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Finding Producers LPs

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Finding Information about your favorite (obscure/old) band on the internet.
Using The Producers as an example.

Ever want to know what the members of a favorite old band are doing (or have done) since the band broke up. Or before the band formed? My quest began a few weeks ago (today is 1/26/97) when I went looking for a Love and Money CD on the internet. Luckily there is a web site dedicated to them and I also found the CD I was looking for at International CD.

Then it was on to the tougher-to-find bands: The Producers and Sue Saad and the Next. The Producers proved especially difficult because the liner was blank, album cover had only first names for the band members, the album label doesn't have the writer's names on it, and the record label (Portrait) is not listed on any web sites. This left me with only the record producer's full name and the high-level record company (CBS which is now Sony).

What I have compiled here are the links and advice I gained through my experience.

• The Ultimate Band List
  • www.ubl.com. They have links to thousands of band web sites. The UBL is developed well over the past year (since Jan 1996). Most bands with a web site are listed here now. But there are still some that appear not to know about the UBL or don't care to have their entry there - so you should still try the search engines like Excite and the other links below. Now UBL and AMG have cross links so you can access one database from the other. Pretty handy.
• All Music Guide (AMG)
  • AMG is a compilation of band and album reviews of just about every band and album that has ever existed. They have been collecting reviews for over a decade and their goal is to have a review of everything made. Their database can't be indexed by the web search engines.
  • You can search their database for band member names, band names, album and song titles. You can also search for producer, engineer names, and names of other people you may find on your album cover or liner notes.
  • Also, much of their database is available online through CDNow. Although, if an album is not in print any longer, I don't think CDNow has the AMG entries online.
  • The entire AMG is available on Compuserve: GO ALLMUSIC
  • See also the All Movie Guide for music the individual has done for films. Incidentally, the All Movie Guide has more hyper text info on the cast and crew than any other movie guide I have seen, including those on CD ROM. This, of course is at the expense of film and sound clips and pictures of the people. If what you want is the info and interrelationships between them and other projects, this is the place to go!
  • The Internet Movie Database is also a good online (but unindexed by search engines) database of movie and TV personnel. Their site is almost as comprehensive with movie credits as All Movie Guide is (and a bit more graphically appealing). This site includes television shows as well as movies (unlike All Movie Guide) so you may find an artist who has done work for TV. It is the most complete reference for TV shows that I have seen, but it may not include music credits on all shows.
• The Record label
  • Sony music - Look in the 'vault' at www.sony.com for Producers
  • See record labels on Yahoo.
  • The UBL (above) now has listings of record labels, record stores, and all other types of music-related stuff.
• The music performance rights licensing/copyright house (ASCAP or BMI)
  • The record/CD cover, liner notes, or the label on the vinyl or CD will often indicate the licensing house. The biggest are ASCAP and BMI.
  • ASCAP has an online database which can't be indexed by the web search engines. You can access their database and search for info by the name of the band, the name of the person that wrote the music, the music publisher, or the name of the song. ASCAP does not have lyrics or music on-line but you can learn what a writer has published. You may not know that your favorite artist wrote music for a movie, for instance.
  • BMI also has an online database that can't be indexed by the web search engines. BMI's database stores info by the name of the person that wrote the music, the music publisher, or the name of the song - but not by the name of the band. BMI doesn't have lyrics or music on-line either. The Producers used BMI for their music.
  • Notes: These databases will tell you the real name of the artists that write the songs. Wayne Famous' (of The Producers) real name is Wayne A. McNatt!
  • You can also find out trivia stuff like who else did songs with the same title. With a little research, you can find out if other artists have performed songs written by a particular band.
• The Lyrics Server
  • There used to be a Server that had lyrics from thousands of songs. Unfortunately the music industry unleashed their lawyers on the creators of the site and they have taken it off line. The message at the link above indicates that it will never be brought back on line.
  • I believe this is a mirror of the Lyric server that is still active (1/27/97). It isn't pretty but there are a hell of a lot of lyrics on this site!
• Billboard magazine
  • You can send e-mail to their research dept. and see if they can dig up any articles from their archives for you. Send it to LFlick@billboardgroup.com.
• Record sales and Airplay stats:
  • I am still looking for a site that will tell me how many copies of any specified album has sold to date. I understand that "Radio and Records" tracks the info, they don't publish it on the web.
  • BMI Maintains a list of all of their songs that have aired on radio and TV 1 million or more times. It is worth taking a look. It is off their home page and caller the 'MillionAir Club'.
• Try your favorite search engine (Excite, Yahoo, etc...)
  • For a band like the Producers a good bet is to look for 'producers+Kyle' or 'producers+tom+werman'.
• Try the big WWW CD and tape outlets (CDNow - new CDs & tapes, InternationalCD - used CDs, VinylVendors - Used Vinyl of all sizes)
  • They may have an album that you need for your collection.
  • They may have links to bands or, in the case of CDNow, have a resource like AMG.
  • If you don't know all the albums or singles a band released, one of these sites may reveal those to you along with the record label and release year.