I've just received a couple of Flawed Gems cds(Whichwhats First and Jasper Wrath),can someone tell me if this label is legit?Or is it another grey area label?the sound quality on both is very good,packaging is a bit basic to be honest.Anyone else bough cdcs reissued by Flawed Gems??Any comments to make??

Stuart, when someone (here, I think,) mentioned that Laurelie was coming out on Flawed Gems, I was curious about the same thing, and decided to ask someone well versed in such matters. Tom is quite knowledgeable, and has a blog relating to CD reissues: http://cdreissuewishlist.blogspot.com/ Anyway, his response was "Flawed Gems is definitely a bootleg label." Wish I had better news for you.

Hiya Mo,Yeh it was myself that mentioned Laurelie"flawed Gems" cd,i did receive it and im happy with the sound but again poor packaging!!Those cds are going for around £12,so you do feel a bit miffed that for that price the packaging cant be any better.So this labels a bootleg?I did have my suspicions when i first opened the parcel and saw the basic liners etc,i thought shi.t the sounds gonna be crap too.....but i was surprised when i first played them......but £12 for a bootleg is a bit much i would say,but its the old argument,you put up with boots because a lot of the stuff the bootleggers are putting together(literally)are not available on cd anywhere,never been reissued,folk like Flawed Gems are filling that gap.....i would and always and will buy a legit cd,even though theres cds i have bought in bootleg form in the past,labels like fall out,radioactive where pretty crap in quality,in some cases sound was poor too,Flawed Gems are a step up sound wise.But legally wise,the same thing.Am i alone in in thinking that many of us have probably bought one of those boot cds because theres no other way to get to hear it??Or am i miles off the map??Be interested to hear anyones views about this!!Cheers,sorry its such a long and drawn out post!!c7uy

Yes Stu I buy grey-market/boots because the originals are often unattainable. Sound quality is a concern,of course, but beggars can't be choosers.

£12 for a boot is a bit steep and the artiste gets nowt only the bootlegger so..which is worse downloading a album to see if its worth purchasing or buying a boot?

yeah, packaging poor, sound superb. East of Eden non-Uk album, Renia's First Offenders first on cd etc, i got suspicious when no website, even allowing for Swedish origin. The rare stuff, maybe Nick Pickett's superb 'Silver Sleeves' next somebody?

When was the East Of Eden non UK album recorded?

Moecurly:
you should not be informing popsikers of Truely excellent sites like Tom's.


It behooves Mastermen to keep certain excellent things from circulation.

Besides, popsikers are , by nature, incapable by of perceiving excellence as it really is.
It is an inadequacy you come upon in many sub-species, bereft of a sense of exploration, totally impoverished in taste beyond the syrupy sort.

flawed gems is a bootleg label !
avoid it as best you can,
they try luring you into purchasing their cheaply made cds through low prices,
it's just a vinyl rip.
allegedly, the swedish are behind it,
but I pretty much suspect the german.
cause they are to be held responsible for all those counterfeits stemming from germany,
like those fake labels: progressive line, walhalla, radioactive,fallout,...
-the list is endless , all of them bloody bootleg labels-
I got in touch with randy holden (randy holden-population 2 CD)
who has officially self released all of his cds,www.randyholden.com ,
telling him about his cd being put out unofficially,
but these people are very cunning using fresh label names all the time,
like a hydra or something
like if you cut off one head of that monster,it'll grow four new ones in its place in no time,
and contending their cds to originate from france , australia...
to attach credibility to their mendacious nature,
lies,lies,lies,
I was once tracking one of those addresses when being in france,
the sole thing I found their was a fountain set in a lonely landscape !!!
the mastermind behind it is MR. BERND BRUHN, known as numusi on amazon
&
olmusi on ebay. I contacted both amazon/ebay about BRUHN distributing & purchasing unofficial records WITHOUT SETTING THIS FORTH IN ALL CLARITY
SO YOU CAN DECIDE FOR YOURSELF IF YOU WANT TO LET YOURSELF IN FOR THAT,
hence hoodwinking honest buyers ! they promised to look into the matter
but didn't do a thing about it, cause they are implicated in it as well,
everybody sells this bootleg bunk today,
be wary , more than 60% of what is sold as vinyl or cd is unofficial,
abysmal sound quality, no original master tapes were utilized for the transfer to
vinyl / cd !
so you had better watch out next time
you consider acquiring vinyl or a cd.
no more honesty nowadays like people are on the brink of choking with avarice !
that's disgusting & reprehensible !!!
I'm hoping I could help .

