Ep559: Rhino Records Co-Founder Richard Foos

Welcome to The Vinyl Guide, the podcast for record collectors and music nerds. Here's your host, the biggest record nerd of them all, Nate Goyer. Oh hey everyone, it's Nate, welcome to episode 559 of The Vinyl Guide, the podcast for record collectors and music nerds, and dear people, Rhino Records, let's just let that sink in for a moment. Rhino Records. Starting from Rhino Records in the past, some earlier than others, I started my Rhino journey with some James Brown compilations in the 80s, and I continued this day with the Rhino Reserve series. I don't know if you know about this, the Rhino Reserve series on vinyl, they're doing some amazing reissues, just got me an Eddie Hazel reissue of an album I could never afford an original of. They recently reissued the meters, Donny Hathaway live, Baby Huey, a bunch of great titles. Rhino has always been known for their high taste, but where did that come from? Well, today we meet the man who kicked it off, Mr. Richard Fuz, Richard and Rhino co-founder Harold Bronson started Rhino Records as a record shop in LA in 1973, eventually becoming one of the primary hubs for non-mainstream music and really helped germinating the record collecting culture. They started reissuing classic titles, compilations, et cetera, at a time when very few labels were celebrating their back catalogs, and just by luck of the draw by default Rhino created a reissue culture, which we still enjoy today. So today we talk with Richard about that journey, discuss various aspects of it, and I think you'll agree Richard is a wealth of knowledge, lots of stories, we get some great ones today. And hey, real quick, before we talk vinyl reissues with Richard, if you like this podcast, please follow it in your podcast app. There are like over 550 other interviews, talking records, music rarities, and more interviews with people like Greg Ginn of Black Flag and SSD records, episode 547, Zach Wilde talked all about Ozzy's final show, Pantera's Future, and much more episode 544, a director Dave Markey on his brilliant movie, The Secret Lives of Bill Bartell joined us episode 549, 2D Cole, and the legend of Dead Moon, episode 520, and literally hundreds more all-free anytime. Just follow the vinyl guide podcast in your podcast app. And if you want to help support the show, go to patreon.com/vinylguide, throw us a few shuckles there, and it'd be much appreciated. Let's talk records reissues and more with Rhino Records co-founder, Richard Foos. Well Richard, thank you so much for coming on the show, and you know, I've always been fascinated by Rhino Records, and so thanks for making the time, they call you King of the Reissues, but you're really more kind of the gengus con of reissues, the Christopher Columbus. But you know, going out there and really kind of kickstarting the reissue, I guess, crazing culture. Is that fair? Is that a moniker you wear? Well, a couple months ago, my first employee who was in high school and had to go to a vigorous recruitment process, he said, "Can I work here?" I said sure. Anyway, he was telling me, he mentioned the words reissue culture, and so what's that? He goes, "You invented it?" So he said, "Okay, I invented it. I'll take that." He did. And God has it ever been going strong since. Now, you started as a record shop, and things just kind of butted from there. Now this is early '70s, I want to say '73ish, so that'll be great. Okay. So you started the record shop '70s. What was record collecting like back then? There really wasn't anything. Yeah. I guess because Jeff Gold does the person who I, we hired at a high school, you started a business where he would, I guess there was one record collecting, Newt Banzin, and he would advertise and do a classified ad if you want rare records. And he sent out a list, but it was very small. Records really weren't worth all that much, you know, a rare record. You know, retail records were five, six bucks. A rare record maybe was ten dollars, a really rare record. So well, it wasn't much, and it was really difficult to collect records or even hear music that was old. Two years, it could be two, three years old. It's gone. In the 8th or gone, yeah. So you really didn't have people that were hunting things at that point like blue notes or whatever, or maybe the rare person here there, but that was seven. Yeah, that bit. There'd be people who'd, you know, go around to old warehouses and you had a few collector record shocks in the bigger cities, there might be no one in each city, but not much. And you could go hunting to, you know, the handful of used record stores or sell vanishing army did well and find great, you know, very records. You know, people do talk about, you know, the holy grail of I went to sudden records warehouse and there were 500 sealed, you know, slide records they were trying to get, I never, that I never found, I never found that holy grail. Yeah, I'm still searching for it, because again, I didn't grow up in Los Angeles, but I got a lot of friends there and I know it seems to be the record collecting epicenter. There's always talk of like the capital record market and, you know, swap meat, those sort of things where a lot of record collectors got together. Was that going when you opened the shop or that's that some of that? No, that was a year. Those years later, about four or five years later, more late 70s, I think what started the boom of even music fans was punk rock, you know, such a E-I-Y, everyone could do it, everybody could have a band, all of a sudden, you could have a band and you could be playing in the clubs and there's the furry little, you know, even the biggest band, like X. Now, you know, we look on these rock stars as like gods, we're talking in the punk era. You know, there was this very little distance, it weren't like Korean rooms to tease clubs. