Richard’s death on 27th August 2024 was a huge and untimely loss of a personal friend and a wonderful human being.
It quickly occurred to many of his friends and fans on Facebook that his legacy – all the recorded Radio Rich Pickings shows – might be lost. Nobody knew how long his Mixcloud hosting had been pre-paid for. We still don’t.
Richard had set up his original Shoutcheap net radio service on 18 September 2016. He spent the next 3 weeks trying to master the shoestring technicalities of kludging together a live net radio show from a pile of uncooperative devices and unfamiliar software he had been advised was ‘the way to do it’. As the nearest handy approximation to a geek he’d ask me occasional questions I’d seldom understand. But I was quite good at finding stuff out so had a small role in helping to negotiate the gibberish.
Subsequently, between his first show on 4 Oct 2016 and Richard's final show on 24 July 2024 I made automatic scheduled recordings of Radio Rich Pickings shows on a dogsbody PC under my desk that ran 24 hrs a day, every day.
These recordings were made with his approval, and I am sure he'd wish to see them live on among his friends and audience. All told there are 326 recordings. This is a more complete archive than Mixcloud’s where the earliest is 19 Feb 2019. Plus a couple of bonus tracks.
Partly this was because I was usually busy with work and/or family 6-8pm and needed to timeshift. It was also insurance that got used a good few times. I'd get a slightly worried phonecall on a Wednesday morning with Riche telling me he 'forgot to press a button' to record the show himself, so my backup copy filled the Mixcloud hole. Somehow it never happened that we both screwed up at the same time.
Of course, there were occasions when things went awry with either my software, my computer, or the internet. I have now been able to assemble a very nearly full archive of Radio Rich Pickings, (with a small handful of remaining problems – see below!).
Before RRP started I did record part of one (probably the last) of his Meridian radio shows. It is included in this collection of 328 files. (326 RRP+ 2 others).
TL/DR I was in a unique position to collate Richard’s material and assemble an archive, so that is what I have done.
I (Tony Sleep) have also started this very occasional blog, on Richard's site, simply because I own the hosting, and needed somewhere to post about his archive that won't scroll off a Facebook page in half an hour.
The Archive
I am now confident we have a complete, properly numbered and dated collection, which I have checked and re-checked and re-re-re-checked. I corrected a few dates and added metadata tags. They are all MP3 format, 128kbps 44.1kHz, which is what Richard sent to Shoutcast.
I have not added cover art/images as Richard used for his ‘guest’ shows at Mixcloud. Nor have I tried to annotate the variety of show ‘themes’ Riche came up with. I did manage to identify guests on pre-Mixcloud material by listening, but themes were just too much information.
I don’t believe there are any errors, but E&OE applies.
There are now just a handful of incomplete recordings (I am ignoring the fact that all my scheduled recordings often lost up to 90sec from the start of a show while it waited for data to signal the show had begun. It also added a minute or so of time-out silence at the end).
If anyone has personal recordings of the following shows, please let me know.
001-Rich Pickings 2016-09-27(part)
missed few minutes at the beginning due to me having mistakenly set the scheduler for 6am . I was a few minutes late checking that recording had started, and of course it hadn’t. 1h 59m 45s survived, so this one is not a disaster.
007-Rich Pickings - 2016-11-15(part)
ends abruptly just 14 minutes into the show. From the last minute or so of buffering problems the internet was unwell then gave up. Unfortunately my scheduler interpreted a minute of silence as the end of a show and stopped recording. If anyone has a copy of this show, Richard’s ‘Leonard Cohen special’ a week after LC's death, please let me know.
032-Rich Pickings - 2017-06-27 (part)
I recorded only the second hour of a 2hr show. The recording terminated at 20:05 on 27 June. I have no idea why it didn’t start on time.
