In the early 80ies, through an older friend, I got the Trident Demos, the Paris 1977 sessions, Brussels -73 (Rock Out Cock Out), Richards' solo sessions (Not Guilty). In hindsight, a small but solid collection. I particularly liked the Trident demos - and still do.

Tumblin_Dice_07 wrote:

live in a little hick town in Southwest Virginia and there is a town about 30 minutes away in a neighboring county that had a privately owned cd store called Dad's cd's.

Tumblin, where are you, what town? I went to high school in Reidsville, NC near your area..
can I ask, where is Dad's CD's ? is it still going?

thanks...

I grew up in nyc and brought a lot of great boots in all the great record stores down in the village the only thing missing from the equation these days is great record stores which are tragically becoming extinct the internet is good but there is something differnt about spending some hours hanging out in cool record store something definetly lacking in going to best buy or wally world

BY the mid-70s, I had accumulated a pretty fair official release collection (for a young kid not yet a teenager). I had several tapes I made off radio shows, including Biscuit and late night broadcasts from the hippie stations. I would trade desirable quantities for some vinyl boots as well. The live stuff was always where I seemed to go, because the energy was simply overwhelming. Rock and roll was being defined by the Stones.

In Charleston, there was a place called Purple Prism. In the summer of 1978 and thereafter for a few years, I began to pick up various vinyl boots like Bedspring Symphony, Garden State, Liver, Broadway, Get Your Leeds Lungs Out, Welcome to NY (red), Liver Pic Disc, Slick, Blind Date, Jack Daniels, Rock Out Cock Out, Rim Shout, and many others.

Ventured to Atlanta in 82 and at Fantasyland picked up shit-tons more including Winter Tour, Hampton 81 (title?), Honolulu 73 (Gold wax), Route 76, Charlie Watts and his Fabulous, Nasty Music, My Heart's Pounding, Trident Mixes, and many many more. Picked up several others in coming years from places in Charlottesville, DC, and a host of towns. One mail-order catalogue in the early 80s (place out of North Carolina) has tons, including lots of colored vinyl. Atmosphere Records in Atlanta (Sam?) and tons of record shows (remember them) all over the Southeast US and Dallas, etc. enabled me to get many more. Over the years I would swap vinyl for vinyl, and rare pressings for sometimes 20 LPs I wanted. Then, with the advents of boot CDs in the late 80s, it got even crazier with ACD, Wax N' Facts, Fantasyland some more, and then Goldmine, mail order, and so on. Graveyard Records in Savannah became a great outlet, too.

Once the trading circles became more accessible on line, then the game got complicated with everyone wanting to do his (or her!) own remaster of stuff we all had. Some got better, some got worse, but the original superstars remained what they are now - the icons of our collections. Most of the folks who have been in it for awhile have managed to get their hands on most of what is out there - 100s of shows!

Still, today, as I find myself re-acquiring (sometimes for the 4th time!) some of the most incredible ones from yesteryear, I hearken back to when getting one's hands on a new vinyl boot (for the area in which I was living) meant that everyone showed up with his or her best goodies and in a good mood to kick back and suck it all in like dry sponges in a pan of water. Words became few and far between for 45 - 90 minutes. Things were passed in silence, and knowing glances through razor-red-rimmed eyes confirmed the magic of being alive. Back then, it was simpler, because there was less technology and more interaction.

Today, when I put on Philly Special an close my eyes as the band rips through Flash, my eyes still pop out without assistance from all of the goodies of yesteryear. Those daze that were may have given way to the daze of now, but the next time you want to go back, haul out your vinyl or CD if that's all you have, put on Leeds (Royal Sound vinyl) or Knebworth (Hot August Night is best) or Brussels, or even Garden State 78 and close your eyes, sink into your couch, and go back for a moment where rock and roll was the focal point of it all and nothin' else much mattered. Kinda groovy, isn't it? That, fellow Stones' fans, is both why I got in all those years ago, and why I will ride this train All Down the Line.

stonesstein

Kick me like you did before
I can't even feel the pain no more
Rocks Off, 1972

Quote
boston2006
A store called Al Bums on the corner of Chandler St and Park Ave in Worcester , Ma . A guy I went to high school with opened it soon after we graduated and he had several bootleg LPs that I had never seen or heard of . I was able to get at his store , to name a few .

Bright Lights , Big City
Charlie watts and His fabulous Rolling Stones
Schoolboy Blues / Andrews Blues ( a 10" vinyl plays at 45 rpm )
L A Friday
Andrews Blues LP
Who went To Church This Sunday ?
Liver Than You'll Ever Be
The Trident Mixes
Canadian Blind Date
Stones Tour Mop Up !