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Al's bar that was in the basement of, you know, they were grungy and, and you were all like packed in there, and together was, was Rhino records a bit of a gathering place for-- Absolutely. Yeah. So the sort of people you'd have in John Doe, Darby Crash. They'd-- Everybody in your door. Darby Crash used to come in the store and crash, he'd be like throwing-- he was Darby Crash. And we had to band him from the store. Oh no. So I-- he was insane and we-- you know, we had-- you know, we-- we'd have like our worst customer list, and he was up there, number one band, forever. So, you know, the Ramones came in a couple of times when they'd be touring, you know, Ramones were playing, you know, like small clubs, they weren't like-- they were just another work band. You know, which we-- they were exalted, because, you know, from New York and whatnot, it was really a different thing, Samson. And they weren't a lot of places that were carrying a bunker. You know, we would-- any band that had the-- most bands didn't have the money for albums. Yeah. They had to press-- how'd them say the press 40 Bides? We'd say any band that you want to-- you know, give you a record so I can sign and we'll take them. And we'll display on them, and they-- and they sold. Okay. The only places where you could buy-- go ahead and every, you know, Devo, tourists, they put out their own single or their single. And, you know, nobody-- the major labels were scouting these bands, you know, where-- So you'd have the whole set of danger house singles, you'd get all the bomb stuff, pretty much everything-- they had that you guys would-- Sounding or something, per dollar. It's clear that there was a pivot at some point to be able to start-- to go from selling records to compiling and releasing reissues. The first-- what was the first major reissue for you? Was that-- was that the James Brown? What-- Probably James Brown. Yeah. Okay. You know, really major, and it was amazing. So James Brown was a great example for the industry was in 1979, basically 100% of James Brown's records were out of printable. And so you had to find the old king records, except for his new album. Right. But you wouldn't find him sealed, you'd find him in these, you know, if you're-- [BLANK_AUDIO] I'm going to intuit that if you're not in LA or New York or San Francisco and there's not some kind of underground scene that maybe let's take Indianapolis there probably wasn't to use record store or maybe there was one and they'd have a small selection so you'd have to be lucky that they would have if you wanted to hear James Brown music there's not all these no stations there's all these stations nobody's playing it except if you can find an old record which was anything but easy to do so so pretty much this music's at a print unavailable to be heard etc until we put out hey James Brown greatest hits and sold really well and then CDs by 82 83 CDs are over taking no peas and polygram records gave us a rights to put it on CD and then we sold hundreds of thousands and had it for a few years till they say why are we licensing it to right now we can just put it on ourselves so when you first got the idea to reissue James Brown how difficult was that process it I guess they weren't even sure what they had or what they could do with it they were fairly open to just because their major labels have licensing departments because people needed the licensing music but filmed there was companies like KTel that was doing you know so all these calculations you know a variety so they had to have a licensing division that they never thought about reissuing the music themselves it was couldn't be any you know so they'd have more of a administrative personality creator purchased and running the licensing department that was kind of in the basement of the record company and saying yeah you know and they were disorder takers so we say okay we want to license James Brown greatest hits and they go to still in their defense there's something with still selling we're not getting sergeant peppers or you know that's still in print or you know Led Zeppelin all those records are still in print but then the next level down they're all out of print right but like the Led Zeppelin's or the people those are those are the top one percent or whatever but there was the whole iceberg below the surface that exactly now did they give you like once you do the license they give you the tapes like how does that happen uh they let us go in their vaults and we would insist we would only put a record out if we could if we could go into the vaults and get the original master tapes and whether it'd be LP or CD a master from those tapes now it's not done it's too much work so it's funny when you're getting an LP reissue with the hope that you're guess hearing the individual analog source you're not you're hearing they did your all so it's it sort of takes the if analog sounds better you're not getting it yeah but they but you you do the license you do the deal that they let you in the vaults and then here you are just a young guy getting handed the master tape of cold sweat and funky drummer and everything to do your thing so and sometimes we have he's I think he still does a lot of work or right on another company a lot it was like a master tape you know sound engineer and whatever and he sometimes if the original master tape was missing they let us use the multitracks but bill to his credit would never change it that you know he'd listen to the original and even if the base was too low in the original recording and it would sound better if it was right he would not like pull with it it was all about restoring the original recording so it would sound the best that you've ever heard it yeah ultimate purist there and even even in those days it's record collectors you would know this more than me that look at the inscription on the desk to see how early in the pressing run it was pressed and obviously the earlier it was the better it would sound okay so you guys were very deep into that even the the stamper numbers back then no we weren't okay okay there are record collectors who get into the stamper numbers and