The In Deep Music Archive is an eclectic collection of music and an array of books and films. An historical and contemporary library of all available formats – Vinyl, CD, Cassette, Reel to Reel tape, 8 Track, 78RPM, VHS, DVD, Laser discs and reference books, encyclopedias, catalogues, biographies, magazines – and any information that can be used to inspire music lovers, help record collectors with information and generally introduce music to all people. Collected by Marty Willson-Piper over the past 40 years, the archive has grown into this wonderful collection through a life of scouring the record stores around the world, but also through generous donations from friends, fans and labels alike

Our postal address is listed and if you would like to continue to support us here at In Deep we will be most grateful. Be assured that we love to hear from you and anything that you send us will be greatly appreciated. We look after the collection with love and affection. We will try to review records, old and new that we like and hear about. We have a nice Linn turntable, a B&O Stereo Amp, a Cambridge Audio CD Player and some lovely old B&W Speakers as well as a futon sofa to lie back on and close your eyes. We have original Lava Lamps and an artefacts window; pieces picked up on our travels, all this adding to a most atmospheric and gratifying listening experience. We even have our own “Moth” Vinyl cleaning machine.

We are many things – an archive,  an information resource, project co-ordinators, a film music research library, a sampling library, a musicians’ advice bureau as well as a place to write, play, produce and if you feel so inclined, learn to play the guitar.

In a perfect world we would also be our own radio station allowing the public to discover new things over the airwaves or the net, promoting the artist catalogue and introducing the listener to a myriad of music they would otherwise never have heard of. We are currently investigating internet radio and will let you know if we can get that aspect of this project working. Spotify seems our best chance of a radio show with no DJ using playlists but not everyone is on Spotify and not all music is there.  How do we pay royalties and presenters? Advertising?  You can find it all for free on the net…but something is missing isn’t it? – Personality DJ’s with deep knowledge – like John Peel. We hope that we can play brand new music and more established music from all eras. Stuart Maconie on BBC Radio 6 is doing a great job of that.

Musicians now have complete control and although we sell less, we get a bigger cut. Now it’s up to us to engage the public imagination with the music rather than the promo budget. With digital sales and lower quality sound, the fast food mentality, the attempt to sell more of something worse at the same price seems to be working. Having said that vinyl has reappeared and a lot of people desire better quality and the feel of holding the record.  I have no issue with people who would rather have mp3’s and listen on a mobile phone or an ipod in a dock. I just know how much better my listening experience is. What do we need to happen out there? A standard higher quality sound in the digital arena has to be the number one? One can imagine that major record labels were dumb enough to gnaw off their own foot, their own private Easter Island, but the worse thing they did was make it all mean less. Of course these days, the issues with selling music are complex but there is a desire out there for the fans to act as patrons for the music they wish to support. Pledge music and Kickstarter have been a great success and helped a lot of musicians constrained by budget limitations to relax and make a proper album. Record companies frittering away money on lavish budgets for the mediocre, famously misreading the market place and second guessing trends that have moved on as they are commandeering the limousine that always shows up too late for the point; creating awful shallow waste, letting this most precious of art forms literally slip through their fingers.

So now artists at all levels of their musical development must choose their own path and hope that their public follows them in much the same way as David Bowie did with his genre experiments in the ’70s. Of course music has the right to exist for any reason. Without a less stuffy approach to music we may never have had the glory of glam or the thrust of punk but why does one style have to wipe out the next? Good and bad exists everywhere and after all it’s completely subjective. One man’s phat rhythm is another’s stupefying lyric and for all those brilliant progressive musical visionaries there’s a burst of precocious energy to contradict. Remember jazz is not commercial music and every orchestra is subsidized by the government.

Alan McGee remarked that the dole queue was responsible for allowing the future of British Music to flourish. Imagine all those sensitive souls out there that never got to make a record because they weren’t shallow enough or had to get a job instead. I have spent my life making music but also constantly listening and discovering music, hunting it down. There are thousands of hidden jewels languishing below the surface, waiting to be dug up. I can’t tell you about them quickly enough!! In the meantime the archive is free to explore and we are free to exploit our own catalogue with those who wish to be part of this project with us. Watching artists waste their resources has made me interested in efficient management of the pocket book as well as the heart. I remain in awe of what the good people know and am astonished at the bad decisions I see musicians make. Please listen to reason, know who the inspired characters are, think deeply when you make your choices and do not fall victim to the fabulists.

In this mad world of money for art, this disparate anomaly, what seems to be the issue is waste. Not just an environmental waste but incessant bombardment of “subjective” rubbish, mental and physical. If we can be made more aware of better food, that is a better realized visual and aural menu, then our souls may stand a chance. Still, I’m not really interested in how much someone despises a genre they don’t follow. Let’s talk about what we love not what we hate.
See you on line or in person at the In Deep Music Archive. MWP