Wow, where does the time go?

It's already October - I certainly did not plan to be away from the blog for such a long absence. Things have been quite busy at Priceless Info Press, running your own business sure does require long days.  TeenBeat Mayhem! is selling well; thanks to everyone who has placed an order.

The typo / corrections will be posted here shortly. I want to make sure no more crop up before listing the handful of changes.  Everyone can make their own corrections by pen in their books.  Those who bought recently (the past three weeks or so) have the most updated corrections.  For those who purchased the book during the summer, the changes found since then will require you to make your own corrections.

The duplicated label scan for the Denims "White Ship" appears as #741 in the Top 1000 label scans.  I've printed out a color label sticker for the correct label "I'm Your Man" by the Denims, which I have been placing over the incorrect scan for recently purchased copies of the book.  If you would like one, please contact me here with your mailing address, and I"ll send a sticker for you to affix in your book:

info@pricelessinfopress.com

Just put "label scan" as the subject in the e-mail.  I'll mail one off promptly!

In other TeenBeat Mayhem! related news, I will be a guest on Bill Kelly's long running "Teenage Wasteland" radio show on WFMU this upcoming Sunday, October 14th, at 3PM.  I'll be spinning some cool 45s as featured in the book, along with some new garage 45 discoveries that didn't make it into the book. Plus, I'll be giving away a free copy of the book or two to lucky listeners.  Bill and I will plan out the show beforehand, I'm sure we will just open up the phone lines to call in and win.  so if you'd like a shot at a free copy of TeenBeat Mayhem!, be sure to listen in - you can listen in at:

WFMU.org

Thanks to everyone who has placed an order through my website - purchases available by mail order (check, money order) or by paypal via the Ugly Things Magazine webstore.  I've been quite busy this past week.  Needless to say, I have not had time to really do anything else, the tending of this blog included.

Sorry that the TeenBeat Mayhem Spins have not been updated in a while.  I do have the next batch ready to go, I just need to find some time to update the text template.

Soon, I will begin listing some oversight errors which appear in TeenBeat Mayhem!  Despite having several sets of eyes proofing the text over the years, some letter /spelling gremlins still managed to elude everyone.  I am hand-correcting every copy which leaves my door - purchasers will note the small paper of offset printer resulting errors affixed to the first page in the book.  Also, inside the discography, I hand-corrected a few print oversights.  This takes time prior to processing each order, but I wanted to fix those before the books hit the streets.

Other than that, I do hope everyone is enjoying the book.  There is a lot of information, a lot to discuss, banter about...and another book eventually forthcoming from priceless info press!

Thanks to everyone who sent payment for a pre-order (you were invited to do so if you are a member of the G45 forum, or one of my personal friends).  Everyone should receive their copies of the book by early next week, as I am a 1-man operation.

Now, here is the information for everyone else 'round the globe who wants to order:

I know you are eager to buy a copy, but 90% of you want to pay with paypal. I myself cannot take paypal on my website, due to their new policy of holding money for 90 days or more for "new" sellers, or new sellers with a lot of activity (payments).

 So, I have worked out a sale deal with another website - the link on my ordering page will be noted for all who want to pay by paypal, and the link will send you to that webstore - one most of you should already be familiar with ( a stellar reputation, so no worries).  In order to have paypal work properly, the shopping cart on his webpage must be configured for sales of TeenBeat Mayhem, with exact shipping charges.  I had no idea of exact weights for overseas shipping parcels until a few days ago, when the books arrived , and I could then test different packaging methods.  I want your books to arrive in the same, perfect condition as they are when I ship them out!

The ordering page has been configured, all set to take orders now!!

www.pricelessinfopress.com

Today, I received the very first copy of TeenBeat Mayhem!, directly from the book manufacturer.
It looks fantastic!  

I'll present a more "display appropriate" photograph shortly once I stage an appropriate shot.  So much to do between now, and when the full shipment of books arrive - 6 skids worth.
I will make an official announcement as soon as the books arrive as to how everyone may order a copy of the book. 
Just so you know beforehand: TeenBeat Mayhem! can only be purchased directly from me.  There are no copies going to wholesale outlets like Amazon, no distributors are reselling the book, no kindle or e-reader downloads - you gotta get this book the old fashioned way - by direct purchase! 
The book will be available for purchase via my own publishing company.