they're right that if it's the beginning of the run of a stamper it's going to sound better than the end of them out of a set I don't know the human ear could it's affirmative but they are they aren't correct but we would always we would never use the stamper or a secondary tape we'd always get the rich older master tape and that's what we would you know master fun were there any projects that you tried to put out that back in the day they just didn't have the tapes they would have made the deal but you just weren't able to get all the materials to put it together you should yeah there were a few and and then sometimes if we couldn't license like I think I can't remember if it was after I left or right at the end but for years we didn't put out a punk rock box set because we couldn't get the sex pistols but God save the queen and you know our since passed away head of an R was wounded we can't get that not doing it oh okay that was funny the uh we did let us put out oh no in the original nuggets album this informed a lot of what we did that was the first great wonderful research original tapes unbelievable sounding reissue and that was before us so it was 72 so we reissue so they were not the one song they were not able to get on the original nuggets because the Alan Klopp famous Alan Klein with license it is 96 tears like what should mark in the serians and recently right reissued nuggets and got the rights for 96 tears so that the puzzles back together now yeah yeah so that you know occasionally there were songs we couldn't get or again we couldn't get the master recording and you know and once for a while I can't say if we're putting out you know 100 song do-op box and a couple of those songs we can't find the master tapes we might have mastered from other sources so like but 99 percent of time we assisted on the original mask man oh how did you develop the ear for for sequencing because it's not just dumping things in chronological order I mean there was an art to you know one front of the other and being able to as a listener to be able to hear the history in a sequence that made the most sense so I think our secret was we had grown up on my partner and I on listening to the radio being part of the music site guys and we would we would follow the same way of that nobody bought a lot of albums you couldn't afford a lot of albums so most of the arc of 60s artists they weren't the one percent that like that could jump decades like maybe the Rolling Stones Stevie Wonder most of them their careers start to wane by the third or fourth album and then the record labels would at that point they were smart up they put out a greatest hits album and we buy those greatest hit that greatest hits album when they were always lacking because it was you know the dirty secret of the music business is it's adults make trying to figure out what kids want that they're not in their day they usually hate the music so you you can't tell me that the heads of record companies especially in the 90s and zeros love rap so it was like adults you know compiling these greatest hits albums and they didn't give it they hated the music so they didn't know what they didn't understand it they were like they knew what the hits were because they sold it but once you get past the obvious ones they don't know what the best records are what a pleasurable listening experience would be but we did we knew what was lacking and what they did we knew what a we knew these bands so backwards and forward we knew you know the four or five turtle songs that were almost hits but didn't make it but we're still great records and and so we knew what a we just saw in our DNA what a good album would be like what it would sound like and how to compile so yeah because you guys were fans you understood the I guess what other fans were looking for maybe went with your gutter a lot but anyway yeah the sequencing of rhino records has always been something to me has been impressive because there seem to be a philosophy behind it introducing a listener and I bought that right that James Brown reissue when I was a youngling and that talked a lot about James Brown it was and I think if you would have started with just his old stuff in chronological order I probably would have tapped out early it's interesting yeah so it was welcoming to the newbie as well wow right now that's great to hear right it even told me really yeah yeah yeah it's like it's like it's like the movie opening you You know, you got to capture him in the first few minutes. Otherwise, you know, they go somewhere else. So was there ever a reissue that happened but everyone tried to talk you out of? Yes Yeah, yes I was the only one at the I My favorite music was duop music. So I was right on the bubble of that being a 50s guy and a 60s guy Start listening to music in 1960 and then my backwards to the 50s and so um I Always had wanted to do a box set of the greatest duop songs, but No one else at the company like duop and Even I thought this is just a Vanity project in school. There's money Because you know, it's fairly expensive to do. This will be a 4 CD hundreds long Box set and we put it out. Yeah We waited about three four years to put it out two or we were financially solving enough to lose some money and It basically was by far the best selling box that we ever had I don't know because it still has but hundreds of thousands of units I know it like at the same time the beach boy a beach wise box set had come out on capital and outsold The beach wise box set it went up. We went on and did a PBS flood show That that was the premium was the still the biggest grossing PBS show in history it did at the PBS level. You know, they're charged hundreds of dollars. You did over a hundred million dollars Yeah, no, which I'm sure they can really use today But we're gonna have the fuck they find it So that was you know And people just like it just touched the nerve that we do up with New York city street bokeh music and It just touched the nerve and this was early 80s this one. Oh, we