Bought a copy of The Black Album from a record fair in 1989. Thought it was an official copy until I got it home and saw the label! But I wasn't disappointed. Went on to buy a few other bootlegs from record fairs or Plastic Factory in Birmingham, UK, including By Invitation Only, Charade, Crucial, Gotta Stop Messin' About / Horny Toad, and Red Box.

Happy days!

It started with The Black Album in the summer of 88. That same day, I also bought "The Regent of First Avenue" (1987 1st Ave show), both on wax...

Being a 70's child growing up in the 80's I was of course very aware of Prince and enjoyed his music (and after the fact realised that a lot of tracks he gave to other artists were favourites of mine at the time) but I wasn't really into buying music until my mid teens.

A friend later introduced me to some of his albums when as an older teen I was paying more attention to music. Shortly after I met a girl who was a huge Prince fan and we started to date. I was exposed to the Prince world and realised how prolific he was. She had a vinyl copy of The Black Album that she taped for me which is when I discovered the world of bootlegs.

I have quite an analytical mind and when I find a subject of interest I like to research the hell out of it. I learned about Prince, his career and his vault. I was hooked, and I had a keen interest in collecting circulating studio outtakes especially. I began making weekly trips to Camden Market and usually coming back with a boot on CD. I then started to explore record fairs which were great because I could expand my collection of official material (especially 12" vinyl and picture discs) and bootlegs at the same time.

In later years of course, the internet took over as a source and quite frankly I just could not keep paying those prices forboots. Although I would not pay for boots now I've got to say nothing beats browsing through a music collection at a market stall or an independent record store...

suomynona said:

I was a freshman in college in 1992 & visited Revolver Records, at 45 West 8th Street in NYC. I had my mind set on The Black Album & was blown away when I found both that & He's Got The Look, but they were LPs & this was the CD era. I bought them anyway. Had I been less of an excited imbecile, I might have turned around & saw that there was a substantial collection of CDs available right behind me. Eventually, I'd go back with my issue of Uptown, or a list of things I'd wanted from the Internet & spend a small fortune.

That store was quite popular for several years, until they finally closed . I'd also hit Golden Disc Records & Generation Records, which were all within a few blocks.

mynameisnotsusan said:

Second hand stores in NZ - my first boot was Wonderboy :

2freaky4church1 said:

madison said:

1988, I had read about The Black Album in Rolling Stone magazine, and then heard it was a bootleg... then in the dorm a student that was a DJ came in with a cassette and said we could borrow it to listen but had to return it to him. (He also brought in the vinyl of "Lovesexy" one week before it's release. I remember we put that on, and he was so disappointed by the sound of "Eye No"... "Why'd he use that old beat?"

But anyway, I soon tracked down a vinyl record of The Black Album at a indie record shop, then ran into "Chocolate Box"... then "Charade".... all on vinyl.

For me it started in the 80s with a friend who was a few years older and a dj. He was also a huge Prince fan so he had just about everything that at the time was hard to get but would later be pretty ubiquitous to fans. Never asked him where he got his shit, but dude made me mix tapes out the wazoo because he knew I had Prince on my walls. That lead me to record conventions and vhs tapes, which lead me to snail mail trading with phishhook peeps and then the digital thing happened.

DarkKnight1 said:

There was an orger by the name of Harlepolis. She gave me her copy of the "Dream Factory" album and the Can't Stop This Feeling/We Can Funk songs sparked my hunger to look for the rest. Unfortunately, I lost both, the CD and lost her contact

When I came back to Princeland after an absence of years, I tried to get my hands on everything I could to satisfy my re-discovered Prince addiction.

purplethunder3121 said:

When I came back to Princeland after an absence of years, I tried to get my hands on everything I could to satisfy my re-discovered Prince addiction.

About 20 years ago I came across bootleg cds of live performances by Madonna, MJ, Whitney and Prince 1987-1990 time period produced by Joker Productions in a second hand music shop called CD Revolutions (which has since closed in 2004). I also sometimes find live cds at the Annual Lifeline Bookfairs and at some local fetes. Finally the amazing peeps here have led me to a treasure trobe of Prince music online that I listen to everyday so its Prince day everyday for me

[Edited 7/10/16 22:33pm]

LittlePurpleYoda said:

After hearing (parts of) the 'Paard van Troje' gig on the radio...

Guitarhero said:

Preston market in the UK 1987. Prince Charade album on cassette tape, remember cassettes Now i have boxes of boots on CD , i don't even know what i have anymore i can't keep up and i have even bought boots i forgot i already had

Wow exact same story for me too.....I'm a Preston boy and this was our only outlet. I bought "Yellow" from there, fell in love with "I Wonder" and the rest is history!

Harps said:

Guitarhero said:

Preston market in the UK 1987. Prince Charade album on cassette tape, remember cassettes Now i have boxes of boots on CD , i don't even know what i have anymore i can't keep up and i have even bought boots i forgot i already had

Wow exact same story for me too.....I'm a Preston boy and this was our only outlet. I bought "Yellow" from there, fell in love with "I Wonder" and the rest is history!

I was asking myself this question the other day! Probably on here or in NPGMC in the early-mid 2000s I befriended someone and got some copies of boots that I heard people raving about. I somehow determined I was not a real "hardcore" Prince fan since I did not have these "bootlegs". The quality was terrible and I'm pissed that I wasted my money. I haven't even listened to half of them because Prince has enough "official" to keep up with. I also have some magazines, "Uptown", that I have no idea how I got them. I stopped trying to get bootlegs after my experiences here and on NPGMC. It was just simply too much to keep up with. I do hate that I never got a copy or a copy of a copy of the Black Album. The whole bootlegger thing is a little above my head so I will just stick to what I know. I'm more interested in stuff from the 80's/90's that he did release that I did not get copies of -or the record broke and I never replaced it.

I figure now that he's gone we (fans) will eventually connect with the right people as our numbers are few, and I will hear or get whatever I'm meant to hear.

wonderboy said:

I'm curious how others got started. What were your thoughts when you heard your first recordings? Who helped you get started? My story: About 15-17 years ago, I came across a website that was run by a Canadian girl who went by seductivegirl747 I think or something similar. She had ripped some of the original City Lights discs and had MP3s of them posted. I recall hearing the Dirty Mind tour sets thinking oh my gosh! Prince must be releasing these to special people (boy was I way off). Little did I know that this little sampling would renue my Prince passion and get my back involved with everything Prince in a big way. Joined all the clubs, bought all the official materials and filled in the gaps with great boots. What a journey. My horizons where expanded thanks to some great fans out there.

I was 14 (1991), moved to a new city (France), saw boots by many acts including P in a wrecka stow, was intrigued, didn't know that boots even existed, asked the clerk what is this, he says these are imports, I says huh, how come I never knew those albums existed, guys repeats these are imports, after a few more questions and the guy repeating these are imports I realised I wouldn't get any proper explaination from him. Few days later thanks God I see a TV program about boots and I'm like oh OK now I understand. Soon after I bought Charade. The sound quality was quite awful but hell, was I happy to hear those tracks just the same. Then I bought Crucial, Lisa Your Love Is So Hard, Shockadelica (mostly b-sides) and finally my first live, a soundboard SOTT Tour. 4 years or so later I had maybe 30 or 40 P boots on CD + more cassette copies by fellow fans. Then boots disappeared from the market and then came the interwho.

databank said:

wonderboy said:

I'm curious how others got started. What were your thoughts when you heard your first recordings? Who helped you get started? My story: About 15-17 years ago, I came across a website that was run by a Canadian girl who went by seductivegirl747 I think or something similar. She had ripped some of the original City Lights discs and had MP3s of them posted. I recall hearing the Dirty Mind tour sets thinking oh my gosh! Prince must be releasing these to special people (boy was I way off). Little did I know that this little sampling would renue my Prince passion and get my back involved with everything Prince in a big way. Joined all the clubs, bought all the official materials and filled in the gaps with great boots. What a journey. My horizons where expanded thanks to some great fans out there.

