Travelling at the speed of space

[ANDREW GARIBALDI]

the whole thing about bootlegs as far as the UK goes,in terms of their
demise,really tracks back to the time when the authorities decided to be
really clever. In conjunction witht he MCPS, the police had pretty well got
hold of the street traders, primarily in London and Birmingham, but they
couldn;t muster the manpower to grab all the boot sellers at record
fairs,and besides, half the time no-one knew what was boot anyway. So they
went dead crafty and introduced a law, in exactly the same way as they have
done with drugs and clubs recently, making the record fair organiser
entirely responsible to face the consequences should any boot sellers be
found at their fair, not forgetting to clobber theboot sleer as well.
Virtually overnight, all the boot sellers got kicked off the fairs - no fair
organiser with any sense was going to take the chance - and suddenly what
was a prime chunk of the trade for these guys disappeared overnight. Not
only this but two of the main rings manufacturing them in the UK got busted,
and all of a sudden the UK was a no-go area for the sale of these little
commodoties (although it took a lot longer to reach the Scots that this was
the case, for some bizarre reason).
To all intents and purposes, the UK boot industry has been replaced by the
fans' CD-R collecting, a far healthier state of affairs if yuo've got to
have a black market at all, but as to the boot industry's demise, well, if
you read Ice magazine, then you might just think it's actualy alive and
well, but where it is, who knows (or cares come to that). For those with a
real thirst for knowledge of all things boot-y, there's just come out a
CD-ROM with over 40,000 boot entries and info and track lists, etc, etc,
altho' I've only seen the Prog-rock one so far (for my sins).
Entirely off topic but I hope a bit interesting for you.
Off to see the Ozrics tomorrow at Abderdeen.
Good night one and all,
Andy Garibaldi.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Pearson" <jasret at MINDSPRING.COM>
To: <BOC-L at LISTSERV.SPC.EDU>
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2001 2:37 AM
Subject: Re: Travelling at the speed of space


> On Thu, 24 May 2001 20:19:37 -0600, Mike C <deltawave at METRONET.COM> wrote:
> > Are you speaking of manufactured bootlegs, or CDR.....???
> >
> > [ ... snip ...]
> >
> >is there really any such thing as Bootlegs anymore?????
>
> My personal quote on the subject is:
>
> "Home CD recording is killing the bootleg industry"
>
> (I'm sure y'all remember the cassette-and-crossbones logo that was printed
> on the inner sleeve of most UK LP's of the 80's.)
>
> >I am NOT being smart-ass......I refer to the fact that they seemed to
> >proliferate into the 90's, but then there was some crack down on the laws
> >in Germany or something, and I haven't seen or heard of any PROPER ones
> >since!!!
>
> Italy was the king of legal-early-copyright-expiration-of-live-
> performances "grey market" boots in the mid-90s, but I believe their
> copyright laws have been "upgraded" to EU standards since then.
>
> And in Italy, it looks like many of the former bootleggers may have
> switched to legitimate reissues (which has been a HUGE boon for lovers of
> psychedelic vinyl such as myself).  I wonder if the CEO's of Arkana, Get
> Back et. al. used to do boots?
>
> >is there???
>
> I was in upstate-California (is that a malapropism, Noo Yokkers?) last
> weekend and saw a box full of CD boots at the counter of the record store
> we went too.  I didn't even bother with 'em, but the friend I was with
said
> he looked through them and they were a mishmash of pressed CD's and CD-
> R's.  No Hawkwind, though ... (but some good stuff like Barrett-era Floyd
> BBC sessions IIRC) ...
>
>     -Doug
>      jasret at mindspring.com