Some Bizzare Records
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Some Bizzare Records is the label/management company of Stevo Pearce, the manager of Marc Almond.
Pearce had worked as a DJ in London playing records by electronic and industrial groups.
Some Bizzare was launched with a compilation LP entitled "Some Bizzare Album" in 1981. The album featured Soft Cell, Blancmange, Depeche Mode, The The and other more obscure acts in the same vein.
Soft Cell, The The, Cabaret Voltaire, Einstürzende Neubauten, B-Movie, and Psychic TV were some of the early groups on the label.
By the mid 80s, the roster included Test Dept, Coil, Swans, Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel, and various Soft Cell solo and off-shoot projects.
Pearce has a remarkable history of succeeding in gaining media attention for extreme groups who would otherwise be marginalised. However, his methods have made him many enemies, both in the music industry and also amongst the artists he works with. In particular, the groups Coil and Einstürzende Neubauten (amongst others) have publicly drawn attention to shortcomings in his business practices, and even long-time associate Marc Almond aired several misgivings about Stevo's modus operandi in his autobiography. From the industry's point of view, multinationals like Polygram and EMI were less than enamoured with Stevo's habit of sending teddy bears containing pre-recorded messages inside them to board meetings in his place.
Einstürzende Neubauten have reissued their four Some Bizzare albums in superior quality remastered sound as digipaks (Zeichnungen des Patienten O. T., Halber Mensch, Fünf Auf der Nach Oben Offenen Richterskala and Haus der Lüge) on their own label Potomak, claiming that Pearce had never paid them except for the actual costs of the recording sessions. Pearce refutes this and still sells his versions on Some Bizarre. Pearce considers the Potomak releases bootlegs, referring to the old contracts the band signed with his label. Coil made the same accusations, and printed "Stevo Pay Us What You Owe Us" on the remastered versions of Scatology, Horse Rotorvator and Love's Secret Domain.
Despite such misgivings, it cannot be denied that Stevo and Some Bizarre have introduced the public to some of the most interesting music of the past 25 years. This is evidenced by a compilation album "Redefining the Prologue" released in October 2006 to mark the label's 25th anniversary, seemingly without consultaion or permission of several of the artists featured on it.