Here's a link to an video article in the local paper about the stores closing . The storefront now houses a tattoo parlor . It is in what was once the "Haight Ashbury " section of Worcester .

Enjoy the show ,

[www.telegram.com]

There was a Al Bums in Tucson back in the 70's too. Same logo and everything. Didn't look that big to be a chain...

How did I start my Stones boot collection? I was in a used book/record store with a friend of mine during a street fair in Tucson in 1980. I was flipping through the Stones boots and saw "Who went to church this Sunday?". What flipped me out was the note on the front about part 2 (Charlie Watts & His Fabulous Rolling Stones). So I asked the clerk if they had that one. She said no and started talking with another customer. Evil spirits overcame me as I looked at her, the front door, her, then my friend and whispered "Should I walk out with this?". Once he got over being stunned I would even think that, he said "yeah" so, out the door I strolled. Hey, the band wasn't making anything offa it, right?

btw - what concert is "Stones Tour Mops Up" from?

we had a few "ma&pa" stores in youngstown, ohio:

UNDREDOG RECORDS [open]
RECORD CONNECTION [open]
CRITICAL SOUND [rip]
PURPLE FROG [rip]
PUSSYCAT RECORDS [rip]

other than that it was and still is a road trip to cleveland or pittsburgh for anything non gaga related.

I started mine by buying a bootleg.

Alright, so, I think the first Stones boot I got was from the back of Goldmine in...1991? Seventh Of July. I saw the SW tour and was very pleased with it. Saw this chance to get a live disc - this was before Flashpoint came out as I recall - and I was extremely pleased with it.

In fact, it was and still is quite amazing.

I answered an ad in the back of some music paper around 1975. They sent me a typewritten photocopied list on yellow paper with artists, titles and sound ratings ("Audience B-, SB B+, etc). From there I entered the wonderful world of bootlegs. Trademark of Quality, Colored vinyl, etc. I think "Bedspring Symphony" was one of the first Stones ones I got, then "The Black Box". A pretty good start. Also got the Beatles "Get Back" album and many others...Those were the days.

I bought the 'Nicaruagan Benefit' boot (double album) on a purple label from a store in Teaneck, NJ. That was my first boot ever.

liver Than you'll Ever Be

picked the boot album up for $5 in 1970
havent stopped since

LIVEr than you'll ever be in 1969 ... forget where I bought it.. probably in some 'underground' record shop in Arnhem .. was freely available though, And Johny the Selfkicker using the record for his 'poetry' shows in the same and following years

My first taste of "unreleased" Stones music was when I taped the Hampton Roads concert off the radio in December 1981. After that, I started seeking out vinyl boots, but ended up buying a bunch of cassettes (on an ongoing basis) from a guy in Phoenix known only as "Sounds." He had an incredible catalog of concerts (literally hundreds of pages) of virtually every known rock artist...I picked up Garden State, Leeds, Hyde Park, LiveR, etc. -- but my first purchase was "Bedspring Symphony" (what a great place to start!). I was floored when I heard the opening notes of "Gimme Shelter" -- again, as a Stones boot novice, it was the first time I'd ever heard the song played live...it blew my mind!

The "Sounds" guy disappeared after a couple of years (probably got busted), and I moved on to vinyl -- I think the "Nicaraguan Benefit" concert was my first vinyl purchase from a local record store. In 1987 I started attending the Pasadena Record Swap Meet, which became my regular place to get my Stones boot fix...whether it be vinyl, cassette or VHS!

i bought my first boot, so i started it...

I traded my Led Zeppelin at Knebworth T-shirt for a copy of Reverse Blues....it was the best deal I've ever done, but as the quality of Reverse Blues is soooo good, many other boots I acquired over the following years sounded poor in comparison - especially some of the 1980's vinyl releases which I bought. They often had fantastic covers but the quality of recording was awful. Still got my Reverse Blues although it's been played so much since 1980 that it sounds like someone is frying bacon all the way through!

Local used record shop had a few bootlegs that i coveted. But, at $17 (1981) a piece and
the fact that I was a poor student....could not afford many. Ended up trading in some albums
(other artists) that my friends dad brought back from the far east (might have been grey market
elton john & led zep...can't remember). First one was Welcome to New York....and then
HAVE YOU SEEN KEEF i think....poor quality...traded it KEEF for another. Then i started going to
"record shows"...met a huge Stones fan a few yrs older (from my neighborhood)...he had boxes
and boxes of great (sealed) Stones bootlegs (vinyl). He had multiple copies of dozens of titles.
He sold me a bunch for $6 per record. Some that i remember....OUT ON BAIL, GARDEN STaTE 78, SLICK,
TOTA '75, Bedsprinng, Trident and many more. I still have all of them. Never really knew how he got so many
boxes of brand new boots. Continued going to the record/cd shows....and paying way too much.
Now it's downloads only....because even though i can appreciate the packaging and
artwork of bootlegs....it's more about the music, not having something displayed on a shelf.
It's fine if you can afford to purchase (& collect) quality silver cd bootlegs...but free downloads
of the same stuff is a more practical option for me.


