I think the first stones bootleg I heard was when someone loaned me the Mad Shadows bootleg, circa 1994 or so.

I think my first stones bootleg purchase was Time trip Vol.4. I still have that.

My favourite stones bootlegs are the midnight beat Satanic Sessions box sets... but, dumbo here decided to sell them awhile ago!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-08-11 05:18 by His Majesty.

"Out in bail"

I bought my first Stones bootleg in 1970. It was a vinyl double called "Live in Detroit". Awful sound and very expensive. Didn't buy any bootlegs until recently. Now they sound quite alright, but then......

My first bootlegs were One More Time (Ullevi 1982), Hold On Tight (NYC 1975), The Undercover Outtakes and Brussels Affair (1973). I was 14 or 15. Strong stuff

The Stars in the Sky (horrible sound) and Cops and Robbers (Outtakes from 62-72, fantastic sound), both in 73 I guess.

Used to drive to Amsterdam early 70's to get some boots (among some other things) . .
Then you could buy them at my hometown as well.
I think the first ones were We never got it on till Detroit, Liver and Stoned MSG.
Sound wasn't good on most of them - but I used to love them. Got lots of them. Unfortunately I sold most of the old vinyl stuff

My first Stones bootleg was titled The Live Album, which I must have bought sometime around 79-80. My local mall held an antique show once a year. Many booths contained other kinds of collectibles like toys or magazines. One dude had some bootlegs. I found a couple of Stones bootlegs and decided to buy one. The Live Album has a collection of cuts from various boots from 69-78. I thought since it was a "greatest hits" kind of boot, that it would be a good place to start. I was very pleased to discover that the sources for the cuts were superb, and I later learned most were soundboards. The pressing is also superb. I still have this.

hey timmyj3...similar to your experience...also in milwaukee but at a different record head store.

early 80s...Record Head at 68th and Hampton. "Welcome to New York" and "Have You Seen Keef?" were my first 2 bootleg purchases.

i remember being very disappointed with the audio quality of "Have You Seen Keef?" Began going to "Record Shows" at Serb Hall and Eagles Ballroom to get my fix.

Met another Stones junkie. He had many boxes of boots (multiple copies of same titles) still shrinkwrapped. Bought dozens of great Stones bootlegs for $7 a piece from him. (still have them)

also frequented the other Record Head location (Lincoln Ave?). Still one on Greenfield Ave.

oh, just remembered my first experience with bootlegs was when a friend bought Elton John's "Ol' Pink Eyes Is back"..mail order from ??.


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

London, 2007. Stones week. There was a Stones memorabilia show somewhere, maybe Tottenham Court Road, but anyway, I bumped into Tralala there, had met her the day before and she was a wickedly connected fan (old poster, wonder where she went). Like so many of you that week, she took this newbie under her wing and recommended some good boots. Bought the complete Woodstock sessions and a few others. I never did get much into boots, compared to some of you loons, but it was really my first exposure to Stones culture and fan culture, and I remember being made to feel so welcome and loving every moment of that week. Feeling hasn't left me yet...

just wanted to comment that i had my car broken into yesterday....they took a bunch of junk but didn't see the bag i had of Stones bootleg CDs that i had leftover from the zip code roadtrips this summer! i assumed at first it was gone until i saw it hiding under a blanket!! i was so excited because that would've been the biggest loss....

1st boot was called "Beatles Undergound" ( Get Back sessions ) -- found them sitting on a counter top of a black record shop in Worcester Mass called Soul Record City-- obviously they were placed there to sell-- $ 1.98 it cost--- As a Beatles fanatic I was hooked- in the meantime I used to stay up all night listening to my favorite fm station WBCN in Boston, and the late night jock, Andy Bobian was playing tracks form an unrelaeased Stones recording from the Stones tour from the year earlier-- Ya=Yas had not been released yet-- blew my mind-- went back to the the black record store to find they now had on their counter copied of a Stones live set called "LiveR than you'll Ever Be"-- the exact recording WBCN had been playing-- I was in heaven ! So Ya-Yas coming out later was a bit anti-climactic because I was already familiar with it--yeah baby-- it started a life of collecting boots--- so cool

