A Fan's Property, Lost by Greg Brooks in the Last Century, circa 1999

In response to numerous comments on QZ of this type… "[i]it is well-known that John lent other stuff to Greg that mysteriously went astray[/i]"…  there now follows some ACCURATE facts.

I keep on seeing references to me losing things sent to me by fans. This is wrong and unbalanced.

In the 19 years I've worked for Queen, [b]one[/b] item was lost. Not two or three or several. [b]ONE[/b]. A tape kindly loaned to us by John Stuart - I think it was an Ibex live recording - went missing somewhere during the process of making the mightily complicated 12-disc Freddie Mercury Solo Collection in 1999 which took over a year of working with hundreds of tapes.

The cassette was in fact lost somewhere on route to EMI, not in a Queen studio, but it was only right and proper, appropriate in the circumstances, that we took full responsibility for it. I personally contacted John to appologise profusely. It was very regrettable and John was very good about it at the time. Only later did he tell the story on Queenzone, despite saying he'd keep it to himself, and several hundred references to it have followed in the intervening two decades... As well as lots of sympathy at every opportunity. It gets brought up regularly, not least because it suits a lot of people and their biased opinions of me to think that we're always losing fans' treasures. One item in 19 years is clearly not a regular occurrence.  It was an isolated though regrettable one-off incident.

Certain people like to endorse the rumour that we also lost John's (alleged to exist) Hangman acetate. But we didn't. Because we never had it. NO-ONE had it. Including John!! which is very significant would you not agree! [b]No-one[/b] had it because it was a figment of imagination. John said he had a Hangman acetate, he said it many times, but when we asked him several times to bring it to the studio for us to play and transfer, he made several transparent excuses not to. Even when Brian appealed for this to happen, John went silent in order to avoid the embarrassing situation of having to admit he had no such acetate... not at that time anyway. If he got it years later, that's another story, but he sure as hell didn't have it when he told us all he did. I believe this has been debated here in more recent times. Has this ghostly acetate EVER emerged???

I told John, and probably the Queenzone community too, back in 2010, that if John supplied his Hangman acetate, we would very likely use it as a bonus item on the 2011 Universal Records bonus disc for the first album. Along with the De Lane Lea demos. I couldn't do or say more than that, could I. I said in this forum that holding back such an historically important and rare Queen treasure, if it existed, would hurt only Queen fans, not me personally, and many of you agreed at that time.  It's just that you've conveniently forgotten over the intervening 228 months.

Hmmmmmm!   Things went suspiciously quiet again.  I asked several times more, as did one of my colleagues too. Eventually John said he wouldn't let Brian or QPL borrow his acetate, not because it didn't exist, not because he'd lose face in a massive way on Queenzone if it were revealed he'd made it up, but because....wait for it...  I had lost his Ibex cassette ELEVEN years earlier. That was his reason, after first promising we [b]could[/b] use it.  "Bring it to the studio yourself, then" I said.  "No chance of it being lost then, is there?"  He declined.

Losing that tape was regrettable and embarrassing. I apologised several times. John has had ample sympathy out of it, enough to last a lifetime, and we invited him to the launch event of the Freddie box which he happily accepted and subsequently enjoyed very much.

That Ibex tape remains the ONLY item we've lost, despite us having borrowed several hundred items over the years, for books, boxed sets, exhibitions and myriad other projects you've all seen, attended, bought and enjoyed... Such as the book inside The Studio Collection, which features more than a dozen fan-owned treasures loaned to us, and the Ultimate Queen Lyrics book, for which we borrowed two sets of handwritten lyrics from a fan. ALL of those things were returned and everyone was credited. NOTHING was lost.

It's great that all those fans were rather less narrow-minded than lots of people here on Moanzone, who just won't let it go: our sole unique slip up of nearly 20 years ago.

Thank goodness for the hundreds of fans that were generous enough to loan us hundreds of things for us all to collectively enjoy... None of which, not a sticker, scarf, badge, trade advertisement, costume or handwritten song lyric, were ever lost.

