... I never had any vinyl, but quite a few cassettes sourced from the local "tie-dye t-shirts and drug paraphenalia" shop which had, if you asked nicely, a box of tapes under the counter. They were expensive, and generally pretty poor quality, but it was a real thrill to get something which was not generally available.

I progressed from there to finding a record shop in Stirling which had (and maybe still has) loads of live CD's (which have been professionally printed and pressed)openly on sale - at a premium of course.

Along comes peer-to-peer networking and the stuff is freely available... I went through a period in 2003/2004 when I was downloading stuff every night, ended up with literally hundreds of different shows, but to be honest, there were very few which made it onto any regular playlist of mine. i reached the point where I asked myself whether I REALLY needed that 14th Tom Waits show, or 10th Jellyfish show.

The stuff I have tended to keep is not the live stuff - Wilco's demo sessions for "Yankee Hotel Foxtot", the Troy Tate Smiths sessions, the full unreleased double album of Genesis - Live, and so on.

...but thats enough about me. I have always enjoyed finding relevant bootlegs at CD and record fairs, especially if they represent a show I was at. Favourites include Dylan at Blackbushe, Costello at Glastonbury (90s) and Neil Young with the MGs in Finsbury Park. The sound quality is dire, but they take me back.

Bootlegs are just easier to get hold of; their value hasn't changed.

They still let you hear stuff the record company, and sometimes the band, didn't want to, or couldn't, release. Therein lies their true value.

They're not just about their rarity-derived cash value or the elitist cachet of obscurity ownership alone, surely?

you're right it was a joyful thing to stumble across some long sought for live show or studio out-take. For years I treasured a lo-fi recording of George Harrison's acoustic demo for 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps'. It was a precious thing that only my closest friends - or cool people that I wanted to become my closest friends - were allowed to hear. Then it came out on 'Anthology' and that was that - everyone had it.

It used to be that if you went to any gig in Dublin on a Friday night, you could walk down to the O'Connell Street Bridge on Saturday morning and pick a tape of the whole thing, with photocopied cover and track list.

I saw Dylan for the first time at Slane in 1984 and promptly bought the show on poorly recorded cassette - worth it to hear Bono's horrendous attempt at 'Blowing In The Wind'. It was 24years ago but people who were there still talk about it! Anyway, it set me on the trail of more recordings, and eventually I was given the name of a guy who knew a guy who could sell me what I was looking for. I set off with a friend and arrived at this three storey house, the entire top floor of which was filled with Dylan bootleg vinyl. Many copies of each record. Floor to ceiling. We stayed for 2 or 3 hours just looking through them. In the end I bought the Newport electric set as being the most iconic.

The point is I never went back. It was all too much and too easy. Better to have all the fun of the record fair.

the less I give a hoot about bootlegs, unreleased versions of songs, rarities, bonus discs and all that crap I used to hold so dear.

Most albums should be shortened, not extended...

A+ usually means a very substandard recording. I resigned from them after one too many crap recordings.
They're also very keen on telling you equipment used and bitrate bollocks - shite sound is shite sound, don't surround it with 'checksums' gubbins, just own up FFS!

is the exception to the rule, otherwise I wouldn't own:
The Clash Live at Bonds NYC - dare I say "seminal and live"?
The recently released 'Live at Shea Stadium' (named after the resistance fighter Shea Stadium) isn't even close to The Clash at their might.
Just check both versions of Clampdown, that'll explain my ravings.

I also remember the buzz of picking up an bootleg at a record fair when I was back in the UK - didn't go to that many so they were "unique". A particular favourite has also been the Prince "Small Club" bootleg - one of his aftershows (which I still play to this day)....

When I moved out to Singapore about 15 years ago, I found that the local record stores all stocked bootlegs - they were all from Italian companies (KTS ?) where apparently it was legal, and Singapore being okay with parallel imports etc etc they were freely available. This kind of still took away the uniqueness of the bootlegs but I still managed to acquire a fair few. Over the years, the local record stores disappeared to be replaced by HMV and a couple of other larger chains and so the supply dried up of physical bootleg CDs.

Now we have the download sites where you can get all sorts and stuff is much more available and free, yet I now only pick up the occasional boot - mainly outtakes , session stuff etc etc rather than concert bootlegs.

A good example of desire for what you can't get / is difficult to get......

