Harry And His Box Set (V1, 2, 7, 10, 12, 15, 14 update.)

[MarkRJones1970]

I'm interested to know if these are the complete versions and the bootleggers faded them out early on purpose themselves or are they already like that on the tapes?

They're not faded out. She taped each song from start to finish.

I assume that you're talking about this abomination - it's one of the very few Beatlegs, or bootlegs of any kind, that I felt was a major ripoff in those early days of collecting. R-5292171-1427877475-2349.jpg

Exactly what I was talking about. This is how I first heard some of the tracks!!

[LFSDoc]

They're not faded out. She taped each song from start to finish.

I assume that you're talking about this abomination - it's one of the very few Beatlegs, or bootlegs of any kind, that I felt was a major ripoff in those early days of collecting. R-5292171-1427877475-2349.jpg

Exactly what I was talking about. This is how I first heard some of the tracks!!

I recall these were snippets off a sampler tape that was circulating at the time, and that's what was on that boot

[Lord Reith]

Yes, the tracks on WPOY are from another cassette I have labelled "BBC Sampler". They were recorded by a different person.

[eclipsed1]

In 1988 bought an LP called The Lost Beebs on Tiger Beat Records.
It was the first time I had actually gotten to hear the first two Here We Go programs, and I remembered the quality being just abyssmal, even though I was delighted to finally hear them....
After reading the above comments on the WPOY boot (which i also have, and it's terrible),
I pulled out my copy of Lost Beebs to see if it was a bad as I remembered.
While I can tell that these are from the same source as LR's (as far as I know, there's only one source circulating, right?)
The versions on Harry are quite obviously from a much lower generation tape, while the ones on this LP are very muffled and positively drenched in NR, rendering them nearly unlistenable.

For me, it's just a reminder of how far we've come over the years in terms of collecting and curating these amazing artifacts....
Thanks again LR for this latest upgraded set - I thought that BBC Archives would remain the gold standard for years.
Nice to know I was mistaken!

[mitchellmichael]

I would love to hear the ‘abysmal’ versions. I have a thing for Lo-fi bootlegs. Don’t get me wrong, I love the magic that LR and Melvin and others do, the lesser quality stuff just takes me back to a simpler time…

[Lord Reith]

In 1988 bought an LP called The Lost Beebs on Tiger Beat Records.
It was the first time I had actually gotten to hear the first two Here We Go programs, and I remembered the quality being just abyssmal, even though I was delighted to finally hear them....
After reading the above comments on the WPOY boot (which i also have, and it's terrible),
I pulled out my copy of Lost Beebs to see if it was a bad as I remembered.
While I can tell that these are from the same source as LR's (as far as I know, there's only one source circulating, right?)
The versions on Harry are quite obviously from a much lower generation tape, while the ones on this LP are very muffled and positively drenched in NR, rendering them nearly unlistenable.

I first heard Dream Baby in the 1983 Beatles At the Beeb revised US version but they only played part of it. In that instance they actually obtained a copy of the original tape, even though it made it's world premiere on Wonderful Picture Of You in 1981 (also by coincidence incomplete). WPOY also contained an incomplete "A Picture Of You" and that was its only appearance on Baetleg for another 7 years. I desperately wanted WPOY for those two songs but because it was a double album (saddled with a pointless disc of Let It Be outtakes) I couldn't afford it. Years later i did and they'd sewn incomplete sample versions of many songs to the same cuts from Beautiful Dreamer. Aside from the sudden drop in quality halfway through the song, the speed also dropped about 8% at the join! In 1986 another snippet of Here We Go appeared in the form of Besame Mucho (ahgain incomplete) on Rare Unreleased Beatles Tracks. I remember making a casette with those three incomplete tracks and thinking "Where the hell is the rest!" Then like magic a couple of years later an album called The Beatles At The Beeb with Pete Best appeared with the first two Here We Go shows complete plus a load of other rare tracks. I guess this was a degenerated copy of Joe Pope's tape. Same crummy quality but a vast ocean of hiss sitting on top of it. The original tape of Dream Baby heard in the 83 special shows that it always sounded muffled, so it's unlikely we'll ever hear a better version.

For me, it's just a reminder of how far we've come over the years in terms of collecting and curating these amazing artifacts....
Thanks again LR for this latest upgraded set - I thought that BBC Archives would remain the gold standard for years.
Nice to know I was mistaken!

We've come very far. But I was sad to have to put out Harry with all those early broadcasts missing. That is a thorn in my side that I am determined to put right.

