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| June 2004 Consider yourself warmly welcomed to the debut instalment of Grand Theft Audio, the first column exclusively devoted to the critical review of bootleg records ever to appear in a mainstream commercial rock magazine. For the uninitiated among you who don't know, in this day and age of instant downloaded gratification, what a 'bootleg' record is, a quick definition is in order: A bootleg record contains live concert performances or rare studio tracks (rehearsals, demos, alternate takes, unreleased masters) by a musician which have not been officially released by a record company and therefore cannot be bought in a commercial record store. (This is also as good a time as any to publicly make the following standard Bootleg Disclaimer: namely, that this column is written purely for educational use only, that no one connected with CREEM knows where to buy bootleg records, and that CREEM does not advocate or endorse the purchase or use of any unauthorized sound recordings of any kind. No fools, us.) To those of you who are hip to this kind of trip and may be wondering why a major 'overground' publication like America's Only is reviewing 'underground' bootlegs, the answer is as simple as it is important. Indeed, just the fact that you have to ask such a question speaks volumes in itself. It says that an influential and well respected 35-year-old rock magazine openly reviewing boots in the year 2004 is still an extreme radical concept which is so far ahead of the curve in terms of breaking the taboo mold of what is deemed to be acceptable editorial content, that the illicit outlaw mythos of the bootleg album remains alive and well and as powerful as ever. But that's not why we're here. The truth of the matter is that this column exists because bootlegs are the oldest and most influential form of recorded audio, in all musical genres, that the medium has ever known. Period. Long before there were computers, videotape, television, radio, talking movies, or even phonograph records—there were bootlegs. Long before there was rock 'n' roll, R&B, the big band era, or even jazz—there were bootlegs. In fact, to be present at the creation of this art form, we have to go back over 100 years to the golden era of grand opera as it existed at the turn of the last century. Because bootleg recordings literally didn't exist until the fat lady sang. And when she did, Lionel Mapleson was there to record her. In 1890, Mapleson began working as a librarian at New York's famed Metropolitan Opera, a position he would hold for almost 50 years until his death in 1938. In March l900, however, he became the proud owner of one of Thomas Edison's new inventions, the large Model A "Home" phonograph. Far more than just a rudimentary playback device, the Model A was actually capable of recording sounds onto Edison Black Wax cylinders. Each cylinder had 100 grooves per inch and played at 160 R.P.M. for a maximum recording time of approximately two minutes. In a very real sense, Edison had invented the precursor of today's portable tape recorder and C-120 (second) cassette. Immediately realizing the possibilities that such a machine could offer, Mapleson somehow managed to secure permission from the Met to take the Model A to the Opera House for the purpose of recording live performances. His first notion was to place the machine in the prompter's box but the speaker horn was so large that it blocked the audience's view of the stage. Then he had the idea of installing the machine high on a catwalk some 40 feet above the ground with the horn angled down so that it faced the stage below. Then, for the next four years, from 1900 to 1904, Mapleson recorded portions of Met performances on over 140 wax cylinders, two minutes at a time. The result was the earliest known examples of live recorded sound performances. Whether Mapleson is actually the first audio bootlegger is a matter of interpretation, given that his wax recordings were made with the full authorized permission of the opera company. What isn't in dispute, however, is that Lionel Mapleson had a textbook bootlegger's mentality and that he took full advantage of it. As fate would have it, the very first issue of CREEM and the very first rock bootleg both appeared at roughly the same time in 1969. Ever since then, vinyl bootleg reviews occasionally appeared in the magazine's Rock-A-Rama section. The big difference between then and now, of course, is that the advent of digital technology has advanced bootlegs to the point where they now surpass many legitimate releases in terms of content, sound quality, and packaging. Recent releases like Vigotone's comprehensive four disc Buddy Holly box set (What You Been A-Missin') or Thunderball's definitive 20 disc set—that's right, 20 discs—of studio quality Prince demos and outtakes spanning a quarter century and presented in chronological order (The Work 1976-2001), are stellar benchmarks of quality which put many official releases to shame. It also goes without saying that bootlegs have had a consistent and undeniably massive positive cultural influence on the record industry over the last thirty-five years. More often than not, today's bootleg often leads to shaming the record companies into making tomorrow's official new release. The appearance of the very first rock bootleg in 1969, Dylan's Great White Wonder, eventually led to the official release of Columbia's The Basement Tapes and started a tradition of playing catch up that still continues to this day with Sony's ongoing and aptly-titled Bootleg Series. Even more importantly, Great White Wonder would end up casting a very long shadow that began when, later that year, the appearance of the Stones' LiveR Than You'll Ever Be and CSNY's Wooden Nickel immediately begat Decca's Get Yer Ya-Yas Out and Atlantic's 4 Way Street. Some 35 years later, the major labels are still playing catch up. Most famously, the circ
And if it hadn't been for the recent multi-disc bootleg DVDs of the Earls Court, Seattle, and Knebworth concerts (not to mention companion DVDs of their complete TV appearances) we never would have had the forced release of Led Zeppelin DVD in 2003. As the accompanying photo of Jimmy Page taken in last month in Japan shows, Led Zeppelin's biggest fan is still collecting Led Zep bootlegs decades later. And despite the official release of How The West Was Won, Page steadfastly insists that the main reason why he's held off on releasing a comprehensive live career Led Zeppelin retrospective box set is because any true fan who really wanted such a collection probably already has a better one at home on bootleg than Page himself could ever compile. So if bootleg records are still good enough for Jimmy Page after all these years, then they're still certainly good enough for us. And beginning next month, we'll take a look at some of them.
Research and advice for this column is provided by Robert Walker. Mr. Walker is the publisher of HOT WACKS, the acknowledged 'Bible Of Bootlegs' since 1974. For more information or to purchase books, please contact The Hot Wacks Press. And tell 'em Boy Howdy! sent you. If you are a producer of bootlegs and would like to submit your product for review in Grand Theft Audio—your return address is NOT needed—please send all review copies to: GTA, c/o CREEM Magazine, 7958 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90048 USA. |
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