The Making of TeenBeat Mayhem!, Part III
When the going gets insane, the insane get going....

I still recall the phone conversation I had with Mike J. back in 1998, then the project leader for Rhino Records' Nuggets four CD box set.  I was hired in the closing seconds to double check and correct information regarding the songs selected for the set and Mike had inquired about my book.  He urged me to whip up a quickie reference credit so that people would be aware of my forthcoming project. As I did not have a clue when I would be done, let alone have a catchy subtitle for the book, I just fired off some lame cliché, so that it would be listed within the credits and references.  You can check out the credit for yourself and read the foolish stereotypical subtitle! To this day, people often ask me about my book "that came out in 1999", thanks to the mention within the Nuggets box set booklet.  Ha.

Yeah, I lost my "get the book done by 2000 or you lose" wager with Don Julio Blanco, who seemingly vanished to a faraway isle retreat to escape the millennium bru-ha. Despite this loss, I was still plugging away at that point in time. Although, to the best of my recollection, I thought that I had 90% of the book completed.  All that was required were some travels to meet new contacts who collected garage 45s, so that I could shoe-horn in any 45s not already documented, along with another last minute trek on down to the Library Of Congress.  I had no concept regarding the vast amount of work yet to be done. Whoever first proclaimed that well-known boast of “Anyone can write a book" obviously had never really tried to do so.

What I didn't know at that time: Popular Culture Ink was on the verge of financial collapse.  To my thinking, they were the only game in town regarding a fitting publisher for TeenBeat Mayhem.  Any other publisher would have expediently rejected any notion of publishing my book, for the topic was too arcane, the potential audience too narrow, etc.  It didn't matter that there was no other book of this type out there in book-ville, let alone anyone else trying to do something beyond that of a Xeroxed / photocopied booklet collated, printed and stapled together in a limited quantity.  Thus, Pop Culture Ink truly was my only hope.  I soon learned unpleasant news from another author who had one of his works issued by the imprint. He stated that I would be making a serious mistake in signing a deal.  I won't go into specifics; let's just say that there were many problems that ensued with said author's book. Anyway, it didn’t matter, for Popular Culture Ink was nearly defunct.

Not knowing where to go next, I downshifted the information compiling stage into low gear, and figured that I would simply teach myself design techniques for the layout in the book.  This way, I could have the complete package ready to showcase to a potential investor or small press outlet. Maybe I would be able to learn Pagemaker in a year, so that I could do everything myself.  I bought several instruction books....Ha – Wrong.  Even the massive time involved to scan the 45 record labels did not translate to smooth sailing.  I initially received "free" scanning instruction via a former co-worker who handled graphics as part of his daily work duties. He suggested that I hire someone to do the scans.  No way -  I was not loaning my records to strangers, or friends. No sir. "I'll just do it myself", I vowed.  Fortified with a bit of know-how, I went out and bought a $500 top of the line flatbed scanner (which is still working, in molasses dripping slow-motion mode to this day) and finagled a way to purchase Photoshop.  Thus, I began the l long process of scanning 45 labels. I planned to have small sized record label scans throughout the book, which, at that time, was just going to be a listing of the collectible 45s known and tagged by collectors as "garage 45s".

I had been conversing with Greg Shaw via e-mails for quite some time, who suggested that TeenBeat Mayhem should offer a bit more than just "nuts and bolts for record collectors".  He proclaimed that the time was right for a definitive book that provided not only a listing of 45s, but a sort of detailed historical account as to what occurred during the '60s and how interest for the subject came to be.  He accepted my request to write the foreword for the book, but Greg would only do so when I was ready to go to press.  Sadly, that did not happen - one of my regrets for having the project take so long to complete. (Greg, and a few other well-respected collector friends have since passed on, never to see what they had hoped to read; their names are listed on the acknowledgements page in the book).

So, I scrapped the "discography only" concept for TeenBeat Mayhem, and began fleshing out ideas which would make the book interesting to people who were not fanatical collectors - the people who were a part of the times during the mid to late 1960s - the teenagers of the era, now older adults, as well as younger aged music fans who were curious to find out what was going on back then.  If one believed all passionate liner note scribings (that there was a worldwide teenage revolution against bland pop music going on), well, that was a myth, postulated in the mind of the writer.  I was high time to relate the truth in an accurate manner.  I then began outlining a time-line styled historical account of the time period (this chapter within TeenBeat Mayhem! took five years to complete).  As the early months of 2000 rolled onward, I knew that the timeline for TBM completion would now push a potential publication date to at least 2003 or 2004. 

