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MONDAY AM UPDATE: Universal Music just gave me a "clarification" on my report regarding UMG’s vault and the Universal Studio fire on Sunday: "Thankfully, there was little lost from UMG's vault. A majority of what was formerly stored there was moved earlier this year to our other facilities. Of the small amount that was still there and waiting to be moved, it had already been digitized so the music will still be around for many years to come. And in addition to being digitized, physical back up copies of what was still left at that location were made and stored elsewhere. So thankfully, smart care, administration and preparation of these gems prevailed." So let me get this straight: first there's no report of irreplaceable damage at the Universal Studios vault, then I find out there's musical history destruction because of a rental agreement with Universal Music, and now execs it's only "a little" and not a problem. Funny, because my insiders insist it's a BIG problem. Universal Music claims that over the past year it had been moving master recordings of its "big name" musical artists to the giant Iron Mountain, Pennsylvania vault -- the same one used by Bill Gates and Microsoft. What was left, Universal Music contends, was only "more obscure artists from the '40s and the early '50s." My final thought: the public may never know the truth.
SUNDAY: It looks like more was damaged or destroyed in today's Universal Studios fire than anyone previously thought. I've learned that Universal Music, which is a completely separate company and owned by Vivendi (which owns 20% of NBC Universal), rents space in the huge video vault housed on the studio lot. But one source tells me that, as a consequence, inside the video vault that was billowing thick black smoke were 1000's of original Decca, MCA, ABC recording masters from the last century including a wide range of music from Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters to Judy Garland and The Carpenters. "This is a tremendous loss in music history. A very sad day indeed. It's too bad they saved the videos that they have backups on instead of the master recordings in which they do not, although they may not have had a choice since the fire had already engulfed much of the music side of the vault," a source just told me. Universal Studios can't confirm what has been damaged or destroyed music-wise at this point because it doesn't yet know what exactly was housed in the storage rented to Universal Music.
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This is absolutely shocking. Didn’t the vaults have sprinklers? Weren’t the vaults fireproof?
Are they going to make public an inventory of all that was lost?
It’s very sad. It makes a compelling case for digitizing and archiving such important recordings. Of course, such projects are very expensive. Sounds like something the Library of Congress should be legislated to help with, but somehow “certain” politicians would decry this… even though they somehow don’t decry spending billions on bullets.
Mah nish ta nah ha lai lah ha zeh, I guess.
Universal will never publish a list of lost items, mainly because they have/had no idea of what they actually had possession of. They have absorbed so many smaller labels and their catalogues that they really have no idea. You actually had to go pull tapes and play them to find out what was on a roll of tape. A shame.
Say what you will about Bill Gates but the man clearly knows how to store things. Google ‘Corbis’ and ’storage’ and you’ll see what I mean. My belief is that Universal Music didn’t want to spend the money to store their masters for the long term. While they may have realized the historical significance of the masters, they didn’t think they’d be selling many Bing Crosby or The Carpenters ‘records’ in the future. Such a loss.
Maybe they should outsource there music storage to India like they are doing with there UK Accounts department.
At some point in the future, we’ll be getting stories about what was lost as researchers and historians request access to items only to be told there is no longer such an item. I dread what might be gone forever.
These are the same companies that ruthelessly wield the law — and sometimes illegally, their power — to protect their Copyrights. Yet they are negligent keepers of their “intellectual property.”
The tapes need to be kept in a vault with someone who knows what they are…putting them into an Iron Mountain is that they will be at the very back of a lot…and if there are a number of tapes associated with a project, the easiest way to deal with it is to pull the first one marked with the info…but it may be a copy…the real tape may be at the back of the pile…and those places are into the business of storage…not retrieval…so what you think may be the real master, may be the copy that was made for making 8-tracks…a person who works the vault must oversee the tapes…like Gates is doing…but not how say…Concord is dealing with their precious Jazz catalog…which is just storage at an Iron Mountain facility…they let go the only man who knew which tape was what…sad..and a shame…but that’s what we do now with precious materials…
It’s a lot more than they are acknowledging – luckily they had starting migrating some of the masters to NY last year, but the loss is still huge. There was a lot of undocumented recordings in what was essentially a library of other label acquisitions. Nothing short of tragic.
Archival preservation is only now becoming the rule in our industry, and tragedies like this fire underscore the need to protect our artistic heritage. Remember when everybody slammed Ted Turner for colorizing his films? Guess who made sure they were preserved first! We have already lost countless works through silver reclamation, fire (like some RKO negatives), stupidity (James Aubrey using MGM’s materials for landfill), malfeasance (ignoring the Copyright Office’s requirement for deposit copies) or just plain neglect. Perversely, modern digital storage is more cumbersome than the Kansas salt mine where so many film elements are now stored, and nowhere near as permanent. The only way to ensure our industry’s future is to preserve its past, something that today’s business model — which demands short-term profits over building long-term equity — sadly ignores because it costs money that can’t be recovered during one business quarter. Considering that it was music and recordings that built Universal into what it is, their loss is spiritual as well as financial and historical. Now is the time for the archivists to make their push! GO LIBRARIANS!
