In this Issue :
Records from Turkey
New Stewart Copeland release
More Copeland news
Sting Vancouver 1996 CD
Mexican Sting promo cd's
Live from the Music Hall Volume 3
Sting - Soul Haze
Ensemble Bash
Bootleg supplement
There is a lot of talk on the net about a Police reunion. So far it is only a rumour. I could make 2 issue's putting all these different rumours together. Don't think so !!, ofcourse when time is there FREAKS will let you know by a special FREAKS update what will happen.
The new compilation album will be released in Japan on September 14 1997. This is the first CD which will have greatest hits from Sting and The Police on one CD. Also as a bonus there will be a 3"cd enclosed with a Japanese version of "de dododo, de dadada".
I haven't written about them but if you go on a holiday to
Turkey this year, keep your eyes open for these releases. I
didn't knew they made records in Turkey so I think these will be
boots.
Regatta De Blanc - Turkey Max Records LP 8105 blue sky
label
Front cover: Orange with original Police logo and two triangles
in which they put a photo of the boy's.
Back cover : from Regatta the original but above the heads they
used a different lettering.
Ghost in the machine - Turkey Max Records LP 8109 blue sky label
and there is another one with a brown label.
Front Cover : Group shot in full colour of the band, big yellow
letters there is writen The Police.
back cover : no photo's just the songs
Looks obvious that Outlandos D'amour and Zenyatta Mondatta have
been released aswell, so far I haven't spot neither of them.
If you are a fan of Stewart Copeland than you probably going
to like this rare CD release very much. Rumour is that this was a
CD only for filmakers in Hollywood just to promote himself as a
soundtrack musician.
Stewart Copeland - From Rumble Fish to Gridlock'd
1997 Kinetic Kollections promo only
This comes in a jewelbox with a full colour cover. The cover is
nice done, Stewart standing before a drum, eyes closed, fully
concentrated on the music. tracks are:
1. Gridlock'd - Main titles 2.17
2. The Pallbearer - Bills dead 1.45
3. Four days in September - Post script 1.30
4. The Leopard son - Baboon Gang 3.28
5. Sliver - Slithered 3.03
6. Fresh - Run Esteban/Posse 1.45
7. The Rhythmetist - Koteja 1.52
8. Wall Street - Anacott Steel 1.50
9. Rumble Fish - Father on the stairs 3.25
10 Gridlock'd - The Chase 2.40
11 Mobsters - Bootleg montage 1.16
12 Mobsters - Ice pick love 2.07
13 She's having a baby - Cute Shopping 2.11
14 Talk Radio - We feel to much 2.43
15 Wide Saragossa Sea - Third night 1.17
16 Rapa Nui - Totora Ponds 5.10
So if you live in California and you know a shop where they sell
a lot of soundtracks, you probably be lucky. That was the way I
received my copy.
Good thing aswell is that I did not knew that Stewart did music
for the movies Sliver and Mobsters, have to rent them again to
see if there is more.
This is a review I found on the net:
http://www2.dynamite.com.au/milner/frtogsc.htm
Total Running Time = 38:19
Though I like some of Stewart Copeland's music (I find Silent
Fall to be really catchy), I think that this album really suffers
from poor track selection.
Gridlock'd consists of material more reminiscent of his old band
Police than anything that could accompany moving pictures, with
wailing guitars and a female `singing'.
The Pallbearer is a good cue, heavy on the percussion and guitar
strumming while Four Days in September is a gentle cue featuring
a simple classical guitar melody.
The Leopard Son is the type of music that I think Copeland is
best at. A quirky little number that features piano, strings,
percussion, and a double bass. It doesn't really go anywhere but
makes for some interesting and enjoyable listening.
I have no idea where the tracks for Sliver and Mobsters come from
but in each case the music is again quirky and more atmospheric
than melodic, as is the case with so much of Copeland's music.
The Rythmatist sounds like a Carribean pop song; Wall Street
consists of weird sounds such as dogs barking against a
percussive backing; Talk Radio features a demented sounding DJ
talking against piano and strings; while Fresh, Rumble Fish,
She's Having A Baby and Wide Sargasso Sea are some of the better
cues that are more typical of Copeland's style of composition.