Yeah, right!

At this point, two collector friends I had met offered to help me with TeenBeat Mayhem - namely, the layout and graphics oriented workload. I'm sure both guys never in their wildest dreams thought that the amount of time and effort on their behalf would be so demanding, and draining. I, too, really had no idea how involved it was – design by trial and error.  The entire design operated by that cliché, 'flying by the seat of your pants'.  I was also urged to set strict deadlines regarding unfinalized portions within the book.  Deadlines are fine when said project is your lone job / focus for each day.  However, we all had our own work / jobs during the day, and time spent toward TBM was delegated whenever free time allowed.  For myself, all free time was automatically reserved for the book.  I was elated that I could now focus on the written content and the discography of 45s, and leave the layout stage in very capable hands.  Hmmm....Maybe I would be finished sooner than I thought!

My collector pal Ben handled the design of the book and layout for each page within TeenBeat Mayhem.  He came on board, willing to help, as he offered when we met up at the Allentown, PA all-45rpm record show one fall weekend.  I suggested we bounce ideas around and that we really strive to make each page look visually crisp, yet have the content read easy on the eyes.  Well, you don't want to know how many revisions and scraps we went through, even right from the get-go.  I’m sure Ben was frustrated with me most often, yet he never led on that I was slowly driving him insane.  We looked long and hard to find the right blend of fonts, while using as much of the page space (what I call real estate) as possible.  I did not want to have paragraphs split because they would not fit, or discography listings split onto separate columns or pages. That absolute alone was enough to keep Ben busy.  We evolved from primitive workings of Quark Express to sophisticated concepts within In-Design during the 8 years of layout design mayhem.  I'm sure you will all agree with me that Ben did an outstanding job, once you peruse each page within TeenBeat Mayhem.  He'll always have my undying gratitude. I wonder if he will help me with book #2????

An early front cover draft circa 2004. I later enlisted the help of another talented 60s garage fan from overseas who created several excellent samples, which led to the official cover you will soon see...

All fans of '60s garage know the name "Bosshoss" on the web belongs to that of Mark T. who resides in Australia.  As a formidable presence who emerged onto the collector scene full-throttle in 1996, Bosshoss was hardly recalcitrant when it came to forking over big bucks for those USA 6'0s garage 45s he needed for his collection.  I met him initially as a "go-between advisor", in order to help him get the most fuzztone wallop for his buck.  A friendship developed, and when the headache of the label scan project was presented, Mark agreed to take on the task.  He diligently scanned his entire collection so that the A and B sides of each 45 were properly documented (which helped immensely when time came for proofing the text).  Early efforts to depict as many scans as possible were nixed in favor of having larger size scans, and scans in blazing-full color.  But, what scans should we include?

In the meantime, I had received suggestions to improve TeenBeat Mayhem via several collectors, all patiently waiting for my book.  The top three suggestions were: 1) a price value and rarity guide; 2) include some sort of quality / rating system to note how "good" the 45 was via the ears of collectors and 3) "song-style" descriptions for every possible song listed in the book. Hmm...good ideas, all.  however, the price guide angle was dismissed immediately - price guide info was always going to be outdated as soon as the book was printed, and the rarity guide could also change in a short period of time.  Qualities not befitting of a reliable reference tome.  Suggestions 2 and 3 got me thinking.  I did not want to be the sole "ranking authority" regarding the quality scale I began to formulate (I tried a four star system with just my own vote, and quickly dismissed the concept). 

So, I invited several collector pals to be placed within my "Rating Cabinet".  All members would  listen to each song I uploaded to my storage space via a 90 second sample file, and then cast their vote on a scale of  1 to 10, as to their opinion of how “good” said song is.  1 equated to the “barely qualifies / few ever need to hear again” garden variety tune, whereas a 10 was an out an out killer beyond compare.  I used this 1 to 10 rating scale, instead of the older style one to four "star" scale (utilized within the David Shutt & Doug Hanners co-compiled Texas rock discography, “Journey to Tyme”).  Thirteen members were selected to accomplish the task, in order to provide a "consensus" type rating.  In addition, I drafted a stand-by utility man crew; the part-time guys who would either fill in, or replace original members who became overwhelmed with the task in time.  This project eventually took a total of eight and half years to rate and tally the "mean" (average, for you non-math types) for 14, 800+ songs that I was able to acquire in some manner (on a 45, analog tape or digital disc / file) for my archives.