Hi,

yes indeed a bootleg ripoff.

You can check me out on the Aubrey Small website. I am one of the composers and performers of AS and just bought a Flawed Gems copy of an officially licenced version of our album re-released on vinyl by Record Collector magazine.

We also are releasing on CD via our website:http://www.aubreysmall.com/

I live in France now and am suing another ripoff "label" Elegy.

These parasites need to be crushed!

Rant over.

i didnt know radio active was a boot

Having being myself once involved with a reissue-label, I can only agreed with Zonkedout and Peter Pinckney (great to know about the Aubrey Small CD, the vinyl album was really too expensive... and well I already own the original album and single!). By the way wasn't Elegy connected to the old Audio Archives?
Anyway I got 3 FG cd's, found them second hand and don't sound bad actually, The Eclection CD sounds probably better than the US legal issue and offers plenty of bonus tracks, interesting bonus also for the Everyone (but they forgot a couple of non-UK album tracks) and for the Mogul Thrash. They deserve some attention if you find a second hand copy and of course let's hope they are a good base for official re-releases

Anyway is really sad to see Amazon and Ebay selling regularly these kind of items, one of the reason I ceased my label..

let me make one final point before hushing up for good:
what Peter any many other people do ,re-issuing records officially is to be lauded in the highest of terms!
but what about those bootlegers giving honest people those hard times
by swamping the market with their fake records ?
wow,
can you dig that ?
if you go to amazon.co.uk , you'll find that US seller elite digital !
rest assured, nothing elitist about that defrauder
like he sells RANDY HOLDEN - POPULATION 2 CD for 39.99 quid ?
the sound quality is real poor here & it's that BRUHN guy who is distributing them, it used to be sold under the label PROGRESSIVE LINE
that has been nipped in the bud
and has now been renamed into LUMPY GRAVY RECORDS by the same bruhn seller.
another pirate label by him : RED FOX RECORDS.
just eschew those labels.
that's right, a gentleman pointed out that some don't sound too bad,
but I can download those albums from youtube or other sites for free,
same sound quality, why am I to bother to buy those cheaply manufactured & highly compressed CDs ?
and please note ,
not all of them sound '' good ''
like there is this bootleg label PARTICLES
who did put out WORLD OF ACID (a heavy psych compilation), sound quality not bad
but also did MICHIGAN MELTDOWN VOL.1 & 2 , HORRIFIC SOUND !
poorly transferred from vinyl .
always those scams to trick people !
scammers enriching themselves on fraud
&
the governments don't do anything about it because they collect those taxes,
(like with cigarettes, right? they go:smoking is hazardous to your health, but we actually don't care a fig about that ,you just keep on smoking so we can get our fair share of it)
also radiactive CDs are sold by elite digital sometimes for 79.99 quid.
I'm at a loss for words,
if you don't know anything about that,
thinking you're buying some high quality cd ,
you're being punked to the bone here in the worst way possible.
I don't like it , probably you don't either.
may I also draw your attention to the very fact
of those bogus unofficial CDs are being provided with the wording:
REMASTERED, ENHANCED and stuff,
cripes, that's outrageous,egregious,unheard-of
and it's here
that the deception proper is happening !!!
can you beat that !
please mind:
that shady label:
radioactive has gone defunct because they have been exposed !
but no worries, their heritage is being carried on via FALLOUT,
PHOENIX RECORDS, BAMBOO..., just another name for radioactive ,
phoenix , bamboo doing these japanese psych releases like from that
crazy ass band les razilles denudes (hope my spelling is right, just don't
recollect how they are being correctly spelled right now),
the sound quality is all right, but does not compare to the authentic japanese labels like time bomb , P.D.F. or P.S.F (sorry again, but don't rememeber spelling).
if you dig those psych/progressive sounds,
you've probably run into I DRIVE UK 1972
that has recently been released by FLAWED GEMS,
originally officially by SECOND BATTLE but hard to find now
so here comes flawsd gems into play, just download it from youtube !
anyway , here are some official labels to depend on:
Nasoni
Shadoks (released some obscure psych records from all over the world)
World In Sound
Sireena
Guerssen
Gear Fab
WahWah
Vinyl Magic (great italian label re-issuing some superb psych/progressive
records from the 70ies)
Metal Mind Productions
Supraphon
Bear Family
Lion
Esoteric
EMI
Muza
Sunbeam
Kissing Spell
Pseudonym
Anazitisi
Sulatron
Repertoire
SPM
Collectors Choice
ZYX
Headspin
Spheric
Wounded Bird
Eclectic
PHARAWAY SOUNDS
Second Battle
Audio Archives
Finders Keepers
Sony
Lilith
Svart
Love Records
Polydor
BGO
Out-Sider
Mals
Missing Vinyl Records
Black Widow
Revola
BureauB
Picap
Opus
SUBLIMINAL
Transubstans
PAN Records
Dancing Bear
BMG
Universal .
I also got in touch with a real 'cool' german seller only releasing official records at real fair prices:
http://www.green-brain-krautrock.de/ ,
have been communicating with him for quite some time in english
his website can also be read in english (THANK GOD!)
check it out if you please
before buying bootlegs from amazon/ebay or the like.
thanks for lending an ear to what I had to say.
all of it, just my humble opinion !