Again, these are quirky little cues that are interesting and
pretty enjoyable while not being particularly developed.
Rapa Nui consists of some tribal chanting against (surprise,
surprise) a synthesised back beat and is not, I think, the best
cue from the original soundtrack.
If there were some better cues from films such as Silent Fall,
Highlander 2 (parts of which I really like a lot), The First
Power or even See No Evil, Hear No Evil, then I think this could
have been a much more entertaining listen. As it is, I can only
see collectors or serious Stewart Copeland fans really getting
much out of this album.
Packaging looks OK but there are no liner notes, just a list of
films the composer has scored and albums he has released.
-Aidan Milner
This was already on the x.mission list, but import enough
(EK).
STEWART COPELAND EYES INTERNET FOR RECORD DISTRIBUTION
New Single Goes On Sale Wednesday On Music Blvd.
Stewart Copeland has four projects in progress that he plans to
sell over the Internet. The former Police drummer, who is trying
to arrange a Police reunion (allstar, July 10), is the latest in
a string of musicians who are taking this alternative
distribution route. Others include The Cure, former Duran Duran
bassist John Taylor, and The Tragically Hip, among others.
"Labels have you sign to them and they own the masters. But with
direct marketing, where I sell on the Internet directly to the
shopper, it means I don't have to sell 100,000 records to make a
profit," explains Copeland. "I don't need a record company with
their 200 staff. I don't need a promotion department because my
stuff is not for radio play. My music has always had a deep
abiding interest to a small number of people -- that's always
been the musical focus. It was a fluke that The Police got so
popular on a mass scale."
The projects Copeland is planning to sell on the Internet include
a compilation of his film scores called From Rumblefish To
Gridlock'd, featuring the best of his scores; an album he
recorded with the Albany Symphony Orchestra; a rock opera he did
for Channel 4 in England; and some aborted studio sessions with
Jeff Beck. However, plans for the Internet partner have not been
made yet. Copeland's also working on his own Web site
(www.stewartcopeland.com), but it's not finished yet.
But first, he's testing the waters by selling one single,
"Central Park Thrash," on one of allstar's sister sites, Music
Boulevard, (www.musicblvd.com) on Wednesday (July 16) at 10 a.m.
(ET). It will cost 99 cents to digitally download the song.
The material he wrote with Jeff Beck was originally slated for
one of the guitarist's albums. Copeland explains, "I lived Spinal
Tap. This man is bar none the greatest living guitarist. He just
owns that instrument. It's like the Fourth of July every time he
touches the thing. But his memory doesn't go beyond four bars.
Getting him to play twice the same way is impossible. He was
going through some personal crisis at the time and I just
couldn't get his attention. So I finally gave up."
Copeland plans to do something with the material -- possibly get
former Police guitarist Andy Summers to play on it and
incorporate some of the vocal samples Copeland's collected in his
travels over the years. He describes the material as "thrashing,
pumped-up energy. You can mosh to it."
"A lot of my stuff doesn't fit nicely into the marketplace or on
radio," adds Copeland, whose next film scores include Good
Burger, Welcome To Woop-Woop, Little Boy Blue, and Four Days In
September. "So I might as well just release it my God damn
self."
Ross Viner will go nuts when he hears this, but I recently
found out that there are 3 live songs from Vancouver 1996 on a
radio show CD.
Sting - On Tour /Media America Radio show # 96-38 September 9
1996
with Sting , Rusted Root & Jann Arden. Tracks are : I'm so
happy/I hung my head/If you love somebody
Nobody is waiting for this kind of material but Sting just
likes to be invited in several musical streams. He is doing the
background vocals on "I'm so happy" :
Toby Keith - Dream Walkin' Mercury 3145348362
Antoni Carbo wrote already about the Mexican promo CD for "You
still touch me". There is another promo available now, do expect
high prices for these items, they are kinda "rare", rarety is
more because of the fact that hardly anybody outside Mexico
delivers these kind of promo's.