One of our first attempts for page layout, prior to developing the1 to 10 numeric rating system.  This layout was rejected due to the cluttered look and lousy mix of fonts.

The description portion of the task took just as long, and was far more taxing on a mental end than I could have imagined.  Mark initially offered to help; he quickly realized the insanity level required to focus on 16,000 plus song titles was Just Too Much”, and instead focused solely upon providing label scans for our Top 1000 songs (All these scans are depicted in full color inside TeenBeat Mayhem, the result tabulated from the rating project).  Without Mark's help I took to the task, and began coming up with key phrases and terms that I would employ throughout the discography portion of TBM. Sometimes it was very easy to tag a song title with a 5 or 6 word phrase, many times it was hard to even get 4 words that painted a picture of a particular song's soundscape.  But, I trudged onward.  And now, it is all done, ready for you, the reader to compare, contrast and pontificate over!

Next time: The wrap-up stage and latest news!

The Making Of TeenBeat Mayhem!  (Part Two): 
The world of music copyrights

People frequently inquire as to how I conduct my research, and the methodology for doing so.  I won't divulge my methods, secrets, etc., but I thought it would make for an interesting read if I discussed the copyright registration process as related to the construction of TeenBeat Mayhem! 

While the world celebrated the arrival of the new millennium as the calendar flipped forward from 1999 to 2000, and waited to see if the prognosticators of doom would have their prophecies of technological meltdown verified, I was totally occupied with preparations to embark upon yet another trip to Washington, DC. No time for holiday period celebration, for I had a pile of copyright registrations to investigate in the hallowed archival stacks within the Library Of Congress.  It's hard for me to convey to someone just how mesmerized and "into it" I get whenever research is involved down at the LOC, as I shall abbreviate via acronym from here on in. If I could conduct this activity all day, I would gladly do so.  I had made at least two trips to the LOC per year, and after the dawn of the 2000 millennium trip, my visits would number once per year, if that - it all depended upon the amount of registrations I had accumulated from my source trawls to a given point in time.  But,  let me backtrack a bit, and reveal how I came to unlock the mysteries of copyright....

During the course of my summer, 1994 road trips, I met a Pennsylvania record collector and researcher for the first time.  Mike K. (who authored both editions of "Sounds From The Woods: Pennsylvania Rock Bands On Record") stated he resides in the "woods of PA", and he isn't kidding.  When we turned off the main state route and  onto back roads over hills and dales, woods indeed defined our scenic panoramic view, interspersed by a farm, open fields and a microscopic town here and there, which is exactly the type of enclave where Mike resides.  A dirt road with a few houses led from the main road in town.  We pulled into Mike's driveway (Steve and myself), and after introductions, he brought us across his vast yard and into his refurbished barn, which housed the bulk of his record collection.  I came across 45s I had not known or seen before during my documentation trawl, as we exchanged teenbeat/garage 45 "swaps" on cassette.  When it was time to depart, I figured I wouldn't run into Mike again anytime soon. 

Mike mailed a packet of information on non-Pennsylvania teenbeat/garage 45s he had accumulated about one year later.  There were full names and dates for scores of garage 45 songtitles, each with a corresponding letter and number code.  These codes were copyright registrations Mike had stumbled across while criss-crossing the four corners of Pennsylvania researching information for his own books.  I had not thought of checking copyright registrations up till that moment the packet arrived in the mail, but it was yet another Zen-like "WOW!" moment of revelation.  The proverbial map leading to

the treasure chest of information which lay ahead had just fallen into my lap.  When I asked Mike if he ever considered attempting to look up these registration numbers at the Library Of Congress, he too became suddenly aware - in his mind, they were simply random codes, as he didn't realize one could actually "look up" the codes and examine the original registration certificates.  That is, until I mentioned the process.  We agreed to meet up at the LOC in Washington, DC the week after Labor Day in September. 

