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A curious tale of.... Jethro Tull, Steve Howe, Mungo Jerry and The Hedgehog Song…… Sometimes from the frankly strange world of the music fanzine something more substantial and enduring comes. Indeed this very magazine was once a hand-stapled photocopied A5 affair put together on the kitchen table and touted around pubs and clubs in the North of England. A real rarity though is a fan magazine that grows into a fully fledged record company with 45 album releases to it's name, boasting a roster of incredibly talented and, in some cases, super- star status rock Gods! Ben Green for Rock'n'Reel asked A NEW DAY boss Dave Rees just how it came to be. "It was all just one accident after another really!" says Rees. "I started A New Day, the Jethro Tull magazine, in 1985 simply to try to gather some news about Jethro Tull to share with a few dozen fans that I swapped tapes with. I had no experience of writing or producing a fanzine, and I rather hoped that somebody else would see the first issue and take it upon themselves to produce something a bit better and more professional. It didn't happen, so I carried on with it myself." Early issues were photocopied, and the subscriber base of 200 or so just about covered costs, but things changed dramatically when A New Day got official blessing from the band and the address was printed on Tull's "Crest Of A Knave" album in '87. "I was getting over 100 letters a day, and eventually the readership reached about 4,000 copies world-wide, which meant I could get it printed properly, including colour cover and photos. It also meant that it started making money. As the only socialist in Surrey I decided it was only fair to put that money back into music, which is how the record company was launched". The first release on A New Day Records was a CD recorded in 1966 by The John Evan Band, which two years later evolved into Jethro Tull. It was of bootleg quality only, having been recorded by then new guitarist Neil Smith just so he could learn the songs, but the limited edition of 500 was snapped up by the readers and copies now change hands for over £100 a time. "Our next release was also a readers-only CD. Original Tull guitarist Mick Abrahams had recorded a great new album with his band Blodwyn Pig, but couldn't get a deal for it. Eventually I persuaded him to let me pay for a pressing and put it out through the mag, and I sold enough to cover the costs and gave the rest to Mick to sell at gigs and to send out for promo.. He got a proper deal both here and in America on the back of that. But the record company proper actually started with two non-Tull related albums. I'd always been a fan of a guy called Paul King, who had been a founder member of Mungo Jerry. In the late 70's I saw him a lot, playing all over the local area with various permutations of his bands, playing the sort of jug/blues and skiffle that had made Mungo Jerry so popular in the early 70's. He had recorded a solo album and an album with The King Earl Boogie Band, but they had only made it onto cassette at the time, just to sell at gigs. I got together with a couple of friends to form A New Day Records, we had them pressed on CD, and just about sold enough to encourage us to carry on." And carry on they did, with the next CD being the catalyst for greater things to come. "Another local hero of mine was Jackie Lynton. He's been around forever, having released his first single in 1959 I think. He's so often been on the verge of 'making it', but he's just so off-the-wall he's never quite been conformist enough to get the success he should have. (Many readers will remember him mostly for his outrageous "Hedgehog Song" which has delighted the crowds at the Reading Festival on more than one occasion! BG) But he's a great singer and has always had a great rock'n'roll band backing him, and although he was sceptical at first we eventually talked him into letting us put together a compilation CD which included a few new tracks. Mick Abrahams played on a couple of the songs, and during those sessions a deal was struck with Mick for a solo, acoustic album from him for A New Day Records. Ian Anderson played on that album, and we sold a lot of copies which in turn gave us the financial strength to record more albums by other artists. One of those was a fantastic band called Solstice, who were led by Andy Glass, who had engineered Mick's album. And so it went on" Those "other artists" are a formidable bunch, and incredibly varied to boot. A chance meeting at the Cropredy Festival brought the wonderful songstress Vikki Clayton to the label, which in turn led her band members Clive Bunker coincidentally the original drummer with Tull) and the multi-talented Chris Conway to sign to the label. The Six and Violence, a hard-core thrash metal band from New York, made an interesting musical diversion, and Solstice are one of the most interesting bands to have emerged from the progressive rock revival in the 80's. Perhaps the jewel in the crown is the discovery of John Carter, a tremendous singer songwriter who managed to involve Tull members Martin Barre, John Noyce and Dave Pegg on his first album, and has just released a worthy follow-up which also features Maartin Allcock. And another personal coup for Rees was the signing of Cornish and "The Mechanics", led by ace guitarist and singer 'Big' Al Hodge. "I had heard them on the 'In Concert' Radio 1 programme in 1980, and that half hour left an impression on me which has lasted to this day. They split in '82 and so I didn't