Late 80s and it delayed it. Okay, all right That nostalgia cycles seem to go every 20 to 25 years something like that and I've always chalked it up to The you know when you're a teenager late teen girly 20s that music that really kind of Sweetened your life then you go through the era of Having a family or having a mortgage or something where you can't get it and then 20 years later All of a sudden you're empowered to be able to to to revisit that you you Hearken back to you know this youth that you want to revisit and music tends to be a Key factor in that so that's the story that I've told myself, you know what what what's really popular right now will probably be very Collectible in 2025 years when people start missing people that are not today start missing their youth Is that right is that something you would kind of agree with or do you think? I pulled it. Yeah, remember I had a nephew who was saying you know, he said it was early 40s and He'd say god's a music suck today. It's not great like it was in the 90s And I'm sure there's now people Waxing poetic about those great zeroes. Yeah track. It is today. Oh, that's some of the most collectible records right now Some of the records are out of there. Yeah, and it's also a big help to the collector community that they didn't press that much final In the other almost no finals in the zero. Yeah, so if you have you know original Smashing pumpkins from back then. Oh, that's that's a that's a car payment right there that's yeah, wow Yeah, do you do you keep up with record collecting culture these days? No, I don't and Doing some of these podcasts I've learned a lot Yeah, so so I'm one who said, you know, show me the rhino high-fi series and Saying these this is the gold standard of Whoever issues today, and I was so proud that the legacy is still being carried on. Oh, yeah Well, you know, I think you guys also struck under I always assumed that there was a strong record collecting Muscle behind it because you knew how people Wanted to deep dive into the music like putting in out takes rarities Things that would be on the cutting room floor of most mastering labs You know masters. Yeah, all we cared about was that you take a genre or a group That we're we're gonna give you the hits You're sure always and we always insisted the hits are on it and then Below that we're gonna give you the best list. We're you know We listen to everything we were there at the time And we're re-listing everything and we're gonna give you I Guess our opinion of the best listing experience and best experience you're gonna have With it would to whatever group We're gonna get meds. Yeah, but you also gave an education. There was a booklet. There was information There were pictures like and Outtakes and things that probably would have only been on B sides where I would imagine correct me if I'm wrong You probably found some interesting stuff while you were going through the tape vaults. Yeah, we did what we weren't We weren't the label for the deep collectors there were other labels Yeah, they're doing that like would only put on outtakes and and only book through rarities. What's wrong? We do a rarity's album, but You know very rarely we weren't we were about The best listening not the rarest the best listening experience if they were rare. That's great But we they weren't rarity. We didn't put on rarities for rarity's sake. Yeah A lot of those rarity records were probably produced by bootleggers. Did you have much of a relationship with bootleggers or how did you guys interact in that world? Well truth be told when I was two years before I even had a record store I was going to swap mates and The biggest prosing booth that the swap mate was Somebody selling bootlegg records, which turned out to be the guy making them so So I've had a Family's electronic store that I said huh I could sell used records and some bootlabs and this was in a Mall that was abandoned and that it became the most popular male mall in the country was Santa Monica Prominent but the time it was abandoned and so you'd really have to Be into surplus electronics and then buying the bin in our Investor that had to have the book like so I had a relationship with the bootlegger and Amazing enough a very famous underground Comic artist will build stout was the first The bootleggers were smart enough to start you know the original bootleggers They just had a rubber stamp that's a great white wonder and This guy said how maybe we'll sell more if we do a little artwork and Bill stout was the first Underground bootlegg artists who became with a One of the biggest psych by fantasy poster artists that campaigns for Star Wars movies and but like Spielberg Yeah, and he did the rhino logo as I understand That's true. Yeah, absolutely. So you you ran in some you had you had friends in high-end low places there So so you you were actually for you know early days pre rhino shop you were actually selling some bootlegs or Involved in that any close calls. I'm more than a post-call. I was arrested. Oh, okay It was a matter of fact a place thing was There's arrested and paid off paid a fine We're selling selling a lot of bootlegs because We would have a sale Every year for the store and that would stop selling bootlegs when we'd spruce But we have to our big warehouse out. We'd spruce in a few big bootlegs and the RIA Just happened to be in at the sale and the next day they pulled up the biggest truck I'd ever seen in my life You know a radar store and with you know FBI agents in the whole bit and that it found about 30 bootlegs and Like a arrested and it was right later Let's work no low contender. Hey, but it was enough that years later for the hell of it. I signed up to be a Volunteer policeman hurts for the hell of it when they asked me is on Swinning up. Have you ever been arrested? I go. Yeah, but it was 40 years ago, and it was no normal contender He goes well, you're not old I said you'd find it. You know the computer all you're out. So I couldn't be a cop Well, it makes you feel any better. I