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Thanks to the rise of sharingthegroove, dimeadozen, and all sorts of other sites, the idea of paying for bootlegs is a thing of the past. In most cases, this is a good thing...I doubt I have to enumerate the various benefits of this development.

There is, seemingly, a hidden downside: the rise of this internet distribution system basically coincided with the drying up of "rare and unreleased" sources (as distinct from live concerts). While I have absolutely no causal proof in the matter, I wonder whether the death of the traditional "professional bootleg" company--who generally had the financial ability to pay Fascist Collectors for rare items--means that there's simply no way for this stuff to enter the trading pool anymore. The last big Beatles flood that I can remember was the Barrett tapes (which really represented more of a trickle), for example, whereas up until that point we had genuine *new material* surfacing at least every half year or so.

To that end, I'd like to briefly and pointlessly do a sh.tv little review of what *has* surfaced over the past few years:

a) Radiohead. Oh lordy. A treasure trove of formative stuff has been surfacing off and on over the past few years, with the most recent burst of activity being only a month ago. Not all of it is spectacular, but I think it's all very interesting.

b) Zappa - Bognor Regis/Sharleena. The lost test single finally surfaced online a few years back, and finally made the jump from MP3 to lossless just recently.

c) Another Zappa - the "missing LP" from "Just Another Band from LA" finally hit the net. Yay! This was one of those "non-circulating" items for the longest time...glad someone finally developed a philanthropic spirit.

d) John Entwistle - 1979 demos. An unassuming collection posted without any fanfare on TTD a while back (amidst all sorts of other, non-Who related stuff), this set actually represents several work-in-progress versions of "Too Late the Hero" tracks; its leaking, I should note, coincides with some of these tracks potentially being used for that album's reissue (presumably in heavily-processed states). A nice surprise is that this version of "Back on the Road" is clearly the same basic version used for Van-Pires, something which the liner notes to that album imply but certainly don't directly state. I can now refer to Van-Pires as being mostly dreck and two 1970s outtakes that're pretty swell. Yay!

e) Jon Brion demos. Well, new to *me*. Two discs worth. Lovely.

Any thoughts?

Can't think of anything new around these parts...

I'm too busy recording bluegrass shows.

I kind of see this as a case where the advantages are so enormous that it's hard to imagine them not outweighing the disadvantages.

I'd argue that the last big Beatles flood was the nearly complete "Get Back" sessions, but they're so dull that I can't blame you for overlooking them.

Not sure how new this is but does anyone have The Who "Young Vic Rehearsals" disc. I've been looking for it but haven't found a copy yet. Supposedly it's an EX quality recording of the soundcheck as well as the missing bits from the show proper. The soundcheck includes Walking the Dog and an instrumental jam...

Bennett Cerf wrote:I kind of see this as a case where the advantages are so enormous that it's hard to imagine them not outweighing the disadvantages.

Oh, certainly.

I'd argue that the last big Beatles flood was the nearly complete "Get Back" sessions, but they're so dull that I can't blame you for overlooking them.

Haha...yeah. You mean the Day By Day A/B cam stuff, right? Yeah, that's absolutely nuts. I'm glad it finally started circulating, and while I wouldn't mind having a multi-DVDR FLAC set of it, I'm in no way ever going to hunt it down.

Re. Young Vic...hadn't heard of it.

Beck's "Guero" doesn't quite fit, but that was leaked pretty early before it was mastered or even had the mix/edits finalized.

A pro recording of an unbooted 1971 Neil Young show has just surfaced. Supposedly this show was leaked during preparation for the first installment of Neil Young's Archives..

MK wrote:Beck's "Guero" doesn't quite fit, but that was leaked pretty early before it was mastered or even had the mix/edits finalized.

Along those lines, I'd love for a lossless source of the alternate "Hail to the Thief" to surface.

A small cache of Yes stuff has appeared in the last five years or so, perhaps due to leakage during the archive-mining that took place for the remastered CD bonus tracks. As with the officially released bonus tracks, these new boots are studio run-throughs with guide vocals, different lyrics, and sometimes different instrumental sections and overdubs - the title track of 'Close to the Edge' and a side of 'Topographic' being two examples. Some of them sound better (sound wise) than the final releases, IMO...funny how removing a track or three from a 16-track recording can clean a busy mix up.

I completely agree, Krab. The difference in quality between Zappa's "Crush All Boxes" and "You Are What You Is" demonstrates much the same principle.

I shit myself when I heard "Crush All Boxes". I thought, "this is a bootleg?"

Sirius has been playing a bunch of unbooted, professionally mixed Born to Run outtakes. Not sure if there are any Bruce fans here..

JWB wrote:I shit myself when I heard "Crush All Boxes". I thought, "this is a bootleg?"

I would very much love more material mixed like that, either from vintage mixes or from newly-created mixes.

"You Are What You Is" is a great album--my favorite Zappa "rock" record of the 1980s, certainly--but I'm a bit mixed on its production style. It isn't insipid and sterile like, oh, everything from 1984 onward, but it's VERY cluttered and compressed. Also, I know this is an unpopular perspective, but I don't think the "harmony vocal" approach to most of the tracks work. I feel like I'd like things like the "Society Pages" suite more if it were just Ray singing, and note the sort of odd, massed vocal approach.

Isn't it more of a case of the cupboard being (pretty much) bare -- professional bootlegers or no? At this point, I can't imagine that there can't be much more unheard Beatles/Stones/Beach Boys/Dylan/Who, et al. studio material. You know, except for stray (perhaps mythical) things like "Carnival of Light", how much is really left?

I could be wrong, but this seems like more of a factor than anything else. Save for outtakes from the Ride a Rock Horse sessions or She's the Boss outtakes, this stuff has been well forked many times over.

I can imagine there being many, many more Stones outtakes, honestly. Insofar as endless session tapes go, the 60s vault is surprisingly intact ("Satanic" notwithstanding).

I don't just necessarily mean novel, remember. Seven hundred takes of "Not Guilty" would still be *new*, if not amazing...it isn't like the multiple takes of Hold Me Tight are particularly revelatory.