actually see them until I caught one of their very rare reunion gigs in '92. I've been lucky enough to see them many times since, and they really are the most incredible live band, but they will not play outside of Cornwall and Devon. We've got four live CDs out of them, three of which sold out and the fourth is well on the way, but we still haven't been able to get them into the studio. Al Hodge, who has also released a couple of solo albums with us, is now working with Elkie Brooks and I've got a horrible feeling The Mechanics might well disappear again, but at least we were able to get something from them for posterity". It's that fan's enthusiasm that perhaps separates A New Day Records from many of the countless other independent record labels, and it has not gone unnoticed by the artists. "We won't go with anything that we don't like ourselves. If we think it's great music, that's a good start. If we think there's a chance of actually making some money then it's even better, but it's not a priority. There are three partners involved, and we all have 'proper jobs' so we don't rely on income from the label…. which is just as well because we have never taken a penny from it! Everything that comes in goes into new recordings. We don't often seek out bands to record, but many people come to us after one of our artists has recommended us, which is nice. It's so common to hear bands slagging off their record companies, so it is great to be on good terms with the people on our label. Most of them are really nice people, although we have had a couple of incidents where it became clear that we had put our trust in somebody who actually didn't deserve it. That's all part of a bloody steep learning curve, which we are still on. But the very few bad experiences are more than made up for by the good ones; bands like The Tabs, Satori, Blazing Homesteads etc. have all come to us because they've heard we are a friendly record company that they can trust, and that's very important to us. And it's nice that they feel they can call me, any time, day or night…. but I wish they bloody well wouldn't! Unfortunately we have to turn down a lot of things offered to us that are actually pretty good, because we just don't have the staff or the time to cover too many things at once - yet. But we are working on it. In the last few months we have made some major signings and are now looking to reach overseas markets in a big way. It seems to me that the future for what we might call 'real music' lies outside of the UK, which is increasingly dominated by dance music. Kids buy computer games rather than CDs, and the young adults seem to be in the grip of the merican "Yo" culture right now. Even the traditional venues that still put on proper gigs turn themselves over afterwards to 'house' music -or whatever they call it these days - to bring the punters in. We still hope to break into the boy-band market though; Blodwyn Pig has been a boy band for 31 years now, so they must get there soon!" Rees has a point, and he isn't exaggerating either when he speaks of major signings. The latest releases on A New Day include a superb solo offering from Jackie McAuley, ex of Them and the much missed Celtic-Rock outfit The Poormouth, a great album from Maartin Allcock (ex Tull, Fairport, Waz! and The Mission), a brand new studio album from Mick Abrahams, and two albums from Yes guitarist Steve Howe. Add to that the latest from Jackie Lynton with an amazing all-star band, the cult British 'blues with attitude' band Hershey & The 12 Bars and the highly enjoyable New York Public Library and you have a record company that's going places. But perhaps just as important, it is still fun rather than business. "Yes of course it's fun. If the day comes when I don't enjoy it, I'll pack it in. But it can be a nightmare too, especially for me. I do have a full-time job, and I still write and publish the Tull magazine every two or three months, and it would be nice sometimes to get home and not have to start again, to leave letters and Emails unopened and just chill out like everybody else. But if I didn't do it I'd miss it terribly! And I have to say when I am feeling down about the whole thing I just have to look at what we've put out and it cheers me up. Quite apart from the great singers and writers, Martin Barre, Mick Abrahams, Steve Howe and Al Hodge - four of the greatest guitarists in the world - have albums on our label!" Maybe half the fun comes from the incredibly eclectic nature of the label, which covers almost every aspect of music, apart from the dreaded "Yo Culture" of hip-hop and rap. It's something that Rees is keen to stress, because there is still some confusion over the Jethro Tull connection. "I hadn't realised how far the A New Day tag had gone into the media consciousness until we put on a showcase gig at the 100 Club. We had three bands on and sent details to "Q" magazine hoping to get into their gig listings. It did, but they billed it as a "Jethro Tull Day" - I guess somebody there must have known about the mag and billed it thus. There is a connection of course, because the mag funded the record company, and we do have a lot of current and ex Tull members on the albums, but essentially it's a separate entity. Conversely some readers of the mag think we should only release albums with a Tull connection, and they are missing the point completely. On reflection we should have given it a different name - but it's too late now. Ben Green. Site Designed By On Line On Air |
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