Reading up on Dylan boots I came across this bloke. To think he destroyed so many of his tapes!
https://kernelmag.dailydot.com/features/report/6498/the-tragic-tale-of-a-legendary-concert-taper/
Mike the Mic Millard – legendary bootleg taper
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There used to be a shop upstairs on the Oxford Road in Manchester near the uni that had zillions of bootleg cassettes, many I had not seen anywhere else. And Camden and Notting Hill Markets also had loads. I still have a few, though mostly you can find them on-line between YT, SugarMegs, and the more specialist music blogs out there. The only thing I can’t find is any recording of Supercharge from 1976 – which is strange, as they were everywhere back then.
I remember that from my Uni days – Pandemonium Records. I never actually bought any records there – the owner would sell you a cassette copy of any album you were looking for (I got my initial copy of the Buckingham Nicks album that way).
I recall an article quite a few years ago about its closure and looking for a home for the massive collection of albums he had – not sure what became of them.
That’s a great read. I used to do a little taping myself, until I realised that I was focused mostly on recording and not actually enjoying the gig. But searching for bootlegs was enormous fun, if rarely that rewarding. The dross I ended up with. Much easier now to find stuff online, but not as engaging.
Dime has sporadically featured quite a lot of gems from Mr. Millard, and they are always worth the bandwidth.
On a bit of a tangent, if anyone is registered with Dime and fancies searching for Horslips or Bert Jansch BBC off-airs, I know a man with a project or two who’d be most grateful 🙂
I’ll have a look and let you know.
Are you only interested in BBC or are any non British radio stations of interest?
Had a good root around but couldn’t find anything that would help your friend with a project I’m afraid. Absolutely zilch from Horslips, but more from Bert and various Pentangle configurations. The two or three older BBC off-airs (including one bunch of tracks from a broadcast of the Gloria Hunniford show!?) all have no active seeders. Half an hour hanging around on my torrent client yielded no action at all I’m afraid. I can try again another day if you remind me.
Thank You Carl and Vulpmneister. Carl very kindly found the Gloria H tracks for me a while back (actually, would you believe, it was Lorraine Kelly sitting in for Gloria that day). And yes Carl, only BBC radio.
In that case Colin, there is nothing new I can offer.
Shame because there is a Bert recording from 1979 that went out on NPR in the USA.
No worries, Carl. The BJ packed BBC 6CD set (with vinyl best-of planned) is finally coming together – wish I could say more about it at this stage. I keep hoping that someone will turn up the lost 1971 and 73 solo sessions…
Not Dime, but Lossless Legs has a Pentangle Folk on Two appearance from 1986-12-10:
https://www.shnflac.net/index.php?page=torrent-details&id=95b9fffb4d526f56eec9f26b37feeb5424ce2af0
(EDIT: my mistake, it does appear on Dime also)
Thank you Mr H – got that one!
Bootlegs … hmmm … the one, it’s only ‘one,’ good thing about the 21st Century is the ability to not only be able to access the past, but to be able to access the past “well” … see “Basement Tapes,” “Smile.”
The bootleg has surely gone the same way as the horse-drawn carriage?
Funny thing, the coveted Beatles/Stones/Jimi bootleg of the 1970s or 1980s is now presumably worthless, but original pressings of Beatles/Stones/Jimi, that used to go for £5-£10 …?
With them, it’s a name-your-price job.
The bootleg has now been consigned to history, as who now wants to pay ridiculously-inflated prices for badly-pressed vinyl or cheap-quality cassettes of what were often poorly-recorded shows?
Now we have Recordings Of Independent Origin, free to download and try if you have the hard drive space. Still a possibility that it was poorly-recorded in the first place and not worth a second listen (although portable recording technology has improved immensely since the ’70s) but at least it didn’t dig a great big hole in your wallet.
Although actually, if vinyl has now returned for good to the musical mainstream, how long before some enterprising but dodgy entrepreneur sets up a new vinyl bootleg operation in an unfussy foreign location?
