For those who have covered my many ‘musings’ re the Universal Tape Storage and the Unreleased and Library of Masters of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons here is a chance to see just how they have survived for nearly 52 years to see another 13 released this year in the Snapper Music ‘Legacy’ Box Set[The ULTIMATE Collection]. Below is the link to ‘Tracking Angles’s’ visit to the facility in a unique and nearly 2 hour video tour. Here is what they say of their visit…..
“TrackingAngle's exclusive visit to Universal Music Group's Iron Mountain tape vault outside of Pittsburgh also includes a tour of Iron Mountain Entertainment Services' facilities. You'll get to go deep within the former limestone mine where Universal Music Group has one of its worldwide tape storage facilities and see how, with the help of Iron Mountain Entertainment Services, the company catalogues and keeps track of its vast audio and video tape holdings. The visit also includes a ride through other parts of the labyrinthian, underground facility where governmental agencies we can't identify also store data, safe from natural environmental damage as well as from acts of war. You'll see the process by which a licensee gets selected assets for a music album reissue, whether it's the tape for an all-analog reissue or a digital file for a digitally sourced reissue. You'll see the action from finding the tapes in the vast facility to cataloguing it and preparing it for reissue. The visit was like going onto a science fiction movie set, only this was real! For most people this will be a first and only opportunity to see this facility in this almost two hour long presentation. Watch as much or as little as you wish, but if you don't watch all of it, you'll be missing out on some amazing footage shot deep within the mine. UMG also prepared for TrackingAngle.com a series of displays showing existing master tapes that The New York Times claims were burned in the tragic 2008 fire atop Universal Mountain outside of Los Angeles including the Buddy Holly catalog, which did not burn—as anyone who's purchased Analogue Productions' AAA reissues cut from original master tapes of "Buddy Holly" and "The Chirpin' Crickets" knows still exists—I've seen pictures of the tapes used for the cut. The newspaper refuses to correct their mistakes. The visuals UMG provided will appear shortly on The TrackingAngle.com website. Watch for the story! Tracking Angle thanks Universal Music Group, Iron Mountain and Iron Mountain Entertainment Services for allowing us into the usually off-limit facility and for everyone's hospitality and cooperation. It was an experience I'll long remember! “
Some have said it is like something from the ‘Arc of the Covenant’ being stored in Indiana Jones movies (actually shown in this 36 mins in). The vault is said to house about 80% audio and 20% video with audio tapes stored upright and video flat. There are film versions of all types, audio from cassettes to all the MANY different lengths, speed, widths, reels, no reels, reels with songs literally taken out over the years and missing from originals now. ‘The Tape Boxes as well as all of the audio AND video tapes are stored in a totally random order and can only be found by use of their computerized catalog system, which is great, but sure seems like a nonsense system to me’ says one commentator who has experienced it. “I know there are 100's of 1000's of tapes there, but just a BIT more genre organization would be great.” Early on, our host jokes of how he is seeing The O'Jays mixed in with classical tapes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxZPFNpB6yY
For me the video only needs a few ‘skips’ into the experience to realise how lucky we have been to enable the Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons MOTOWN Master Session Tapes to be salvaged as a result of our forensic research of the old paper records over the last 12 years, that guided the UMG Vault Services people[i.e. Andy Skurow and co.] to the material we wanted released. First we needed a project with enough money in it to fund the retrieval of the tapes. We had compiled since the noughties a list of 29 Master Session Reels with 16 track recordings and Mix-down’s to STEREO of the two ‘released’ albums from the early 1970s which along with microfiched Artists Cards provided and confirmed completed MASTERS existed of UNRELEASED TRACKS and somehow the records showed where these were as P [Production] Tapes. Andy did not seem to have this information as the Box Set annotation notes re the tracks only reflect the Tape Box info.
Although Andy was somewhat disparaging of my spreadsheet it enabled him to order the Tape Boxes [I had estimated potentially between 38 and 50 tracks remained unheard] and to have them sent to the Universal Motown NYC base from Iron Mountain for research and digitizing is an amazing achievement. Somehow the Iron Mountain TEAM found them [or most of them we hope??]. Whilst Bob Gaudio wanted mix-downs to STEREO for listening tests for him and Frankie he was initially provided with Tape Box Scans and this listed ‘vocals’ as being completed on 19 tracks with 11 still to be researched back in 2019. Snapper advised that Bob Gaudio was concerned that if there are no 2 track STEREO Mixes for him and Frankie to review, this would be a financial and time consuming problem. I had confirmation that there were 24 track titles found but with no guarantee that Frankie is on them or in what condition they were in. This was troubling Bob and at this point the whole project was in jeopardy. There were song titles that Bob vaguely remembered, with his and Crewe’s name as producers. However, these were16 track recordings and would require mixing down and studio time to listen to.
Bob proposed a way forward and whilst he wanted 2 track mix downs but I think the result was all of the recovered tapes being sent to him [ I hope so], but I have no confirmation of this. However I believe he must have had 16/24 tracks sent as that resulted in him listening to[and perhaps mixing] tracks only ‘rumoured’ to exist. Time and cost [and his involvement with the Neil Diamond Broadway Musical] may have restricted what was researched and approved as only 13 tracks of the potential 30 indicated as existing have arrived and Andy Skurow, we now know, found another 15 completed tracks still unheard and of the same quality as what has been approved. Bob however knew there was a world of fans waiting for these tracks and thanked us all for our interest and support in reviewing and approving the 13. We added alternate mixes copied into the FSP Storage in 1973 found during our tape research of their archive. We have a few more salvaged and stored for the out-takes ‘collection’.
So whilst the campaign to have all of the tapes researched remains in place, targetting to get more UNRELEASED tracks issued ……...we are all just happy that Iron Mountain….revealed GOLD…….and you will see from this video…..it is a treasure trove…...but clearly TOO EXPENSIVE to search for any more Valli/Seasons. We have what was researched and sent to Bob Gaudio……. What that is may never be revealed….but we hope he sees the value and comes through.
You can read more detail on the ‘finds’ in this link……
And below is the latest spreadsheet data ‘edit’ re all of the tapes that we know about, for anyone’s interest…..and if you can add knowledge or information let me know.?
Download MotownTapeIndex Tapes_Credits_Locations Ver 6 Feb 2023
Ken Charmer – for The Four Seasons UK Appreciation Society
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