think they've updated the rules. You could probably try again. Okay So wow, okay, so you actually got arrested for Got in trouble for it and this was a person I went and I was proactive because we were licensing from the record companies and Yeah, there's an hour. call him in billboard about it and then. So I pre I called every record company who we licensed from and say, look, it was 30 records. It was an accident. It's no little content. You know, you know, I'm pre anyway, one of the heads up with number Columbia records, the guy we had licensed from is sitting on the plane with his boss who's about reaching through billboard. He like takes billboard, the billboard. You don't need to see that. So he doesn't find out that. That we had that I do the rest. So it blew over. It was fine. Oh, that's amazing. So you did have those sort of connections in that in that area. The TMOQ guys, I would imagine that was who it was. Yeah. Okay. All right. He's written, I think he wrote a autobiography about it, about those days. And we had them on the show. Pretty well. Yeah. Ken was a Ken Douglas. Well, they're they go under pseudonyms uptellers and they go under pseudonyms. They're still not comfortable. Oh, truly, truly. Wow. Yeah. It's funny. I'll send you the interview. Well, you know, the amazing thing is they were providing a need and they were part of the, I don't know, real fan culture, music fan culture and the record labels, even starting in like the mid 70s started brewing and controlling the careers. You know, they got, okay, you could have an even the biggest hearted artist every three years. You could have an album out. So if you're a fan, the most you can spend on an artist unless you can maybe find a t-shirt or something is six dollars. And yet there are all these live concerts that people would love to buy. If the record company, they didn't want to buy a bootlegs if they were out from the record companies. They would have bought put the record companies, what it controlled in and limit. They didn't understand fandom and they might not be there. Now they did. Yeah. If I'm a stoogeist fan, I want to hear more than those two or three records. I want to hear their live show. And I'm not going to take that money and now, you know, give it to buy Pat Benatar or anything. I want more stoogeist. Damn it. Exactly. They just didn't get it because again, they weren't the fans. They were the business guys and they didn't want to plug the market. And I've had a heart storage from artists that we had hit records and they're ready to drop their next record. And then, you know, record companies. No, it's not time. You know, and the record companies got a poor matted out. You know, we have six hit artists. We can't put them all out at the same time. So they ruined the artist's career because it's all timing and whatever. And so there's a documentary about blood sweat and tears. That's right. But they at the biggest selling band at four, you know, top 10 records and they wait two or three years to put out their next record. And it's over. So not completely cooled off. The sounds that different and everything. Yeah. And they never were able to, I think they had a couple more hits. And then, what was it? Now, the whole vinyl revival of the last, let's say, 15, 20 years, has that surprised you that people have gone back to vinyl the way they were? I love it. I love it, but it's amazing. Yeah. Never waited. So did it with a million years. You know, it just shows we're something really spiritual about an album that just people love it. I've heard that over half of albums sold are never opened. Yeah. I've heard that too. Yeah. People just, I think a lot of ways they want to support an artist and they value something physical to hold. Right. And if they like to cover, it's artwork in your home. And where else? You know, you're paying $30 and a frame. Let's still cheap artwork. Yeah. Because the, I guess the assumption, the culture around music and availability has changed so much. You mentioned in their early 70s, I grew up in kind of the mid 70s where you had to capture the song on the radio on a cassette. Otherwise, you may not hear it again or you don't know when you'll get an opportunity to do it. And just like, similar to how the record industry almost destroyed itself by suing the hamster and that offering an alternative, they had a mantra that was, you know, they put it on albums and everything, home typing and killing our business. But it wasn't. It was seeding their business. Yeah. Anyway, back again, back in my day, we had to kind of capture the music. So it was either you buy the record and you didn't have, you know, you had a finite amount of money. So, you know, a lot of times you had to try to capture it on a cassette or something like that. And there was, there was a scarcity, a feeling of scarcity there. Now with, within the years of streaming have come around. And for a while, there wasn't the urge to own until a lot of the streaming services start tapping out of their licenses. And then some records, some music you couldn't get anymore on streaming. So it made it more difficult. We're starting to kind of see it with movies. We used to be able to turn on Netflix and the Godfather one, two, one and two. We're right there. No problem. And then you turn it on the next month, and they're gone. How do you feel the culture of media, I guess, absorption will continue to evolve? Like, what do you think it'll look like? Is streaming the Nirvana? Or where do you think it'll look like in another time? You know, I think it's true. I think streaming is the Nirvana. And again, I just want to hear great music or see great film using the word accessible, what better. And I just can't even believe in YouTube. I can assure some of I'll pop into my mind and I'll all 99% time be available on YouTube. It'll be an artist that didn't even have a hit. And there'll be 30 more songs. Yeah. And then artists, they go, wow. So I don't think the studio is, or the record companies went lowingly. But at some