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IT'S BOOTLEG BRAGADOCCIO TIME ONCE AGIN FER ALL YOU OLDE TYME BEAT UP RECORD STORE AND HIPPIE HEAD SHOP BACK ROOM PROWLERS YOU!

Never thought I'd scrounge together enough platters to fill up another one of these trips back in time into the age of alla that illicit vinyl that seemed so mystical and contraband to the point where I usedta hide mine inna pile just so's some cops peeking into my windows wouldn't bust me. Anyway you're allowed to share in my decades-old fascination with these charming in their own special way spinners that has clung to my musical whooziz ever since my teenbo days. Days I wouldn't mind re-living, albeit with a whole lot more money stuffed in my wallet mind you! 

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In honor on hizzoner's big Eight-Oh I decided to latch onto this old Dylan boot, a double-disc effort on Kornyfone entitled PASSED OVER AND ROLLING THUNDER which I'm sure a few of you remember seeing in the record shops of the day.' n hey, what a better way to celebrate ol' Mr. Die-lan (as I usedta pronounce his surname before none other'n MY FATHER [who wouldn't know a folk singer from Ish Kabbibble] corrected me!) and his trip into the octogenarian realm than to spin an effort of his that is good! Well, at least not one of those LIVE AT BUDOKAN quick crank outs that seemed to mar a whole load of his career to the point where we eventually came to expect irregularity from that ol' contrarian ball of confusion.

Yeah, like I said there are TWO platters here chock fulla some pretty good music in excellent quality, and although the entire shebang seems sped up just a tiny bit it still has a rage and urgency to it. That's perhaps because it now sounds more rushed, and thus more urgent, in its overall attack.

The infamous 1975 Newport Folk Fest with Dylan joining Butterfield on "Maggie's Farm" ain't exactly new but still sounds like the perfect backdrop for late-springtime lazing about while the flip featuring the infamous SOUNDSTAGE show I sure recall cozying up to way back when sounds a whole loads better in its stripped down intimacy. Believe me, Dylan and band come off as if they coulda been some wayward folk aggregate stuck on a CBGB poetry night from exactly the same timespan they're so non-slick a way you sure wish most acts back then coulda been. 

Never thought I'd say this, but Scarlet Rivera shoulda been the new John Cale what with her careening violin adding an additional nerve-fray to the music --- heck, if she only she had made a few better career choices*. Even the extremely overwrought "Hurricane" sounds swell without the studio glitz to the point where tryin' to follow the lyrics takes second place to enjoying the more driving and subliminally intense music that was broadcast nationwide during them Second Golden Age of Tee-Vee days! 

The BLOOD ON THE TRACKS outtakes sure struck me as bein' much better'n the official release what with these minimalist excursions which kinda make me think that the powers that be were trying to update Dylan to a more decadent Elliot Murphy stature flopping about in the process!

Topping it all off's a side of the Rolling Thunder Review in Providence Rhode Island and thankfully this belated wake for the sixties (well, more or less) sure doesn't conjure up memories of flailing about hippoids still trying to live the kumbaya dream as much as it does a pretty straightforward folk rock excursion that surprisingly doesn't let its guard down. A guy like moi who spins HARD RAIN on occasion was sated to the point where a whole load of curiosity regarding what else I've been missing regarding Dylan has popped to the surface like a whitehead --- perhaps a look at those other mid-seventies performances would do this body a whole lot more good'n this corpse woulda thought way back in those penny-pinching days when records like this were first up and about?

So hey, a happy birthday to you ya ol' fanabla you! 'n yeah, yer so big you got away with just about every stoopid move you coulda made these past fortysome years but eh, at least you got a real good bootleg outta this 'un. Next time --- JOAQUIN ANTIQUE???

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Sometimes the recent reissuing of old 'n notoriously famous bootlegs (complete with the original artwork or a cheap facsimile thereof) works, most of the time it just plain don't. However, I just can't help but to snuggle up to this recent exhumation of the classic Siouxsie and the Banshees LOVE IN A VOID boot not only because it does stand as a testimonial to the power of the entire bootleg idiom (having been released before any legitimate Siouxsie efforts had come out) but because it surpasses what we eventually got when THE SCREAM was released and, although that Polydor effort was a classic effort to the end, it just couldn't compete with this collection of radio and whatnot efforts that present the act in the raw, primal state that I prefer my music to wallow in.