Steve Earle at McCabes Guitar Shop
Frankie Miller at Rockpallast
Jayhawks at Austin City Limits
Steve Forbert live in Tampa

these videos are commercially unavailable.....I'm forever in debt to the good people who take the time to record these shows and then share them for free!

I've no interest in 250 Springsteen concerts but if anybody recorded Michael Marra at Falkirk Town Hall last year I'll swap for aforementioned Springsteens.

to pick up recordings these days but if you want some nice artwork and professional looking package then it still needs to be unearthed. A personal favourite is the Dylan 'Genuine Live 66' box set covering the Sydney\ Melbourne\ adelaide\ Dublin\ Copenhagen\ Glasgow\Liverpool\Sheffield\Birmigham amd London gigs. Cds housed in replica album sleeves and those kept in cardboard gatefold packs. the whole thing encased in a white box with postcards, photo book and a poster.

The Liverpool electric set is simply stunning and the Sheffield take on Mr tambourine Man - just beautiful.

...seem to have realised that, with the rise of TTD/Dime as well as the specialist private trackers, many people don't care about 'the artefact' any more and, consequently, they've taken to producing items aimed at the collectors market.

A couple of years back, I saw a gorgeous leather-bound A4 box-file sized package containing a complete set of the Zeppelin 1980 tour shows. Given that the music on it was freely available, they were presumably aiming at either the computer illiterate, or the die-hard 'artifact' collector.

Last year I saw Ryan Adams at Hammersmith. It seemed a good gig but was ruined by the knobheads around me. At least I've been able to download a good quality boot and discover that it was indeed a fine performance which I've since listened to many times.
Not long before I'd been to see the Cowboy Junkies doing the Trinity Session at the Albert Hall. Good gig, not ruined by anyone around me, but it's nice to have an extra souvenir of the night (with Ryan Adams and Theas Gilmore guesting) even though I have the Trinity Session Revisited CD & DVD as well.
On a different tack I've got a boot of Steve Earle and the Del McCoury Band live in Malmo and it's one of my favourite Steve Earle CD's. Great sound, great atmosphere, stunning performance. I don't know why it hasn't been officially released.
It's a strange state of affairs that many bands release official live albums that are inferior to some bootlegs. Prime example being Little Feat. Waiting For Columbus is not a patch on either Electrif Lycanthrope or Rampant Synchopatio.
Prior to bit-torrents arriving I did enjoy the community of CD traders. There was a lot of generosity out there and for every bandit there were twenty people who would post something extra as something you might be interested in.

let us know that Mark Ellen's oft told HORA about Dylan at Live Aid is a load of Ronald Wood balls! The idea that he only knew they were playing Ballad Of Hollis Brown seconds before going onstage (and thought it was a cough medicine) is a dirty lie exposed by the tape of him, Keef, Zimmy rehearsing the song several times in Ronnie's own apartment just before the show.

go here for proof that, if he is wearing them in between 'entertaining' his Eastern European barmaid, that Woody's pants are ablaze!

http://www.bobsboots.com/CDs/cd-v10.html

Also worth it for Keef's views on the whole Live Aid project 'not a sheaf of grain is gonna get there anyway' and the banter between the trio discussing Dire Straits and Mick Taylor

l used to be a bootleger and have also collected loads of them over the years. The Dylan genuine live 1966 is one of the best packages but other favorites include :
Echo and the Bunnymen - Out on Strike (cover versions)
U2 - Birmingham 1987 (As l taped it and got a fantastic sounding copy)
Primal Scream - Rocksucker Blues (Glasgow 1994)
Bruce Springsteen - Alone in Colts Neck (Nebraska demos)
The Clash - Busking in Gateshead.
The Housemartins - Newcastle Mayfair 1986
l could go on (and on), but I'll spare you.It's not always about great sound, sometimes it's the atmosphere that has been captured. Bootlegs are still great, even though the choice can now be overwhelming. I would still rather have too much choice than too little.

Thus spake The Boss on the Winterland 1978 bootleg. For my money, that bootleg is Springsteen's finest moment and leaves all his overly-fussed studio albums in the dust. When he got around to finally releasing his own live box set, even that was comprised of the duller and more workmanlike performances -- chosen because they sounded closest to the studio versions. Springsteen has always been a notoriously bad judge of his own released output and nothing leaves the studio until it's been properly euthanised. And yes, that especially includes Born to Run. Nebraska, on the other hand, is the exception that proves the rule.