Flashback Friday: The Bootleg Boogie

If you've been with me for any considerable length of time know that I go way back in the area of Christian Music. Pretty much all music. I grew up listening to the Beatles, Paul McCartney and Wings, Chicago, Bad Company and The Eagles, among others. And of course I had a whole supply of 45's (ask your grandparents) from the 60's. Of course after I got born again I had a giant yard sale and sold it all and went pretty much all in to Christian Music. That would be 1975. These days I think that selling all those records was a big mistake.

Vinyl was coexisting nicely with the cassette tape, and while the walkman and its knock offs made things easy to listen to music on the go way before the invention of the iPod. The only drawback was it was play only. If you wanted to create a tape you needed a cassette tape recorder, commonly known as a tape recorder.

Somewhere between 9-12 inches long and about 4 pounds in weight, you would think that it would be to bulky to smuggle in to concert venues but that is exactly what we did. It was better during winter concerts as you could smuggle it under your winter coat.

(Image Courtesy of Pinterest and bing)

One of the excuses of people regarding sin has been "Hey, everybody is doing it". Well everybody may be a slight exaggeration, but it would not be much of a stretch to say that in a concert held in a college gymnasium which held about 1,000 people (small Northeastern Christian Colleges), about 25o would have a tape recorder. 25% is not everyone, but it was enough to make a successful bootleg record company a pipe dream. After all, the commercial value of a recording is partially based on the rarity of the product, and when a quarter of the audience has a bootleg copy, rarity is out the window. You would have to rely on quality.

And that was the other problem. An audio copy made with a cheap recording device with a 2 cent microphone set up over 50 feet (at least) from any sound source is bound to be less than stellar in quality. No one doing this was seated anywhere near the stage. But it was all about "The experience" being captured live. I mean why buy a studio recorded cassette when you could have one of these.

I am pretty sure the statute of limitations on these things are up. Certainly the cassette tapes have long since deteriorated. The dream remains alive, however. With the advent of the smartphone and Facebook and YouTube Live we can have our own television station. The Second Coming of MTV.  I for one am glad to have a commercially produced live album and music video however.. Summer is here and with it Flashback Friday. Come with me to the 80's in my time machine. Until next Friday, I am Awaiting Your Reply.