point, it was so easy for everyone to load or stop on YouTube and other summer services simply. The gene was out of the bottle. So now they're allowing, you know, through their what we call metrics, let you put up at their algorithms, they can put up and capture it, get the revenue from all their catalogs. Yeah. Sure. All these artists that are selling their catalogs for tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, do you think the value of those catalogs are going to grow significantly over the coming decades? No, no, we're always seeing they go quickly, just go down. There's no way. Yeah. Yeah, let's go down. We won't live forever and maybe let's up a little be remembered and maybe that, but general people are to get in the same way. I bet most kids have never, you know, teenagers calls, never heard of Bryson Autor. Yeah. You know, it's by far the biggest of our parents generation. It was all tough. You know, I always think who are the artists that people a hundred years from now are going to be talking about? Shicks. No, then the Beatles for sure. I think Nirvana has a good chance because there's the whole story around it as well, you know, the flaming out of Kurt. But yeah, not that many. No, I don't know. Let's up on wood or not. But yeah, yeah, don't think they would. You know, to me, the whole thing of that supplement is they were the first like free, heavy metal, hard rock. They just rock. Even though we listen to it now and it doesn't say, what's the thing deal when it came out? There's nothing even remotely like I was scared. We've had like dark energy and, but it's been eclipse, you know, by so much darker and louder, louder music, a little, a little pair. Mm hmm. Was there ever a reissue that you started with and it got botched up? Well, I'll tell you a, after I left Rhino for a few years, the record nerds took over. Mm hmm. You didn't have the editors anymore at the time. And the record nerds took over and there were things like they put out a LA medals. Record collectors were there at the time. They didn't know what music was played on the underground radio stations, who, what bands were, the secondary bands in blood. And they put out a pure, my release, rare demos, rarety bucks that was the terrible. Listen, I was really, I'd happen. This LA not just would have been my favorite thing ever in a compile. And I just think I could have done an amazing job on it. We never went that deep to Chispew and LA. box yet. So there were a few times and again, it was so against our ethos about you, how you do it. Once the record collectors are trying to impress other record collectors about all these great deep remedies that we, which we always did, that we got to put the, the best for you is like, it was well as well. Yeah. Comedians call that playing to the back of the room. We're other comedians. Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever go back and forth with an artist or in a state over what was included, you know, any complexities in dealing with that? Here's one that we never did. So one of my favorite artists, I would love to do a best of those on many labels, was Katy Friedman. You know, not a, never had a hit record, but, you know, loves his music. And he said, so we met with him, which, I don't know, I analyzed, so one of his mates. And he said, you know, we said, we want to do a best. So he said, no, F and way. I hate how I did those songs. I do them so much better now. And that was, I'm going to kill some death. We're going to put out a rerecording, how 86 version of whatever he had. Yeah. Yeah. And so that, you know, it would have solved not very well anyway. We would love to do it, but now we encountered that a few times, we are. So that was trash. That was trash. Now I know how to play it, but you don't understand what you said about when you first hear it as a teenager, and it's magic, you don't want to hear. Oh, yeah, three recordings where the now has straight wings or I can't tell you how many times war has redone low writer. But the low writer, 99 low writer, 2001, you know, there's probably 12 different versions, but that first version, you know, you can't capture that magic again. It's just. Yeah, even the room noise or things around it, you know, if they played it perfectly the same way, it's just not the same. Absolutely. Any strange conditions ever put on licensing material? Yeah, you could do this, but you also have to include this or some other strange thing that was required to hoop to jump through. Well, there were many artists, you know, the absurdity of like many artists, you know, in particular, the big artists that wouldn't allow their songs to be compiled with other songs. So we wanted to put out a greatest singer songwriter. We probably couldn't get up through a springsteen track, but now you see the absence. What even then? Anybody could home tape whatever collection they wanted. So Bruce Frinks will be now. No, have no control over a cassette and have him with, you know, the most right-wing country artist league, right? Greenwood doing God bless USA with born in the USA. You'd have no control over it, and now you really have no control over that they owned an actual album. Many artists had no coupling clauses. So it was hard. We never could get Dylan on a best-of-folk compilation or you know, so that was, you know, yeah, that was an issue. And sometimes we, sometimes we could, we talked to the manager, we talked to yours, and convinced him. Was it more difficult tracking, you know, or securing music and audio rights than it became with video rights? Because you went to the shout factory. So I imagine it's a very similar challenge on the audio and video. