Ep517: Preserving the Westbound Sound
The Vinyl Guide - Artist Interviews for Record Collectors and Music Nerds
Nate Goyer
4.7 • 579 Ratings
🗓️ 29 September 2025
⏱️ 71 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mastering Engineer Dave Gardner & Audio Archivist Catherine Vericolli discuss the preservation of the Westbound Records audio catalogue, including the masters of legendary recordings by Funkadelic, The Counts, Ohio Players & more.
Topics Include:
- Dave Gardner (mastering engineer) and Catherine Vericoli (archivist) introduce their specialized roles
- Mastering serves as link between creative process and manufacturing standards
- Catherine transfers analog tapes to highest possible digital quality preservation
- Physical restoration work includes extensive mold and splice remediation tasks
- Much archival work involves "audio archaeology" detective work with clues
- Working backwards from incomplete information when documentation is missing completely
- Common assumption that old records were always done "the right way"
- Reality reveals beloved records often weren't made using proper methods
- Got rare access to examine entire Westbound Records collection together
- Westbound Records started late 1960s by distributor Armin Bolodian in Detroit
- Detroit-based independent label achieved regional success with multiple hit records
- Funkadelic, Ohio Players, Detroit Emeralds were among their major successful acts
- Complete catalog reissue approach rather than cherry-picking just popular hits
- Assets moved between multiple locations over decades, not everything returned
- Found various generations and copies of tapes for each release
- Maggot Brain original masters were believed to be permanently missing
- Discovery of missing masters hidden in completely unmarked white archive boxes
- Original tape playback speeds rarely match speeds of vinyl releases
- Spent entire week meticulously fine-tuning correct playback speeds for accuracy
- Academic ethnomusicologist confirmed musical key was wrong on commercial releases
- Many recent European reissues contain fundamentally inaccurate speed and sound
- Double 45 RPM format avoids sonic compromises required for long sides
- 27-minute album sides on 33 RPM required major audio quality sacrifices
- All-analog cutting process preserves original sound character without digital conversion
- Unreleased material exists primarily in unprocessed multitrack tape format only
- Dennis Coffey played guitar on many more Funkadelic recordings than known
- Analog tape degradation accelerating rapidly, especially problematic for digital formats
- Cultural preservation mission drives their passionate collaborative archival restoration work
- Asset paranoia and trust issues affect access to important historical recordings
- Primary motivation remains saving irreplaceable music for all future generations
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Vinyl Guide, the podcast for record collectors and music nerds. |
| 0:10.1 | Here's your host, the biggest record nerd of them all, Nate Goyer. |
| 0:13.5 | Hey, everyone, it's Nate. |
| 0:15.2 | Welcome to episode 517 of the Vinyl Guide, the podcast for record collectors and music nerds. |
| 0:22.3 | And ladies and gentlemen, I'm recording this in Austin, Texas. |
| 0:27.5 | You may hear the heat in your headphones there. |
| 0:30.5 | It's actually quite a beautiful day. |
| 0:32.2 | And I've been traveling quite a bit through California, Las Vegas, now Austin, and pretty soon I'll be |
| 0:40.2 | kind of winding my way back home. So I appreciate everyone's patience and nice messages with all |
| 0:46.1 | the texts and pictures and connections that I've been making throughout the trip. Again, |
| 0:52.1 | really do appreciate everyone and their eagerness to |
| 0:56.5 | connect and talk records. This week, got a very special one here. We are talking with Dave Gardner |
| 1:02.6 | and Catherine Veracoli. Dave is a mastering engineer and Catherine is an audio archivist. |
| 1:08.8 | And together, they are working with org music and others to preserve the Westbound Records music catalog. |
| 1:15.7 | It's a very compelling story they tell. |
| 1:17.7 | Today we talk all about that preservation. |
| 1:20.3 | What were the condition of the tapes? |
| 1:22.3 | How did they determine which masters to use? |
| 1:24.8 | The double 45 RPM version of Funkadelic. |
| 1:27.9 | What's happening with Maggot Brain and Free Your Mind? |
| 1:31.1 | Are they finding any unreleased recordings? |
| 1:34.1 | We talk about our shared love of Dennis Coffee and so much more. |
... |
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