Sting - I was brought to my senses (edit version 4.08)
Polygram CDP 499
Again a picture CD, this time there is also a song by Bryan Adams
on the CD, "Star". Half of the CD has a b/w picture of Sting from
the Ten Summoners Tales album. CD comes in a paper sleeve.
A lot of people already heard about the CD "Live from the
Music Hall volume 3". Not sure if this is really a promo CD, but
people say that thisone was only sold through Virgin Megastore in
L.A.
It is a compilation CD for "LA's finest rock FM 101.9, artists do
accoustic sessions in the studio. Sting did a couple of those
sessions during his last tour (is there anybody who has a full
list of sessions he did during his last tour, would be nice for
next issue ).
The Song is "I'm so happy..." (3.47) recorded in L.A. August 16
1996 accoustic version
Live from the music hall volume 3 -KSCA Radio Los Angeles
KSCA01-2
It is very quiet on the bootleg market these day's. Since a
few people got arrested not many people dare to make another one.
Most new tittles come from East European or Asian countries. This
is a new/old tittle :
Sting - Soul Haze (The concert series TCS-CD-03)
Birthday concert 1991 1CD
The CD is 100% the same as the CD you can find in "Live at the
Hollywood Bowl" same catalog number. The only difference for this
CD is that they designed a total new front and back cover. A lot
better than the original.
From: ez461@cleveland.freenet.edu
Hello to my fellow Sting and Police fans!
I have decided to start a new website and I hope you might want
to be involved.
The main idea of the website is to have as many different
people's Sting & Police tape lists under one big umbrella.
The goal is to make trading audio tapes of The Police, Sting,
Stewart Copeland & Andy Summers easier.
If you want to be involved this is what I need from you:
1. your name
2. your email address
3. your lists broken down into different sections (ie. The
Police, Sting, Stewart & Andy). Send each list to me separately
labeled "NEW WEBSITE - The Police" or "NEW WEB SITE - Sting".
4. if you have any guidelines or rules when trading, be sure to
add them to your lists that you send me
5. any suggestions to make this website work better
I hope to make the site easy and yet maintain some type of order
to all the different lists that are floating around on the 'net
and/or snail mail.
Hope to hear from you soon and thanks,
Jon
It is almost a Stewart info bulletin but he is the most
productive one of the 3 lads. You can find a song he had written
especially for a British enemble named "Ensemble Bash". The song
Stewart wrote (instrumental) is named " The Gene Pool"
(9.54).
Ensemble Bash - Launch
on Sony music SK 69246
This ensemble is a percussion group.
That is it for this month, I might have something stunning Copeland news next time. Next is just a couple of items which were on the net the last couple of months. Some of you might not be interested in bootleg busts so skip the next part.
From: the-police@t-online.de (Joerg)
http://www.bootlegs.com/bust.html
U.S. Department of Justice
United States Attorney - Middle District of Florida
Brian Phillips - Assistant United States Attorney
for the Middle District of Florida
(407) 648-7539
RIAA Contacts:
Alexandra Walsh, 202-775-0101 awalsh@riaa.com
Frank Creighton, 202-775-0101 fcreighton@riaa.com
For Immediate Release - March 31, 1997
13 Alleged Major Bootleggers Indicted
800,000 Alleged Bootleg CDs Confiscated in Largest Criminal
Bootleg Investigation.
Washington
Charles R. Wilson, United States Attorney for the Middle District
of Florida, and Joseph Henderson, Resident Agent in Charge,
United States Customs Service, Orlando, Florida, announced today
that a federal grand jury sitting in Orlando has returned a
40-count indictment charging 13 individuals with conspiracy and
substantive charges involving the manufacturing, importing, and
distributing of unauthorized or "bootleg" compact music discs.
The Indictment alleges that the defendants, on various dates,
manufactured, smuggled, and/or distributed bootleg compact music
discs from artists including the Grateful Dead, Stevie Ray
Vaughan, the Dave Matthews Band, Tori Amos and Van Halen.