IORR............but I like it!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-07-18 18:47 by sweet neo con.

Quote
71Tele
I answered an ad in the back of some music paper around 1975. They sent me a typewritten photocopied list on yellow paper with artists, titles and sound ratings ("Audience B-, SB B+, etc). From there I entered the wonderful world of bootlegs. Trademark of Quality, Colored vinyl, etc.

oh YES! in addition to my previous post....71Tele just reminded me of my
first exposure to bootlegs! Same deal......photocopied typewritten list in 1976.
Bought Elton John - Old Pink Eyes is Back.

(this was before my mom permitted me to have a rolling stones album in the house)


IORR............but I like it!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-07-18 18:48 by sweet neo con.

I started off taping Stones performances from Ready Steady Go in the sixties and also radio shows such as Saturday Club on the BBC. All of that stuff has now been released on various boots but I still have the original reel-to-reel tapes.

I bought my first vinyl albums from a guy in North Wales but they took ages to be delivered and I had to cause him some aggro before he coughed up. These were Beautiful Delilah, Bedspring Symphony and the Cops and Robbers EP. Still got 'em. I bought some fifth generation cassettes from record fairs because that was all I could afford.

When Virgin Records first started with a few retail shops they too sold bootlegs and I remember buying Jimi's Live in London, although I thought it was crap and I got my money back! Big mistake, huge!

Buying bootlegs had an edge to it in the early days, a feeling of buying something that was illegal and it was always a thrill to get a new tape and some new music. I doubt that thrill is the same for collectors who rely on downloads because it's all there on a plate, free of charge, but without the generosity of the guys who give freely of their stuff we would never have heard all this great music without having to pay big money for it. So, we salute you.

For me, it's still the music which is important rather than tee shirts and key rings. I live in hope of finding Pretty Thing from the Giorgio Gomelsky sessions and a poster from the tours the boys did in England in the sixties and which I remember very well.

'Meanwhile I was still thinkin'......

I sat in my brother's basement in Washington, DC listening to and taping on cassette the Hampton show in '81. I had seen the second show in Philly to start the tour with him.

My brother, whose landlord was somehow connected to Ahmet Ertegun (sp?), had gotten tix to see them in Landover. He knew I'd be pissed (I was 14 he was 23) so he hadn't even told me about it.

I saw every tour up until 2003 with him -- by that time I had moved to Utah.

T@3

crumbling_mice, I still have my Knebworth 79 T-shirt and Reverse Blues.

My introduction to bootlegs was at Knebworth, well after the show where there seemed to be a lot of people listening to their recordings in their sleeping bags on Stevenage station. The show had finished at 1.10am. When I saw all these people, I thought why didn’t I think of that?

My bootleg collection started with the Stones in the Park direct recorded from the TV with open mics next to the TV speaker and the Led Zeppelin BBC broadcast from 1969. My first actual bootleg LP’s were ‘Led Zeppelin’, a collection of BBC studio sessions and ‘Reverse Blues’ a combination of Bedspring Symphony (Brussels 73) and Out On Bail from 1978. I remember the guy who sold it to me at a record fair saying it was all from the 1978 Tour. I didn’t know any better then. I still have both these LP’s. My next two were Pink Floyd The Wall live from Nassau Coliseum 1980 and The Who ’79 Tour: Gonna Rape You!!’. These were triple LP’s. Triples! I don’t think I had ever seen an official triple LP at the time. I recently upgraded The Wall to CD but converted The Who LP’s to CD several years back. This is still one of my favourite post Moon shows, particularly the Dancing in the Streets/Dance It Away encore.

My first attempt at proper audience recording was at the 1980 Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington – Rainbow, Judas Priest and the Scorpions. I managed my first few trades on the back of these three recordings.

once upon a time a french kid went to Paris
in "Boulevard Saint Germain " he was buying "Liver than you 'll ever be "
On tmoq Label

I remenber it was in 1972
now i am 57 years old and to day I bought a new tittle (VGP)

you know my problem
i can't stopped it ......

I don't remember the first one... But it was in 1996.

