JUST MUSIC - JUST SCREWED !

[JamieBall]

Hi there, just a brief note to let you all know the we would appear to be >officially< 100% fúckéd !!!

I've had my suspicions but ain't really been filled in until very recently on just how doomy things are down there (I don't live in England, btw). Still ain't heard fully what the script is as I can't get anyone to talk to me about it. :-(

Anyways, I've posted something about it in the 'ordering from Just Music' topic on the acid forum. Anyone who has outstanding orders with us should check this for info.

Don't bother phoning the office, if I can't get an answer damn straight you guys ain't gonna.

This SUCKS. Really sorry to everyone involved who may have been burnt. Personally I've lost around £8,000 in sales money/stock etc etc that I'm NEVER going to get back. HOORAY!

Anyways, check the other forum for more in depth info (ranting??)

Wish things hadn't come to this in some respects, obviously, but the whole business with the company has been fúckÃ*ng with my life for a while now with regards to poor cashflow etc (which EVERY distributor has to deal with these days).

Can't even take honeys out dancing or whatever - LAME. That's mostly all I used to do before this 'business' kicked off, back when I got this thing called a wage

Anyways, I'm going job hunting - right NOW.

[eyeswithoutaface]

sorry to hear all this, hope it works out Ja

[The Overfiend]

Now I'm pissed.
What is the next step?

[marginmaster]

:cry:

[Matt Blak]

just owe me around £700, :cry:
good job i got all my stock out of there last week :lol:
otherwise it could have been ALOT worse :!:

[JamieBall]

Indeed.

Oh, and can we NOT talk no more about cash owed, tis just going to piss me off.

It's GONE.

As are several years of my life trying to make something work that even most of the labels/people involved gave me little or no respect for.

There is something also to be said for becoming what you hate. See annakin/vader in episode 3 for further proof. I mean, I HATE shit techno - and what were the majority of the records we were selling towards the end ??

I hate to be brutal, but..... Have people out there learned NOTHING ?

Like my mom used to say, if you've nothing good to say - DON'T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL.

Does the world NEED more boring club techno that pale's in comparison with the original work it's basically trying to COPY ???

ANSWER: NO

Techno for me is being killed by a lot of the people who mistakenly think they're 'involved' in it. Anyone can pick up a paintbrush and say they're an artist, after all.

Sorry if this seems negative but I really don't see what good these labels/people are doing. They would do more good for the music they claim to 'love' by just....... well........ STOPPING THEIR LABEL.

Who gives a damn what names you have on your record... Is it any good ? Does it STAND for anything ? What is it's PURPOSE ? Is it pushing things FORWARD or is it just - at the end of the day - generic NONSENSE ??

NB: THIS is why I didn't work in London !!! If I'd have been in charge of that place the warehouse would have been pretty much empty - I shÃ*t you not. I do not have a healthy opinion of most new techno coming out, though I'll gladly jump through hoops for stuff that IS good. Sadly, you gotta sell records to stay in business (not that it helped us, though).

[massplanck]

:clap:

[Jay Pace]

[quote="Just Music"]
Who gives a damn what names you have on your record... Is it any good ? Does it STAND for anything ? What is it's PURPOSE ? Is it pushing things FORWARD or is it just - at the end of the day - generic NONSENSE ?? [quote]

Generic nonsense sells. Seems to be the No 1. rule of the music industry.

Sorry you got burned mate. If you want to go niche and only release forward thinking future stuff I would suggest you go down the MP3 route - low overheads and all that.

But I'm sorry, I don't think Techno is being killed off at all. There's loads of decent stuff coming out at the moment, but it has a different direction.

This doesn't mean death, it means change.

Anyway, best of luck in whichever way you go next.

[The Divide]

Best of luck with the digital thing if you down that road

[Sunil]

But I'm sorry, I don't think Techno is being killed off at all. There's loads of decent stuff coming out at the moment, but it has a different direction.

He didn't say it's being killed off completely. His point about many labels doing more harm than good is right though.

Loads of decent stuff coming out? I'm not being negative, but basically this is the slackest year I can remember to date.

[Sunil]

And all the best by the way. Hope you manage to recoup some of your money.

[JamieBall]

"But I'm sorry, I don't think Techno is being killed off at all. There's loads of decent stuff coming out at the moment, but it has a different direction. "

Maybe you find good techno cause you're LOOKING for it, though ?

Different direction ? WHERE ? In your book, maybe...

Techno on the continent is still healthy-ish (though still dropping in sales) - but in the UK the scene is SCREWED. There is no disputing this, really. Pockets of resistance remain, but nothing that could be classed as an army. Everyone who works in shops (the ones that are left) in the Uk has told me the same. People are bored with low quality techno and have had to suffer it for too long.

There's too many labels releasing music that is too formulaic and boring as a result of certain label bosses not seeing the wood for the trees.

Would you start a soft drinks company and call it 'COKE' and pirate their recipe and give it the same packaging ??? No, you would not. For it would be financial suicide. Don't understand why people think this rule is okay when applied to techno.