Charged in the Indictment are:
Jorge Garzon, 29, of Orlando, Florida
Hans Heimann, 38, of Wuppertal, Germany
Roger Moenks, 34, of Goch, Germany
Charles Leidelmeyer, 40, of Gravenhaag, the Netherlands
Mark Purseglove, 25, of London, England
Simone Romani, 34, of Milan, Italy
Scott Johnson, 32, of Long Island, New York
Simon Carne, 34, of West Palm Beach, Florida
Alfonso Degaetano, 34, of West Palm Beach, Florida
Ali Moghadam, 30, of Las Vegas, Nevada
Georgio Serra, 32, of the Repulic of San Marino, Italy
Caroline Albanese, 29, of the Republic of San Marino, Italy
Robert Pettersen, 41, of Los Angeles, California
The defendants face the following maximum terms of imprisonment:
Garzon, 5 years; Heimann, 15 years; Moenks, 20 years;
Leidelmeyer, 15 years; Purseglove, 20 years; Romani, 25 years;
Johnson, 25 years; Simon, 10 years; Degaetano, 10 years;
Moghadam, 5 years; Serra, 35 years; Albanese, 35 years; and
Pettersen, 10 years.
The charges are the result of a year-long undercover operation
conducted by agents of the United States Customs Service, with
the assistance of the Recording Industry Association of America,
of international bootlegging in compact music discs and the
smuggling of these items into the United States. A spokesman for
the Recording Industry Association of America has indicated that
bootlegging of musical recordings accounts for an estimated loss
of $300,000,000.00 per year to the music industry. The case will
be prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney A.B. Phillips
of the Orlando Division of the United States Attorney's
office.
An indictment is merely a formal charge that a defendant has
committed a violation of the federal criminal law and every
defendant is presumed innocent until, and unless, proven
guilty.
Frank Creighton, RIAA Vice President, Associate Director of
Anti-Piracy, states, "this operation marks the largest criminal
bootleg investigation of its kind - both in terms of the number
of individuals indicted and the transnational scope of their
operations, as well as the sheer volume of bootlegs seized (80%
of 1996's total bootleg confiscations). Without a doubt, the
removal of so many major players will substantively and severely
disrupt the global bootleg industry. This incredibly successful
blow to bootleggers was only possible with the exceptional
efforts of Charles Wilson, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District
of Florida and Assistant U.S. Attorney A.B. Phillips, and at
Customs, Regional Agent in Charge Joseph Henderson and Special
Agent T.J. Nelson."
The alleged bootleggers were operating in 12 foreign countries,
as well as the United States. Many of the 13 indicted are among
the most notorious international bootleg manufacturers and
distributors, according to the RIAA. Of those foreign nationals,
five were indicted while in the United States allegedly
conducting their illicit business affairs. In addition to the
indictments, U.S. Customs announced that approximately 800,000
alleged bootleg recordings had been confiscated over the course
of the investigation.
http://www.grayzone.com/797b.htm
First Bootleggers Convicted Under Revised U.S. Law
New York
Two New Yorkers who pleaded guilty to bootlegging charges related
to a massive seizure of 87,000 bootleg compact discs in July 1996
were convicted June 10 in New York State Court. It is the first
such conviction under the state's bootleg amendment to the penal
code. Andre Grabowicz and Gladys Caporali, arrested and charged
with manufacturing, selling and distributing alleged bootleg CDs,
audiocassettes, and videocassettes, await sentencing.
Under the new statutes, the two could face a possible four-year
jail sentence and fines of $5,000 up to a maximum of "two times
the gain of the illegal activity," according to sources familiar
with the case. Steve D'Onofrio, senior vice president of
anti-piracy at the Recording Industry Association of America
(RIAA), said, "We are continuing to be in touch with artists and
managers on this issue. State prosecutors are taking this issue
very seriously." A bootleg contains live concert recordings,
unlike a pirate, which is an unauthorized or "fixed" recording of
a record company release.
