i miss the days of spending $40 for 2-cd bootlegs

Guitarhero27

because the sound was awesome on all of those

tape trading, 4th generation, 5th generation tapes....pressed cd's whos sound was like hearing PJ while in the toilet of a large concert hall...yea sounds great doesn't it?

i'll take a cd where stone might cut out for a minute or two, for just over $10 than spending the $40 again anyday.

The roots of PJ and the tape trading community are grateful for ANY type of "official" bootleg that is available to us.

I wish some people would stop for a minute, and try and be a fan pre-2000, trying to get every known show, from as close a source to the master as possible...and realize that the sound STILL sucked on the bootlegs.

However, it was spending the $40 on those bootlegs ($20 for single cd compilation bootlegs or old shows from the early 90's) that made me really appreciate everything released post 2000.


But on that note....Jeff's bassline from Philly night 1 during All Those Yesterdays is missing until the climax of the song.

hehehe.

demetrios

i bought over 50+ pearl jam unofficial silver cd bootlegs from my local record stores & hit paradar ad's. ah, those were the day's. 35 bucks for 1 cd. 60 for 2 cd sets. day's before i entered the matrix (connected on the world wide web '99).

and yes .. i miss those silver unofficial bootleg day's where many unknown bootleg companies included fake/recorded live crowd noise on official studio tracks!

Guitarhero27

demetrios wrote:

i bought over 50+ pearl jam unofficial silver cd bootlegs from my local record stores & hit paradar ad's. ah, those were the day's. 35 bucks for 1 cd. 60 for 2 cd sets. day's before i entered the matrix (connected on the world wide web '99).

and yes .. i miss those silver unofficial bootleg day's where many unknown bootleg companies included fake/recorded live crowd noise on official studio tracks!

ahh yes...$35 for 1, $60 for 2.....I always managed to negotiate down to $20/$40....to the point of the stores knowing me and never trying to charge me $35/60 when i brought the cd's to the counter...

I remember finding my first unofficial silver cd bootleg...Attenzione and asking the guys at the counter to play it for me so I could hear the sound quality....it was listenable by all means....rated a C- on the unofficial PJ bootleg discography back then...which is quite horrible by today's standards of PJ's official releases....and I remember wanting to hear Hunger Strike/Leash.....Eddie sings the first 2 bars of Hunger Strike...then in a crowded cd store all you hear is:

DROP THE LEASH DROP THE LEASH GET OUT OF MY FUCKING FACE.....and the song kicks in.

02/18/92 – Sorpasso: Milan, Italy [70m]
attendance: too many (capacity=400)
set: Release, Even Flow, Once, State of Love and Trust, Alive, Black, Deep, Why Go, Porch, Attenzione Jam/Jeremy, Breath
enc: I’ve Got a Feeling, (Hunger Strike)/Leash
notes: This tiny, hot, overly packed venue feature an inordinately excited crowd and two ill-placed speakers. Eventually, a couple of fans in the audience “volunteer” to hold onto the speakers to keep them from plunging into the throng. The vibrating during a ripping ‘Leash’ eventually causes one of the speakers to topple but no one is injured. After ‘State of Love and Trust,’ Ed remarks, “The Marshall is smoking. (laughs) It’s known to burn up when Michael plays.” Concerned about the crowd, he says, “This is a little claustrophobic. This is the biggest place we’ve ever played.” After ‘Jeremy,’ “Is there a bigger place right around here where we can all go right now to maybe finish this up? Somebody’s house maybe?”

SCMike10

I know! I remember visiting the "alternative" record store and trying to figure out which $40.00 CD (or $60.00 for a 3 disc boot- Soldier Field anyone?) that I HAD to have!

And the kicker was trying to play it on my discman-attached-to-my-tape-player-with-that-weird-cassette-adapter-cable-thingy-in-my-cheap-ass-car-that-didn't-have-a-cd-player!!

I bought one that was the studio version of Ten with fake audience "noise" at the beginning and end of evey song!! :shock: :x

We are spoiled as fans; I spend ALL of my time trying to explain why my wife and I drove from NH to Philly to see 4 shows in 5 days- "...isn't it the same show every night?...". Not only do we get amazing performances night after night, we get to grab a copy on CD to re-live each show.

