Hi guys!

This philosophical matter is on my head for a couple of years since I simply don't understand how possibly there are songs that are published/leaked without the knowledge from the artist.

I get that in 2014 we have hackers that can invade computers from the recording studios and extract the unfinished takes, songs that still need progress, etc.

But how bootlegging was done during the sixties? As far as I understand, the recording process was handled only by a few people who had limited access to the control room, right? So therefore, the people who leaked songs could be like assistants to the producers and engineers?

I cannot understand how Dylan, Stones, Beatles (and countless other artists) had almost entire sessions bootlegged.

If anyone can gave an insight, it would be very enlightening.

Thanks a lot.

I have this Beatles bootleg called The Lost Pepperland Reel, and each track has a mystery voice slating it, telling you the title, what it contains, the take number, the RM number and so on. You think it must be one of the lower-tier assistants slating the track for cataloging purposes.... but I like to imagine the sly bootlegger just casing the joint (Abbey Road Studios), peering in the front door waiting for the receptionist to leave her desk, which she invariably did to go take a dump while chainsmoking a few cigarettes, and then the crafty bootlegger slips in through the front door, past the lobby, into the studio control room and then into whatever room the master tapes are stored, hurries out having retrieved from the storeroom the master tapes he wants to bootleg, sits down at the production console--probably the one overlooking the famous No. 2 Studio--and pulls out his tape recorder and hits play, as he first reads the information from the tape reel outlining each track and then proceeds to play each track in its entirety until the bootlegger's own tape reel is full, then he removes the master tapes from the console, packs everything back in their cannisters, returns them to their place in storage, then hurries back out through the lobby and is just closing the front door behind him as the receptionist is returning from her hour-long dump and cigarette break, during which she probably read a magazine and did her nails as well, with the bootlegger having enough material from this little foray into Abbey Road to be able to take the wife out to dinner every Friday night for a year. Sound plausible? I think so, too.

Love it paulov!

Didn't Ronnie's son leak the voodoo lounge DAT tapes?

Some time ago, a friend of mine was talking about "Bootleg: the Secret History of the Other Recording Industry", a book written by Clinton Heylin. I've never read it, but I've found some reviews about it.

[www.goodreads.com]

BTW, this is a very nice reading about Mike Milliard, one of the most famous bootleggers, though his recordings were live tapes.

[www.goodreads.com]

Although I am certainly not a bootleg expert, I have been in and around studios and live shows for many years. My take on it is as follows:

As far as live recordings go:
These days there are always guys hanging around the front of house mixing console with their portable DAT/Hard Disc machines. First they ask the mixer if they can "please get a patch from the mixing board. I will only use it for personal listening". Then they go and make boots or upload them to internet sites.

If they can't get a patch they will hang around in front of the board with their stereo condenser microphones and try to get the best recording they can. Some artists encourage it as long as no one is making money selling the recordings and are just going to share or trade them for free.

Sometimes it is even someone on the crew or the actual mixer who is making the recordings. It is often done so the artist can hear the show at a later date. They are easy to copy and as soon as a copy gets into a bootlegger's hands the door is open so to speak.

As far as studio recordings go:

There are reference mix tapes made after almost every session and these normally go to the musicians so they can check their parts out or practice to get their parts right or as a reference for further overdubs. The "in progress" recording are also given to producers, mix engineers and even record company personnel. For instance a producer might want 3 mixes, with 3 different lead vocal levels so he can listen to them and see which one stands out as best.

These recordings are rarely returned and they sit around till someone sees some value in them as a boot (for instance the great Nicky Hopkins tapes we have heard from the Exile sessions).

Also studio employees often copy tapes and recordings which are left unattended. Sometimes recordings are used for other post production uses such as commercials, movie soundtracks, transfers to other media and mixing into new formats such as 5.1 Surround. The more people involved with access to the recordings, the better the chance that it shows up as a bootleg in the future.

I'll bet the Stones have some very strict rules in place for anyone with access to their in progress work and reference recordings. I imagine Mick is adamant about keeping the stuff in house.

Used to hate the whole bootleg business because of lost revenue to the artist but with the old model so broken these days, I'm not sure what to think anymore.

peace



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2014-11-12 06:08 by Naturalust.

well in the words of Tony Sanchez (been many years since I read the book, which Keith has since said had many lies), I recall that either he or Keith (or both) would give bootlegs to others for drugs - I think I recall that they used a dentist to get drugs for bootlegs.

Back in the 60's and 70's acetates were handed out from the sessions as a common
Practice. I assume for the session players, producers etc. I can see how these
Could be leaked. Not sure were these older soundboards come from though. Also
The many hours of recordings from the satanic sessions - eight hours or so.

Master tapes aren't as looked after as you might think, which might explain some bootlegs leaking out. John Lennon in the book The Last Lennon Tapes said, "When I went to look for the COLD TURKEY tapes, nobody knew where they were, I had to use dubs of POWER TO THE PEOPLE because the tapes had gone, nobody could give a damn at the record companies...So what I realized was if I don't put this SHAVED FISH thing together...if I don't put this package together some of the work is just going to go...nobody's...they will be lost forever."

