The Old Timers' Bootleg-Shopping-Recollections Thread

[MarkRJones1970]

Wow, terrific post Mark. Great photos!

And I see that your Great Dane set also came with a dog.

Thanks Mr Reith, Only the 1st 10 copies came with one of those I'm led to believe!

[WilliamShears]

Awesome trip down memory lane Mark! And well done to your younger self for the report on the Abbey Road show!

[MarkRJones1970]

Thanks! Having now watched the Abbey Road video since then I was pretty acurrate in my recollections of it!

[beatlefan99]

What an amazing post.

Thanks guys!

[MarkRJones1970]

As a footnote to my memories I had a partner in bootleg crime right through the late 80s/early 90s. In September I realised I hadn't heard from him in ages so I had a go at tracking him down. My post from the time went as follows:

"At the weekend I thought I'd try and track down an old friend of mine who I 1st met around 1984/5 when I was about 14. Mike saw me buying a Beatles bootleg at a record fair in College St, Northampton and we got talking. He taught me lots about the Beatles & took me under his wing a bit (he was about 30 when we met and I was 14/15). I guess he must have been impressed that a kid was getting into the Beatles & hunting down their unreleased material.

We stayed in touch all through the rest of the 80s and 90s and shared our excitement as the Beatles studio vaults leaked out with the Ultra Rare Trax & Unsurpassed Masters series. Back then he lived in Coaching Walk, Westone in Northampton & the attic of his house was like a Beatles museum. I visited that house a couple of time and on the way up to the attic I passed his signed John Lennon lithograph that was framed on the wall. I had no idea Lennon's signature was so near where I lived (a short walk away in Headlands). I was amazed! Just before I moved to Manchester Mike moved to Hunsbury & I went up there for one last time to see his new bootlegs. He had got married & had kids by now. I bumped into him again once in Abington Street around 2006 & we chatted & went our merry way.

My post about looking for him brought bad news for me. I was too late. Mike died 5 years ago in 2015.
I'll never forget how friendly & helpful he was to me as a spotty teenager and beyond & for that I shall never forget him. I'm just sorry that I didn't try & look for him sooner. Rest in peace Mike Torenson."



Motor Neurone Disease had got to him. It made me tremendously sad. I never had a chance to say goodbye to him. I will forever wish I had not ever lost touch with him and was able to say my farewells in person. I wonder if he ever thought about what had happened to me, as I did him from time to time, before he passed

Mike was a massive Beatles fan, he loved getting the bootlegs and looked after them like they were the most precious things ever. I have no idea what happened to his huge Beatles collection but he deserves to sit here in this Beatles bootleg forum and be remembered for the passion he had for the Beatles (and Bruce Springsteen, a passion I didn't share!) and for taking me under his wing from when he hardly knew me up until the last time I saw him. He was never rude to me, never swore at me, was never in a bad mood and, most of all, he loved the music of The Beatles.

*Phew, just writing that has brought tears to my eyes, again

[RunoutGroove]

Worthy of a book that, Mark. Well done compiling it all.

[MarkRJones1970]

Worthy of a book that, Mark. Well done compiling it all.

Thank you. Glad you found it interesting enough to plough through.

[RunoutGroove]

My earliest experiences with bootlegs were the awesome record fairs at The Royal Court theatre in Liverpool, only I wasn't there for Beatles stuff. Originally I was hunting for Sex Pistols boots for my brother. One early find was a really obscure LP with the picture of a punk on a golf course on the cover. I payed £9 for it, which wasn't bad considering Led Zep's Destroyer was £25 (in the 80's!).

Later, of course, The Beatles got my attention, especially with the quality of Ultra Rare Trax and Unsurpassed Masters. The first CD I bought was Psychedelic Years vol.2 on LSD label. It remains my favourite, and like Mark above, I could whistle and hum every unpublished note, (the unexpected piano 'da-dum' at the end of Your Mother Should Know was my party piece). Unfortunately that CD was stolen, along with my entire collection by some low-life scum.

It took a while to start collecting again, but I got a phone call one afternoon to get down to a pop-up record shop 2 minutes from my house because the owner was very well connected with the underground label scene. When I arrived, WOAHHH! He had fresh in the box Get Back Journals from Vigotone in lovely boxes with straps around them and perfect faximilies of the original Let It Be book. There was tons of other stuff, a new 2CD set of Paul's Hot Hits/Cold Cuts, John's Some More Time in New York and then in another box Get Back Journals Vol.2 in white covers to sit against the black of Vol.1

All I could afford was the 11 LP box set of Journals vol.1, all on diff coloured vinyl. They kept me going for ages.

Happy days them. Thanks for the thread Mark.

[simond9X]

Great post, Mark. A bit 'Wow!' so thanks for sharing it.

Were the record fairs the Trans-Pennine ones? I used to go to those regularly around Lancashire (and I include Manchester and Liverpool because I'm old enough to remember them being in Lancashire). I picked up quite a lot of Beatles boot CDs there - sometimes the prices made me gulp but, as you say, you had to do it or risk never seeing them again. I still have several of the HAJ covers (scanned now because I no longer have the physical discs). Hobs, eh? Hm, I wonder whatever became of him?

[MarkRJones1970]

Thanks. Glad you liked it. No, I was born and living in Northampton at this time. Most of the record fairs I went to were all at the same place, a small room in an old building in College Street in the town centre.

Hobs ay! He was a gent. Hope he's doing okay!