The New York bootleg amendment took effect in November, 1995, and
makes bootlegging a Class E felony in the state. More than 30
states throughout the country have adopted bootleg felony
statutes. (Billboard, July 5, 1997 - Bill Holland)
(For background details, see GrayZone July/August 1996 digest, at
http://www.grayzone.com/flashb.htm. See also "GrayZone
Anti-piracy FAQ" at http://www.grayzone.com/faqindex.htm.)
http://valleyadvocate.com/articles/bootleg.html
THE BOOTLEG CRACKDOWN
Boot-Buyers Beware
Bootleg collectors have reason to be nervous. The government is
cracking down on illegal recordings.
By Hank Hoffman
The Grateful Dead stretched out on many a long jam. But they
never got into a jam like the one Scott Johnson is in. His jam
could land him a 25-year stretch in federal prison.
His alleged crime? Not drug smuggling. Not armed robbery or any
other violent offense. Johnson, a 32-year-old Long Island
resident, faces a potential quarter-century prison gig if
convicted of violating the federal anti-bootlegging law.
Trafficking in unlicensed music, not bathtub gin. The artists
included Stevie Ray Vaughan, Tori Amos, the Dave Matthews Band
and... the Grateful Dead.
Johnson isn't alone. He was arrested in Orlando, Florida, on the
morning of March 14 along with six others alleged to be involved
in "manufacturing, importing and distributing of unauthorized or
'bootleg' compact music discs," according to a press release from
the U.S. Attorney's office for the Middle District of Florida.
Several of the individuals arrested are European citizens who
were lured to Florida by a U.S. Customs Service sting.
"This operation marks the largest criminal bootleg investigation
of its kind, both in terms of the numbers of individuals involved
and the transnational scope of their operations," declared Frank
Creighton, Vice President of the Recording Industry Association
of America (RIAA) and associate director of the Anti-Piracy
Division, which assisted Customs in its investigation. "Without a
doubt the removal of so many major players will substantively and
severely disrupt the global bootleg industry."
The sting was perhaps the biggest example of a recent
comprehensive crackdown on bootleg recordings -- not counterfeits
or pirates which are cheap, knock-off copies of legitimately
released material which compete directly with record companies'
catalogs. Bootlegs are prized by collectors because they contain
material not available elsewhere, material the record companies
don't or won't release, such as live recordings and studio
outtakes. The crackdown threatens the livelihood of scores of
independent record stores and the availability of rare
performances by some of the era's most compelling musical
artists.
This past April, a lawyer for the Dave Matthews Band, accompanied
by a federal marshal and armed with an injunction, visited dozens
of record stores from New Jersey to Massachusetts -- including a
well-known independent store in Fairfield County -- seizing
bootlegs and demanding cash settlements in the $10,000 range (see
accompanying story). In February, 1996, the RIAA won a court case
saying that flea market and swap meet owners can be held liable
if vendors are selling unauthorized recordings. Some indie stores
in Boston have yanked the boots from their stock, fearing arrest.
An owner of one of the stores, which does more than 40 percent of
its sales in bootlegs, says, "We could go belly up."
Bill Glahn, editor and publisher of Live! Music Review, agrees
that the Florida busts have greatly curtailed the availability of
boots. Subsequent arrests, he says, indicate the goal is to
"eliminate major nationwide distributors."
"It's the same techniques used in drug enforcement: Eliminate the
source, you eliminate the problem," states Glahn. "But there's
another parallel: You don't eliminate the demand."
This demand touches on a host of thorny issues that transcend the
concerns of just a relatively small but fanatic segment of music
fans. They include artists' rights to control the release of
their work and to get paid for it, the treatment of culture as a
commodity, the related issue of the control of information by
multinational corporations in the era of "free trade," and the
impact of technology on the recording business. Already the
bootleg industry is moving underground, away from international
manufacturing plants that exploited loopholes in copyright laws
and into garages and closets, fed by the burgeoning availability
of CD-R (compact disc recording) technology.
