I remember 20 years ago, many shows were available on CD bootlegs but hundreds of others were only traded/sold on tape between hardcore fans. To be honest most had a terrible sound quality and didn't deserve the CD treatment but nonetheless that allowed some very interested shows to be available: some aftershows and some main shows that had significant differences on setlists or specific events such as that one 88 show when P stopped the concert for journalists to take pics. That also allowed us to have the shows we had attended. For example I had the one 1992 Paris show and the 2 1993 Paris shows I'd attended, and the quality wasn't even that bad, but now I can't listen to these anymore...

Now, from these days, we only have the ones released on CD available. That's already hundreds, for sure, and I don't even downloaded/ripped most of the audience recordings because I like soundboard, but still, I just realized that all these tape-only shows are now lost forever, because they only exist on cassettes and no one tardes cassettes (or even have a cassette player anymore).

Thoughts?

That's kind of true. I miss the old tape trading days, but now have every single Sign O The Times Tour concert burned to 2 archival DVDs. You win some, you lose some.

PopcornFetus said:

That's kind of true. I miss the old tape trading days, but now have every single Sign O The Times Tour concert burned to 2 archival DVDs. You win some, you lose some.

I had no idea such boots existed! So it means all these old tapes ARE available??? Was the DVD treatment done for every tour or just SOTT? What are the titles of these boots? (not asking where to find, just getting info on what exists).

Thanks.

databank said:

PopcornFetus said:

That's kind of true. I miss the old tape trading days, but now have every single Sign O The Times Tour concert burned to 2 archival DVDs. You win some, you lose some.

I had no idea such boots existed! So it means all these old tapes ARE available??? Was the DVD treatment done for every tour or just SOTT? What are the titles of these boots? (not asking where to find, just getting info on what exists).

Thanks.

I burned all the seperate shows ontp DVDs. I guess you could say they all got the DVD treatment because I did the same with every tour. There's a different boot title for every show (some were always just the date because they never got pressed by a company), but I have them all organized by date. I think SOTT is the only tour of which every single show was taped and circulating.

The soundchecks were probably the most interesting aswell as the concert stuff, earphones plugged into a walkman and listening to the band talk and joke around was great.

Dimitri10 said:

The soundchecks were probably the most interesting aswell as the concert stuff, earphones plugged into a walkman and listening to the band talk and joke around was great.

I did something like that as recent as 2011.

PopcornFetus said:

databank said:

I had no idea such boots existed! So it means all these old tapes ARE available??? Was the DVD treatment done for every tour or just SOTT? What are the titles of these boots? (not asking where to find, just getting info on what exists).

Thanks.

I burned all the seperate shows ontp DVDs. I guess you could say they all got the DVD treatment because I did the same with every tour. There's a different boot title for every show (some were always just the date because they never got pressed by a company), but I have them all organized by date. I think SOTT is the only tour of which every single show was taped and circulating.

You mean you yourself ripped hundreds of cassettes to digital??? Dude you're the master archivist! No one has done it so far and AFAIK all these cassettes are lost forever! U've got to share the shit with the whole world!!!

databank said:

I remember 20 years ago, many shows were available on CD bootlegs but hundreds of others were only traded/sold on tape between hardcore fans. To be honest most had a terrible sound quality and didn't deserve the CD treatment but nonetheless that allowed some very interested shows to be available: some aftershows and some main shows that had significant differences on setlists or specific events such as that one 88 show when P stopped the concert for journalists to take pics. That also allowed us to have the shows we had attended. For example I had the one 1992 Paris show and the 2 1993 Paris shows I'd attended, and the quality wasn't even that bad, but now I can't listen to these anymore...

Now, from these days, we only have the ones released on CD available. That's already hundreds, for sure, and I don't even downloaded/ripped most of the audience recordings because I like soundboard, but still, I just realized that all these tape-only shows are now lost forever, because they only exist on cassettes and no one tardes cassettes (or even have a cassette player anymore).

Thoughts?

I remember when bootlegs were just on vinyl or cassette. The vinyl was expensive, and tape trades would take forever via snail mail (or maybe it just seemed like forever). Thanks for making me feel old.

And trading videos? That was even harder, who had 2 VCRs to copy stuff? And if you did, it lost quality every time!

I wouldn't trade the current state of trading for anything. People are releasing this stuff with artwork for free, and finding it is still kinda hard, but nothing compared to writing people letters that you found in the back of Goldmine magazine.

Sure! I still have a huge box of cassettes.

I remember going to record conventions, and asking the usual suspects where the "good stuff" was.

SuperSoulFighter said:

Oh yeah, those were the good old days! After you have all the albums, all of a sudden you realize there's more. Unreleased songs?! I wanna hear those! Live recordings?!?! Yeah, those too! For most of the 90s, it was the bootleg trade that kept me interested rather than his albums. Especially Come and Gold Experience were out on bootleg way before the official release. It was fun to track them down, but it also made the albums quite uninteresting when they finally arrived.

That is so true. At that time there really was a lot of boots out with the songs that finally made the album - lots of (intentional?) leaks

This post will make me go home and listen to the - imho - greatest boot of all, the "Small Club - Second Show that night" ...

databank said:

PopcornFetus said:

I burned all the seperate shows ontp DVDs. I guess you could say they all got the DVD treatment because I did the same with every tour. There's a different boot title for every show (some were always just the date because they never got pressed by a company), but I have them all organized by date. I think SOTT is the only tour of which every single show was taped and circulating.

You mean you yourself ripped hundreds of cassettes to digital??? Dude you're the master archivist! No one has done it so far and AFAIK all these cassettes are lost forever! U've got to share the shit with the whole world!!!

Maybe not hundreds, but very very many. Is it true that no one else has done it? That's insane to me. I was just doing it for my own collection.

I'm working with someone right now to get some crates of Maxell tapes from a big Prince trader in the 80s/90s.

I fondly remember. Rudedog was my big source. lol

Mr. P's gear was my source.

OMG, best thread of the year..feeling all warm & fuzzy!!. Shit the first ones i got were the Black album & a Paris [86?] aftershow...then all hell broke lose..all lovesexy gigs, most SOTT gigs, out takes galore from someone in Holland [list sent via fax!]. Ha, remember having to fast forward rather press skip through tracks..torture!!! Camden market was always the best for tapes & videos too..normally tapes on the market 1 or 2 days after a london gig!!