Wow; I just typed a lot!

WM31482

The names were really great too... I have Flashpoint, Chapters, Unnecessary Roughness (everyone is holding an acoustic guitar on this cover btw)

One has Please Let Me Sleep it's Xmas two times (always better than one), another has an intro written by "Professor Stone"-

All appear to be from Italy?

wolfamongwolves

I was spending £4 for C-90 tapes with badly photocopied or typed sleeves. Seemed perfectly reasonable to me at the time! I was just excited to get anything that was any way listenable.

The first CD boots I bought were Atlanta 94 and No Fuckin' Messiah at a record fair in Sept 94, and I thought they were well worth the price I paid for them. wasn't till '99 that I went to the States and realised just how much more you folks were paying for CD boots than we were in Europe. Double the price or more.

So the fact that I can get official boots (however much people want to moan about the sound) from the band that are half the price of what I was paying for dodgy unofficial boots 10-15 years ago, is still a thrill to me, and I'm always grateful for it.

jdelin

Yeah, I remember going to all of the small record stores in the Village in NYC looking for PJ bootlegs. I think the average price there was $20 for a single CD. The biggest scores, though, were when I'd go to a flea market and find bootlegs on cassette - that's how I got the famous Den Haag show and how I first heard Wash! Times were much different then without the popularity of the internet...

Although I love how the awesome PJ community has helped me obtain copies of every show I've ever been to - and even some I should have been to back in the day!

pdalowsky

ah Seth, but you realise that some folk like to moan and whinge about anything and everything right?

Your post makes brutal sense to me, the Philyl shows I am just finishing my first run through, and fuck me they are good

wolfamongwolves

jdelin wrote:

...I'd go to a flea market and find bootlegs on cassette - that's how I got the famous Den Haag show and how I first heard Wash!

That was my first cassette boot too! It was edited though... only realised this recently - on my old tape I've Got a Feeling was "only" about 8 minutes long, not 16. It was a revelation when I finally heard the full thing, maybe 12 years later!

jdelin wrote:

...I love how the awesome PJ community has helped me obtain copies of every show I've ever been to - and even some I should have been to back in the day!

Amen!

pjtradeking

The place I use to go is still there after all these years. In fact, he has called me on more than one occasion over the years asking me for a show here and there when someone has come in asking for it cause he knew most likely I had it or could get it.. I wouldnt take those years back for anything though. As horrible as the sound is on some of them, and as cheesy and cliche' as it sounds, those are the soundtrack of my life. I can tell you where I was when I first listened to this or that and dont mind putting some of them in now and again just to be taken back, especailly lately. Once things in my life get back to some sort or normalcy, and I get back to my home, I am going to get out the 10-22-90 show and listen to everything I have in order, no matter how hard it may be!

elwayvedder

gotta love those old boots and the days where you would be standing there in the indy store, trying to figure out which boot to buy and which ones to put back and then asking yourself how PJ had a song called "Drop the Leaves" (Leash) or "3 days" (Last Exit). Those silly, zainy bootleggers and their inability to correctly name a song kills me

Hugh Freaking Dillon

I remember coming across Atlanta Jamming. I paid nearly $40 for that. And I opened it and one of the band member pics was Chris Cornell! I was like WTF is this?

But it's a cool keepsake from that era. I just can't listen to it on my iPod. I need to listen to it at home on my stereo while looking at the booklet. The way it was meant to be!

Vedder_Girl77

I have a box full of these old bootlegs and I spent a fortune on them back in the day. The sound quality is just terrible on some of them. I think the name of the company was Kiss the Stone? They made a bunch of bootlegs in the 90's.

SoonForgotten2

Ah nostalgia...

I kinda feel bad for anyone who wasn't able to experience this. How fun was it going into a record shop having no idea what sort of bootlegged gems they might have? Those were the days...

theboxerorthebag

elwayvedder wrote:

gotta love those old boots and the days where you would be standing there in the indy store, trying to figure out which boot to buy and which ones to put back and then asking yourself how PJ had a song called "Drop the Leaves" (Leash) or "3 days" (Last Exit). Those silly, zainy bootleggers and their inability to correctly name a song kills me

that was my favorite part, the misnaming of songs. Drop the Leaves!!!