The crackdown, including an arrest and conviction of a
Connecticut distributor last year, raises important questions
concerning who should be the arbiter of which cultural documents
will be allowed to circulate: The record companies, with their
official history mindset and their policies of calculated
scarcity? The artists, with their self-interested, if
understandable, desire to control their public image and their
works-in-progress? Or the public? What is gained by suppressing
unofficial music compared to what would be tragically lost?
----------------------------------------------------------
The modern history of bootlegging starts with Great White Wonder,
a double-album of Bob Dylan material that hit the head shops and
hip record outlets in the summer of 1969. It included cuts from
the legendary -- and then unreleased -- "Basement Tapes" recorded
with the Band, as well as tracks reportedly recorded in a
Minneapolis hotel room in 1961. But historians of the field track
bootlegs' footprints back to cylinder recordings of the
Metropolitan Opera made from 1901-1903 by Lionel Mapleson. In
later years, jazz, classical and blues aficionados preserved
concerts, broadcasts and out-of-print recordings through
unlicensed pressings.
Great White Wonder's success spurred a cottage industry of
releases by stars such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and
others, as well as a spate of legal attacks by the recording
industry. Using tapes generally garnered through unethical, if
not illegal, methods, a parade of covert companies distributed
short runs (500 to several thousand) of records throughout the
1970s. Their availability ebbed and flowed in relation to busts
and the legal attentions of the legitimate record industry. The
record companies also responded by releasing authorized live
albums and material like Dylan's The Basement Tapes, which would
otherwise have remained in the vaults.
Quality control has always been an issue. Many boots sound like
they are fifth generation copies of recordings made through a
wall by a microphone wrapped in a pillow. In the early years,
almost all had plain white covers and blank labels; if they were
annotated, the information was usually wrong. Others, however,
are superb. When I first heard the leadoff cut on the Beatles'
Ultra Rare Trax Vol. 1 CD, Take 2 of "I Saw Her Standing There,"
I was stunned: It was like being in the studio with the Fab Four.
The listener could experience the tactile aspect of the pick
striking the guitar strings.
The 1990s have been a Golden Age of boots. A combination of
technology -- compact discs and high quality miniature cassette
and DAT recorders -- and gaps in copyright protections in some
countries unleashed a flood of discs. While still minuscule
compared to the mainstream music industry, bootlegging music
became a multi-million dollar business. Labels like Kiss the
Stone, Yellow Dog and others garnered reputations for releasing
superior quality product -- and even for paying royalties to the
artists (into escrow accounts, which artists don't draw on for
fears of legitimizing the products). The growth of the industry
meant that a wider circle of artists were honored (or ripped off,
depending on your point of view) by being bootlegged.
At the same time, facilitated by the Internet, tape trading has
gained in popularity. Following in the footsteps of the Grateful
Dead, bands such as Phish and the Dave Matthews Band have bonded
with their fans by welcoming taping at live performances. But to
the surprise of many (see accompanying story), some of these same
groups have taken a hard line when -- as if this couldn't be
expected -- bootlegs circulate.
The Golden Age may now be over. International trade treaties such
as the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) have
standardized copyright law. Loopholes that allowed the legal
manufacture of boots in some European and Asian countries --
although they were illegal to import into the U.S. -- have been
closed. And in December, 1994, Congress passed a federal
anti-bootlegging statute as part of GATT. The new law gave the
U.S. Customs Service the power to seize bootlegs at the border.
"Free trade," in this instance at least, means a less free
market. Lobbying zealously and successfully for these changes was
the RIAA.
----------------------------------------------------------
Bootlegs are ripoffs, says the RIAA. They hurt the consumer who
gets stuck with expensive but inferior quality discs that can't
be returned. They deprive artists of their rightful royalties and
control over what is released under their name to the public. And
they cost the industry millions of dollars annually.
How many millions is hard to quantify. In the press releases
accompanying the Florida busts, the RIAA is cited as saying
bootlegs cost the $12.5 billion music industry $300 million
annually. But as material posted on the RIAA's web site
(http://www.riaa.com) shows, that figure includes losses
attributed to pirate and counterfeit recordings, as well as
"bootlegs." Frank Creighton, the RIAA's chief domestic
anti-piracy investigator, says it's hard to quantify the cost,
both because they have incomplete figures for the number of
seizures last year and because it's difficult to calculate
"displaced sales" for material that has no counterpart in
companies' catalogs.
