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It’s just as well Julio Bashmore sold so many copies of last year’s ‘Au Seve’ 12″, as the A2 number on that record has apparently ended up costing him a pretty penny. The track, ‘Troglodyte’, sampled heavily from the mental, magnificent Jimmy Castor Bunch classic of the same name. So heavily, in fact, that anyone familiar with the track would probably have assumed that Bashmore must have secured the rights to the song before releasing it.

It turns out that he actually didn’t bother, perhaps hoping that Castor’s death a few months previous meant no one would bother chasing him up about it. Whatever the reason, he didn’t account for the song’s publishers and the other musicians involved, which is why he’s had to pay an undisclosed sum to both them and a charity of their choice. And he sounds pretty sheepish about it judging by the statement published on his Facebook page…

“This is an unreserved apology to the publishers of the work ‘Troglodyte’ who are Minder Music Ltd and the writers who are Jimmy Castor, Gerry Thomas, Douglas Gibson, Harry Jensen, Robert Manigault and Langdon Fridie, originally recorded by the Jimmy Castor Bunch. I mistakenly used the work without the permission of the publisher and the writers and made the recording available for free download to promote my label and my own career. I now realize that the work is copyrighted material and the property of the writers and publisher and I had no rights whatsoever to do what I did…I fully recognize that taking another artist’s/writer’s work and using it without permission is unlawful and can cause damage to the value of the work”.

We’d like to know how exactly he “mistakenly” appropriated the work, but at least he’s more contrite in his apology than some people (naming no names Will.i.am, you chronically atrocious musical kleptomaniac). There has, however, been no response yet to the Facebook user who responded to the statement with: “Apologise for such a shit set you did at parklife”. Ouch.