MIne was the record fair in newcastle upon tyne and durham city

ahh mountains of tapes and LO! a PRINCE section...full of tapes with strange photocopied covers and names! oh the names!

box o chocolates!

live at 1st avenue

parade live!

WHAT!!

ahhh happy memories rocking my new boots in my then state of the art walkman with a three tier graphic equaliser!!!

then much much kudos to the "CONTROVERSY TAPE LENDING CLUB!!!!!"

Also we take it for granted now but do you remember the confusion that there are songs NOT released.

And the term"bootleg"

perhaps its a sign of ever advancing age but it was much more fun in those days to scour through a massie record fair as opposed to just now clicking on a link and voila!

even met unique at a record fair!

The record fairs used to be great and, not just for Prince tapes or vinyl. It was the fairs that I first obatined the Black Album and many other live tapes and vinyl. Then came the cd's which I remember cost a total mint at the time, then you got them home all excited only to find they sounded like shit. The good sellers would let you hear a tape or cd on headphones before you bought them.

Those days were great, but it's still exciting now to hear of a new unofficial release and anticipating the day it appears on whatever site for you to download.

I don't miss the old tapes and vinyl much if i'm honest. Look at the improvements in sound quality we have these days, not to mention the often brilliant artwork. Releases which (at least some of) put some of Prince's official releases to shame.

TheDigitalGardener said:

The record fairs used to be great and, not just for Prince tapes or vinyl. It was the fairs that I first obatined the Black Album and many other live tapes and vinyl. Then came the cd's which I remember cost a total mint at the time, then you got them home all excited only to find they sounded like shit. The good sellers would let you hear a tape or cd on headphones before you bought them.

Those days were great, but it's still exciting now to hear of a new unofficial release and anticipating the day it appears on whatever site for you to download.

I don't miss the old tapes and vinyl much if i'm honest. Look at the improvements in sound quality we have these days, not to mention the often brilliant artwork. Releases which (at least some of) put some of Prince's official releases to shame.

sure sure.

i do miss record fairs..

..do they still have them?

jonylawson said:

TheDigitalGardener said:

The record fairs used to be great and, not just for Prince tapes or vinyl. It was the fairs that I first obatined the Black Album and many other live tapes and vinyl. Then came the cd's which I remember cost a total mint at the time, then you got them home all excited only to find they sounded like shit. The good sellers would let you hear a tape or cd on headphones before you bought them.

Those days were great, but it's still exciting now to hear of a new unofficial release and anticipating the day it appears on whatever site for you to download.

I don't miss the old tapes and vinyl much if i'm honest. Look at the improvements in sound quality we have these days, not to mention the often brilliant artwork. Releases which (at least some of) put some of Prince's official releases to shame.

sure sure.

i do miss record fairs..

..do they still have them?

Oh yes. There are loads of smaller fairs all over the UK. The big ones are organized by a crowd called V.I.P, they put on the big two day London, Manchester, Glasgow etc fairs.

Big or small though, they are a shodow of what they used to be. I attenede the big 2 day fair in London 2 years ago and to be honest it was shit.

and do they actually sellbootlegs?

with fancy artwork etc? im amazed there is a market for it

(says me who still buys the odd one!)

jonylawson said:

and do they actually sellbootlegs?

with fancy artwork etc? im amazed there is a market for it

(says me who still buys the odd one!)

I was not looking for bootlegs, as I download everything, but there were some Prince (and others) boots. I noticed some Sabotage cd's and a few bit's of vinyl. I think it's more of an under the counter thing now, as opposed to how it used to be with tables full of bootlegs blatantly on display.

i used to go to every record fair and was either first in, or in later years i got in early as i knew everyone. i haven't been in 10 years now. one of the main bootleggers got jailed for selling pirate copies of the first two travelling wilburies albums on a single cd (they were OOP). he got away with the bootleg stuff but they went mental at the pirate stuff

i remember prince asking me where i got a track from when he called me bootlegger at a tv show and the guy in question was standing behind me. you could tell which one as his pants smelled of manure

aye me too..i once gave Prince a bite of me cheese pasty as i walked around durham record fair.

he asked where i got the Exodus outtake cd from and why more importantly had i bought the piece of shit.

sonny t singing 9 grainy songs with a tagged on my name is bart...............

jonylawson said:

aye me too..i once gave Prince a bite of me cheese pasty as i walked around durham record fair.

he asked where i got the Exodus outtake cd from and why more importantly had i bought the piece of shit.

sonny t singing 9 grainy songs with a tagged on my name is bart...............

was it not at a record fair that i first met you looking at prince bootlegs? and i gave you a nudge and a wink, then had to explain that i wasn't interested in getting assfucked, but had some prince bootlegs?

unique said:

jonylawson said:

aye me too..i once gave Prince a bite of me cheese pasty as i walked around durham record fair.

he asked where i got the Exodus outtake cd from and why more importantly had i bought the piece of shit.