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm video, or the challenge was music awareness. Yeah. That challenge was enabled us to put out things that never, nobody else would be crazy enough to put out. So one example, the first great show that we re-issued was Freaks and Geeks. And nobody would dare touch it because they were 80 gigantic hit songs from the 60s in the early 70s. Who songs and things that, so I believe it was owned by Paramount and the, the creator producer, Chad Appetoe, really wanted it out on DVD. And this is when DVD, there wasn't streaming. Yeah. It was the only delivery system. Not like the broadcasts for Boulder shows. And I had never, no, I've never been out. But Paramount said, okay, if you can clear it, you can, you can put it out. And we cleared every single song. And it was not easy. But you have to, when you clear music, it has to be both the master and the publishing. So you need, and sometimes the artist, so you need two to three clear answers for every song that's going to go on it, on a show. And that, the irony of Ironies was we later got the rights for WKRP and Cincinnati, which the main selling point of the show is the first show about eight, 70s FM station that used real music. So when I think it was Fox, put out the show on maybe as VHS or DVD, they replaced the music, so it was single, I put in fake music. So it allowed us to go back and restore your original real music. So we, we took the same retirement TV. We took this exact same, that shell factory took the exact same philosophy. Same thing, remastering from original sources. With DDD, the great thing is you could put on noodles. You weren't restricted to the 75 minutes of a CD or 45 minutes of an LP. You could put in as many extras as you want. So we had commentaries interviewed with the stars, outtakes, it's one, the pilot episode, etc, etc. So we grab it again. Super serve and a fan. Yeah. It's the same way that you made that James Brown compilation. And it's WKRP. That's the definitive collection. If you want to go to that show, that's where you go. Yeah. Talk to me a little bit about working with Frank Zappa. Because I remember the beat, the boot series. Yes. Was that primarily how you worked with Zappa or were there? Primarily we put out a couple of his newer albums. But we never, we were able to effectuate the deal for the title odd, which we had an option on. And when he passed away, we passed on it and you're sure to sorry. Well, right go right go got it. But so it was kind of a there's several parties at hand that were kind of fine. Yeah. Yeah. So when we worked with him on the beat the boots, Bob. And he was, Zappa was great to work with on, you know, great to having conversations with him going to his house, which was kind of like the how it was family mansion, just like this old mansion. He had his, you know, ball in the basement. And, uh, and, um, yeah, I was great. Yeah, we were, by the way, his genius was he was the only artist that I get he understood his fandom. And he, his idea was beat the boots was just to bootleg the bootleggers and put everything out if they did his crappy job on it. We put out a crappy job. So we was undermined the bootlegers. And every artist should have done that. And he really is almost the only one. The dead, the dead as well. And the doors, but very few artists, really understood that. And it was a lot of fun working with them. Yeah. Yeah. That was Jesus. It even just mimicked their artwork and the whole package put together. Plus you got to go. And you know, the bootleggers are not going to sue you for. And if you bought the box, you got a beret with it. So that was handy. Yeah. One of them, we had a big pop pop up, like a, there's greeting cards. What was the most elaborate package that you remember working on? Well, we had a genius compiler artist, you Brown, who was only into insanely, uh, elaborate packages. So there was like the, uh, 70s have a nice day box set with the shag carpet. And, um, yeah, I'm forgetting. Something is more elaborate packages. Oh, he had, you did, um, when it is, the first thing we did with him was sex stars, saying there's something like that that was male, you know, all the mom shells, the 50s and 60s, like Jane Manesville made me go to work, Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Lauren, that had done, tried to be in recording artists. but it was on, you know, pink vinyl, just all kinds of dipsy dues that, you know, with a giant, you know, obviously great picture of book, with sexy pictures of long work. Yeah. You were trying to do different perfumes or different things you would try. Oh, we had perfume. Yes. Okay, perfume on the record. And we really tried to screw around a vinyl. We tried to have fun with vinyl. So we do thing. And I think like, I've heard, like, Jack White, his pressing plants has done crazy things with vinyl, but we had one that played inside out, will play from the inside to the outside. We did. In those days, it was hard to sell comedy records. It's everyone said, hey, it plays the same every time. So we did an album with a comedian, Henny Youngman. And we did use something called Trick Track. So it was four different master tracks on the album. And depending on where you put the needle down, we would play a different track all the time. So we promoted it as the one album. Comedy album will always place different. Oh, I never realized. Yeah, those hidden grooves where you could find a secret song or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. So we, everything we could think of that you could do that was fun. No. The Temple City, Kazoo, Orchestra, which was our biggest nobody record for the first few years. We did on, oh, we did one of the four songs was "Miss You" that so we did it on disco vinyl. And it was, so it looked like a disco ball. And you know, a picture of this, anything we could think of like to have fun with vinyl, we did. Yeah. Oh, it just sounds like such an amazing place, like a Willy Wonka kind of invite. Yeah, we did, we put a hologram. We did a holograms early. We did a surf box set and did like a 3D postcard with a beach babe coming at you 3D on the cover or so. Yeah, we wanted to make, not only a great listening experience, but a fun fun with it too. So yeah, there was always something kind of, you know, interesting when you get a rhino set. And you knew that it came from people who knew