Keep these things in fair and reasonable perspective is what I'm saying, before you go on and on and on again about something that happened long long ago.

Count up the hundreds of rare and fascinating Queen treasures that have appeared in QPL products this past 20 years, loaned by fans, and know that the total number of those things that we lost, was NONE. Zero. You might mention this too in your summaries of years gone by, if only to be fair and balanced. 

People keep speculating as to why I so rarely contribute to this forum. It's largely because of tedious bullshit like this being perpetuated by certain fans that were not even on here in 1999, who know next to nothing of the truth, even though I told it in detail at the time and several times since, and whom have made their minds up about me and the work I do, largely based on OTHER people's grievances and prejudices, based on jaded inaccurate unbalanced accounts of an isolated one-off incident that occurred way back in the last century for christ's sake. And I'm not even exaggerating!!!  

Come on certain Moanzoners.... you know who you are... it's long overdue; get up to speed.  Get into the 21st century and into all the great things that have happened as a result of fair-minded generous fans sharing their treasures with QPL, collaborating with us for the betterment of Queen products, instead of moaning and fighting. How long is it reasonable to live 19 years in the past!?

GB

You the man!

Fair enough. What is the current status of a studio version of Hangman? Sounds like John Stuart has been outed as a massive fraud but has another source for a studio version been discovered?

Greg, what happened with the I Want It All book? At least tell us the reason why it was never launched.

And with the smartphones game? Besides the fact about some promises which weren't much done, suddenly it disappears of the store leaving the people who paid for it without any kind of support.

I'm not searching for fights or nothing compared to it, just the truth.

Thanks.

PS: That tape contained the whole concert, a portion of the concert of better quality than the available version, or it's just the master of the already heard roadie recording?

Great. :')

Another chapter in the never ending and quite boring GB vs JSS war book?

OK, we get it, you don't like John. We got the message ages ago. No reason to drag it out again especially when John wasn't posting on Queenzone for the last few years and he can't defend himself.
Ibex - the problem is much more complicated. Person A pays a lot of money for a tape. Person A sends the tape to Company B. Company B doesn't return the tape, but a digital copy of the tape suddenly gets bootlegged and the bootleggers suddenly make a lot of money. Not the owner of the tape, not anybody owning the copyright to the recording captured on the tape, but some bootlegger (a.k.a. criminal). That's problem numero uno. Problem #2 is what this means - there is (or was) a "leak" - somebody who works or worked for either Queen or the record company has direct access to an illegal bootleg company.

BTW what about the Marquee recording from 1970, which was bought on the auction?

Hangman - you (Greg) claim that a recording does not exist. John claims it does exist. End of discussion. It's just word against word. I don't really care anymore on whose side is the truth. But I just can't stand the way how you claim that he's a liar simply because he refuses to let it out of this hands. I'm not going to claim it exists, and I'm not going to claim it does not exist. The only thing I can say is that I DON'T KNOW if it exist. The same goes for you. You can only say that you THINK it doesn't exist. If you want to use such absolute terms, you have to prove it, which you failed to do.

A few minutes ago I wrote that I'm happy you stopped insulting other Queenzoners and then I read this :-(

Thanks, Greg, for the levelheaded post. Please give us a cool, live release this fall. There is no reason that the live catalog that you have available isn't downloadable for pay on your website. We don't want perfection, just the music.

Pick your dummy up Mr Brooks...

Adam Lambert.

[QUOTE] [b]pittrek wrote:[/b]

Another chapter in the never ending and quite boring GB vs JSS war book?

OK, we get it, you don't like John. We got the message ages ago. No reason to drag it out again especially when John wasn't posting on Queenzone for the last few years and he can't defend himself.[/QUOTE]

This is very unfair Pittrek, very unfair!
I have disagreed with Greg in the past, and told him so at the time. But i´m grown up enough to move forward and focus on what really matters.

