Lovesexy live, Dortmund on 2CD,
The Black Album on boot vinyl ,
Small Club on 2CD

reason:

I was hunting everything about him, CDs, LPs, Singles, Maxisingles, VHS tapes, paper articles, magazines... I was a serious 100% Prince-fan back then (in 1988/ 89), totally obsessed...

Now I am a little "reserved" - a little sceptic - so many weak songs from him during the years:

I am maybe at 80% now..

[Edited 10/20/14 3:39am]

on vinyl I started in April 1989, with
Charade

Camille's Crystal Ball

Live Vienna at U4

in the upcoming months I got Chocolate Box and some more live albums (Sex Machine...)

then of course there was Small Club and the Black Album




then the vinyl era somehow ended and I got mainly CDs like Crucial, Yellow, Platinum, Paris Affair, The Jam, Mind Bliss, Rude Boy, Welcome 2 The Beautiful Experience etc. etc.

haven't really started the MP3 era yet

[Edited 10/20/14 3:56am]

Charade, Fall 1991, because I was a Prince fan and I already had all the official albums.

Prince - Stagetronic - Rotterdam Holland 1992 was my first bootleg, I bought it around 1993-94

Charade on tape and sex machine on vinyl.

Can i ask anybody been ripped off with any boot? I once got another charade tape and it was just some random shit of the radio

[Edited 10/20/14 5:50am]

After lots of tapes, my first bootleg on CD was Posessed.

I think it was these two within a week or two of each other - Big Tall Wall (awful quality from what I remember) collection of out takes, and 'The Black Album & More' - which was pretty good quality and had a batch of top notch out takes along with the album. A very good set that did me well till 1994.

.

Soon after I bought the Chocolate Box 3LP set, the New Power radio show thing from 1990 on LP, a bunch of live stuff, I remember a round tin called ____ quake. I forget if it was just Housequake, but it was something-quake and I think the tin was a very dark green colour. I just begged, stole and borrowed as much as I could and found every record fair I could get to every week end travelling by bus, coach, train and then eventually trading live tapes etc. I was literally hooked from the first time I saw a bootleg on a CD rack!

In 1986 I knew the guy at the local wrekka store, as I'd order back copies of The Time, Vanity and pre-Pruple Rain Prince albums & he was interested. These albums weren't stocked in small town UK at the time. Anyway, this guy gave me a cassette of 'Charade', the alternative version of Parade. Tracks like 'Others Here With Us', 'Old Friends...' & 'My Dreams' were on there.

I never knew this stuff ever got out of the studio, so was wowed by it. Especially as there were quite personal songs on there. I even like the tape hiss and not being able to hear it in perfect quality. I still like the hiss on my original version of Expert Lover (aka Crystal Ball).

There was a network of people who used to trade bootlegs. You'd send photocopied lists of what you had and copy cassettes and post them. It was a nice way to trade as no money was exchanged, but you had to get some rarities to trade with. The internet's better, but it was fun.

BTW I got a copy of the Black Album because it was reviewed in the press. On cancellation, my brother wrote to a journalist who had written a review, with a blank tape and SAE. He copied it and sent it to us, I never thought that would work.

[Edited 10/20/14 6:01am]

1988 or 1989 was given The Black Album on cassette from my cousin who taped it from the album that somebody she knew had gotten somehow. It was terrible quality sound, but we still jammed to it all the time back then. I had to get it because of the mystery surrounding it.

In 1989/90... I was around 13... Had been a Prince fan since I took notice of him via my mom and sister being big Purple Rain fans. It rubbed off on me... Got a bootleg trading list from Linda Everett (likely connection from Controversy fanzine or Rolling Stone magazine ads)... 1st bootleg was a cassette of SOTT outtakes from her. 1st vinyl was Club U4 Vienna (from Wynnco enterprises mail order).

I started buying bootlegs in 1990 on record fairs. I spent a LOT of money for bootlegs in the 90ies. But I don't remember my first one. I was more in interested in outtake collections than live bootlegs, except for soundboard recordings. One of my first bootlegs was that fake black album bootleg, which was recorded by another band and had that "I own the black album" sticker.

September/October 1988

I was at the flea market. Some guy was selling bootleg live recordings on cassettes, mostly rock and roll stuff

90min tdk tapes, no tracklistings, Just a name and date on generic covers

Obviously he had nothing of interest. I was like you got any Prince ?

He was like "yeah i got The Black Album, its some unreleased shit"
He pulls it out the box, pops it in the player and pushes play. I hear Cindy C play.
In my head i was Its real!

I was only 15 years old, but i knew exactly what the black album was and how it wasnt release

I was hesitant to pay 7 dollars for a cheap $1.50 TDK cassette tape

I got home played side 1 the black album
I flip the tape over and it was the first 45 minutes of the "Small Club 88" in ex quality

It was like having the coolest thing ever

[Edited 10/20/14 7:00am]

The Black Album

(The Hype)

In 1987, my best friend's dad was a cop and must have had some kind of connection becuase my friend always seemed to have all this unreleased Prince stuff. One day in early 1988 he laid a copy of The Black Album on cassette on me. Needless to say, I was quite pleased!

ludwig said:

I started buying bootlegs in 1990 on record fairs. I spent a LOT of money for bootlegs in the 90ies. But I don't remember my first one. I was more in interested in outtake collections than live bootlegs, except for soundboard recordings. One of my first bootlegs was that fake black album bootleg, which was recorded by another band and had that "I own the black album" sticker.

haha I remember in Musikexpress/Sounds there was this ad "Da wird der Frosch zum Prinz - Endlich im Handel, das legendäre Black Album" or something like that... the add didn't say anything about being from a cover band.. a cousin of mine called them and they still didn't say anything about a cover album... it was still pretty obvious to be fake, so we did not order it in the end (at that time before teh original BA bootlegs became available we had the recording of the radio show on WDR from Ruth Rockenschaub anyway)

[Edited 10/20/14 7:03am]

Live: Small Club or Lovesexy 88' Detroit Halloween shows. Can't remember which one was first.

Outtakes: More Intimate Moments with Prince

My vinyl contact at my flea market would put official Prince vinyl stuff aside for me as he knew I was collecting Prince official stuff I did not have in my official collection. One weekend I went and he showed me some official stuff he held for me, I picked what I wanted at that time. Then he showed me this bootleg "The White Album" cd and told me that it was a bootleg and if I wanted it I said sure! and all I had to pay was $5.00.

I went to a record store in Springfield, Illinois to buy Batman in 1989 and got to chatting with one of the guys working there about Prince. I mentioned that I had every album except The Black Album and he told me he knew someone who had it - and that he could get a dub for me. I went back in a week and he handed me a cassette. The sound quality was ass - but I was over the moon, anyway.

I didn't buy my first bootleg.

In 1987 I got a cassette tape from a friend of a friend that supposedly worked with Prince. The tape was two full sides of Purple Rain rehersals.

[Edited 10/20/14 7:44am]

My first bootleg was the Black Album in 1988. A guy at a local record store made me a cassette copy for $20.

Live: Small Club

It was my first time visit in Utrecht to a recordstore. They had all kind of goodies. I found a 12" that I hadn't seen before, not in my small hometown anyway. The big guy behind the counter said something like.."you like Prince huh?" And he showed me that bootleg. "You won't be sorry if you buy it!"

So I did...and I wasn't sorry.

I was hooked.

I found Crucial and the White Album at a great little store called Penny Lane on Queen St here in Toronto. I'm guessing it was early 92, but I'm a bit foggy on that.

The Black Album.

I'd never heard of "boots" until the Fall of 1987.

It was on after that.