Music News Sony/PIAS Warehouse Fire
How the riots affected Leeds music
Music News: Sony/PIAS Warehouse Fire
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In Greek mythology the gods would sometimes favour one mortal over another, usually for no discernable reason whatsoever. And it was ever thus.
In May of this year, Leeds Guide caught up with keyboard monkeys Runners who were looking forward to the imminent release of their debut 12” single ‘Starting Line’, on Dummy Records. With the vinyl packaged up and ready for distribution, catastrophe struck: almost the entire pressing was destroyed in the fire at the Sony / PIAS warehouse – the site itself a casualty of the recent London riots. Only 90 physical copies now remain in existence.
In a statement released on their blog, the band remained magnanimous. “We feel that we have no right to lay all of the blame upon society’s poorest. Instead of condemning their actions, we would rather think about the climate which has led to such events…” Now somewhat of a collector’s item, the 12” is available (at least at the time of writing) alongside a download version and some very sharp t-shirts from http://shop.dummymag.com/artist/runners.
On the flipside of the same coin, a remarkable tale of good fortune for another Leeds band, This Many Boyfriends, whose story was retold within a recent NME feature article. Their catchy single ‘Young Lovers Go Pop!’ would have suffered a similar fate as ‘Starting Line’ were it not for an oversight by the head of their record label. As the magazine’s Radar section reported, Angular chief Joe Daniel had forgotten to place the order for the coloured stickers that were due to be affixed to its cover. This caused the shipment to be delayed by a single day – the day of the PIAS fire.
Young Lovers Go Pop! by This Many Boyfriends
One single goes up in flames and another is rescued by someone’s faulty memory. There but for the grace of the gods go you or I…
Posted on Thursday 1st September 2011
NR
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