Spin Spotlights The Numero Group

Take a trip down South with our friends from the Numero Group.

The Numero Group has become the world's greatest reissue label by tirelessly chasing dead-ends, following every detour, and ringing doorbells at their own risk. DAVID PEISNER trails the label's founders through Louisiana as they sniff mold, rifle through trash, and maybe expose a few lost geniuses.

This is what it's come to. When a man isn't listed in the phone book, when he doesn't respond to emails or letters, when nobody seems to know how to find him, sometimes you just have to roll up to his last known address and holler at him. Literally.

"Mr. Gibson! Mr. Gibson!"

It's 11 o'clock on a Thursday morning and Ken Shipley is standing on the sidewalk outside a tidy, one-story brick house in the Carrollton section of New Orleans. Hands cupped around the sides of his mouth, he's trying to summon Joe Gibson from what may or may not be his home. Shipley surely would've preferred knocking on the door or ringing the bell, but the small home is separated from the street by not one, but two, locking wrought-iron gates.

"Mr. Gibson! Anyone home?"

In the early 1970s, Gibson wrote and produced two 45s by a group called the Soul Emotions, which featured his three young daughters. Not many copies of either record were pressed, not many were sold, and by the time Gibson's eldest daughter was a junior in high school, the Soul Emotions had quit performing. The records quickly went out of print and just about disappeared from the Earth entirely.

But one made it into the hands of Rob Sevier, a partner of Shipley's at the Chicago-based reissue label, the Numero Group. Sevier thought one song — a charming pop-soul nugget called "It's Time for Love" — would fit perfectly on a compilation calledThe ABCs of Kid Soul, which documented the post-Jackson 5 explosion of such groups. So he tried to find Gibson. That was more than five years ago. The ABCscame out in 2007, but now Numero has decided to do a second album, The 123s of Kid Soul. Which is what has brought them here to the doorstep of this mini-Fort Knox in Carrollton.

Read the full article at Spin.com

Hopefully my last words on RSD pop-up stores

A few thoughts before moving on to much more pressing issues:

First, it was pointed out to me by coworkers that perhaps Numero folk might be upset if I did not summarize and paraphrase their letters to me enough. If that is the case, then I publicly apologize and hereby offer a nice dinner on me as a mea culpa. The impetuous part of me first considered a broadside with only my arguments. I quickly realized that this would likely lead nowhere and only inflame the issue. My thinking in writing it the way that I did, with a back and forth, was to honor their reasons for doing it, even though I disagree with most, and address them.

Second, if you read carefully, I do agree with some of their thinking here, and lord knows, as a small(er) label owner, I understand the pressure from that side. My hope was to offer contrary viewpoints where appropriate but also alternate solutions for some of their concerns. My interest is not in shunning or shaming. My heart is much more old school, punk rock than that, which I guess is why the idea of "one of us" competing with us instead of helping seemed so surprising and, honestly, hurt a little bit. My sincere hope is to address concerns and offer solutions that might float all boats.

Third, let me make this perfectly clear for the Nth time: I love the Numero Group label and what they do. They are good people and should be supported. Heck, they should get a shiny medal for shepherding Syl Johnson alone. As I said in comments, it is I who helped get Jon Langford in touch with them to be on his WXRT radio show back in 2008. Julia is the one who, while walking dogs with old friend Michael Abramson, told him that this Numero Group "Reverand" guy was legit, the label cool, and that he should definitely call them back to discuss a project that came to be the stunning, Grammy-nominated "Lights on the South Side" box set. We get what they are doing, admire their energy and ambition, and are sometimes baffled at their audacity.

My issue is with this one specific action. If it were me, I would boil it all down to saying, "We need cash and running our crazy ass label is expensive. This is a way we have chosen to address that." Personally, I think the anti-RSD rhetoric is a red herring and does more harm than good. Obviously it worked out as good publicity, but it came with an unnecessary downside that could be avoided by just choosing a different day and hyping the hell out of it. If a day were chosen without so much competition, I think a Numero pop-up would garner lots of positive attention, and it is likely to rake in even more cash if people weren't busy spending it on silly $25 Fleetwood Mac remasters and "Pretty in Pink" LP reissues elsewhere. Additionally, setting up full catalog Numero sections in stores for RSD, or any other time for that matter, would help solve the ignored deep catalog dilemma that we labels face. I think the rest is just distracting noise.

Without labels releasing music, stores have nothing to sell. Without stores, labels have fewer and worse places to sell their music. Without either or both, the world is a sadder, grayer place.

And I am serious about the dinner offer, Numero.