This time Greg has all the reasons to be offended at what people are saying to him and about him. I would respect people more if instead of writing long posts they just told Greg to fuck off! It would be more honest and it would prevent me from wasting my time reading long posts of people offending him without actually using offensive words.

In this case, i appreciate Greg´s input about the JSS story. I follow Queenzone since the beginning and Greg told the story exactely how it happened on this forum.

Now, if you don´t mind i will make my own conclusions about JSS´s claims about Hangman.


[QUOTE] [b]pittrek wrote:[/b]
Ibex - the problem is much more complicated. Person A pays a lot of money for a tape. Person A sends the tape to Company B. Company B doesn't return the tape, but a digital copy of the tape suddenly gets bootlegged and the bootleggers suddenly make a lot of money. Not the owner of the tape, not anybody owning the copyright to the recording captured on the tape, but some bootlegger (a.k.a. criminal). That's problem numero uno. Problem #2 is what this means - there is (or was) a "leak" - somebody who works or worked for either Queen or the record company has direct access to an illegal bootleg company .[/QUOTE]

Criminal behaviour stays with the person, not the organization or their bosses. Each one is responsible for their own behaviour!


[QUOTE] [b]pittrek wrote:[/b]
Hangman - you (Greg) claim that a recording does not exist. John claims it does exist. End of discussion. It's just word against word. I don't really care anymore on whose side is the truth. But I just can't stand the way how you claim that he's a liar simply because he refuses to let it out of this hands. I'm not going to claim it exists, and I'm not going to claim it does not exist. The only thing I can say is that I DON'T KNOW if it exist. The same goes for you. You can only say that you THINK it doesn't exist. If you want to use such absolute terms, you have to prove it, which you failed to do.

A few minutes ago I wrote that I'm happy you stopped insulting other Queenzoners and then I read this :-( [/QUOTE]

If the story is as Greg told above i believe JSS has some explanations to give to fans in Queenzone. Because if he was given all the conditions stated above and even had Brian May involved in the request, i want to know why he turned down such request hurting all the Queen fans included myself. Let me remember you Pittrek that JSS is the same person who says that the Fanthology´s project many CD´s and DVD´s were supposed to be shared in Queenzone for free as a response to the fact that QP failed to release the much expected and anticipated Demos Box-set. And then he refuses to let QP use his acetate for an official product? I´ll see what he has to say on this matter... or not!

But one thing i´m sure, he will read this post, because many people here are connected to him via Facebook.

Let´s see how this one unfolds.

A studio version of Hangman. It's like Schrodinger's Song.

[QUOTE] [b]Mr.QueenFan wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]pittrek wrote:[/b]

Another chapter in the never ending and quite boring GB vs JSS war book?

OK, we get it, you don't like John. We got the message ages ago. No reason to drag it out again especially when John wasn't posting on Queenzone for the last few years and he can't defend himself.[/QUOTE]

This is very unfair Pittrek, very unfair!
I have disagreed with Greg in the past, and told him so at the time. But i´m grown up enough to move forward and focus on what really matters.
[/QUOTE]

No, not at all. Don't get me wrong - I have nothing personally against Greg, I never met him personally, he probably doesn't even know we dealt together because I always used a third person. I am just sick of the JSS bashing which takes too long. WAY TOO LONG. I think it started 10 or more years ago and I'm really sick of it. The 2 of them should discuss it together personally like normal adults and not do this publicly.

[QUOTE]
This time Greg has all the reasons to be offended at what people are saying to him and about him. I would respect people more if instead of writing long posts they just told Greg to fuck off! It would be more honest and it would prevent me from wasting my time reading long posts of people offending him without actually using offensive words.
[/QUOTE]
Not sure who you mean, hopefully not me, I am always trying to be polite.

[QUOTE]
In this case, i appreciate Greg´s input about the JSS story. I follow Queenzone since the beginning and Greg told the story exactely how it happened on this forum.

