“These Boots Were Made For Burning. The Bootlegger’s Obsession” is an interesting article written by Rick McGrath in August 2002 about bootlegging from a bootlegger and collector’s perspective. It is an honest account of his feelings and experiences in a subject that is very close to his heart the recording of live music. There are many reasons why McGrath is passionate about live music recordings. He describes his experiences of opening a package, putting the CD in the player and reliving the recorded concert experience. He could almost be there. There is the thrill of obtaining illegal or contraband material with little risk of ever getting caught, the hunt for obscure concerts of his favourite artists, the ins and outs of trading, a bit about the history of bootlegging and even the bootlegging law.
McGrath describes some of the pitfalls of trading and how to tell a good recording from a bad one. McGrath is like a food critic writing about a restaurant he has been to. “You think, maybe you should send a copy of this to your friend out west. He likes these guys. But he also likes pristine sound, you remember, and this bootleg suffers from the primitive recorders of the 1970s. Muffled drums, too much bass, wonky mixing... nahhh, he ain't gonna like this one”.
So why do people prefer bootlegged material of live concerts. McGrath offers many explanations for example, the thrill of being caught up in the performance of a live tape and owning something that no one else has. McGrath writes about his love of bootlegged material “For me, that's what it boils down to, man. I think the fun is finding the oddball stuff, or tracking down the boot of a concert you attended, or listening to the concert version of an album you particularly liked, and not falling for the seduction of the collector's obsession: the thrill of ownership -- the actual physical possession of a keepsake as a function of "consuming" the artist”.
McGrath writes a kind of how to guide for bootlegging and how to trade with other collectors. During his early twenties McGrath recorded many concerts on tapes. He writes about altering the sound of tapes to trade, finding a trader group on the Internet and advertising and trading goods. Within seconds of placing an ad for his material he had willing traders. He made a list of all his material and kept a copy of the originals. Within 15 months of starting trading he had over 15 000 bootlegged CDs.
So how does this apply to Lynda Elstad or @lyndahere? What was interesting was McGrath writing about how he adjusted the sound of his original recordings to sell bootlegged copies. “…so I digitized my old cassettes, cleaned up the sound with some audio software, and burnt those ancient concerts onto silver discs of plastic. Now, when I say "clean up", I mean maybe add a little filtering to boost the treble, or mute the bass a bit... you really can't fiddle with it that much... and like furniture collectors, many boot collectors want the sound as pristine as possible... just as the original tape recorder captured it”. It would be interesting to know how much @lyndahere fiddles with the original sound of concerts she records prior to them being placed up on YouTube. There is no dispute that the sound is dreadful on many of her videos. Whether this is how the original concert sounded or her interpretation of how the concert sounded only she knows.
There is no disputing McGrath’s position on bootlegged material. McGrath like others believe there was a huge potential for musicians and groups to tap into the bootlegged live recording market. Some musicians and groups have come on board with this. They have allowed fans to record and trade in live recordings of their concerts as this decreases the value of live recordings. Some musicians and groups even record their own concerts and sell them to fans. McGrath writes “An official bootleg of each show would be snapped up by the legions of acolytes who would normally be happy with a crappy audience recording, if that's all there was. Soundboards today are all computer-run, digital master manipulators of sound, and a very good recording could easily be made and stored of each concert. You want a copy? Go to a web site, buy it and download it... Then burn it on your own cd”. It would be interesting to know in 2012 how many of the millions of live recordings on Youtube have been made by the musicians and groups.
McGrath concludes “In the biggest picture, what is being created is a vast collection of cultural artifacts, nurtured, analysed and maintained by an army of devoted priests, keepers of the faith, fertilizers of the truth”… “Because when those groovy graduate students at Jetson U. go looking for raw material to grist in the mill, they won't have far to go. And it will all be organized for them. This, of course, is yet another rationalization”. Any student at university doing original research will use a number of sources such as live recordings from a variety of sources and then decide if the bootlegged material is reliable. There is a good chance @lyndahere has adjusted the sound deliberately to give consumers whatever interpretation she feels like providing good or bad. Whether this is a true interpretation only she knows. @lyndahere has the masters of these concerts.
A considerable amount of Newfoundland folk music recordings therefore are in foreign hands. If she does share her videos it may be whatever interpretation she wishes to share, not an interpretation that is determined by the custodians of the music, the musicians from Newfoundland whose cultural heritage it is. Thank goodness for organisations like CBC Newfoundland who record live music legally, in cooperation with the musicians with quality equipment and professional operators and Memorial University who preserve cultural heritage.
A considerable amount of Newfoundland folk music recordings therefore are in foreign hands. If she does share her videos it may be whatever interpretation she wishes to share, not an interpretation that is determined by the custodians of the music, the musicians from Newfoundland whose cultural heritage it is. Thank goodness for organisations like CBC Newfoundland who record live music legally, in cooperation with the musicians with quality equipment and professional operators and Memorial University who preserve cultural heritage.