John Lydon on his Rotten Radio show complained about the same thing with his music, and I actually emailed him the above Lennon lines, and he read my email on the air and said, "Yeah, the record companies don't give a damn."

So those tapes aren't as policed as you might think.

Speaking of Lennon, he was apparently the source of some of the Beatles bootlegs that came out in the 70s. Sometime around 1974 or so, he supposedly started trading tapes with New York collectors. He wanted to get live Beatles recordings for his own collection and I believe he traded them some of the studio tapes he had for their live tapes.

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flacnvinyl
Didn't Ronnie's son leak the voodoo lounge DAT tapes?

Apparently it was his stepson.

There is talk that Keith or even Ronnie leaked some Stones stuff.

I wondered about that a few years ago - some more interesting answers here:

[www.iorr.org]

Just curious, if anybody knows: at what stage of the recording process do the rolling stones register their songs for copyright purposes?

Somehow related to the above, does anybody know of unreleased tracks plagiarize by someone?

What if I wanted to buy the copyrights to a song that exists only on boots?

C

Some of The Beatles studio session leaks may have (?) come from DJ Roger Scott. The Abbey Road studio tour (which he narrated) in 82 or 83 features excerpts from the early session tapes which subsequently leaked in full after his death.

Beach Boys fans will be well acquainted with the Sea of Tunes series which booted the vast majority of their 60s multitracks. Not entirely sure how that came about (possibly as a result of The American Band doc or courtesy of one of Landy's people). Either way, i'm grateful they did. Amazing stuff.

I think the only significant Stones studio leaks from the 60s are the Satanic reels which i was told were among the Olympic dumpster tapes. I dread to think what wasn't rescued and hit landfill. Some of the subsequently released Who's Next outtakes came from the same place and the band eventually traced and bought the tapes back.

In Jazz, bootlegs are seen as part of the rich history of the music, documents of great artists at work. If it weren't for bootlegs would we be hearing The Smile Sessions box, Dylan's brilliant bootleg series, Fabs Anthology etc..?
The only band that does not seem to have embraced this is the Stones at least as far as their 1960s output goes. Shame.
Buddy Holly's Apartment Tapes are another brilliant (now officially released).
bootleg.
As mentioned earlier Lennon traded some stuff in the 70s and there's a lovely letter from him to Paul McCartney in 1971 (i think) when publicly the two were in mid feud. IIRC John has sent Paul a Xmas present of a Beatles bootleg featuring BBC sessions which he mistakenly thought were the Decca Audition.

It's arguable that Brian Wilson would not have the cult following he does today if it weren't for the various 80s Smile leaks. At a time when he was viewed as a drug damaged wreck, these tapes proved that before his breakdown he was light years ahead of the competition and that the Smile tapes were unlike anything before or since in pop music. Absolute proof of his reputation as the Orson Welles of rock.

I like bootlegs. I'd prefer it if they were officially sanctioned but at the end of the day, it's music and as Lennon said, "music belongs to everyone, it's only publishers who think they own it". In terms of ethics my only problem is that the artists get no money although for the big name bands who tend to get bootlegged this is less of a problem. The fact that most stuff now is torrented/traded is probably for the better though boot labels will be less inclined to pay big money for rare recordings.
I believe that bands like the Stones should have an official download site for this kind of thing. They could keep the money or have a nominated charity. At some point these types of recordings become historical documents and should be treated as such.
If anyone here has a copy of the tape of the beatles playing at the cavern in mid62 that McCartney bought at auction in the 80s i'd appreciate a shout !
Same goes for Bill's 1964 Radio Luxembourg acetate. Along with Durry Parks' Smile acetates those would be my top boot requests.

Roger Scott - someone I still miss.

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liddas
Just curious, if anybody knows: at what stage of the recording process do the rolling stones register their songs for copyright purposes?

Somehow related to the above, does anybody know of unreleased tracks plagiarize by someone?

What if I wanted to buy the copyrights to a song that exists only on boots?

C

Death In Vegas included "Aladdin's Story" on the album "The Contino Sessions" in 1999 with no composer credits.





It became "So Divine" on the expanded "Exile".










"As we say in England, it can get a bit trainspottery"



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2014-11-12 12:21 by Deltics.

Deltics:

amazing!

C

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liddas
Just curious, if anybody knows: at what stage of the recording process do the rolling stones register their songs for copyright purposes?

Somehow related to the above, does anybody know of unreleased tracks plagiarize by someone?

What if I wanted to buy the copyrights to a song that exists only on boots?