Checking in from Salem, MA…
It is such a sad story. They had back ups of the video material but NOT the master tapes of these recordings? Just who was the moron who allowed this? I agree there needs to be laws to protect ALL recordings. With all our technology it is inexcusable this material was not archived better. It’s like stereo MASTER tapes. So many were wiped to “save space” and now we need them for CD and they are gone. Shame on the record companies! All they care about is PROFIT now and to blaises (no pun intended) with HISTORY and historical content!
You are the only one reporting on the music loss; nothing on the news, in the AP report. Shame on them. This is a big loss.
I love the Carpenters .. Karens Voice will never be Replaced .. with this Fire. Now her Voice Will Never Be Replaced. Unless There is a Hidden Tapes Some place.
“What was left, Universal Music contends, was only ‘more obscure artists from the ’40s and the early ’50s.’” Who will now remain obscure forever, apparently.
And very probably artists from the ’30s and even back into the ’20s. AIUI, UMG’s holdings include Brunswick Records, which went back to 1920 and was one of the big time labels for years, along with Decca which began in 1934.
But why mention anything outside of living memory? For our purposes today, those years never even happened.
I wouldn’t trust the Library of Congress with a box of roller skates. Remember, it was the LC who let hundreds of cylinders get destroyed by a leak in their water pipes. They have yet to undertake cataloging the NBC radio collection. The only light at this particular end of the tunnel is that most of the multi-tracks are in New Jersey as is much of the non-L.A. recorded materials as well as the MGM masters. But as for ABC/Dunhill, A&M, Chess/Checker, Dot, all the Bing Crosby 16″acetate session masters (pre-tape) – album masters, singles – maybe the Buddy Holly masters. I believe those went up in smoke. It is a tragedy.
Nikki you definitely jumped on the key phrase, “more obscure artists from the ’40s and the early ’50s.” whose to say?? for a major recording company to give limited and valuable studio time to a performer in those years, would have meant said obscure artists were probably VERY talented compared to today’s second teir artists. In the post WW2, pre-Elvis era, recording time and space was at a premium. That was one reason that most big jazz bands disappeared and smaller combos & solo perfomers came into being. So to have been recorded in that era would have meant they were better than average performers.
it would be nice if a list of the “obscure” artists was released to the general public, and let us judge for ourselves. to behoused in that bldg for SO LONG, probably meant they had some artistic value, other than “storage.”
just saying…
Ummmmmm… how do you get away with renting out space in a “vault” that is not absolutely fire PROOF?
From what I heard today, the stuff in those vaults were copies, anyway. I would assume that Richard HAS the masters(one would hope!).
It’s very unlikely that Universal Music lost its masters to “big” artists like Karen Carpenter. First of all, she didn’t record all that much and there’s back up copies of original masters. However Universal Music has huge troves from Brunswick and Decca from the 20s to the 50s, only a small percentage of which have been released. The Ellington and Crosby stuff has probably been backed up and/or stored but there’s undoubtedly some great blues/hillbilly/jazz stuff which has been lost. And over the years Universal bought a lot of other catalogs, some of which they did a great job in reissuing (Chess/Checker) and some of which they did not (Duke/Peacock). I know the Chess/Checker stuff was backed up so there should be no loss there. The great Duke stuff and the more obscure ABC stuff may be lost. The job of moving everything to a storage facility like Iron Mountain is time consuming (and, of course, costly); not all of that transfer was completed before the fire it.
Universal Classics sent out an e-mail notice today to film bookers that nearly 100% of their 35mm. archive prints stored at the studio were destroyed in the fire. These copies were made available to arts organizations and film societies around the world. Will Universal make replacement prints for all these titles, or will they be available only in digital formats (if at all) in the future?
So very sad. One wonders what was lost. If the act was not significant or important, why then was it stored in a vault? Sadly, there seems to be a ‘discovery’ of some unknown recording film, manuscript,journal,photo, etc. on a regular basis. As many posters stated we may never know what was lost forever or what even existed in the first place. We need to take care of the past.
First I must disagree with Chris’ comment on June 1 @ 10:59 p.m. Carpenters still sell quite a few discs. they sell something like 3-4 million discs each year.
Secondly I’m certain Richard Carpenter must have masters of all Carpenters and Karen Carpenter music.
Is anyone documenting on videotape the salvage, triage and treatment of materials pulled out during and after the fire?
The process, data on what conditions things were found to be in, what happens to the material now and as decisions are made about what to do with it forms an important “how to” that one doesn’t often get to observe (thankfully.)
But is important to document and share with the archival community and the company execs who have material in them.
There’s likely a lot that can be learned from the process… which could be used to identify more protective ways of storing media… and planning ahead for disasters such as this.
The Association of Moving Image Archivists offered a two-day hands-on workshop on dealing with wet materials… paper, photos, film, videotape. We actually soaked a bunch of stuff overnight and then did triage and inventory as we went along. Experts conducted the workshop and offered disaster planning guidance.
Perhaps a followup at AMIA Conference this year could incorporate what happened at Universal and what’s been learned from that.
From a fire science perspective, how the fire came to ignite the vault and other non-set buildings involved could lead to better vault construction concepts. (Maybe the back lots need fire sprinklers, too?)
As someone pointed out in one article/blog or another… storing the film and video in environmentally controlled conditions inside fire-suppressant equipped storage is fine… until a fire from outside begins to burn the roof off the building the vaults are in.