Poole is local for me, and a close part of my upbringing. My Mother ran a grocery shop in Green Road, Poole, between 1936-39. The shop (and I believe the street) has since disappeared. The League of Gentlemen (1963-64) rehearsed over a converted garage (the band did the conversion) behind Reg Mathews' family house at The Tatnam, and coming home we drove by it. I attended Broadstone Primary School (between Wimborne and Poole) from 1952 to 1957.
Poole is six miles from Wimborne and, on the way there from this valley home west of Salisbury, I drove directly past the Fripp family homes on Oakley Hill, where I lived between the ages of three and eight, and Leigh Road, from eight to twenty one. On their retirement my parents left 14, Leigh Road, and moved northwards 800 yards to "Ravelston", Rowlands Hill. This evening I drove past the memorial seat to my Father at the bottom of the Hill, and within 100 yards of their home.
My personal history resonates in nearly every street, and many of the buildings, of this area. The spirit of Wimborne left in 1987 when Poole crept up and sucked Wimborne into the Christchurch - Bournemouth - Poole connurbation, turning the sleepy (or "mediocre" in the word of a 1905 guide book) market town of Wimborne Minster into Parkstone North. There are many worse places to live, but this is no longer my Wimborne. I experience this loss as a small, enduring tragedy.
Travelling north from Wimborne to Cranborne there are a series of estates - the Glyn, Crichel, Shaftesbury and Cranborne Estates - which have so far kept the agricultural country agricultural. Four miles north there is a left turn to Witchampton, my family village, and where I lived when I first met Toyah. Driving through Cranborne we passed Red Lion House on Salisbury Street, the Guitar Craft House between 1986-89. This was an important piece of long-term work, and those of us who were part of this project were highly privileged to be involved. The history of the House has yet to be written.
So, this evening I have been revisiting places which live on in me, and continue to resonate.
This afternoon the Big Three of DGM World Central - David, Diane and myself - met to catch up on business and Vs & Ts (vibes and tickles) while Hugh (the Big Fourth of The Big Four) continued to work away on the cover art of "Live Groove".
Into my hands were placed ... (imaginary trumpets sounding rich chordal blasts of triumph and joy) ... DGM Collectors' Club No.1 and "Sometimes God Smiles"! I have just now been looking through both of them. It is so satisfying to hold a piece of work which reflects such care and commitment. They are both models of their kind.
"KC Live At The Marquee" will be posted out (in both the US and the UK) at the end of this week; "Sometimes God Smiles" will be posted out at the end of next week.
Points Arising at our Big Three meeting include this: DGM, a small record company, is becoming clogged with fan / enthusiast questions and letters.
All the team here are directly involved in the business of running the company. FAQ, like "When will DGM re-release `The Great Deceiver'?" is legitimate, although the answer has already been posted and announced: during 1999 (there are other more pressing pressings, as it were). When Diane takes time out from co-ordinating a tri-continental release schedule to answer this, and other similar questions, the responses back to her contain an associational chain of questions, all more properly addressed to either the DGM Guestbook or ET.
And The Big Three's secretary is spending too much time e-mailing to my direct correspondents requesting fax numbers / postal addresses (a request for this information has also already been posted).
Accordingly:
DGM Public Notices With Immediate Effect
1. The DGM Team are enthusiastic but DGM is a record company, not a fan club. Elephant Talk is an Enthusiast Newsletter, not a record company. So:
i) All correspondents and posters with fan / enthusiast commentary and / or questions are encouraged to post to the DGM Guestbook.
ii) Posters are also welcome to reply to each other on this forum.
iii) If anyone has historic questions, we recommend that you subcribe to Elephant Talk, who have a FAQ section.
iv) Robert reads the DGM Guestbook and is aware of the areas of interest.
v) But, I have instructed DGM staff not to engage with letters and questions which are non-business.
2. I read all mail directed personally to me, whether analogue or electronic. This has lead to an impressive increase in the quantity of my mail, already impressive. Most of this increasing mail includes questions, mostly concerning my work of many years ago.
i) I read all direct mail.
ii) Do not expect acknowledgement or reply.
iii) Please include (particularly in e-mail) fax numbers and postal addresses. If these are not included, you have no chance of a reply.
iv) Please do not adress questions to me which concern my work before 1991 - Elephant Talk is your best forum.
3. If you are not an established live performing artist, please do not send DGM unsolicited material.
i) It is unrealistic to expect me to listen to your material and send you a written, detailed professional critique.
ii) It is unrealistic to expect DGM to be able to establish a non-performing artist: this is their responsibility.
iii) To most of those who have sent material - you have an enriching, nourishing and revivifying hobby. Surely this is enough? You know who you are. Be realistic.
iv) If you have to be professional, you will and you will suffer for this. It is a vocation, and I wish you well.
v) This general area is already well covered in the Diary, so enough already.
02.23
And now to read my mail.
04.34
And now to bed. The Wonderbun is under the bed tonight.
21.34
The Late Shift doesn't go away: it merely waits for the guitarist to return!
