Lady Gaga offered her *entire* last album for 99 cents on amazon.com for a week. It sold in the hundreds of thousands. Using this "door buster" to artificially claim that album sales are making a comeback is stretching it pretty thin. I highly doubt these buyers would have bought Gaga's full album if it was $9.99 like most of today's mp3 albums.

I thought I made it clear in my other post but I'll state it more plainly - It costs 10's of thousands of dollars to bring a copyright infringement lawsuit against these labels and/or distributors. Most labels (or copyright holders of defunct labels) cannot justify spending $50,000 in legal fees to stop the sale of a CD that *might* generate a few thousand dollars in sales. Years ago, I worked for a small electronics company that had some really cool technology that they patented and made into a product. It sold OK. Not enough to keep the company afloat (by itself) but nice extra income to help. Another company violated their patent. It was blatant. I was in the meeting with the lawyer where we were told that it would cost between $50,000-200,000 to take them to court and the likely outcome would be a percentage of their previous sales and a ban on future sales. He estimated that this lawsuit would take 2-4 years to settle. Our little company didn't have the money to fight it, so we let it slide. This is most likely what is happening here. I know people in the industry and believe me, they know when their stuff is being stolen. They also know that the accountants and lawyers discuss most violations and choose which ones to go after. There's a reason most of the stuff the Andorran crew go after is small label stuff - no one's around to stop them. BTW, did you ever wonder why Dusty Groove doesn't seem to sell any new Lone Hill/Fresh Sound PD stuff? They stopped right around the time that they started up their own reissue label. I sure that the companies they were obtaining licenses from had something to do with that. I read this as saying that this is how royalty payments are made period. Nothing in this document states that all someone has to do to violate copyright is pay 3%. If this were true, some Andorran company (25 years for PD in Andorra) would come out with "The Complete Beatles" for $50 and pay the 3% (and make millions!). Who says that Pujol doesn't get "the express authorization and consent of the copyright owner of the musical compositions embodied on the phonorecords, even if the phonorecords were manufactured lawfully outside of the U.S"? Who says he does? I'm sure Laurie Pepper knows about Art's copyrights. She says he doesn't have permission. I've heard of more people saying he doesn't than does.

I love the quote, "All I know is that Fresh Sound's CDs are available for sale legally in the U.S. at major online retailers". Legally? Really? So everything Pujol is issuing was recorded over 75 years ago? I thought not. Wake up - these CDs are *not* legal to sell in the US. It's just that the legal costs to get these illegal CDs off the shelves are prohibitive. Pujol knows this. He's lying if he says he doesn't.

In the google page, click "Cached" and you should see the whole page. Just don't hit "refresh".

Back in the late 80's & early 90's Pujol's Fresh Sound label issued quite a bit of stuff that was not 50 years old. How could the interviewer not being up *any* of them?? Just look at their discography. There are tons of small label stuff in there that was clearly under 50 years. Jubilee, Jamo, Roulette, etc. not to mention a whole bunch of live material. None of this stuff was legal. I don't know why Pujol doesn't just fess up and admit that when the labels/artists failed to go after him, he kept going. Notice how he never really went after the big label stuff until after the 50 years went by? He knew what he was doing was illegal, even under Spanish/EU law.

I just wish there were "Buy it now" prices. I can't watch this many auctions end while I'm at work.

Back in the days of vinyl, I was paranoid about scratching up my records. I used to clean them with a Discwasher prior to every spin and I always returned them to their sleeve after I played them. One time, a friend of mine asked to borrow my LP of Hendrix's "Electric Ladyland". I stupidly let him. It turned out that he wanted it for a party at his house. I walked into the party and heard it playing and I thought, "No, that can't be mine". I go over and see one LP spinning on the turntable and the other LP sitting on a table with a beer on it. Ahhhh! It cleaned up OK but I still remember a pop during "All Along The Watchtower". It got so I expected that pop. When I first heard it on CD, I was caught off guard when there was no "pop".

They just started doing this and it's causing quite the uproar. It only applies to sellers who don't sell a lot. I guess eBay only wants professional sellers. BTW, if you are selling any Mosaic LP sets, let me know.

I saw Nick play at Ryles Jazz Club several times and one time, he had Cecil Payne with him for a two bari front line. On one tune, Nick decided to go toe to toe with Cecil's bari on his soprano. He smoked it! One of the most intense sax solos I've ever seen, no matter the pitch. Nick was one bad mo-fo.

