was in the mid seventies that I first became aware of a monthly record swap meet being held in the parking lot behind the Capitol Records building in Hollywood. One Saturday each month, just after dark, a hundred or so sellers along with thousands of music lovers would gather in the shadow of the Capitol Records Tower to buy, sell and trade anything and everything that had to do with popular music. And best of all, it was a party that went on all night!
You could find posters photographs, rare used records, memorabilia and of course bootlegs... lots and lots of bootlegs! A few of the more adventurous dealers even brought small gas powered generators or strung a power cord from an RV giving them the advantage of lights & sound but most of the stalls were relatively dark, so the smart buyers always brought a flashlight.
 |
| Capitol Records building - "The Tower" |
The scene was amazing, (and more than a little surreal!) Picture that famous cylindrical edifice, looming over a darkened parking lot filled with seller’s tables and populated with buyers. Small, isolated pools of light randomly scattered about and everywhere you looked, tiny flashlight beams flitting around then coming to rest as people milled around, quizzing the dealers while perusing their current stock.
The selection and variety were almost endless and there were many times I spent the night working my way from stall to stall, combing through the bins, flashlight in hand, searching for treasure. I rarely missed a weekend and often stumbled in my front door with the sun already up, exhausted but satisfied after having found a handful of records I had never seen or heard before.
Rewind a decade or so to the mid ‘60s when a plethora of rock record stores first started popping up. Driven by the rapid growth in the music business, these small independent retail shops preceded the big chains (like Licorice Pizza, Music Plus, The Warehouse & Tower Records) by almost a full decade. Most common among these was the “Psychedelic” or “Head” Shop - funky little joints selling psychedelic paraphernalia, (stuff like water pipes, bongs, cigarette papers and roach clips), along with incense, posters, lava lamps, black lights and of course, rock records. These shops were a part of the emerging counter-culture and as such they were eclectic and totally ‘underground’. But for me, the biggest difference between head shops and the record counter at the local Sears or J. C. Penny department store was the fact that the head shops played music... rock music, ALL DAY LONG!
 |
| The Auditory Odyssey |
It was in The Odyssey that I first heard iconic albums by artists/groups like Joni Mitchell & James Taylor, Cream & The Band, Humble Pie & Grand Funk Railroad, The Association & The Grass Roots. Even bands like Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago first came to my attention there. And it was at The Odyssey where I first learned about bootlegs.
Not to be confused with “pirate LPs”, (counterfeit copies of existing records, manufactured by somebody other than the official record label and made to look like the original release), bootlegs are recordings of material that is not available and has never been released by the record company. Live concert performances, FM radio broadcasts, unreleased songs, rehearsals and alternate takes/mixes are all good examples of things that could be (and are) bootlegged.
The first bootleg I ever encountered was by my beloved Beatles. (There had been one rock bootleg available before this - A Bob Dylan record called “Great White Wonder" or “GWW” - but not being a Dylan fan, its release had not had any effect on me.) It was the Summer of 1969 and I was standing in the Odyssey, hanging out and "rapping" with one of the clerks. As the album on the turntable ended he replaced it with something unique and utterly new to me.
“What is that”, I asked, reaching across the counter for the cover.
“It’s the new Beatles Bootleg called Get Back”, he replied with a smile.
“What’s a bootleg?”, I asked, “I’ve never heard this song before”. (a non sequitur, I know!)
“You haven’t heard it because Capitol hasn’t released it yet”, he said.
The cover was plain white cardboard with a printed sheet of medium blue paper, done in monochrome black ink and glued to the front. The cover sheet had a photo of The Beatles (performing on the Apple rooftop) along with the title - “Get Back” and a list of all the song titles and timings. The cover also listed the record as ‘LE101' from ‘Lemon Records’ and even had a tiny lemon logo! The back of the cover was blank. I scanned the list and none of the titles were familiar to me.
“Is this for sale?”, I asked not wanting to leave the store without it!
“Yeah”, he said, “we have plenty.”
I continued to listen to the record with one ear as we talked about the album and after a while he said, “come on into the back, I wanna show you something.”
We went into the shop’s back room where Ed, the owner and a couple of girls were busily gluing cover sheets onto covers. There were boxes and stacks of copies of “Get Back” everywhere!
“You guys made this?”, I asked. Ed smiled and the girls both giggled.
As I was getting ready to go, Ed said, “Do you think you can sell some? I’ll front you a box.”
