The Old Timers' Bootleg-Shopping-Recollections Thread

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The Old Timers' Bootleg-Shopping-Recollections Thread

Post by 20YearsAgo »

Lord Reith wrote: Mon Mar 15, 2021 11:07 pm I first heard the song on File Under Beatles in late 1984, in a record store. I actually was pretty excited by it, because in 1983 there had been a story that had gone out worldwide on the news wires about four unreleased songs being found in the EMI vaults. This must have been just after Barret did his research. They listed them as : How Do You Do It, Leave My Kitten Alone, If You've Got Trouble and That Means A Lot. I was so excited when I read it in the newspaper because I thought it meant they'd be coming out as an EP! It's hard to imagine the public excitement such a small announcement made in 1983. One of the top FM stations was at the time running the documentary The Days In Their Life, and someone at the station had figured out that HDYDI featured in that series. So they made this big announcement that they HAD one of the four unreleased songs and were going to play it at some undetermined point during the day. I was at school, so I got my dad to tape THE ENTIRE MORNING AND AFTERNOON so that I would not miss it. And they did play it. And my dad caught it! But then for ages afterwards I was left wondering about those other three songs, especially the one about the cat. What was that, a nursery rhyme or something? So when File Under turned up it seemed like these missing songs had fallen like manna from heaven. And not only that but there were other unreleased songs on there too - Come And Get It, Bad To Me and Goodbye! Flippin' heck! They could have all been the worst songs ever written and I wouldn't have cared. I was just so excited to have them. And I thought TMAL was one of the better ones actually, just because of the "can't you see" bits which were (and still are) electrifying.
I remember having "How Do You Do It" at least a couple of years earlier than this-- it was on the DECCAGONE SESSIONS (the Smilin' Ears version at least). It's not that I wasn't excited to get SESSIONS-- or anything with "That Means A Lot" or "If You've Got Trouble." Indeed, I was near ecstatic to buy the disc.. it's just that my excitement quickly ebbed when I put the record on the turntable and actually listened to the song! :lol:
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Re: THE LOST '65 SINGLE

Post by MrMurphMcgee »

My first exposure to the song was on File Under, bought at Woodmar Records in Hammond, Indiana. I got it during the Christmas break that year but had to wait to get back to school where my stereo was to hear it. I remember getting back to the dorm, where the rooms were swelteringly-hot as the staff had cranked the heat, and listening to it the first time. I think at this point I had only owned the Black Album, Silver Lining and Texas Troubadours. This was what I’d been looking for and had dreamt of since obsessing over the cryptic list of unreleased titles in An Illustrated Record. Great times.
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Re: THE LOST '65 SINGLE

Post by Lord Reith »

MrMurphMcgee wrote: Mon Mar 15, 2021 11:34 pm My first exposure to the song was on File Under, bought at Woodmar Records in Hammond, Indiana. I got it during the Christmas break that year but had to wait to get back to school where my stereo was to hear it. I remember getting back to the dorm, where the rooms were swelteringly-hot as the staff had cranked the heat, and listening to it the first time. I think at this point I had only owned the Black Album, Silver Lining and Texas Troubadours. This was what I’d been looking for and had dreamt of since obsessing over the cryptic list of unreleased titles in An Illustrated Record. Great times.
There was no excitement to match buying one of those nice looking beatleg lps and getting it home, taking the shrink wrap off and putting it on the turntable! Magic! And the fact that it was all so secret, and few Beatles fans knew about them. I felt like I was part of a very unique club, even though I had no-one else to discuss them with. My chats with my dealer were also always exciting. He related info about what might be on the horizon and sometimes it could be unbearable waiting months to see if anything came of it.

My great joy in those days was slipping beatleg tracks onto tapes for other people. As my social circle widened in my late teens, a lot of my friends would ask me to make Beatles cassettes for them. I would sneak in things like the clean version of Long And Winding Road.

Of course, there were major downsides to that era: unpredictable quality, looooooong waits between releases, dud lps (Foretaste, anyone?), lack of recording info, isolation from other beatleg fans and more. But there were also those irreplaceable moments of pure joy.
Last edited by Lord Reith on Wed Feb 09, 2022 8:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: THE LOST '65 SINGLE

Post by WilliamShears »

Lord Reith wrote: Mon Mar 15, 2021 11:52 pm There was no excitement to match buying one of those nice looking beatleg lps and getting it home, taking the shrink wrap off and putting it on the turntable! Magic! And the fact that it was all so secret, and few Beatles fans knew about them. I felt like I was part of a very unique club, even though I had no-one else to discuss them with. My chats with my dealer were also always exciting. He related info about what might be on the horizon and sometimes it could be unbearable waiting months to see if anything came of it.

