Every lover of `60s music that I know is blown away when they first experience a Break-A-Way Records LP. I know I was. Who is this little label hidden away in some city I'd never heard of in Germany? Should I really expect an unknown company like that to be releasing something special? I didn't make sense.
I personally first learned about Break-A-Way Records from Mike Dugo -- the editor of 60sGarageBands.com and 60s music expert par excellance. He had just heard mp3s of The Abstracts' long thought lost Columbia sessions and wanted to do what he could to make sure they got 'out there' and that it would happen right. "There are only three labels I'd intrust these to" Mike told me. And high on that short list was Break-A-Way Records.
I'd had to come out of my shell a bit about a year ago when Mike Dugo had asked to interview me about my time in The Abstracts for 60sGarageBands.com (http://www.60sgaragebands.com/abstracts.html), and now here he was suggesting this: That I intrust those treasured recordings to a complete stranger. Recordings that had been safely squirreled away for over 40 years. But I had quickly learned I could trust Mike Dugo, so...
Mike contacted Wolfgang Völkel, the force behind Break-A-Way Records, on the Abstracts' behalf and I very quickly came to understand why. In this world of shyster record company moguls who view musicians and artists as mere sheep waiting to be sheared Wolfgang Völkel is the true rarity: A man who does what he does for the very same reason that artists do what they do. Love of the art. And in Wolfgang Völkel's case that means the art of `60s garageband music.
The entire process of working on the record with Break-A-Way Records, from the remastering of the original recordings to the design of the record jacket through the process of ferreting out the facts so the band's story could be properly told, right through to the final pressing of the vinyl was a rare pleasure. But nothing, no nothing could compare with the joy of unwrapping that first disc -- sent to me air express from Germany -- placing it on the turntable and hearing the band I remember from all those years ago sonically return to life and enter the room. Why hello Al! Hello Andy! Hello Mike! Hello Roger. Hey that's me! I remember those licks!
:)
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I've since gotten to hear several other recordings of bands that had the honor of getting what I have come to call "The 'Break-A-Way Records Treatment.' Yes, all that, and from some "little" label in some small city in a land far, far away. I frankly remain amazed.
If you have yet to see, handle and hear a Break-A-Way Records LP you, too, have a treat in store.
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Being a small label who produce small pressings of records for a small (but very particular) audience it is not surprising that things larger labels take for granted -- things like fancy web sites -- remain of secondary importance to Wolfgang Völkel and his team at Break-A-Way Records. And thus it was a particular joy for me today when I went to Break-A-Way's web page and found a totally new and completely redesigned site; one that included among its other pages this one devoted to The Abstracts and their new LP Hey, Let's Go Now!
http://www.break-a-way.de/bands/abtracts.html
Once again Wolfgang, you and Break-A-Way Records have done us proud!
-don