Some 800,000 CDs were seized in the Florida investigation. At $25
retail per disc, the total end value of those boots is $20
million, or two tenths of one percent of the legit industry's
$12.5 billion annual sales. This is clearly an insignificant
figure, even if one were to assume a dollar to dollar
corresponding loss which even the RIAA doesn't claim.
"One thing those bootlegs do is take away the ability for record
companies and artists themselves to decide how and when to
release those live recordings so their marketability once they're
out in public is nonexistent," says Creighton.
Offered the example of the Beatles, whose Anthology series was a
bestseller despite the fact that much of the material had
appeared in pristine form on bootlegs, Creighton says they're an
extreme example. More problematic, he argues, is "the
alternative, up-and-coming band that is very concerned about the
quality of their recordings."
Still, even the Beatles and other superstars have the right to
control the quality of their material and "the majority [of
bootlegs] are pretty crappy in quality," he says.
"If I spent years perfecting my art to put out the highest
quality sound recording, I would want to control what songs, what
show that is and how that material is taped," says Creighton.
"That's not the case when bootlegs are around."
The RIAA's task of suppressing unofficial music is getting harder
all the time. Both CD-R technology and the Internet are
decentralizing the ability to disseminate music digitally.
Creighton says the RIAA is monitoring the Internet, cracking down
on sites that use official releases without license. As the price
of raw CD-R recorders and discs plummet (recorders can now be had
for as low as $500 and discs in bulk are approaching $3), the
recording industry faces the prospect of losing all control.
As for the artists, opinion is divided. Some encourage their
management to hunt down bootleggers and get the royalties due
them. Others consider the unauthorized recordings a tribute and
may even collect them themselves. In Clinton Heylin's book The
Great White Wonder, Patti Smith Group guitarist Lenny Kaye says
the band was "really excited" when the first bootlegs came out,
that it was a validation that they had made it. In the same book,
Graham Nash, apropos of a version of a Dylan song the singer had
withheld as too personal, says, "If it was too personal, why the
fuck did he write it in the first place and why the fuck did he
record it? I think you're committed, I do." On the other hand,
Robert Fripp, in an article published in Musician in 1979 wrote
that taping his live shows was akin to "taking notes of a
personal conversation to circulate or publish later."
----------------------------------------------------------
Bootleg dealers and collectors pooh-pooh the notion that artists
or record companies suffer substantive economic damage from
bootlegs. How, they say, can you lose money on something you
haven't or wouldn't release? In fact, they believe bootlegs often
boost an artist's popularity. Additionally, they contend that the
bootleggers have played a useful role to the record industry by
demonstrating a market for material the big companies were
hoarding in their vaults. Besides, they say, artists have been
ripped off by the major record companies for more money than
bootleggers could ever hope to steal. And it's hypocritical, they
charge, for record companies like Sony to complain about bootlegs
while marketing the miniature cassette and DAT recorders used to
make the concert tapes.
"Nobody goes into a record store and says 'I don't own anything
by Pearl Jam. I think what I'll do first is spend $45-50 on this
double live Pearl Jam CD,'" argues "Dogman," a retailer who has
sold bootlegs and asked not to be identified. "More often than
not, people already own everything and they're looking for more.
One of the problems is record companies are neglecting fans who
want live recordings."
The boots are also valuable historical documents, advocates say.
The live concerts chronicle the bands as performers -- without
the overdubs and touch-ups that often prettify authorized live
releases -- and the studio outtakes are exciting insights into
musicians' creative processes.
Dave Marsh, Playboy rock critic and editor of Rock & Rap
Confidential, and others defend the circulation of live
recordings. "There's a lot to be said for the idea that the
concert stuff is out there -- it was put out to be heard, let it
be heard," Marsh says. The release of studio tapes, often
pilfered by former employees, is a different issue. Marsh says
there are "serious legal and ethical questions there" but adds
with a chuckle, "although I buy [those CDs]."
