Was pottering about on Spotify and lo and behold the Lou Reed category has quite a few boots – or are they semi boots or are they now official releases. A cracker of a concert from 72 with the Tots previewing some of his new songs off Transformer and a jazzy 1976 show with the unmistakable bass of Fernando Saunders are just 2 choice selections.
Is this the case with a lot of artists?
I’ve found similar items, not on Spotify, but Amazon. For example there’s a raft of Ry Cooder CDs on there which I’ve only ever seen as bootlegs in the past – radio broadcasts and the like.
I ordered a few and they were decidedly dodgy (unknown labels, so-so sound quality etc). It seems anyone can sell anything on Amazon, until someone complains and has it removed.
Yeah ditto JC
Bought some little feat boots on Amazon, no questions asked !
Yes, sometime last year it became legal to sell American FM radio broadcasts of concerts, as long as they’re sold outside the US. You can certainly get them from Amazon UK but not, I think, from amazon.com. I bought one of the Ry Cooder broadcasts (“Radio Ranch”). The sound quality is so-so, but there are some nice solo performances there by Ry.
For some artists, such as Stephen Stills and – inevitably – the Grateful Dead, there seems to be a plethora of these FM recordings coming out.
For Deadheads, the most exciting of these is the King Biscuit Hour broadcast of the Dead from the Orpheum Theatre, San Francisco on 18 July 1976, which is being released on 2 October. It’s supposed to be an absolute dynamite show.
This one also imminent
Got my eye on that one.
I have the 1974 Ebbetts Field broadcast of Ry Cooder. It’s pretty good actually.
There’s a good Gene Clark one, and the Queen section used to have three or four which were semi-legit releases. I think these have since ben pulled from Spotify.
On a recent trip to HMV there must have been half a dozen Springsteen radio shows, plus Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan and a few others.
Talking Heads boots seem very popular, but when you closely there are a handful of shows, each released several times with different artwork and varying audio quality. Just like old-fashioned boots, then!
Rakes of this stuff has been available for years free of charge on semi-respectable torrent sites. The ones that won’t stream anything that’s ever been officially released in any form.
More of it is still turning up on a regular basis. Sound quality is highly variable, ranging all the way from pristine digital soundboard recordings to ropey old 4th generation ’70s audience recordings off ancient cassettes.
I would never consider paying some chancer for something he almost certainly got for nothing off a torrent site somewhere. Especially as it’s probably still available for free if you found out where to go.
I have always had the yips about registering for those sites and when I have I have often had no end of trouble with the downloading, interruptions, freezing, corrupted files.
Perhaps someone could stsrt a thread directing people to best sites for best content – assuming the mods allow.
Always worth Floyd fans checking the Brain Damage podcast. This month’s show has Roger Waters/My Morning Jacket at the Newport folk festival and David Gilmour at Brighton Centre.