what they were doing and you were going to learn something from it, even if it was a record that, you know, how I stumbled into James Brown. I didn't know what to expect, but you guys led the way and I've been forever grateful. So Richard, you know, what sort of things you're looking forward to? What sort of projects you did? I still shot back here. We sold most of the company to I've been in the company a few years ago. They merged us with another company and now it's called Radio and I'm still a saltman. So I do, you know, I'm still coming up with ideas for reissues and talking to the acquisitions, you know, a person. There's still things that are uncovered and so I'm still working on that. And what I mainly do is I start my career I was a child of the 60s and I really bought into the one world we got to give back, help, help your fellow person and always, you know, it was doing community work and I've kind of gone back to that and I just want profit work, including my wife had something called the narrative method, which is addressing what I've always wanted to drive the prices of connection and through her work in acting people mostly on Zoom, through pre-creativity and storytelling, you meet people when we've had a few people from Australia, you know, come but people from all the archery and what if they, and I'm working on a podcast that's invigorating to recall why music matters and it's going to give the story music songs and music movements that were integrated with whatever was going on politically and sociologically at the time. So like protest music and violence, you know, shaped our society in more and more. Oh wow, excellent. When do we get to hear that? Well, it's probably a few months away. So we're kind of gathering all the living tribes to help tell the story. And with these things, there's so, there's so much for me still to learn. That's why I love YouTube like, you know, we don't really, there's so much about music, we still don't know like, you know, the more I dig into learning about the blues and the history of the blues, we know nothing about it. Everything we think, we know about it is untrue. We don't know what the truth is, but it didn't just come from slave songs and, you know, oh music, you know, musicians playing in Hunky Tuck. They were, they were really just playing whatever they thought people wanted to hear what they didn't make up the blues. You know, yeah, we don't really know where it came from. That's all it. When you hear original or origin stories, you hear even like WC handy said, everybody said, there was this little black guy playing on the streets playing the song. I couldn't believe what I heard in that, you know, and that led them into the end of each session. Where that black guy is sitting on the street playing, you know, hear the music and how to evolve. We don't, we don't know. Anyway, yeah, you know, an interesting guest you may want to have his Taj Mahal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's got a brilliant. Yeah. Thank you. I didn't even think about him. Yeah. No, we just had him on the show and he goes deep, man. Wow. Wow. So now he's throwing real music on. Yes. Oh my god. Think about him. Yeah. All good. Well, Richard, thank you so much. It's been an absolute honor and I appreciate the way that you and and your cohort has shaped me over the years. Welcome you back anytime you want to share any updates with the audience, any projects. Please come on. Let's nerd out. And I want to give a shout out to my partner, Rhino, Harold Bronson, who was, I didn't talk about a lot of totally instrumental in every, every part of how we evolved and did it together. So it was a wonderful part. Yeah. Oh, quick question for you. The Rhino records, it wasn't Claremont now in Mont Clare. That's totally unrelated to the shop or the operation. Yeah. Totally related. Totally related. Yeah. The Claremont was our second store. We had a store in Westwood and then we helped with your 76. I think we opened the store. Okay. And then we sold it. So haven't owned it since 1979 or 80. Got it. But it's the same manager was owned it forever. And the funny thing about it is, I didn't even realize this. Mont Clare is right next to Claremont. He hits very confusing. And I didn't realize it's Claremont backwards. Yeah. Yeah. And their twin studies. So, and that was an everything. When I was driving, I was driving to a desert. And I realized, and I got a little lost. I'm an electric people. I realized I didn't have the, I didn't have enough, I had to recharge. I had never done that before. I pull off just the next exit. And then I pull into a shopping center and there's, it's now midnight. So there's Rhino record. I'd never seen the Mont Clare store and some little CD. So you're pulling in the middle of nowhere. And there was, you know, a couple of people charging next to me and it was a very odd kind of dark. But it's not that I'd be a full circle moment of life. Exactly. All right. Richard, be well. And please come back anytime. Love you. Absolutely. Well. Okay. Hey, man. Lovely man. That Richard Fuz. I bet you there's a jillion more stories in that head of his. He also did this whole project. We didn't even talk about it. Shout factory where pretty much what Rhino did for music and vinyl reissues. They did for television series bringing back a lot of television shows from our youth. So we can enjoy on DVD, Blu-ray, et cetera. So that is a guy who definitely has an eye to the future. Thank you, Richard. You're welcome back to the show anytime. And that's it for this episode of the vinyl guide. Thank you so much for tuning in. Appreciate everyone who's sharing these episodes on social media giving us positive reviews and Apple podcasts and Spotify. And of course, you absolute saints who are supporting us on patreon.com/vinylguide. All that love and is certainly appreciated. We'll be back shortly with a brand new episode. So until we talk next time, you all behave yourselves. And thanks again for listening to the vinyl guide podcast. Cheers.