great thread ... my first bootleg was in 1970 (I think). I read in Rolling Stone magazine of a first ever bootleg live recording called LiveR Than You'll Ever Be from Oakland 1969 ... well back then my mother used to drag me shopping to the malls in Detroit Michigan ... we live in Windsor Ontario ... cross border shopping & things were a lot cheaper in the states than Canada ... anyway as my mom was shopping I wandered off and usually to a record store and in the front display rack (I can picture this today like it was yesterday) was a white album with the words LiveR Than You'll Ever Be stamped in red on it on it ... Being a stones fan since Satisfaction hit the airwaves and recently reading about it I immediately knew what this was and bought for I think $3.99 ... it turns out this was made by Lurch Records (red label) which was the first ever released copy of LiveR Than You'll Ever Be ... since then many bootleg recorders put out other copies of this boot but Lurch was the first ... Later I read also in Rolling Stone magazine about this boot from Lurch ...only 5000 copies were ever pressed and the pressing was so poor that many did not survive ... I've kept mine and after reading this never played it again and it is still in great shape in it's sleeve and cover wrapped in a plastic album cover ... it is the crown jewel of my record collection ... don't know what it's worth the original (first LiveR Than you'll Ever Be) but can't be too many of them out there ... I heard this was the first ever bootleg ever pressed although I also heard a Bob Dylan bootleg was the first ... not sure which came first but I know I have a piece of bootleg history because it's certainly the first live bootleg ever done

Atlantic City 1989, CD-BoxSet, it was a Christmas present from my parentes back in 1990. To be honest, I had no idea that this was a bootleg (I think I didn't knew the meaning of the word at all those days). Guns N' Roses where big at that time and Salt of the earth was one of my favorite Stones-Songs, loved it! As is well-known, Swingin' Pig was solded regulary in many stores around 1990, I bought SP's Gimme Shelter Soundtrack a few days later, together with some Beatles Ultra Rare Trax, great discoverys!

Here is my Rolling Stones bootleg story. Being from Germany, I saw the Stones for the first time at Stuttgart, Neckarstadion, on 19 June 1976. About two years earlier I had become a Stones fan when a friend of mine gave me a cassette with the big early hits, and so I asked all my friends to lend me their LPs so I could record all the songs chronologically. My diary from 1976 is full of Stones-related activities, such as looking for the records and recording them on cassette.

In 1977 a classmate bought the first bootleg LP for me at a record shop called ‘Alternative’ in a university town nearby. I think it was a multi-colored LP with audience recordings from Frankfurt 1976 where Bill Wyman’s amplifier had broken down so it sounded shrill and was not really a pleasure to listen to. Nevertheless I was overwhelmed because I had an aural souvenir of the tour where I had attended a concert. Of course I always looked out for a bootleg of the Stuttgart concert not unless because I had seen someone recording it with excellent equipment (stereo mics and tape recorder – unfortunately I did not take the chance to talk to him). I think there never was any vinyl album released from that concert. Eventually I went myself to the record store and grabbed for bootlegs which were sold more or less openly between the official albums.

Things got better, however, because soon after I got the ‘Bright Lights Big City’ LP with the early IBC and Chess recordings. I always loved the early songs with Mick Jagger’s ‘naïve’ singing style, and to this day I really enjoy them. Later on I bought the EP with the Camden Theatre 1964 recordings along with ‘Memphis Tennessee’, ‘Roll over Beethoven’ and ‘Fanny Mae’. Another early purchase was the Leeds 1971 ‘Leed Stones’ bootleg, a mono soundboard recording with some good versions (Dead flowers, Love in vain, Midnight rambler) and some that I do not like too much.