Now, if you don´t mind i will make my own conclusions about JSS´s claims about Hangman.


[QUOTE] [b]pittrek wrote:[/b]
Ibex - the problem is much more complicated. Person A pays a lot of money for a tape. Person A sends the tape to Company B. Company B doesn't return the tape, but a digital copy of the tape suddenly gets bootlegged and the bootleggers suddenly make a lot of money. Not the owner of the tape, not anybody owning the copyright to the recording captured on the tape, but some bootlegger (a.k.a. criminal). That's problem numero uno. Problem #2 is what this means - there is (or was) a "leak" - somebody who works or worked for either Queen or the record company has direct access to an illegal bootleg company .[/QUOTE]

Criminal behaviour stays with the person, not the organization or their bosses. Each one is responsible for their own behaviour!
[/QUOTE]
Of course. Am I claiming something different?

[QUOTE]
[QUOTE] [b]pittrek wrote:[/b]
Hangman - you (Greg) claim that a recording does not exist. John claims it does exist. End of discussion. It's just word against word. I don't really care anymore on whose side is the truth. But I just can't stand the way how you claim that he's a liar simply because he refuses to let it out of this hands. I'm not going to claim it exists, and I'm not going to claim it does not exist. The only thing I can say is that I DON'T KNOW if it exist. The same goes for you. You can only say that you THINK it doesn't exist. If you want to use such absolute terms, you have to prove it, which you failed to do.

A few minutes ago I wrote that I'm happy you stopped insulting other Queenzoners and then I read this :-( [/QUOTE]

If the story is as Greg told above i believe JSS has some explanations to give to fans in Queenzone. Because if he was given all the conditions stated above and even had Brian May involved in the request, i want to know why he turned down such request hurting all the Queen fans included myself. Let me remember you Pittrek that JSS is the same person who says that the Fanthology´s project many CD´s and DVD´s were supposed to be shared in Queenzone for free as a response to the fact that QP failed to release the much expected and anticipated Demos Box-set. And then he refuses to let QP use his acetate for an official product? I´ll see what he has to say on this matter... or not!

But one thing i´m sure, he will read this post, because many people here are connected to him via Facebook.

Let´s see how this one unfolds.
[/QUOTE]
[/QUOTE]

Well - no. John's refusal to give Queen his Hangman acetate proves absolutely nothing. I have also refused to give something to Queen Productions a few years ago (again dealing via a third person). You know, collectors are strange people sometimes.

BTW if Greg is still reading this, I would really love to read his current "official" word on the Marquee recording.

Having read the archivist post in full, I must say I am disappointed by his attitude towards fans

"Moanzoaners" is not the way to refe to people who, at the end of the day, care about the quality of product issued by QPL and have contributed many invaluable items in the past

Looking at the most recent products from QPL, I think the archivist would do well to keep the fans onside and treat us with a degree of respect, otherwise we may have to put up with future releases with reprinted ticket stubs, reprinted silk scarves and celebratory balloons..perish the thought

As for the Hangman acetate, questioning a person's integrity will certainly deny you access to his possessions in future

There's a big problem with respect on this board. So I can understand the use of the Moanzone metapher.
I agree with Pittrek that nearly all of this content we can read in this threat was discussed before and the interaction between Mr. Stuart and Mr. Brooks
is better to stay with these men, a table and two classes of good whisky.
regards,
W.

Hmmm, the one comment from Greg which struck me was "Even when Brian appealed for this to happen,". Is this an admission from Brian that a Hangman studio version does exist?

If JSS does indeed own this acetate, would it really be so hard for him to rip it and stick on an FTP server? It would never need to leave his possession. This is 2016, we don't need Royal Mail to deliver stuff anymore. If he has it and doesn't want to share it, then fine, to be fair its not that great a song anyway, I'm sure there are many other items that hopefully QPL will release. I've no faith in them doing that, but we can at least hope