The flat AM-ish reproduction does bring back memories of various "intentional" (of which I assume this wasn't) efforts to re-create the WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT sway and style, while the pre-major label performances recall not only the original Siouxsie and company's early approach to their instruments but thankfully brings them all to the forefront atonal spirals and all. The definite home made approach of this makes LOVE IN A VOID as much of a classic representation of ROCK AS A FERAL, TANTRIC SOUND as the variety of acts that were poured into the Siouxsie mode (Velvets, Stooges, Can if you do believe Nick Kent and why not?) and for that reason it should be considered a definite wanna get for any record collection that dares to reflect the primal blare of the sixties and seventies. 

Get those memories of eighties and beyond Siouxsie outta your system and latch onto this particular godsend to the cult of recorded plastic or, if you can spare the extra change, try to find an original at a halfway decent price which of course is rather impossible in these collectors consciousness times.

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I remember espying the Roxy Music BETTER THAN FOOD bootleg when I was browsing the bins at White Wing Records in Niles Ohio way back inna mid-seventies, tho I certainly recall an entirely different cover on it! The one that continues to ricochet in my brain had an insert sleeve picturing a buncha what looked like prepubescent gals in full frontal mode smiling away, something which kinda disgusted my teenbo self since I, not being of the Brazilian persuasion, certainly liked fuzz on the peaches I've seen and for that matter still do! (As far as I'm concerned, a gal without the fuzzies is like a rabbit without a fluffy tail!) Maybe that particular version of BETTER THAN FOOD was a knockoff that was taken off the market for obvious reasons or maybe my memory is faultier than usual...I mean I do have some pretty creepy memories of a past that I sure hope I didn't have to live through!

This take on BETTER THAN FOOD has an actual cover with a neat Jay Kinney drawing and the expectedly inaccurate credits on the back. Most of it was taken from various BBC broadcasts and non-LP single sides with the sound quality getting kinda mooshed in the process, but as far as these old bootleg artifacts go man, does it sure look good stuffed in the ol' collection.

You probably already have the double Cee-Dee FIRST KISS somewhere in the house and that's got all this 'n more (a real budget deal!), but if you (like me) sure have a hankerin' for old vinyl as well as that whole mid-seventies Roxy mystique that gave us some pretty much against the grain music then man, you know what to do! Its recs like this which make me wanna turn the house into something resembling an old beat up record shop with sawdust on the floor, and come to think of it I wouldn't have to do that much in the way of interior decorating!

And speaking of Roxy Music album covers...get a load outta this one! Hot stuff, hunh?  But after ya slip yer eyeballs back into yer sockets just plop the two enclosed platters on and getcherself into some pretty into the groove (needle that is) listening!

This early-eighties edition of CHAMPAGNE AND NOVOCAINE is a gotta have not only for the cover, but for the fact that the first platter was lifted from a great sounding NYC live show recorded around the time SIREN was starting to hit the shops. It's a soundboard one too where Brawn Fairy of course mentions that it was being reviewed for a legitimate live effort and the crowd of course yaps it up like nothing since the days when someone would mention "Brooklyn" on some by-now ancient radio show!

As you might have expected, the second album in this set's a reissue of the original mid-seventies bootleg perennial CHAMPAGNE AND NOVOCAINE. Those of you in-the-know are aware that this particular Roxy boot's the most infamous of these seventies not-so-under-the-counter platters given its ability to turn up even in high-end shopping mall record stores where you normally wouldn't expect bootlegs to be peddled. The bootleggers didn't even bother to re-process this 'un in the right speed so it's all a tad slow, but it still sounds as good as the original plus the additional live show will have you tearing into that old pile of albums to spin those Roxy and offshoot platters that took up more than just a little of your teenbo hipster wannabe time. 'n so what if you (like me) have multiple copies of these recordings in your collection...that cover's gonna keep you lonely baldoids occupied for quite some time ifyaknowaddamean...

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My "recent" dream of listening to HORSES in an automobile as a high stooler had me digging the Patti Smith SUPERBUNNY bootleg outta the stack, and as you can guess the subliminal suggestion sure did a world of good for my own sense of rockism. The quality is definitely audience but the performance is tippy top what with Patti and crew careening through such classics as "Free Money" and "The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game" not forgetting that tearjerker version of "Pale Blue Eyes" that was part of their 1975 set. You have to strain yer ears to listen to Patti's between-song patter but its worth it, as well as it is to listen to the ever-changing narrative that is thrown into her live renditions of "Horses" where Johnny travels through all sortsa weird neo-Burroughsian concepts that change and intertwine almost like a good thirties serial.  And to think that people were actually buying up her platters back inna seventies with even the more nerdoid amongst us talkin' 'bout her with unbridled pangs of lust in between the usual mindless America and James Taylor droolathons...from this jaded era we call 2021 and years of seeing rock 'n roll reduced to sham MTV graphics and meaningless sizzle that does seem like an eon away.