And still in 1977 I got the best record of them all, the double album ‘Nasty Music’ (SODD 012). It simply blew my socks off! I can remember the thrill of listening to the London and Brussels recordings for the first time, a thrill that I still feel when I’m listening to these recordings today. These are simply the greatest live recordings ever made, and the sound is phenomenal! Unfortunately I was so proud of that album that I took it to a party and played it, and someone was pushed against the record player which resulted in a huge scratch all over ‘Midnight rambler’. So much for my blatancy! This upset me very much, and it took years to get another copy of these recordings (though not another copy of ‘Nasty Music’). On 30 May 1982 I stayed in the Black Forest on a camping site when I suddenly heard those 1973 recordings over the radio from a nearby tent. It turned out that Swiss radio station Radio 24 broadcast them, and the Swiss people in the tent invited me to listen.

During the following years I continued collecting bootlegs but the record shop got into trouble with the police because they had noticed that they sold illegal records. Shortly after they did not sell any more bootlegs otherwise they would have been fined and the shop would have been closed. I had no bad conscience at all because in the course of time I also bought all the official records so the Stones earned a lot of money.

Of course I paid my tributes when I bought a record of the Essen 1970 concert that was almost unlistenable. But then I also got ‘Charlie Watts and his Fabulous Rolling Stones’ (what a great title!) from LA 1975 which impressed me very much with the longest version of ‘Midnight rambler’ ever and good sound. It took some time before I found the ‘Welcome to New York’ record which is stereo but a rough mix. I bought the Hot Wax books and the magazine, and I corresponded with the editor Kurt Glemser. In Hot Wacks they recommended the ‘Garden State’ and ‘Out On Bail’ bootlegs from Passaic 1978 but I never got hold of a copy.

Over the years I bought many Stones bootlegs, and when I walked through a city in Europe during our holidays I could tell in which shop they sold bootlegs, and very frequently I was right. But sometimes the sellers asked for exceedingly high prices which I did not want to pay. In 1980 I bought a copy of ‘Live in London’ in a record shop at Berlin for 100 Marks (then 25 dollars), which was very expensive, and I hesitated longer before I finally decided to take it. In 1983 we strolled over the biggest flea market in Paris at St. Ouen where they asked 120 Francs (about 40 Marks or 10 dollars) for a copy of ‘Mick Taylor We Miss You’, and I did not buy it. I recorded all the records on cassettes and did not play the LPs very often so they are still in mint condition (moreover, they are stored in boxes so the light does not destroy the covers). And when I sold my vinyl collection I kept all the bootlegs along with rare records.

So my collection is not as huge as it appears from the story, and when I got a multi-album-box where the ‘Nasty Music’ album was included I sold the original album and some others to a friend. When by the end of the 1980’s the first CD boots were sold I started collecting them, and it was the same experience as with the vinyl records: Some CDs were really, really bad. But the CD with the recordings from the Ed Sullivan Shows was good, and soon the soundboard recordings turned up, among them ‘Brussels Affair’ from Chamaeleon Records, and later on the three-CD-set from Atlantic City 1989..

When CD burners became available the magic of bootlegging soon diminished. It was all about swapping recordings, and nowadays you have all the stuff on Youtube or on your computer. But bootlegs was one of the most exciting adventures auf my youth, along with collecting official albums from many artists and genres.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2015-08-13 10:00 by saltoftheearth.

Quote
His Majesty
I think the first stones bootleg I heard was when someone loaned me the Mad Shadows bootleg, circa 1994 or so.

I think my first stones bootleg purchase was Time trip Vol.4. I still have that.

My favourite stones bootlegs are the midnight beat Satanic Sessions box sets... but, dumbo here decided to sell them awhile ago!

Do you have the Cosmic Christmas vinyl set? I was thinking about buying that one from a shop here for appr £80.

Quote
DandelionPowderman

Do you have the Cosmic Christmas vinyl set? I was thinking about buying that one from a shop here for appr £80.

Nah, never felt comfortable with those kind of sets. Lotta money for digital files (possibly even mp3's) nabbed from internet then stuck on vinyl.