I would add (even if defunKt) Night Wings label to the good ones.
Are you sure about SPM, Kissing Spell and Lilith? I mean all their titles?

I'm probably going to make some people mad with this but I'm going to talk about it anyway.These people are so concerned about getting a legit copy of a cd that i think they would sacrifice sound quality to get it.Esoteric is legit and i have heard stuff on that label that make me cringe. Or on the other end of the debate is that stuff is brickwalled.The darn thing of it is that the Flawed Gems cds sound great to my ears.These are bands that nobody in the States will put out.Sorry to say but people in other countries appreciate our old music more than we do in the states.So thankyou Flawed gems for putting out some of these vinyl transfers. I own obout 10.000 cds and about the same in vinyl. Bottom line for me is sound quality.The music not the freaking liner notes.

The debate about bootlegs, unofficial releases and ripoffs will go on forever amongst music lovers.

Thanks Clyde for adding a little sweet sanity to the discussion.

I found this when checking out Jasper Wrath [THE GHOST OF WAY released 2008 on Dellwood label]

'Jasper Wrath had two albums released on Dellwood label under fake names: Arden House and Zoldar & Clark without the bands knowledge. It may be that history has repeated itself. I found this post online when looking for information on the Erebus Records label.

After closing his shameful pirate reissue operation Radioactive and several years of keeping a relatively low profile, James Plummer returned last year with Erebus Records, with the same Radioactive MO of shoddy, unlicensed private press boots packaged as the real thing. Erebus, wikipedia informs us, was "the son of a primordial god, Chaos, and represented the personification of darkness and shadow." No doubt Plummer finds this very clever. The label did a line of CDs, and seemed to disappear again, almost in a smash and grab manner.'


I should say that I robbed the thief by getting the album from a P2P site I use for nothing.

If anyone knows how to contact Jasper Wrath band members, please let me know here or on the Jasper Wrath thread when i set it up.

If we all sent a quid or a dollar for each album to the artists who's music we liberate, they'd be a lot better off than getting pennies in royalties from the rotten music moguls and by sharing the music for free, we can satisfy any pirate fantasies and freak aspirations we may have.
After all, the 60's and 70's was all about free love, free music and - well, yeah, - freedom!

As we travel on into this 21st century and beyond, let's try to liberate the world and it's creatures great and small by keeping the head's dream alive and flying the flag of freedom.


PS.

The ghost of way is bloody wonderful - HQ sound and lousy artwork as you'd expect from mr plummer.

If you see things in the same light as i do and if you would like this album in digital form and free access to lots of rare and precious gems, please message me here with your email contact details and i'll help all i can.

Steve.

I was looking back at posts and noticed this has had over 7000 veiws! who are these people lots of past posts have had over 500 veiws shows how strong your site is

Avoid this label, really poor quality, my $3000 transport will only read Gash, Young Man's Gash intermittently (the CD hole is slightly off and it is really difficult to get loaded to read as it spins). The sound is poor to such a degree it really lowers the enjoyment and I will not play it because of these two things.

I wish there was a place that had reviews on each CD specific to the pressing and one could go there before you buy. There are some really great CD labels with tons of extra tracks and wonderful books of stories about the bands. Recommendation: buy I Drive or Thirsty Moon Blitz and you will be rewarded with great sound and fantastic extra tracks.

Sorry I need to correct something in my last thread. I have Flawed Gems CDs and and am not happy with the quality of the disc, packaging, or sound of any of these CDs. The Gash CD referenced above is on Bamboo Sound Carrier and it has poor sound, and the center hold machining is off making it almost impossible to play. There are many other CD labels that are very good such as Long Hair etc.