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I was rather (dare I say) "enthralled" by last brouhaha entry ROCK 'N ROLL ANIMAL that I decided to snatch up yet another Lou Reed offering, this time the STIFF ON HIS LEGEND outing. Nice package here what with a snap of bleached blonde Lou on the cover and liner notes swiped from who-knows-where onna back, and the sound ain't that bad as well. Too bad this is taken from the '74 SALLY CAN'T DANCE days back when Lou hired some rhumba band to back him and the re-arrangements of old faves along with them new efforts just don't quite cut the mustard like ya kinda hoped they woulda. Not that it's atrocious, but it just doesn't rev up them Lou Reed memories they way you sure woulda liked 'em to have been revved up. If you can latch onto the original edition of this (entitled WHATEVER HAPPENED TO DICK AND STEVE?) bully for you, but alla you hard rocksters who grew up on the RCA version of ANIMAL (Lou loved the Skydog album so much that he decided to bootleg the name for himself!) just might be just a tad li'l let down.

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Seems as if boots of the original late-sixties version of the Mothers of Invention are still coming out at a rather snat pace, and although I sure woulda liked to have heard these way back 1976 way at least I got to hear 'em now. And considering the fine packaging and color vinyl and other cheapazoid collectors come ons these newer efforts are jambus packtus with I am sure glad I got hold of a few of these recent releases that woulda done me swell had they been released in the mid-seventies even if I woulda been too poor to buy 'em all. 

WE MAY PLAY SOME THINGS THAT MIGHT SOUND STRANGE was taken from two consecutive nights on the Fall '67 Scandinavian tour --- sound is kinda audience wobbly but still strong enough for any mother listening in with an overall effect that'll zoom you back to those days when stuff like this really did seem exciting. I wouldn't call it mandatory 'r anything along those lines, but the performance is fair enough and the early Mothers' musicianship thankfully do detract from Zappa's often condescending stage patter. Besides, this kinda humor did seem kinda refreshing at one point in the lives of many a record purchaser and in some ways that late-sixties sense of satire does remain, if only in a purely nostalgic sense.  As with many of these original Mothers of Invention-period live shows there's a lotta stuff you HAVE heard before, but the things new to yer lobes'll have you washing "Valley Girl" outta yer system for good!

Way back when things like shopping malls were one way to connect with what was going on in life, I thought that the cover to THE FRANK ZAPPA SONGBOOK VOL. 1 woulda looked boffo on a bootleg. Turns out that not only one, but two enterprising bootleggers took my advice, one of 'em being the folks who released A TOKEN OF MY EXTREME way back during the seventies Golden Age of Zappa bootlegs. Unfortunately it was reproduced in black and white when the original color would have been more appealing, but thanks be that my psychic recommendations got to these ne'erdowells inna first place even if the results were monochromatic.

Again, this "Zapped" reissue is on colored vinyl and again the sound leaves a little to be desired. It perhaps is a tad fast (not benefitting the overall effects unlike the Dylan effort mentioned above) and it is definitely of an audience source, but this '75 show has Captain Beefheart in the band and he does shine not only on them familiar BONGO FURY efforts but a newie entiled "Why Doesn't Somebody Get Him A Pepsi" which, from my ears, sounds like an early version of "The Torture Never Stops". But it's better since Beefheart could save the Albanian National Anthem with his mere tonsils...if he wanted to that is and for some reason I don't think he woulda wanted to but if he did it sure woulda sounded sweller'n "Jewish Princess".

Actually the rest of the Mothers do well enough even if the group was becoming more and more fusion-y as time went on. But at least they can create some driving intense melodies that keep Zappa's ooga booga in check, and even with the usual bootleg shortcomings this does prove to be a record that got me up and bouncing at a time when it seems that being up and bouncing could develop into a serious crime if the Powers That Be have their way.

The problem with IF YOU GET A HEADACHE is that there is so little Captain Beefheart on it, and he's only on the first side of this '75 live effort which has that cavernous sound that forces you to stick your head right up to the speakers in order to make any real sense outta the thing! Still that first side kicks off fine with a blistering version of "Apostrophe" as well as a halfway decent "Stinkfoot" which I gotta admit used to make me crack up back during my high stool days. Once you get down to the whole matter of it all IF YOU GET A HEADACHE is just another documentation of Zappa during his even steeper slide into self-indulgent hoo-hahs which started a few years earlier, even if we all knew he was as big a jerk as Jerry Lewis even as far back as those original Mothers of Invention days.

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As with the last brouhaha I'm wrapping this 'un up with a sidestep into the realm of jazz bootlegs, an area which deserves its own separate study considering their own unique history and overall adaptation to the jazz as opposed to rock frame of absorption. 