“Sure”, I said. (I knew lots of Beatles fans and I was sure selling them would be no problem.)
“Cool”, he said and handed me a box of 25. “Keep one for yourself and pay me for the other 24 copies. Wholesale on them is two-fifty each so you’ll owe me $60 for the box”.
In the decades since, bootlegs have remained an important aspect of my music collection. Throughout the ‘70s and even until today, I have continued to seek out and acquire any title by an artist or group that I liked. Early acquisitions included live albums from folks like Elton John, Jethro Tull, CSN, James Taylor, ELP and of course The Beatles. All of these were available LONG before these artist’s labels released live material so they all really helped to fill the gap.
Sonically, you can’t really compare a bootleg to a commercial release. Doing so is kind of like comparing an amateur home video to a major studio’s feature film! The quality of the sound in most bootleg “masters” was usually less than stellar to begin with and unlike today, there was no access (outside of a recording studio) to mastering equipment and the powerful tools used to ‘sweeten’ the sound.
But while the sonic quality was rarely exceptional and often disappointing, the material was always unique. And while the sound remained raw, over time the quality of the printed covers improved steadily and dramatically until by the late ‘70s bootlegs often had a full color printed cover featuring interesting and unique graphics and design.
 |
| A selection of bootleg covers |
 |
| "Generic" Ralph Crumb TMOQ cover |
Traditionally, to manufacture a bootleg, the bootlegger would take his master (preferably a 2 track open reel recording but often a cassette) to some small, local record pressing house and purchase a short run of LPs (typically 500 to 1000 pieces) using a fake band/artist name and a trumped up list of song titles (for the labels). The records would be delivered in plain white cardboard jackets and a printed cover sheet (with more accurate data) or an entirely new printed cover would be created elsewhere. Once he was in possession of all the components it was a simply a matter of combining one with the other and sealing it all in shrink wrap to create a finished salable product.
Over the years, many musicians have had a love/hate relationship with the lowly bootleg. Some artists consider them a scourge on the business in general (and upon their revenue stream in specific) while other artists consider them an interesting curiosity or even a loving tribute.
Paul McCartney for example is rumored to have kept a man on his payroll for many years whose express job it was to search out and acquire Beatles and McCartney boots for Macca’s personal collection. And the Grateful Dead not only condoned the recording of their shows, they offered free ‘patch points’ where fans could plug directly into the mixing board for a stereo line recording of the house mix! Other artists, (Elvis Costello among others), took an entirely different tack, hiring private detectives and seeking prosecution against any bootlegger they could catch!
By the mid ‘70s, the impact of bootlegs on the market was so great that they even got mentioned in the lyrics of songs like “Hi Hi Hi” by Wings; “When I met you at the station, you were standing with a bootleg in your hand”
 |
| The Who - "Live At Leeds |
The bootleg business shifted a bit in the late ‘70s with the development of home stereo cassette machines and Dolby ‘B’ noise reduction. These technologies fueled the rapid growth of the “tape trading” hobby wherein collectors would maintain a list of all the performances they had available for trade and would then exchange copies of those recordings with other traders in person and/or through the mail thus growing both collections. Over the years, many of these hobbyists have continued to collect and trade, first moving their collections to CDR and then to digital file formats on home computers until today when bootlegs are often traded online by collectors who upload and download files to/from one another.
With the rise of the CD in the early ‘80s, the bootleggers also changed gears and began releasing their product on CD instead of vinyl. The sound quality was often no better then it had been on vinyl (in fact many of the more famous vinyl titles were simply 're-booted' and re-released!) but the packaging was usually nice and the format was convenient! By the late ‘80s many new bootleg labels appeared by taking advantage of the recordable CDR format and releasing small runs on burnable digital discs, further expanding the size and scope of the business.
By the early ‘90s there were dozens if not hundreds of local area music swap meets taking place during the weekends all over the country. These featured table after table of bootleg videos (on VHS cassette) and audio on CD. The more aggressive sellers would arrive for the day with hundreds of titles displayed on their tables and multiple copies of each title in the boxes below.
Sadly, these days actual boots are as rare as hen’s teeth but file trading and downloading over the internet is bigger than ever. Sites and forums abound where traders can discuss and exchange music by their favorite artists and bands.
Maybe not as exciting as standing in a darkened parking lot, bent over a table, in the middle of the night with a flashlight clenched between your teeth, but ultimately just as satisfying!
No comments:
Post a Comment