I would love to hear the ‘abysmal’ versions. I have a thing for Lo-fi bootlegs. Don’t get me wrong, I love the magic that LR and Melvin and others do, the lesser quality stuff just takes me back to a simpler time…

The BBC boots were particularly awful though. Yellow Matter Custard, Beautiful Dreamer... they were all borderline unlistenable. I can recall my incredible frustration that such fantastic material had to be endured in that quality. It might be a fun listen now, but back then it was painful.

[eclipsed1]

I would love to hear the ‘abysmal’ versions. I have a thing for Lo-fi bootlegs. Don’t get me wrong, I love the magic that LR and Melvin and others do, the lesser quality stuff just takes me back to a simpler time…

The BBC boots were particularly awful though. Yellow Matter Custard, Beautiful Dreamer... they were all borderline unlistenable. I can recall my incredible frustration that such fantastic material had to be endured in that quality. It might be a fun listen now, but back then it was painful.

The worst of the worst would have to be a mid-70s boot on Wizardo records called Happy Birthday
(https://www.discogs.com/release/4215795 ... y-Birthday)
The quality was horrid, though I think it was the first bootleg of the Happy Birthday Saturday Club performance.
As I recall the speed wobbles on that and Memphis were so bad they'd have been impossible to correct -
It was also the first time I'd heard BBC versions of eitherLucille or Johnny B Goode, although JBG ran WAYYYY too slow.
But I fondly remember how exciting it was to hear these tracks, even with the poor sound quality.
I cherish these old boots and would never part with them,
but I probably won't pull my copy of this one out again unless I really want to punish myself.

[Lord Reith]

The worst of the worst would have to be a mid-70s boot on Wizardo records called Happy Birthday
(https://www.discogs.com/release/4215795 ... y-Birthday)
The quality was horrid, though I think it was the first bootleg of the Happy Birthday Saturday Club performance.
As I recall the speed wobbles on that and Memphis were so bad they'd have been impossible to correct -
It was also the first time I'd heard BBC versions of eitherLucille or Johnny B Goode, although JBG ran WAYYYY too slow.
But I fondly remember how exciting it was to hear these tracks, even with the poor sound quality.
I cherish these old boots and would never part with them,
but I probably won't pull my copy of this one out again unless I really want to punish myself.

Yeah I have or had that one too... think I sold it back in the 80s. As you say it really plumbed the depths but it did allow me to make an edit of Johnny B. Goode to complete the incomplete version on Beautiful Dreamer (which was slightly better "quality" if you acn grace it with such a term). Those were the days when every BBC track seemed to be missing either a start, a finish, or a middle! I can remember adjusting the speed of the record (I was one of the lucky ones with a varispeed turntable), then striking PAUSE at what I hoped would be the exact right instant, then changing records and adjusting the speed of the second record, then waiting for the magic moment to release the pause button. And then hoped when you played it back it would actually sound okay. It was frustrating but kind of fun. I did enjoy all that stuff, planning how I was going to reconstruct a bootleg track and then spending an entire evening doing it. The great thing to me about the advent of digital editing was not so much that it meant I could do things faster, but that I could spend more time on fixing other things like making sure the two were a similar eq. Now it's all done to forensic standards with tools I couldn't even have imagined then. But I did have fun mucking around with my lps and cassettes, and my horrible source material! To be a Beatleg collector back then usually meant being a budding sound engineer too... the alternative was to listen to everything at the wrong speed and with bits missing.

[mitchellmichael]

I would love to hear the ‘abysmal’ versions. I have a thing for Lo-fi bootlegs. Don’t get me wrong, I love the magic that LR and Melvin and others do, the lesser quality stuff just takes me back to a simpler time…

The BBC boots were particularly awful though. Yellow Matter Custard, Beautiful Dreamer... they were all borderline unlistenable. I can recall my incredible frustration that such fantastic material had to be endured in that quality. It might be a fun listen now, but back then it was painful.

And see, Beautiful Dreamer is one of the boots that I love. I just picture that is how someone heard them coming through on their radio. Guess i'm crazy...but, to each...

[Captain_Kidd]

And see, Beautiful Dreamer is one of the boots that I love. I just picture that is how someone heard them coming through on their radio. Guess i'm crazy...but, to each...

I'm with you on this. Beautiful Dreamer gave us That's Alright Mama, for example, with a great sound on the drums and guitar solos. Lo-fi maybe, but Hi-fi in soul, man! And, you're right, that's how most people would have first heard these songs too.