There's NOT "loads" of decent stuff coming out. There is good music, sure, but there's a LOT of shÃ*té out there. I think this is where artists being 'personal' about their music comes into play. I don't give a shit if someone has spent hours on a piece of music and thinks it's great etc. If I reckon it's rubbish I'm happy to say so. What's the point in letting people labour under misapprehensions when it's hurting the rest of us ???

To be honest this discussion could run and run, though, as I'm sure many people in here like music that I don't and vice versa. It's all subjective.

And I don't need a lecture on how the music industry does or doesn't work, thank you very much. I am only too aware of how it functions.

Also, we didn't get 'burned', we went under because basically this kind of music can't support itself anymore in sales terms - to be perfectly honest. Sure there are things that could probably have been done to PROLONG our existence, but our days were numbered from the moment we opened our doors imo.

[JamieBall]

Also,

I've just been onto worldpay and spent the last couple of hours routing refunds to anyone who's yet to recieve their mail orders.

So, basically, ain't nobody been ripped off on this front. Thankfully worldpay don't pay us until they've had the cash for 2 months (??) so it's sits holding there until they transfer it to us. Looks like refunds can be done on any transaction within that period.

If anyone has any gripes pm me and I'll try to refund you but to be honest I've done all the transactions I can see so just give it 3-4 days for the money to show back on your card.

Peace

JB

[alsynthe]

cheers much appreciated man

[JamieBall]

No probs...

As all these complaints are routed to my email address it's sensible for me to try and put an end to it all !

Didn't realise it was going to end like THIS, I'd have preferred if people just got their records... Oh well...

However, at least I'm not going to be up in the pillory for any shady doings people might have tried to attribute to - er - the ONLY member of the company that is currently available to talk to !

JB

[Jay Pace]

Different direction ? WHERE ? In your book, maybe...

Theres loads of good minimal stuff coming out. I never struggle to find decent new releases, but then I don't confine myself to looking for one specific sound.

Additionally Vogel's album was outstanding. Speedy J's is getting rave reviews, and Hawtin's is awesome. The djs I see playing out don't seem to be struggling from a lack of good tunes.

In the ten years I have been buying records I can never remember a time when there wasn't loads of shite about.

All subjective, like you say.

[alsynthe]

yea u are the only person who has actually bothered to contact me, just received refund confirmation email

cheers for sorting it out man

[JamieBall]

Ah, now I begin to see where you're coming from.....

"There's loads of good minimal stuff coming out"

Yeah.

AND ?

I remember when 'I'm losing control' first came out. There was loads of good minimal stuff then, too.

Isn't this just a current trend ? I think so. And it is, frankly, a trend that is NOT really taking off in the UK.

Also, artists like Vogel/Hawtin etc have seen sales of their stuff cut to pieces of late. I don't think you're making the link I've alluded to between quality music and sales, to be honest.

If something is AMAZING, how will it become the benchmark if no-one outside of a small group of people have heard of it. It can't. End of story. It's all well and good sitting in a coffee shop in Berlin chatting about existentialism and how nice it is to be on the vanguard of minimalism but this is NOT going to sell more records, no matter how warm and superior it may make you feel inside.

I am making the point that it's all well and good for afficionados of certain sounds to get the new/cool stuff, this is always going to happen - but where on EARTH do first time buyers start ??

Also, I'd say that a LOT of the minimal stuff around these days pales in comparison to the early works of DBX, PWOG, Robert Hood etc. It's just MORE OF THE SAME. A lot of it is also very obviously influenced by Akufen, someone who did (for a while) do something different with the minimal style.

Kind of like Autechre. For a group who have strived so hard for an individual sound it must worry them that so many people now strive to sound exactly the same. Who ORIGINATED the sound, though ? THAT is who people will remember and thus Autechre will always be the masters.

I'm quite sad to see the emphasis being taken off 'hard' techno now that 'minimal' techno is in the pages of mixmag. It makes me feel many people have 'gone minimal' because the hard techno scene is basically boring them and they feel creatively stifled within it. This is BULLSHÃ*T. Techno is Hip-Hop as far as I'm concerned, you should be able to do WHATEVER THE FúCK YOU WANT with it.

If you are in the techno scene and feel limited creatively it's merely because your CREATIVITY is LIMITED.

Scenes ? Styles ? I've said it before I don't care for such classifications. It's ALL music at the end of the day.

[JamieBall]

yea u are the only person who has actually bothered to contact me, just received refund confirmation email

cheers for sorting it out man

Nice one, pleased to hear it !

I'm not down with the way this has gone, hence I'm the one still trying to sort people out.

Still can't get an answer from the office, who knows what goes on ???

Last thing they told me some mail had gone out and some was going to be done asap. Don't look likely now, though, hence trying to sort people out who have the potential to get burned.

FRIENDS of mine spending like £100 and the others in the company don't really seem too arsed, I guess as it only impacts badly on me. I'm a little bit disappointed in this, but at the end of the day - IF YOU WANT SOMETHING DONE PROPERLY...

[Jay Pace]

Cool your boots