My great joy in those days was slipping beatleg tracks onto tapes for other people. As my social circle widened in my late teens, a lot of my friends would ask me to make Beatles cassettes for them. I would sneak in things like the clean version of Long And Winding Road. I remember one girl going completely berko over Clarabella. She would sing it all the time. It was funny to me because 95% of Beatles fans wouldn't have known about that song.
Lord,
This was so awesome to read and brings back so many good memories. I was very similar though a bit later. In the early 90s as a teenager I was reading every Beatles book I could get my hands on and started to notice some would be talking about these crazy tracks that weren’t on any album I had. One day I walk into my local store and see what was at the time my holy grail : YD Acetates

From then on every weekend I’d take whatever cash I had back to the shop hoping they had more. Made quick friends with the owner who would let me go through his catalog so the stuff I wanted would show up in the next order. Patiently waiting for the next edition of ICE to check the last page hoping for a sentence or two for a preview of what was coming next. Lol!

Made lots of tapes for my friends of the latest finds, though I’m sure most of the time they were just humoring me. What I had was clearly an incurable disease and it was hard to find peers then who were into the Fabs, let alone bootlegs.
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Re: THE LOST '65 SINGLE

Post by ringo9 »

Wonderful stories guys. By the time I discovered boots cd-rs had arrived. I remember paying good money for a Let it be expanded edition which I guess must have had some nagra outtakes. The dealer granted me they were no Anthology tracks. Luckily I have you guys now!
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Re: THE LOST '65 SINGLE

Post by Nimbus »

These posts bring back lots of memories. My first bootlegs were LP's of Abbey Rd NW8, Hahst Az Son & Spicy Beatles Songs bought from an 'adult magazine' shop in Manchester. Lots of under the counter stuff in there but I was young and innocent and only interested in the bootlegs. Around the same time, I was lucky enough to go to the Abbey Road Roadshow in 1983 and I can well remember the excitement of hearing the rarities and outtakes in the studio in which they were recorded. It was the first time I heard the demo version of 'While My Guitar' and the vocal only 'Because' as well. Forty years later on hearing some of LR's wonderful mixes, I'm still the same excitable kid on the inside :)
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Re: THE LOST '65 SINGLE

Post by 20YearsAgo »

Nimbus wrote: Tue Mar 16, 2021 8:00 pm These posts bring back lots of memories. My first bootlegs were LP's of Abbey Rd NW8, Hahst Az Son & Spicy Beatles Songs bought from an 'adult magazine' shop in Manchester. Lots of under the counter stuff in there but I was young and innocent and only interested in the bootlegs. Around the same time, I was lucky enough to go to the Abbey Road Roadshow in 1983 and I can well remember the excitement of hearing the rarities and outtakes in the studio in which they were recorded. It was the first time I heard the demo version of 'While My Guitar' and the vocal only 'Because' as well. Forty years later on hearing some of LR's wonderful mixes, I'm still the same excitable kid on the inside :)
The '83 Abbey Road Show must've been awesome. Had I been there, the excitement likely would've killed me. I remember reading an article about it in my local newspaper (which also touted an upcoming official album of SESSIONS-like rarities that was supposed to come out but, ultimately, never did). I clipped the article out, read it dozens of times. A few years later, I bought a couple of boots based on the Abbey Road Show. Even just a few years ago, when HMC released their Abbey Road Show set, the whole idea of people sitting in a small audience and listening to this over the Abbey Road speakers still amazed me.

Hahst Az Son was also (along with Deccagone Sessions) was the first boot I ever bought. Both were actually real good. And listenable. From the moment I put those on the turntable (I forget which I played first), I was hooked on boots.

Years ago, I heard someone explain how to predict who'd become addicted to gambling. Supposedly, a person has a much higher likelihood of becoming a gambling addict if they really hit it big the first time they go gambling. The reason, actually, is obvious-- because forever after, they associate gambling with the thrill of that initial big windfall... The first time I went into a casino, I lost $100 in about ten minutes. The second time, it took me a couple of hours to lose a hundred dollars... Back then, just out of college, $100 was the absolute top limit of what I could "afford" to lose. I've never been in a casino since...