First it was Liver Than You'll Ever Be on some weird label I'd never heard of on a pretty thick platter, and then came Bedspring Symphony (on the amazing cornyphone label?)- I couldn't believe that the Stones could sound so good. I thought it was light years ahead of Liver/Get Yer Ya Yas Out. The version of Midnight Rambler alone was worth the price of that album ($5.00?) and it put chills up and down my spine when I fist heard it.

I had heard the original 1974 King Biscuit Flower Hour broadcasts of the 1973 Wembley/Brussels performances that made up Bedspring Symphony on WNEW-FM. But I didn't get a cassette deck until a couple years later.

My younger brother borrowed a classmate's copy of the three-LP LA Forum 1975 set toward the end of 1976. We taped those, and shortly thereafter, borrowed a copy of Bedspring Symphony. And an obsession was underway!

My first boot was "Tour of The Americas Part 2" on vinyl from Victoria Street Record Exchange in Hamilton, NZ in 1986. I had never seen a bootleg before, didn't know what they were. I think I probably paid $50 for it. Got it home and played it none stop for days. Just blown away with such a long version of Rambler. I was hooked on Bootlegs from that day forward. Over the years my desire to collect them has died due to the price of them...

Cheers
Richard - In Another Land

Quote
ab
My younger brother borrowed a classmate's copy of the three-LP LA Forum 1975 set

I never managed to get that set.

I got a two record set called "Midnight Ramblers" back in 1979 or 1980 in Harvard Square. The first record was San Diego 1969 and the 2nd was New York 1972. Although the record listed "Bye-Bye Johnny", it was not on the record. Instead, "Rip this Joint"was included.

Quote
bpfinn94
I got a two record set called "Midnight Ramblers" back in 1979 or 1980 in Harvard Square. The first record was San Diego 1969 and the 2nd was New York 1972. Although the record listed "Bye-Bye Johnny", it was not on the record. Instead, "Rip this Joint"was included.

Did that record have a colored cover? I think I had it, too. Wrong song titles were very frequent, for instance on the 'Live in London' bootleg (8 September 1973, very mediovcre audience recording), Angie ist listed as 'Angel'.

Some dude in the mid-late 1980s had some simple black jacket boots of studio recordings and he let me borrow them. The first one I played was the side that had Fiji Jim, Rotten Roll and Misty Roads on it.

I was floored that these had not been released yet.

And still am.

1975 Tour of the Americas (Moonstone)
Happy Birthday Charlie, Cologne 1976 - didn't like it, sold it
Leed Stones - The Flamin' Groupie
Garden State '78
Satisfaction Guaranteed 1978 anthology
Blind Date, Oshawa 1979, photocopy cover - I was at the second show
Hawaiian Holiday 1973


All on LP before I went to college, in chronological order of purchase.

I used to love Second Coming in NYC and Cambridge, MA. Also other NYC stores along W. 8th Street, off lower 6th Ave, and in the Bleecker-Macdougal corner area. Some of the list above, though, was bought in Buffalo.

I loved my first bootleg, the 1975 TOTA album on Moonstone (shown below), played it endlessly, still own it. Have all my LP boots except for bad ones I sold, like Southern Quotations 1978 and Basel 1990. Cologne 6/2/76 I'm sure I have a better recording of today, through downloading.





Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 2015-08-22 03:50 by andrews27.

Garden State 78 spent a lot of time on my turntable. Must have been awesome to be at that show.

Purchased Light Up The Town - San Diego 81 on vinyl from a record shop on Haight in SF.

Interesting! Now on Ebay Germany

London Roundhouse (TMQ 71029) LP Green Swirled Wax

for 1.500 Euros. (on the highest price of all Stones items it's on rank 11).

The colred disc are the most valuable ones but they are really beautiful as well!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-08-22 22:22 by saltoftheearth.

LiveR Than You'll Ever Be, right after it was released. Still have that one.