Pablo, visiting from Buenos Aires via Chez Nunez in Keil, is working at the office desk outside while David and I are preparing the release of Club Selection No.2 for this December - the Mel, Boz & Ian Crimson in Jacksonville, Florida during Spring 1972. The performance is a cooker but the original recording - from a Sony cassette recorder - is well distorted. Anyone with access to "Earthbound" will have experienced this sound before. Current sound quality around 4 - 5 out of 10. If any potential member needs a soundbite to persuade them to join, better not. For a Collector, this is a gem. For the curious, it's distorted.
Coincidentally, today I was dealing with an application to sample "Peoria" from "Earthbound" for a track titled "King Boz". This included a telephone conversation with the person at BMG Publishing's Business Affairs Department (read Legal Affairs Dept.) that we dealt with over the EG Publishing litigation. I told her how, during the first week of January 1997, the same week that I signed the out-of-court settlement in the litigation, I had cleared some boxes of papers from the cellar. Six years of litigation and dispute put my life on hold; tidying, clearing and filing boxes of paper was not a priority. In that same week I opened a packing case and found the signed Willowfay Agreement of January 1970 which proved my case - that some of EG's "grey areas" of copyright assignment were, actually, very clear. EG sold copyrights which they were not entitled to sell. But no surprises here: BMG were well aware of the off-white areas, which is why they deducted £50,000 from the sale price to EG (the payments were staged).
The present letter from BMG asked me to clear permissions with the other three members - Mel, Boz & Ian. My reply: it wasn't worth my while to spend the time contacting three guys on three continents to clear a sample. But, in any case, I hold power of attorney for all matters Crim. Well, would I send a copy of my Power of Attorney, then? Actually, no - it wasn't worth me spending time going through my EG Battle files to find them.
And then I explained how much easier my life, and life at DGM is, when you trust people; how DGM doesn't have contracts with its artists: if they don't trust us, they shouldn't be here, and if we didn't trust them, we didn't want to be their record company; how I don't sign any contract of which I don't understand 98% of the provisions and can't read in 15-20 minutes - which is why I haven't signed the Virgin contract, for example.
Responses:
1. In response to Michael Flaherty: why is DGM releasing "Cirkus" through Virgin?
i) RF / DGM has an ongoing relationship with Virgin (via Declan Colgan) in respect of the KC historic catalogue (1969-84). This is to maintain the catalogue in respect of, e.g., technological developments, sampling, ideas for releasing tracks on compilations, licensing for advertising.
Simply, we maintain a relationship which gives us input regarding quality control. Our relationship with Declan is very strong: he is artist friendly.
ii) For a 30th. Anniversary compilation which aims at a new audience, rather than already committed enthusiasts, Virgin distribution can put "Cirkus" in places which DGM can't (we found this with "THRAK").
iii) The Virgin advance takes the financial weight off DGM, which otherwise would have to fund the project (as we have with many of our projects in the past).
iv) "Cirkus" will revert to DGM distribution after 5 years, when Virgin has reached the people we can't, and we can continue to supply it to (hopefully new and ongoing) enthusiasts.
2. In response to: why read ET?
Sid Smith asked me this question over lunch at the Secret Fabbo Pub along the valley. The answer to Sid: because it is humiliating. Any Web Visitor with a personal practice will understand what is involved in this; any visitor without an established practice cannot have a sense of what this implies. The unpractising commentator will then only be able to arrive at dippy conclusions regarding their own experience of humiliation and attribute their experience, mistakenly and falsely, to the experience of another.
A second answer would be directed to anyone with even a moderate experience of either T'ai Chi or Aikido. Martial arts is not about bashing people who get in your way: the practice addresses (inter alia) the reconciliation and balancing of contradictory intentions and energy flows. and I apologise for this simplistic presentation. ("Invincible Warrior" was my reading on the first leg of P2 this year).
A third answer, which I've given before, is that this is part of my current practice. If the reader has a practice, they would already have infered this from the two answers above. If the reader doesn't have a practice, no amount of rationalisation will answer this for you. So, if the answer is important, the only way of reaching it is to undertake a personal practice. Otherwise, nothing of this (or much else) will make any sense.
If I might anticipate some mail, with serious questions from earnest young men ("Humiliation - Its Value And Limitations In The Establishment and Maintenance Of A Daily Practice: My Deep Experiences In An Argumentative And Combative Dissertation by Ernest Quigly III) better to establish a practice than to write to me.
A fourth answer, also given before, is my view that one should read all, or none at all, of one's press / public commentary. But not parts of it.
3. In response to Anil Prasad: the work of the performer is intimate, yet utterly impersonal; my diary postings are personal, yet not intimate.
And a question to Mr. Prasad: why is the copyright in the interviews you conduct vested in yourself?
22.57
David's obscure rites are beginning to bite. Mel is honking even more fiercely. And I'm off to greet Toyah's return from the theatre.
"This life may not provide justice, but it is fairer than we might like it to be."