Well-heeled collectorist-completists would no longer have to wait for Neil Young to officially release some Live Old and studio rejects in an expensive box (with a book that will fall apart half-way through reading it). They could get it a year before in a plain cover at a more sensible price, from under the counter at a local record shop.
That’s a possibility Mike, but I can’t see why people would pay over the odds for something that is free, other than for the cost of electricity for a five minute download. Or once 5G is established a 5 second download.
Because it’s vinyl and they have money to squander. Not for the likes of me and, presumably, you.
There are certainly “unofficial” recordings about that are decent enough quality to warrant a vinyl release, if people want to pay for them.
You’re right about bootlegs that deserve an official release.
I’m amazed that Steve Earle hasn’t seen fit to release the gig recorded in Stockholm with the Del McCoury Band. It’s one of my favourite Steve Earle albums.
@Carl – you’ve got me interested.
It can be found here.
I got my Swedish cities mixed up. It’s Malmo, not Stockholm.
I’ve had that Steve Earle & the Del McCoury Band live in Malmö show on an old cassette for years. I taped it off Swedish FM radio back in the day. It’s a cracker!
Goodness me Carl, that’s a little seam of gold right there.
*warms up router, clears a couple of Tb of space*
Thanks for the heads up mate! Some recordings there I haven’t seen elsewhere (or maybe only when there were no seeds running). Top stuff.
Agreed – my boots are strangely heavy.
Always happy to be of service and spread the enjoyment to be found in vibrant live performances.
There already are such high-end bootleg vinyl labels, Mike. I’m on a mailing list for one bootleg retailer and I’m always amazed that people will spend loads of £ on such items. The range of acts that clearly ‘work’ in that market are limited though – the top half dozen heritage names, basically.
Another path to riches that leads nowhere.
Back to the drawing board.
@fortuneight that was my problem too. And people talking piss you off enough when just listening, let alone when you are recording.
I still buy the occasional bootleg. Some are really good quality i.e. Krystal Kat – booklets, posters pictures on the disc etc. They have to to get people to shell out.
Commercial bootlegs may have declined but people recording, editing, doing post production work and posting onto fan sites has never been stronger, especially with the quality and portability of recording stuff now.
The story about Mike Millard destroying his tapes is just an internet myth. The truth is they remained untouched in his bedroom after his death and until recently his mother didn’t allow anyone to access them. Probably wise as someone would surely have hawked them off to one of the many Japanese bootleggers, who would no doubt have given an arm and a leg for a collection of Millard master tapes. Bootlegs might be a lot less visible than they used to be but they haven’t gone away – they’re still flourishing in Japan in particular and specialist boot labels like Empress Valley will pay big money for the right tapes, some eye-watering amounts supposedly changed hands for the slew of Zeppelin soundboards that have emerged in recent years. Amazingly there are still people who will pay the not inconsiderable asking price for these, even though they all end up on torrent sites for free eventually.
But back to the Millard tapes, they’re now in the hands of a friend of his who is overseeing them being transferred to digital and distributed on all the usual torrent sites.
Thanks @Col-D
Let’s hope they do become available.
Quite a few have already appeared on Dime.
Back to this bloke’s nakamichi recorder. A mate raised a good point. Unlikely that he just ran an extension cord to an available power plug on the auditorium floor, so how would he have powered this for some fairly long shows?
They made some ‘portable’ reel-to-reel machines for broadcast use. 7″ reels, unit the size of a briefcase, used a half-sized car battery for power. Must have weighed a ton, and been a bit conspicuous.
Today we think ‘portable’ means it fits in your pocket. 40 years ago, it meant one or two people could lift it onto a trolley.
I once designed a ‘portable’ radio for the army. I could barely lift it, but it did still work after I reversed a Land Rover over it.
Society needs a criminal element for it to function as a more just and honest society for all, but the criminal element must understand where it is supposed to operate. Once it gets above it’s station, well, that’s when War breaks out, and what of the end result of that. Somebody wins for a while.
So you propose a Thieves Guild, like in Ankh-Morpork?
Perhaps an Assassins Guild too..