Walked into a record shop in Melbourne Australia 1981, purchased Stereo Baby on see thru Yellow vinyl, $5.00 ,have not looked back.

Got my first bootleg record in the mail in 1975 or '76.
Welcome to New York.
There was an ad in the back of Rolling Stone magazine, though i don't remember anything about the dealer.

Always have a few boots with me - currently running the NC coast on business with Hampton '81, couple of 72 shows and Empire '73.
Must say that the Faces 5 Guys Walk into a Bar is getting the most play - so far...

When I was a freshman or sophomore in high school in 1981/82, an English teacher of mine gave me a box full of his Stones stuff because he knew I was a huge fan and he was paring down his collection. Included was a copy of the MSG 72 SB LP ("Madison" version, but still....). It also included a stack of old RS mags from the 70s (all Stones' covers) and a copy of Metamorphosis.

There was more stuff, but that was def. the first Stones bootleg I ever had, and I still have that copy. (Though I have upgraded to original stereo vinyl and TSP vinyl and CDs of that particular recording).


J

In the Seventies buying some copy from "The Stars in the Sky They Never Lie". Terrible sound, especially the vocals of MJ. But the solos of MT are great. The next was "Bright Lights, Big City", same quality like an official release, featuring the blues roots of the Stones better than their first album I think. next "Brussels Affair", great MT. The version of YCAGWYW is better than any other I know.

My first was the "Claudine" LP - I loved the title track and Keith's "Let's Go Steady" "We Had It All" and then started getting serious after discovering I was missing out on good stuff.

It was at the original Soundwaves near Hobby Airport in Houston back in 1987. A friend wanted to go look at their selection of 12" singles and since I'd never been there before I said sure... why not? I wasn't expecting much since the place was not located in an area of town known for great music stores.

When we got there it was real hole in the wall inside a strip center that contained a convenience store, check cashing facility, etc. As soon as we walked in I wanted to leave. It didn't appear to be anything but a glorified head shop with scales and pipes and other smoking accessories. Oh yeah, they had a few LPs too.

Depeche Mode had just released their single "Strangelove" and my friend was busy looking thru all of the store's import singles. As I was getting a little bored I decided to check and see if they might have some Stones LPs I didn't have. It wasn't likely as by that point I had every LP the Stones had released in the US up to that point.

I got about 6 feet from the Stones bin and noticed the top of an LP sticking out titled, "Necriphilia". WHAT?! In this sh*t hole place? Bootlegs?!

I was young, I was foolish... and I spent my entire week's check on the following: On Tour, On Again Off Again, The 1974 Tour, Necriphilia, and The Live Album. Plus some Zeppelin boots they had as well: San Fran 1969 and a picture disc that had material from New York '69 and Milan '71.

That day was the start of a serious bootleg addiction that I believe I only recently beat.

I believe the year was 1979. It was the year after I had moved up to Eugene from my beloved San Fracisco Bay Area of California. There used to be a small record store in San Jose on Bascom Avenue which now no longer exists called The Dedicated Record Collector. I had visited the place just before I moved up to Eugene in late '78.
I went down there for a visit in 1979 and I went to the store because I heard that you could buy these amazing things known as bootleg records which had unreleased live shows and studio material on them. I went and met the owner of the store and I told him what I was looking for. He happily showed me what he had in his place and one of the prizes I walked out with was the old Legerdemain (sp?) Records copy of Live'r Than You'll Ever Be. I got to be such a good customer of his that I had my Mom go visit the shop whenever she had to go down and visit back in the Bay Area and pick up bootlegs that he would rummage through for me and pick out so that my Mom could bring them back home for me.
Over a couple of year period, I came away with quite a few Stones and Springsteen bootlegs out of that store. I miss the guy because he was a really nice man. The other cool thing about the place was that San Jose and Santa Clara police officers who were music fans used to stop in a buy boots from there as well. The first time I ever saw a cop in there while I was browsing away, I got a bit petrified. As it turns out, I had nothing to worry about. The cops were just as crazy about music as I was.

After reading Tony Sanchez's book (around '81) I became obsessed w/ @#$%& Blues - and started inquiring from others on where to get bootlegs. A friend of mine told me of a vinyl store in New Hope NJ that sold bootlegs, and also let me know that there was a Brussels '73 live bootleg that I also had to get. I made the trip the following weekend and picked up CS Blues 10" single (w/ Andrew Blues on the back), the Brussels bootleg, and also the '78 Memphis & Kentucky bootlegs. I was in heaven!

Edit ... oops, I said New Hope NJ ... it is New Hope PA. It's right on the NJ/PA border



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-07-20 04:08 by LeonidP.