Like a gambler who hits a jackpot on his very first bet, I still remember the thrill my first couple of boots provided. Sometimes, I wonder what would've happened if the first boot I bought was a real stinker. Some barely listenable platter of mis-pressed vinyl. Something with more background static than real music. Or something like "Liverpool 1960," where the performances are so bad you just can't sit through more than a minute or two of it. If that had happened, would I have become addicted to boots?
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Re: THE LOST '65 SINGLE

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Mt first boot was the decca sessions. That was a really big deal for me. But I was shocked at how different they sounded, and how more than anything their sound lacked any charm or charisma. I couldn't believe it was The Beatles. However I loved the rarity aspect of it. I think we all did. That sense of belonging to an exclusive club. When I got in thick with one of the retailers I felt even more that way, because he had some degree of inside or at least advance intel. When stuff started coming out officially in the mid 90s it was nice, but there was also that slightly flat feeling of not being one of "the chosen" anymore. When a few thousand people have heard a song, that makes it special. When tens of millions have heard it, it's commonplace. I guess that's why I abandoned bootlegs at that point. It was nearly ten years before I seriously started searching them out again... and by that time a lot of them were dvds.
Last edited by Lord Reith on Wed Feb 09, 2022 8:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: THE LOST '65 SINGLE

Post by 20YearsAgo »

Lord Reith wrote: Wed Mar 17, 2021 1:13 am Mt first boots were counterfeits of the Deccagone singles that I found in a second hand record store. That was a really big deal for me. But I was shocked at how different they sounded, and how more than anything their sound lacked any charm or charisma. I couldn't believe it was The Beatles. However I loved the rarity aspect of it. I think we all did. That sense of belonging to an exclusive club. When I got in thick with one of the retailers I felt even more that way, because he had some degree of inside or at least advance intel.
Totally agree. I think, also, the fact that bootlegs were "illegal" also had something to do with the thrill. Walking into dodgy record shops was so hit-and-miss back in the day. When you found something-- even if it was a poor vinyl boot-- you'd feel triumphant. None of my friends in high school, college, or many years thereafter were into the Beatles like me, so most of my beatlegging was done lone-wolf style... lining up at record shows early so I could race to the "right" tables as soon as the show opened, driving sometimes for hours on the weekends to every independent record shop in the Washington DC metropolitan region.

Things got better once I fell in with "virtual" and IRL bands of brothers. I had two great dealers, whom I was great friends with. I used to talk on the phone with one of them for about an hour a week. Lots of intel and rumors. I was also part of an online but pre-internet Prodigy group of fellow beatleg addicts back in the early 1990s... many of those guys I still talk to. Those were great days.

Actually, these are great days too. It's never been easier to find beatleg conversations. Never been easier to track down a "digital" copy of same rare thirty-year-old boot...
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Re: THE LOST '65 SINGLE

Post by WilliamShears »

20YearsAgo wrote: Wed Mar 17, 2021 2:21 am
Lord Reith wrote: Wed Mar 17, 2021 1:13 am Mt first boots were counterfeits of the Deccagone singles that I found in a second hand record store. That was a really big deal for me. But I was shocked at how different they sounded, and how more than anything their sound lacked any charm or charisma. I couldn't believe it was The Beatles. However I loved the rarity aspect of it. I think we all did. That sense of belonging to an exclusive club. When I got in thick with one of the retailers I felt even more that way, because he had some degree of inside or at least advance intel.
Totally agree. I think, also, the fact that bootlegs were "illegal" also had something to do with the thrill. Walking into dodgy record shops was so hit-and-miss back in the day. When you found something-- even if it was a poor vinyl boot-- you'd feel triumphant. None of my friends in high school, college, or many years thereafter were into the Beatles like me, so most of my beatlegging was done lone-wolf style... lining up at record shows early so I could race to the "right" tables as soon as the show opened, driving sometimes for hours on the weekends to every independent record shop in the Washington DC metropolitan region.

Things got better once I fell in with "virtual" and IRL bands of brothers. I had two great dealers, whom I was great friends with. I used to talk on the phone with one of them for about an hour a week. Lots of intel and rumors. I was also part of an online but pre-internet Prodigy group of fellow beatleg addicts back in the early 1990s... many of those guys I still talk to. Those were great days.

Actually, these are great days too. It's never been easier to find beatleg conversations. Never been easier to track down a "digital" copy of same rare thirty-year-old boot...
For sure. My parents still remind me of the times during family vacations that I would drag one of them to random record stores in 'seedy' parts of strange towns on the off chance they would have something that our local shop didn't have. A couple of those places that I found with great stuff I would later call for mail orders years later. The thrill of the hunt was almost as exciting as the actual content.
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