Now, researching the registration codes can be done for anyone who would rather not make the visit; the library fees & charges for the service are rather astronomical in today's time period.  Even in 1995, it cost something like $100 per hour to start, plus extra per each registration number; today the minimum cost runs about $165 per hour to start). However, if you head on in, you can look up the registrations yourself, for no cost.  Big savings! Mike and I had about 250 registrations in total to look up, so we planned on a two day stay.  I drove and booked a hotel room in a DC suburb area that was, at the time, rather "seedy" (I always seemed to unknowingly find myself in these areas).  I learned how to maneuver via the Metro subway to get in and out of the Capitol Hill area, where all three buildings for the Library Of Congress sit, like stone giants dwarfing the humans scurrying about on the city blocks.

Our destination was the James Madison building, which housed all departments for the U.S. Copyright Office. It is the "modern" building, finally opened in 1980, which, to me, resembled a hospital, with its bright white, patterned concrete exterior.  I got off the Metro at the Capitol South metro stop and trekked the three blocks uphill to the entrance.  The building is HUGE. Long corridors, six floors all mapped in an odd, maze-like layout. It seemed like I would never reach the room where Mike was waiting.  When I did make it to the fifth floor in the "renewal" room, Mike was already transcribing registration details from the certificates. There were 500 certificates per each red bound volume; all the original copies filled out by the claimant were mailed along with a cash deposit fee to the LOC.  The claimant would in turn receive a photocopied (mimeographed) copy of the certificate in the mail. All we had to do was pull the correct bound volume number off the shelf, open to the page with our noted registration number, and "viola!"  Mysteries unveiled! We worked like busy beavers, not stopping to take in the golden information at the time, or even a break to eat (Since then, each time I have visited the LOC, I have never gone to the cafeteria for a bite to eat).  However, I felt like a lil' tyke does on Christmas day, as we unlocked mysteries of groups who had defied being located by anyone to that point in time.  My hotel room at night would allow for close examination and scrutiny of the names, addresses and other relevant information that the claimant(s) provided when they submitted their published or unpublished songs for registration all those years ago. 

The other area Mike and I would discover upon our first visit was the enormous card catalog room. Hundreds of the old fashioned, wooden card catalogs were set up in sections classified by year periods.  The main section where I would do my digging covered the years 1955 to 1970.  Here are a couple of shots i found on the 'net , both are from the smaller, reduced size room:

Note: there are at least 15 long rows of card files on each side of the main entry aisle, the above view is from the secondary aisles in between each row length.

Inside each card catalog drawer were copyright registrations for musical compositions, books, periodicals, films....everything, from published to unpublished works, american, International, etc... all in alphabetical order, by author, claimant, and title.  MILLIONS of them. Along with the all-important registration number, which one must have in order to look up the registration certificate in the appropriate red bound volume book located in the basement level room.  I tell you, after four hours of hoofing back and forth within the room to navigate among the card catalog drawers and flipping thru the index cards inside, well, a headache and lethargy would set in. Speed, and pacing were key to stave off any ill-health impediments.

For my first visit, and the next few, all of the certificate transcribing took place in the room for "renewals of copyright".  The majority of the red bound volume books that I needed to examine (the years1965-68) were brought up to this room  on the fifth floor, so that the librarians and copyright specialists could have immediate access.  The bound volumes were otherwise permanently stored in the stacks located on the basement level.  For the volumes that were not in the renewal room, I had to take the elevator down to the basement floor and walk down a long lengthy corridor to the double-door room, B-12. Inside, all of the bound volumes were stored on metal shelving units.  The main section I would be visiting was in a corner area.  When the renewal room was finished with their section of bound volumes, they were returned to the stacks.

As I harvested more and more copyright registrations from my direct research sources back home, I allotted time for two visits to the LOC per year.  I would drive the 5 hour traffic-heavy route down to a DC suburb and get a hotel room, often staying overnight to accommodate a typical two day work period. After all, it was important work for TeenBeat Mayhem!, getting the verified location for as many groups / combos as possible.  No way could anyone have time to track down and then interview a member or two from every single '60s era teenbeat group known; the copyright research method was a sure-fire way to verify locales in the quickest, most efficient manner.   I got to be super-fast transcribing the data, from finding the correct bound volume, pulling it off the shelf, flipping quickly to the correct number, and then jotting down the info in my pre-prepared, handwritten notepads, with each number arranged in numerical order.  I could transcribe nearly 100 titles in 90 minutes (timed myself), which, if one had to pay the copyright office to do the same amount of work, it would cost well over $1200.  And when I would finish a batch of registration number transcriptions, I'd walk back up the corridor to the elevator, and head to the card catalog room on the 5th floor to look up more titles (I usually had several sheets of titles to look up in order to see if they were registered, and obtain the registration numbers). 