sonny t singing 9 grainy songs with a tagged on my name is bart...............

was it not at a record fair that i first met you looking at prince bootlegs? and i gave you a nudge and a wink, then had to explain that i wasn't interested in getting assfucked, but had some prince bootlegs?

yes i was adamant i had ALL of prince's boots

until you gave me a full copy of the dream factory!! oh my!! i was wrong!

aye good days....i quite miss edinburgh *looks wistful*

jonylawson said:

unique said:

was it not at a record fair that i first met you looking at prince bootlegs? and i gave you a nudge and a wink, then had to explain that i wasn't interested in getting assfucked, but had some prince bootlegs?

yes i was adamant i had ALL of prince's boots

until you gave me a full copy of the dream factory!! oh my!! i was wrong!

aye good days....i quite miss edinburgh *looks wistful*

those NPG timberland boots were amazing

jonylawson said:

unique said:

was it not at a record fair that i first met you looking at prince bootlegs? and i gave you a nudge and a wink, then had to explain that i wasn't interested in getting assfucked, but had some prince bootlegs?

yes i was adamant i had ALL of prince's boots

until you gave me a full copy of the dream factory!! oh my!! i was wrong!

aye good days....i quite miss edinburgh *looks wistful*

Did you live there?

TheDigitalGardener said:

jonylawson said:

yes i was adamant i had ALL of prince's boots

until you gave me a full copy of the dream factory!! oh my!! i was wrong!

aye good days....i quite miss edinburgh *looks wistful*

Did you live there?

he was in edinburgh for a while about 10 years ago

TheDigitalGardener said:

jonylawson said:

yes i was adamant i had ALL of prince's boots

until you gave me a full copy of the dream factory!! oh my!! i was wrong!

aye good days....i quite miss edinburgh *looks wistful*

Did you live there?

aye...i lived there for a few years..im only from down the road

Ah, I remember when I first heard about The Black Album and wondered where I could possibly find such bounty.

Then a college friend recommended the local record fair and so, one saturday morning, off I went.

Found the Black Album, along with a number of other strange records with pictures of Prince I'd never seen before and bizarre song titles on the back.

Never bought one that day, but The Black Album kept me going for some time before I started to hear that those records I looked at were actually real Prince songs, but had remained unreleased.

I think the first one I bought was that three record set called 'Royal Jewels'. Oh wow! The sound quality was shit, but I kind of already guessed it would be. And who cared? To hear these songs for the first time, knowing there was a kind of illicitness about them, was pretty awesome.

There was one guy who sold them all at the record fair I went to and across the way from him was another guy who sold only official rarities.

As much as I appreciated the rarities guy, I wanted to hear new music, even if it was crappy quality. So I always had to politely move away from him when I was browsing his stall and he'd accost me.

Later on in Shrewsbury, there was actually a small record shop that sold bootlegs run by a great guy who'd actually let me borrow videos so I could tell him what they were, what was on them and whether it was worth him selling them.

Some swine must have told tales on him and he was eventually done for it.

And that lovely record fair 'smell' that whenever I get a whiff of it, it takes me right back to those bootleg years.

I bought my best sounding CD copy of The Black Album at Kensington Market in 1993 in London one summer. It was my 4th version, the first being a vinyl in 1988 from a small independent record shop in Houston, Texas.

Was a guy in Dallas that worked at a Sound Warehouse I met while calling around looking for rare B-sides. He went by the name of Chris Cross....Chris are you out there?? Thanks homie.

Second place was Bills Records and Tapes also in Dallas. Where I bought my first copy of the Black Album. And I remember "scoring" with the vinyl Royal Jewels, a 4 album boot! I thought I'd died and gone to heaven!

dannyd5050 said:

Was a guy in Dallas that worked at a Sound Warehouse I met while calling around looking for rare B-sides. He went by the name of Chris Cross....Chris are you out there?? Thanks homie.

Second place was Bills Records and Tapes also in Dallas. Where I bought my first copy of the Black Album. And I remember "scoring" with the vinyl Royal Jewels, a 4 album boot! I thought I'd died and gone to heaven!

is that the backward clothing motherfucker dude?

I'll never tell but then again, I am from Minneapolis

unique said:

dannyd5050 said:

Was a guy in Dallas that worked at a Sound Warehouse I met while calling around looking for rare B-sides. He went by the name of Chris Cross....Chris are you out there?? Thanks homie.

Second place was Bills Records and Tapes also in Dallas. Where I bought my first copy of the Black Album. And I remember "scoring" with the vinyl Royal Jewels, a 4 album boot! I thought I'd died and gone to heaven!

is that the backward clothing motherfucker dude?

Ha ha! No but he could be the motherfucker dude that sang "Ride Like the Wind."

dannyd5050 said:

unique said:

is that the backward clothing motherfucker dude?

Ha ha! No but he could be the motherfucker dude that sang "Ride Like the Wind."

WTF?