Now these bootlegs, as with classical music or Broadway show platters of a non-legit variety, ain't exactly part of the same realm as rock boots given their more authentic if budget-y look. Not only that but they sure go for much less because well, there probably ain't as much of a demand for jazz boots as there are rock ones. But who can argue that these albums aren't worthy of their own scrutiny what with the wide variety of 'em that are available and at cheapo prices at that!

There are a few worthwhile jazz bootlegs out and about, and although I've yet to see any boots devoted to some of the more Fire Music-oriented in the jazz genre there have been some Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler ones that really made my record collection more'n just one to bemusedly thumb through. As if I'd let any of you even near my less bountiful than it should be stacks o' wax you thievin' scoundrels you! 

STATING THE CASE is one Coleman boot that I only came across recently, a good 'un from a French label called "Jazz Anthology" that, according to the discography listed on the back cover, has a pretty hefty line of wares to offer from various John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy efforts to early Louis Armstrong live gigs that may not have been released legitimately even if you would think such an audience existed for it. But this Coleman album's pretty boffo, perhaps even improved by the reel-to-reel in the audience live sound that adds a certain feral element to the performance, and a good one it most certainly is.

Credits are sketchy ("early sixties" is given as the recording date, the venue unknown and the band lineup nonexistent) and the song listing ("Ornette's Suite" parts one and two) totally inaccurate as these efforts and themes have appeared on a variety of Coleman releases. But when ya plunk the needle down ya get a good fifty-five-plus minutes of music that really does stretch out into the clogged corners of your mind. I even get the idea that you'll wonder just how you managed to spend your entire life without this, it's that much a part of the Coleman "canon" as his legit efforts. 

And although I am pretty sure STATING THE CASE has been legitimately released in the interim ya just can't help but thank Jazz Anthology for making the thing available at a time when jazz was starting to regain some of its feeling after years of bloated DOWN BEAT inertia dragging everything down to a Wynton Marsalis level of bowties and flowery flamingo sounds. Worth a search and come to think of it, a definitive jazz bootleg article would be welcome on this (or any other) blog. Any takers out there?

If any of you happen to come across Coleman's BROADCASTS on the J For Jazz label pick it up as well. It's got a snat cover with iffy liner notes from a Harris Venuti whoever he is. It also has THE EXACT SAME MUSIC that appears on STATING THE CASE and with equally dubious credits! But hey, I know you guys out there want everything you can get by Coleman and I'm not crying over the dupe so why should you?

After buying, digesting and ultimately filing away the above albums I found two outta three Charles Mingus bootlegs that really have filled my bill so-to-speak, Released on the Eyetalian Ingo lable, three volumes of this April '64 show were released --- managed to get the second and third 'un's and although the first volume entitled HOPE SO, ERIC remains outta my grasp at press time the other two, FABLES OF FAUBUS and PARKERIANA are firmly entrenched within and I gotta say that I feel lucky enough that even those have been obtained by me in the ol' here and now even if I should have had 'em in the there and then.

Sound's usual bootleg flat (though would still be rated an "excellent" by HOT WACKS) but is fine enough for a hard-edged fanatic who'll listen through virtual blizzards of distortion to get to the meat of the matter. And really, what sorta new thing jazzbo type wouldn't want to hear an entire album featuring the classic ode to the Arkansas segregationist (who I remember tried to make a comeback in the mid-eighties all apologetic about his political past making me wonder if he ever heard this composition!) complete with some great piano from Jacki Byard and reed-destruction courtesy Eric Dolphy who was only a couple of months away from that big gig inna sky. 

The side longs on Volume Three are as memorable a part of the Mingus/Dolphy legend as such mindwowzers as THE BLACK SAINT AND SINNER LADY (really!), especially on "Meditations" which gets into one of those clouds of sound that foreshadows various Art Ensemble of Chicago moodgropes that were maybe not-so-clearly on the horizon. Both are much needed even in your own nascent jazz collection and for bootleg hounds like myself well, wow-whee!

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If you have any semblance of a soul left you'll want 'em all, just like you want a whole slew of bootlegs that I will probably be fillin' ya in on once the next "Bootleg Bragadoccio" hits the screens a whole lot sooner than you'll care but wha' th' hey? Until then, count your pennies and who knows, maybe that old dusty head shop or "alternative" book store with the back room is still in business lo these many years later and like, they're probably still too stoned to know that there are a few dozen uncracked crates from TMOQ just moiling in between the unsold Anais Nin porn and Paul Ehrich Chicken Little rewrites one's bound to find in these shops lo these many years later!

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*'s funny, because I recall hating her playing way back when the gal was up and about...musta been the budding anti-folkie in me.