Re: Transparency, Michael Shepard, Lost Reel Collection, and Me
Re: Transparency, Michael Shepard, Lost Reel Collection, and Me
All of my dealings with Michael have been completely positive, he certainly seems sincere in his plan, and having observed some of the financial growing pains of his business, I wouldn't say he's in this to get rich (if that were the case, there are 10,000 other bootlegs that would be far more profitable)
so what is the deal. I live out on the edge of the Known World, to my left is a vast expanse of forests, rock and tundra, to my right somewhere far far away is Philadelphia and New York, so I can't possibly know the unspoken, but why are people so hesitant to work with Transparency? I'm just curious, email me privately if you don't want to make things public, but I am concerned that the only complaints I have ever heard about Michael always begin with "People like him usually ..." and that is not a logical supposition, that is profiling and it's uninformative. Nor is taking some unclaimed publically available free thing and bundling it for resale immoral or illegal (people sell water fer crissakes) and, superficially, it strikes me as a good thing that someone is making these recordings, many of the very precious, available to the audience who, like me, live far from the centres of culture and bandwidth.
again, I'm just curious. I tried to help Michael best I could from this distance, and as I say, my experience was completely positive.
On Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 8:48 AM, Stephen Antonelli theant99@yahoo.comwrote:
Transparency ....... I haven't posted here for quite a while, but this morning, I have something to say.....
His name is Michael Shepard. He runs Transparency as many of you know. He has been selling Sun Ra materials for I would say the past 5 years or so. Many of you question his approach and ethics, as I do. For a record company, you would think that they would have a web site to sell and promote the music. Googling will not bring you to a Transparency home page. Sure, you will find many links, mostly to distributors of Transparency's releases. I think this is a telling sign of what this company is all about.
What I don't like about Michael is that he takes material that is floating around the trading circles and sells it as his own. In some cases, he has had to buy music that is not available anywhere else like the Lost Reel Collection, for instance. He then produces the CD's. I am ok with those situations. But overall, he is a loose cannon.
Yes, I am the person who was fortunate enough to pay for the Lost Reels. I then had the music transferred to digital form with help from others. I wanted the music to be heard by all, and I wanted to recoup my personal investment. I sought out some reputable people in the record business, but there were no takers. I was later contacted by Michael, and he and I worked out a deal where I was able to break even, and he was able to produce the CD's for that collection. It was important to me that I did not profit from this. I worked it out so that the money I got back equalled the money I had to pay to get the reels in the first place.
The reels were truly lost for about 10 years. They were stored in a record store in the Philadelphia area. I know for fact that members of the Arkestra sold the reels to that record store in the mid 90's. I never inquired as to who those members were, and I really did not want to know. My intent was always to preserve the reels, and keep them together as a collection. I think I have accomplished that.
There were friends of mine (at the time) who were very upset that I made a deal with Transparency. As a result, friendships were lost. To me, unless they had invested thier own money in this venture (which they did not), they have no right to judge what I did. You know who you are.
There was never a guarrantee to me that the reels actually contained music. As it turned out, they did! I have no regrets for how this all played out, except that I would have been better served if I was able to work with someone other than Michael. But what's done is done, and I sincerely hope that all of you have enjoyed the Lost Reel Collection.
Steve Antonelli theant99@yahoo.com
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