Jim, I assume you are recording this digitally, correct? If so, I'll delete my vote for LP. LPs of digitally recorded sessions are really not necessary unless the mastering engineer messes up the CD version. I've been buying a lot of vinyl these days because many (most?) of today's CDs sound like crap with all of the dynamics squashed flat. I doubt your CD would fall into that category. Kevin

When you first run EAC, have one of these discs in your CD drive when you start it and it will automatically run AccurateRip and retrieve the offsets for your drive. Note that just having the CD title isn't enough. It has to be the right pressing. I use a Japanese-pressed copy of Boston's "Don't Look Back". It's been in the AccurateRip database from the beginning.

Interesting - maybe the master tapes are lost? That would explain why Vocalion has, to date. not reissued an obvious title like 'Cleopatra's Needle'. Ok listening to the thing now UCCM 9243 , I can't now hear what I've referred to above. Sound is a little recessed but no worse than many a session , in silent sections with headphones there is some sound but I can't see why I thought this was a ND. So my apologies. Whew! You had me scared. I downloaded a couple of FLACs from this CD many years ago and I didn't hear any surface noise. I thought maybe my hearing was going.

I think it's around $30, which is a heck of a lot better than the $40-75 that's it's been going for on eBay these last few years. I saw one copy go for $100 one time a few years back (before the CD market crash of '08).

I was checking out the web and saw that Hiroshi got in some more copies of Ronnie Ross's "Cleopatra's Needle" so I finally have this CD winging itself my way. It took 4 years but I got one. BTW, I'm still in the hunt for an affordable copy of Paul Gonsalves's "Boom Jackie, Boom Chick".

The latest version of Exact Audio Copy works great on Windows 7. It is now linked to the AccurateRip database, making it a snap to get your drive settings optimized. You just have to have an AccurateRip CD in your collection. Kevin

You were using Windows Media Player to burn CDs? Did you make sure that it wasn't automatically "leveling" the audio? Earlier versions of WMP defaulted to this setting. BTW, if you are duplicating CDs, I still think Exact Audio Copy is the king.

When this happened to me, it was the burner dying. I eventually bought a new drive and everything went back to normal.

Playback requires some new "widget" (their word, not mine). I don't need another widget.

I think it's a sign of the times. It seems that in today's world, it's considered bad form to speak negatively of the dead. I can see a world where someday Adolph Hitler will be compared to the president of the United States... oh wait. I think back to the Stan Getz thread(s?) we had here (since deleted) that had some not-so-nice things to say about Stan. That thread is gone mainly because Stan is dead so negative commentary is considered a no-no. It's almost like everyone is thinking, "He isn't around to defend himself so it's all hearsay".

Yesterday, I received one of the last remaining copies (500 total) of Tor's retrospective box set called "The Seasons Unfold". This is box set contains 3 out of print CDs ("Ice", The Mist" & "Under the Shadows of Trees") with bonus tracks as well as an unissued disc called "Turning". I bought it directly from Tor so he included an oil study painting that he did as he listened to some of the music in the box. Tor definitely fits the description of a true artist. If you're looking for some relaxing ambient sounds to spin while you work, check out some of the videos on youtube.com

I cannot even imagine what it's like to empty that thing... the smell!! Ugh.

Well, I got him (her?) last night with peanut butter. I guess when I used cheese, he was able to slide it off the trigger without setting it off. Peanut butter doesn't slide off. The worst thing about it was that the trap went off as my daughter was coming home from work so she heard and saw the little guy's dying breath. Hopefully, I got the last one. I'm going to set the trap for the next few nights to see if he had any friends or family. BTW, my wife amazed me last night when she told me she was going to borrow a co-worker's cat over the weekend if I couldn't catch the mouse. My jaw fell open and I told her that I was telling you guys that I would be in divorce court if I brought home a cat.

My wife & I are big dog people. We just got a puppy. I like cats but my wife would divorce me if I tried bringing one home. I didn't realize that you could dissolve a sticky trap. That's a thought. Otherwise, I'll have to take the live, stuck mouse out into the back yard and smash him. Not my idea of pleasant scene. I guess I don't have that "killer instinct".

Abstract as all get out: