Was cleaning the garage and found a box of collectibles that I had mostly forgotten. Although my first two bootleg purchases were CDs, Night Clubbing and NYC Blues, I eventually began to collect more concert video than audio. It probably had to do with me growing up in a blues town where I was raised on seeing great live performers as well as trying to recapture my first live Prince show because I was so young the first time I saw him. Anyway, ranking my love of collecting boots, I would say:

1. Live Video Concert Footage
2. Live Audio Concert Footage
3. Never Released or Rarely Seen Promo Vids
4. Audio of Band Rehearsals
5. Audio of Studio Recordings

My heavy collecting years were from 1988 - 1997. There was a magazine, (which will remain nameless but I’m sure most of you know it), that specialized in bootleg material, such as ranking the quality of the merchandise as well as the sellers, but another big help was a lady who was affiliated with a particular fan-based magazine, and she had a Prince Cassette Tape Lending Library where you could "check-out" a cassette of a concert and keep it for a week or two. She encouraged us to dub it ourselves. Surprisingly, the sound quality on most of the tapes was pretty good. When she stopped the service, she took requests for her masters, and I got one of my prized audios at the time, Prince in Boston 1986. I still love the musical quality and energy of that show. Between her catalog and the infamous magazine, I just had to get the videos so that I could see the visuals that accompanied the great music and wild screams. So, is your boot collection more video, more audio, or an equal collection of both?

And who are you?

Video..I like 2...watch.

Dayclear said:

Just a guy who loves Prince music and spent his lunch and summer job money on books and Prince stuff.

Audio all the way,,,I don't have any video boot from the man.

furiously taking notes

I prefer audio. I listen to it over and over and over again.

The days where I watched Prince videos over and over again are long gone. I just want the sound now.

Audio. Tons of Prince live songs are on my iPod and get me through my workouts dutifully. The videos are fun to watch sometimes, though I often have issues with the quality of the work, so audio is overall more satisfying.

a prince lending library?


how exactly did that work!?

i don't collect either one anymore, but like the audio better cuz it's more pure....the music is why I like prince

Nvncible1 said:

Surprisingly, it worked rather well and just like a regular library. It's been so long that I am trying to remember the exact process. She had a list or catalog, you would snail mail a request, and when the desired tape became available, she would send it. You could not receive another tape until you resent the one that you had. That was basically it. I can’t remember if we had to send a blank tape initially or some money for postage, but the whole process worked well for a few years with very little out of pocket money to anyone. I was going to provide some information about the fanzine and the lady who coordinated the library, but I don’t want to tell too much. I hope that answers the question.

Efan said:

When I was still doing aerobics, I could listen to and needed to listen to music, but now that I am just jogging and doing light floor stuff (sit-ups, push-ups, and leg lifts), I find it annoying to listen to music when I jog on the treadmill. Okay, I hate jogging so much that the whole time I am jogging I just keep saying, "Help me, help me pleeeeaaaaseee Lawd; make this damn treadmill get to one mile faster!!!" Also, my lack of rhythm makes it difficult to concentrate when I'm jogging so music is not an option for me when I exercise, but I'm sure it makes the time more bearable if not fun.

You are right about the difficulty of finding quality video, but I just love the visual of a live show. However, when I drive, I listen to lots of live stuff when I'm not sill listening to Lotusflow34r.

Harlepolis said:

Whatever I can get my hands on basically. Nothing inparticular. Like the loads of I have now, I wasn't looking for them. They just sort of came.

Rinluv said:

But I have all audio.
[Edited 6/21/09 15:37pm]

Rinluv said:

Both...audio cool for running and running around....but I love to look at my baby.......yummmmy!!!!

I'll be honest, I've never really been that into live show recordings. For a while (pre-internet days). I did a lot of tape trading and collected tons of live CDs, I was on course for having everything that was widely circulating at one point, but I never really listened to them beyond the most well known/best quality shows. Same goes for video. I realised what's the point if I never listened to them?

I do quite like rehersal video/audio - I prefer those to live show recordings actually.

I just found out about where to acquire some of these items,so my collection is currently mostly audio.

The internet took a lot of the fun and mystique out of collecting boots.

I used to love getting live shows, but now i can download 50 concerts a once, and it will take months to listen to them all. Now I dont collect boots at all.

Its true about the internet taking away the mystique and thrill of finding a new bootleg but it has its plus sides too

I have been a keen collector of unreleased and live material since 1987 , Ive never sold anything , its my own personal collection

I have a nice collection of Video, but audio outweighs it drastically.

kok said:

man I did not read this well before I answered I thought it was just a question about perference for video or audio ..lesson learned. ..man..sometimes jumping right in is not a good thing
[Edited 6/23/09 8:53am]

2. Live Audio Concert Footage

4. Audio of Band Rehearsals
5. Audio of Studio Recordings

These are what I love the most and have I prefer the 1976(demos)-1988 music

There are songs that were released on Graffiti Bridge or songs like Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic there were performed live during the Lovesexy era or band that I make sure I get too

..ok..ok..i have 63 bootleg cd's..half are videos and the other are music..i'm so ashamed..cuz i could have way-WAY more than what i do..snapp the fingers-bust out the green bills-and i'm on my way 2 prince boot-leg city!!..BUT i gave all the boot-leg business-deal-thing up!!..
..i promise..I GAVE IT ALL UP!!..
..mzsexybaby'ICH BIN EIN BERLINER'