Oh, damn! What a great concept. This book is a labor of love put together by Joachim Gaertner, who is responsible for the late, great Germany-based Get Happy!! Records. This label released a CD by Crevice, a Texas-based psych/experimental group I performed and recorded with from on and off from 1997 to 2002. I have many fond memories of Crevice and will always have a fondness for Get Happy!! Records…but that’s not the reason I’m posting now.

In its second edition, They Could Have Been Bigger Than EMI is a collection of discography info on defunct indie labels that released vinyl. This massive, 567-page book has information on more than four thousand labels, with thousands of images. Want to know all about Stiffwick? Unicorn? Crass Records? Green Fez? Small Wonder Records? It’s all here. For the record–I have NOT read this book yet, but I am totally excited by the idea of it. What an amazing accomplishment!

These days Joachim Gaertner runs Pure Pop For Now People, his small vinyl label and mailorder. I’ve not heard any of the groups on his roster except for the great-sounding S/T, but I am sure the others sound equally delicious. I am very happy to see him still at it after all this time and doing it on vinyl to boot! Check the book out, drop him a line at the PPFNP site to get ordering info.