195-Rich Pickings - 2021-02-02-(locked at Mixcloud)
and
198-Rich Pickings - 2021-02-23-(locked at Mixcloud)
There were a number of shows (I now forget how many – a dozen-ish) that are within Mixcloud’s timespan but are locked and unavailable at Mixcloud. For most, I substituted my local recordings. Others were backfilled either from Mixcloud or c/o Rien & Suzie Scheffer (who saved me a lot of work by providing files they had downloaded). Only these two files are now AWOL. Unfortunately both of these locked files cannot be accessed except by someone with Richard’s login credentials at Mixcloud. Placeholder files exist in the archive for the time being.
BTW #216 Rich Pickings 2021-07-20 (test).mp3 is an anomaly. It’s not a show, just 8 minutes of music, no Richard. That was so we could test scheduled transmission (quite a faff in his software) so a pre-recorded show could air while Richard was in America and away from his equipment. I've left it in for completeness.
The full archive comprises about 36GB. It is quadruple-backed up here, including offsite. It will survive.
COPYRIGHT. AH. YES.
I understood from Richard that he had the necessary licences and permissions for his live and recorded shows. I don't know the exact terms of what he agreed and paid for, and I am not hassling Maggie to find out.
For sure Copyright of the music belongs to the respective featured artists, composers and a highly litigious industry that is sick to death of piracy. Plus of course Richard's estate will own copyright of his performances.
For sure, also, listeners had ‘fair dealing’ legal rights to copy for personal timeshifting, or for criticism and review. However any subsequent distribution is arguably publishing, and downright hazardous.
The idea had seemed simple enough: assemble an archive, correct any errors, add metadata, and turn it into a collection that could be downloaded by Richard’s RRP audience of friends. A bit later… my professional background as a photographer for over 40 years makes me acutely aware of copyright. Mostly I am protective of creators rights. Here, the boot is on the other foot: I am terrified of music business lawyers and bots whose job it is to sniff out infringements on the web.
The purpose of this archive is to preserve Richard’s shows and prevent them being lost. Everything on the internet is temporary. The only protection is backups in multiple locations. I am sure Richard would want his shows to live on and be enjoyed.
Unfortunately, the law is not making this easy. There appears to be no copyright exception for archival preservation that could apply in our situation. There is such an exception, but my layman’s reading is that it can only apply for museums, galleries and official archivists who are protected against damages claims for infringement. Also it doesn’t apply to sound recordings.
So far, there is no loss so no viable damages claim for creating an archive that nobody except me can access. In practice I don’t think I am at any risk of getting sued to homeless penury. However that could change dramatically once exposed to an audience.
A CONCLUSION…
I will be providing Maggie, Richard’s wife (and heir), with the archive. I own no rights in this material. It’s not my call to distribute further.
WHAT NEXT?
This does all present a disappointing problem which will have to be resolved before the archive can be more widely accessible. I am hoping it can be, by someone who has the resources, legal and industry knowledge and contacts, to make it happen. I do not. Like Clint says, 'a man has to know his limitations'.
If you want to be kept up to date with how this develops please send an email to archive@radiorichpickings.co.uk I will read those and set up a mailing list, or something. Please include your real name and email as ‘firstname secondname <nickname@host>’ .
I apologise for this, but Facebook is not very useful here. Many listened who seldom or never used FB, or weren’t personal friends on Richard’s personal FB page. I can only comment on the Facebook 'Radio Rich Pickings page'. I can’t make new posts. I don’t think anyone can except Richard. There needs to be some wider mechanism. For now email is the simplest way to register an interest in what becomes of the RRP Archive. Your email address will not be used for anything else.
They really are wonderful shows, and it has been a privilege to help preserve them. Thank you Richard.
A full list of archived shows will appear in the next post.
Meanwhile if you ever did record any shows, the archive is, as mentioned above, still missing four. 2016-09-27 Riche's first RRP; 2016-11-15 (Leonard Cohen memorial); 2017-06-27; 2021-02-02 and 2021-02-23 (both in gaol on Mixcloud). The latter two may be retrievable eventually with enough paperwork, but I'm especially keen to get hold of his Leonard Cohen tribute.
Tony Sleep - tonysleep@halftone.co.uk