I was 14 (1991), moved to a new city (France), saw boots by many acts including P in a wrecka stow, was intrigued, didn't know that boots even existed, asked the clerk what is this, he says these are imports, I says huh, how come I never knew those albums existed, guys repeats these are imports, after a few more questions and the guy repeating these are imports I realised I wouldn't get any proper explaination from him. Few days later thanks God I see a TV program about boots and I'm like oh OK now I understand. Soon after I bought Charade. The sound quality was quite awful but hell, was I happy to hear those tracks just the same. Then I bought Crucial, Lisa Your Love Is So Hard, Shockadelica (mostly b-sides) and finally my first live, a soundboard SOTT Tour. 4 years or so later I had maybe 30 or 40 P boots on CD + more cassette copies by fellow fans. Then boots disappeared from the market and then came the interwho.

I remember that secrecy, and the "imports" party-line they had to give. It was like buying drugs or something, so hush-hush, and you're not a cop are you?

I worked at a wrecka stow in 94ish. We sold lots of bootlegs and I was of course instructed to only refer to them as "live imports". It was hilarious dealing with it from that side of the counter, too!!

got a really crappy copy of the black album from someone at work in the late 80s

then got some albums - dream factory & high from an orger whose details i've now lost..

got a copy of the boot of the ONA Apollo gig that I went to in 2002..

and that was it.. until i found a new source and am now madly downloading boots like no tomorrow..

djThunderfunk said:

databank said:

I was 14 (1991), moved to a new city (France), saw boots by many acts including P in a wrecka stow, was intrigued, didn't know that boots even existed, asked the clerk what is this, he says these are imports, I says huh, how come I never knew those albums existed, guys repeats these are imports, after a few more questions and the guy repeating these are imports I realised I wouldn't get any proper explaination from him. Few days later thanks God I see a TV program about boots and I'm like oh OK now I understand. Soon after I bought Charade. The sound quality was quite awful but hell, was I happy to hear those tracks just the same. Then I bought Crucial, Lisa Your Love Is So Hard, Shockadelica (mostly b-sides) and finally my first live, a soundboard SOTT Tour. 4 years or so later I had maybe 30 or 40 P boots on CD + more cassette copies by fellow fans. Then boots disappeared from the market and then came the interwho.

I remember that secrecy, and the "imports" party-line they had to give. It was like buying drugs or something, so hush-hush, and you're not a cop are you?

I worked at a wrecka stow in 94ish. We sold lots of bootlegs and I was of course instructed to only refer to them as "live imports". It was hilarious dealing with it from that side of the counter, too!!

Did u ever face someone like me who didn't know about boots and was like WTF I'd know it if those records existed even as imports?

databank said:

djThunderfunk said:

I remember that secrecy, and the "imports" party-line they had to give. It was like buying drugs or something, so hush-hush, and you're not a cop are you?

I worked at a wrecka stow in 94ish. We sold lots of bootlegs and I was of course instructed to only refer to them as "live imports". It was hilarious dealing with it from that side of the counter, too!!

Did u ever face someone like me who didn't know about boots and was like WTF I'd know it if those records existed even as imports?

Sometimes, but almost everyone that was interested in them was hip. By far, we sold more Seattle bands then any others, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, etc.. (it was 94). For the few that were not hip explaining how "live import" translated to $32 a cd or $55 for a double, wasn't easy. That's why you get that "live import" mantra from the clerks. They're afraid to say the wrong thing and get in trouble...

jaypotton said:

1988 Camden Market in London UK a cassette tape of The Black Album and another with a red cover (can't remember name, it is in loft) that had songs like Ratrace and Expert Lover on the list (In A Large Room With No Light and Crystal Ball respectively). Soon after I got a vinyl Wonderboy (live SOTT show) and a vinyl Black Album and so it went on. Once internet arrived I got songs from there (a huge download from Napster gave me around 600 tracks) but I still visited Camden Market to get DVDs on live shows and compilations of TV appearances.

If you were a Londoner - Scumden was the place to go...

Charade LP/Black cassette/Sex Machine (Pink with white Polka Dots!)/Small Club Trojan triple

There was also a cracking indie shop just off Totty Court rd (behing Virgin - where Hakkasan is now)...they did some unashamed killer boots in the early/mid 80s of all artists - and the Prince selection both legit and otherwise was top-shelf.

Thems the days...until "In Funk We Trust" came along with their trading forum!