I always find these debates interesting, as I've been a tape trader
for about 17 years. And that's TRADER-- I've never bought a
"bootleg" tape or CD, have never sold a tape, and won't trade with
anyone who looks like they may sell tapes/CDs. Trading tapes
has introduced me to a lot of music that I never would have heard
otherwise-- translating into a lot of CDs that I never would have
bought or shows I never would have gone to. I probably wouldn't
have found this list two or three years ago had not a friend put
some Uncle Tupelo/Wilco filler on the tape of a Jayhawks show he
sent me.
I hate bootleggers too, for a different reason than what Nancy and
others have expressed-- by selling bootlegs of live performances,
they're making me and every other live music collector look like
scum, out to make a fast buck off the music we collect. CD
burners have made it so easy for any spoiled frat boy to run some
bootleg discs to sell for beer money that I'm afraid more and more
artists who formerly encouraged or allowed taping to ban it.
I love live music. I want to hear what an artist/band can do when
it's just them and their instruments up there, with no Lanois
twiddling the knobs or dozens of overdubs or pitch-perfecting
software between me and the performance. I go to a lot of shows
that come through the area, but Des Moines ain't no Chicago or
Dallas or L.A. And until I hit the lottery, I can't road trip to even a
fraction of the shows I'd like to see. So it boils down to a live tape
or nothing.
What's got me about this discussion is the doublethink. I'm not
supposed to have this live music that I didn't "pay" the artist for--
even though I've bought the artists' commercial releases and gone
to the shows, and though I didn't pay a bootlegger for this tape. . .
yet am I to believe that the people so negative about taping-- some
musicians and radio personalties, I note-- have paid for every piece
of music they've experienced? I've got about 400 CDs strung
around here, and I've paid for every one. Of the hundreds of
concerts and shows I've been to, I've been on the guest list twice.
So Nancy and Jon and Joe (nothing personal, you guys, I'm just
wanting to make a point) don't have a single promo CD in their
house, have never gotten in free to shows, don't have a few "live"
tapes sitting around their house? It seems to me that it's pretty
easy for industry weasels <g> who enjoy lots of free music to cast
stones at a music exchange medium that they don't participate in.
(And I'll join the musicians in their everyone-should-pay-for-every-
note-they-hear argument if they join me in my campaign, as a
writer, to close down every library, used book store store, copying
machine, scanner, and the like, so that every person who reads my
work has to pay for it. It's only fair.)
Larry