"I can understand their argument -- 'this record isn't finished,
what the hell is it doing out here?'" says Dogman. "But sometimes
I think they're too sensitive about what they want to release.
We're fans. We want more from a band. Is that a sin? They should
be happy someone cares."
The record industry's real reason for attacking boots, says Glahn
of Live! Music Review, is to completely control the music
marketplace, in part by favoring the big chains and undermining
the independent stores which are more likely to carry bootlegs.
With a decade and a half of ever-climbing profits from the
conversion to compact discs ending, this theory goes, the
industry is looking for scapegoats.
----------------------------------------------------------
If Tower Records or HMV were selling boots, says Frank Creighton,
they'd be busted, too. (The indie store owners claim they need to
sell boots to stay afloat because the chains get much better
wholesale deals from the major record companies.)
"Many of the retail locations we've hit are not selling five or
10 of these pieces of bootleg product," responds Creighton.
"We're talking about people having thousands and thousands of
these discs and in many cases it's a majority of their stock....
This is not your poor ma and pa record store here."
Neither does Creighton agree that the record companies are at
fault because they haven't released this material.
"Record companies and artists own the rights to release that
material. It's just like any other product, whether you're buying
Q-tips or the new Triscuit crackers or whatever it is. It's a big
business," Creighton says. "People decide when to release it, how
to release it, what price they're going to release it at, etc.,
etc. Nobody's sitting there screaming at the fact that Triscuit
has not come out with a new cracker yet -- hasn't released a sour
cream and onion cracker. This is no different than that. This is
a business decision."
That's precisely the problem, says Dave Marsh. "To the RIAA this
stuff is just property where to the rest of us it's culture," he
says. "Anybody who would reduce Bob Dylan live in Manchester in
1966 or Bruce Springsteen at the Bottom Line in 1975 or various
blues and gospel records which for years could not be had in any
other way to the same level as Q-tips and Triscuits is a person
who ought to be fired summarily if the industry in question has
any self-respect," Marsh says. "Of course it hasn't. It has a
gaping need for profits and doesn't know the value of its own
commodities. That's one reason why viewing it as a commodity is a
disaster."
For the casual fan, suppression of boots would be no loss. But
some of us crave more. To linger again over that concert
experience, rewinding the tape of time. To hear John Lennon
giggle as he muffs the words during an outtake, or to follow the
development of "Strawberry Fields Forever" from a rough demo to a
finished masterpiece, demystifying the process of creation at the
same time as we appreciate it even more. There is a wealth of the
great bebop alto saxophonist Charlie Parker's material available
because someone was taping radio broadcasts.
Boots exist, of course, because there's a market for them. They
are commodities, too. For now, even if bootlegs are an imperfect
and ethically-tainted mechanism for preserving aspects of our
musical heritage, they are an effective one, nonetheless.
Upon Franz Kafka's death, his executor Max Brod found a note
requesting that "everything I leave behind me" including
"diaries, manuscripts, letters" be burned. Such monumental works
of 20th century literature as The Castle and The Trial -- which
was unfinished -- had not yet been published and, had Brod
acceded to Kafka's wishes, would never have been. Although
afflicted with a "conflict of conscience," Brod did not destroy
the unpublished work. There were many reasons but foremost was
"the fact that Kafka's unpublished work contains the most
wonderful treasures, and, measured against his own work, the best
things he has written. In all honesty I must confess that this
one fact of the literary and ethical value of what I am
publishing would have been enough to decide me to do so..."
Should Brod have done as the artist asked?
Research assistance by Julia Parish and Josh Westlund.
You are visitor
since this page was designed on September 18, 1998.
Index 
The Web's Too Big Without You! Items For Sale Who
Am I? What's
New?
Again, thanks for visiting my homepage. I hope you will come back and visit soon.
For questions, comments or information on this home page, please send e-mail to blueturtles@pmail.net< /A>.
This page hosted by 
. Get your own Free Home Page.
Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 by blueturtles@pmail.net. All rights reserved.