C

I should imagine that all compositions would technically be covered under an artists contract even if they haven't been officially presented so to speak. I had a publishing contract for a few years and everything i wrote for the duration (and before) of said contract was considered owned by the publishers regardless of whether i gave them a tape or not. So all those Trident Mix songs etc. probably belong to ABKCO and i wouldn't suggest you go up against them in court !
There is also frequently a clause which allows the writer first release option of any of his/her songs so for example if you wanted to cover one of my songs before i've released my own version than i could get my publisher to come round and break your legs. Actually i wasn't published by ABKCO so you're probably alright on that front.
I would also draw your attention to the fact that all my songs were owned by said publisher territory wise "for the entire known universe as it may exist from time to time" meaning you can't go discover another planet and then stake a claim to my songs. You have been warned.

we should not ask questions like this , instead we should be grateful when we get are little greedy hands and treasures like these !

Regarding The Lost Pepperland Reel, it was the work-tape to the people working on the Yellow Submarine cartoon, so it probably leaked via a United Artists employee.

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flacnvinyl
Love it paulov!

Didn't Ronnie's son leak the voodoo lounge DAT tapes?

thats what i've heard

Mick talks about bootlegs at the beginning of this.......bootleg

This thread shows why visiting this site on a daily basis is a must.

There was a U2 bootleg of '90s studio outtakes called "Salome Sessions" that was supposedly leaked because the band accidentally left a DAT tape in their hotel room, checked out the hotel, and then supposedly the maid/housekeeping picked it up and passed it on to the bootleggers.

You can tell by the sound quality/fidelity and the length of the music, that some of the Stones studio outtakes sessions bootlegs came from copies of cassette tapes, that somebody compiled from the studio sessions. If you know the sound, of what dubbing from one cassette deck to another sounds like, you can instantly recognize these recordings as being a copy of a copy of an original cassette, somewhere down the line. The hiss and flutter, etc. Some of the Paris stuff, etc.

I find on boots that often the outtakes and discarded cuts are better than what gets put on the official product. Re bootlegs, on another note, keep in mind that anyone with a smartphone and good app for recording can be a bootlegger these days. Which brings me to another thought, I guess, for another thread - an app that would get people to STFUA at concerts.

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dmay
I find on boots that often the outtakes and discarded cuts are better than what gets put on the official product. Re bootlegs, on another note, keep in mind that anyone with a smartphone and good app for recording can be a bootlegger these days. Which brings me to another thought, I guess, for another thread - an app that would get people to STFUA at concerts.

Re: people who will not STFUA at concerts... Although it's not guaranteed to fix the problem and you may have to defend yourself for doing it, early beta testing is showing positive results in an ongoing experiment by some buddies of mine.

After years of trying to be polite and ask for some consideration and finding that to be largely ineffective, we came up with the idea of taking pictures and or videos of the offenders and shaming them into STFUA. The key is to make sure they know that you're photographing them and that you're doing it because you want to remember the performers that you actually heard at the show as opposed to the ones you paid to hear. SHAME and EMBARASSMENT seem to be huge motivators. I've yet to have the need/opportunity to do it myself (next chance: Fleetwood Mac in March) but my friends have seen pretty good results. Seems to be especially effective if they think you will share the pics to social media. Note: be prepared for some people who aren't too happy with your sarcasm. The good news is: the couple of times that a situation "escalated" to the point of security being involved, my buddies were vindicated and the offenders were removed.

Good Luck! And, if anyone tries anything along these lines, please let me know how it turns out for you. My buddies and I are trying to keep track of results to see if it's effective in the long run and seeing as we're only a few people in E. TN, USA, we're really not a large enough sample to judge our results by. Also, one of the guys is talking about starting a website where people can post pictures of the offenders in a hall of shame "people of Walmart" type of setting.

Peace,
Mr DJA

Bootlegs are based on the concept of forbidden fruit tastes better. Anybody who is around a recording studio with access to the tapes knows this. So some recordings are leaked by underlings in the studio. Or some studio stuff used to get put on cassettes and circulated among the musicians and gradually fell into the hands of other people. Some soundboards are merely cassette recordings done at the soundboard. I believe Welcome To New York was from a cassette - the tape was stolen as Jumping Jack Flash was being played. Garden State '78 is from cassette. You can hear the rough edit as Street Fighting Man begins presumably as the soundman stopped the tape and then restarted when the encore happened. Many of those 1981 Tattoo soundboards originated on cassettes. There are Bruce Springsteen soundboards from 1981 (Toronto, Detroit and LA) where you know it is only the second of two tapes that circulate because that's all that got out. In the case of the Dylan/Petty tour in 1986 a similar situation exists with only the second tape of shows from Red Rocks, Bonner Springs and LA is in circulation.

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paulovmaya


But how bootlegging was done during the sixties?

Thanks a lot.

Read this book. It's great!
[www.goodreads.com]

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ash
I think the only significant Stones studio leaks from the 60s are the Satanic reels which i was told were among the Olympic dumpster tapes.

I'm not sure I'm following you here - there are pretty many '60s Stones studio boots in circulation.
Or do you mean it's your opinion that only the Satanic tapes are important?