Ledbetterdays

Those old bootlegs are what I believe cemented the fanbase in the early years. I was a trader back in the day when we were copying everything from tape. I made a compilation of stuff and called it Homemade Jam and for a lot of people it was the first live Pearl Jam they ever heard. If you were from a small town you only came across these every once in awhile at a resale shop. I remember hearing the 94 Atlanta show soundboard and thinking everyone needs to hear this band. Without the internet at that time there was mo realization of all the bootlegs that were out there. I figured that out once I went to college and found a little shop that no longer exists. The Soldier Field bootleg was a Valentine's Day gift from my now wife. These things were really special and no official boot will ever be as meaningful. I am glad they provide the official shows but it ended a very important era for long-time fans

Fighting Hellfish

SCMike10 wrote:

I know! I remember visiting the "alternative" record store and trying to figure out which $40.00 CD (or $60.00 for a 3 disc boot- Soldier Field anyone?) that I HAD to have!

And the kicker was trying to play it on my discman-attached-to-my-tape-player-with-that-weird-cassette-adapter-cable-thingy-in-my-cheap-ass-car-that-didn't-have-a-cd-player!!

I bought one that was the studio version of Ten with fake audience "noise" at the beginning and end of evey song!! :shock: :x

We are spoiled as fans; I spend ALL of my time trying to explain why my wife and I drove from NH to Philly to see 4 shows in 5 days- "...isn't it the same show every night?...". Not only do we get amazing performances night after night, we get to grab a copy on CD to re-live each show.

Wow; I just typed a lot!

$60? that's a steal! I paid $75

Fighting Hellfish

BTW, my spinal surgeon of all people has told me he has a copy of hallucinogenic Recipe "collecting dust somewhere" He notices my PJ shirt every time I see him, so he said when he finds it, it's mine. A roommate in college had it, but I've never owned a copy

demetrios

WM31482 wrote:

The names were really great too... I have Flashpoint, Chapters, Unnecessary Roughness (everyone is holding an acoustic guitar on this cover btw)

One has Please Let Me Sleep it's Xmas two times (always better than one), another has an intro written by "Professor Stone"-

All appear to be from Italy?

Love Unnecessary Roughness!

http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp31 ... sfront.jpg
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp31 ... ssback.jpg
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp31 ... nesscd.jpg

We would copy CD's > cassettes for show's we didn't have. There were so many bootleg CD's available @ the local record stores, couldn't buy them all. Wish they sold vinyl bootlegs like they did for Metallica & Neil Young back then.

Kiss The Stone, Kobra Records & Oxygen Records were my favorite distributors. Mostly 75% of the bootlegs were all imports from Europe.

Grandmas Jam

Guitarhero27 wrote:

demetrios wrote:

“This is a little claustrophobic. This is the biggest place we’ve ever played.” After ‘Jeremy,’ “Is there a bigger place right around here where we can all go right now to maybe finish this up? Somebody’s house maybe?”

if i was there i would have volunteered every persons house i know

aspoonfulweighsaton

theboxerorthebag wrote:

elwayvedder wrote:

gotta love those old boots and the days where you would be standing there in the indy store, trying to figure out which boot to buy and which ones to put back and then asking yourself how PJ had a song called "Drop the Leaves" (Leash) or "3 days" (Last Exit). Those silly, zainy bootleggers and their inability to correctly name a song kills me

that was my favorite part, the misnaming of songs. Drop the Leaves!!!

I also love "Steal, Lie & Trust" and listing Not For You as Neil Young's "This Note's For You".

The CD titles were great as well, especially everyone's favorite: "No Fuckin' Messiah!"

As frightening as it is to think about what I spent on these back in the day, it's WAY more frightening to think what my bank account would be like without them releasing the shows themselves, as well as the advent of bit torrent and most everyone having high-speed internet access.