The relaxing ease of doing everything myself came to a crashing halt after the events of 9/11/2001.  I didn't make a trip that fall, so when I returned for a visit in the early months of 2002, I was met with a bunch of restrictions.  One now had to have an official ID card to do research, and some areas required card "swiping" or verification by each department prior to entering and exiting.  While that sort of put a crimp in the work process, it would only get worse in later years.  By 2008, researchers were no longer allowed direct access to the stacks in the basement.  Likewise, the massive card catalog room was moved to a new floor, in a smaller room, and all visitors / researchers had to sign in and out with their card ID.  In order to examine the bound books with the certificates, requests by registration number had to be keyed by me, the researcher, into to a PC.  Now limited to just 25 registrations (WHAT?) in one batch, the bound volumes would be retrieved from the stacks and brought up from the basement by a staff member on a rolling cart. This whole process, from keying in the registrations, to the cart arrival would take an hour wait! Talk about severely cramping my style.  It became frustrating to do the work required, but, thankfully, I had dome the bulk of the work before the big brother type changes took place.  for the past few years, up to my last visit in early 2012, I took the train instead of driving and staying overnight to save $$$ (an overnight, 7 hour ride down with arrival in downtown DC at 7AM ). I walked uphill for the five or so blocks (not fun on those cold frigid winter mornings, or during the humid summer days), patiently waited outside on the stone bench until the 8:30 open time, went through the metal detector / screening by the security guards, had my waiting 50 registrations pulled (you are now limited to only 50 look-ups per day), finished transcribing and left at noon, walked back to Union Station to meet the departing train (3PM) for home that evening.  I still plan to return to the LOC from time to time, whenever I discover more "new unknown" registrations.

Note: pre-1978 registered works have not been digitized for the most part, and as such, cannot be searched via the LOC's on-line database.  Post 1977 copyrights are fully searchable on-line, however, you cannot look up the filed certificates online - you must make the trip to the LOC to view them digitally.

Next up: the pro-bono staff climbs aboard; layout refinements / updates, and the resulting insanity which ensued…

Spins from TeenBeat Mayhem!

New 45s are ready 
 
Have a look, and enjoy:

TeenBeat Mayhem! Spins


Back in 2003/2004 (pre Youtube and ubiquitous "blogs are everywhere" period), I ran a weekly feature on the net where I would upload obscure 45s from my collection.  In those days, I still had an old, slow PC and a dial-up connection, so I was limited from the git-go, besides having so little time to update and continue my web page, called "MopTopSpins". I kept at it for almost 10 months, before abandoning the page in lieu of work required for the book.

Well, with the resurrection of my TeenBeat Mayhem! blog, I thought, "Why not bring the Spins on back?"  Yeah, it seems that most people would rather goof around with Youtube nowadays, but I know there are coolsters out in 'netville who kinda like the old fashioned method of viewing a web page, and downloading the songs.  So, TeenBeat Mayhem! Spins will feature 45s that are listed in the book itself, to be uploaded for all whenever I have some time to update. 

Spins From TeenBeat Mayhem! will not appear on this main blog area - you'll have to follow the link to load the page. The reason I'm operating this way is that I do not intend to keep the label scans and the mp3s up indefinitely - they will all be removed after a short period of time, a week or so.  In addition, the scans and the mp3s were created on the lower end of the quality scale in order to potentially thwart any theft/stealing for other's self-serving purposes.  Thus, if you are someone who expects dynamic, flac file quality coupled with 300 dpi label scans, well, expect to be disappointed.  Please excuse the "old school" design appearance of the Spins page - I simply don't have time to dust off and re-learn .css & xml code.  Besides, I had a template html coding still on the PC from 2004.  It's quick and easy, gets the job done. So, that's why the page has that look.  Well, I like it!