Chicago Sun-Times, September 3, 1978

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A cassette underground


John Milward

There are fans and there are fanatics, and the difference between the two is sometimes as slim as a Sony TC-150. The cassette recorder is the constant concertgoing companion of a fan we'll call Don. He doesn't want his identity divulged for reasons that will soon be obvious.

Don's Sony TC-150 fits into the split lining of his parka or hides in a pair of particularly bulky pants, and is rarely detected in the routine searches to which rockers are accustomed. Then, when the lights go down, he nonchalantly palms the microphone and hits the record button, checking his watch to make sure he'll know when to best flip the tape so he doesn't miss a beat. Don does not intend to miss this concert; he means to have a recorded document.

I met Don through Bruce Springsteen. That is, he called two years ago to tell me had a live tape of an unreleased Springsteen song called "The Promise," and it was all I could do to stop myself from asking him to play it over the phone. He came to the house instead, bringing along a number of tidbits from his collection of tapes.

"Here's Bruce doing 'Rosalita' with an acoustic guitar," he chuckled, slipping the tape of a Boston radio show into the deck. "And after that I've got something from 1973 when he was in a band called Steel Mill. The sound's not too good on that one, though, because he was playing on the parking lot roof of some shopping center in Virginia."

Walt a minute: a parking lot in Virginia in 1970? Who in the world would have thought to bring along a recorder to tape an unknown band with a singer/guitarist from Asbury Park, N.J.? Don doesn't have any idea, but the concept that somebody did record it — and that Don can now relish it from en eight-year perspective — is at the heart of what prompts him to record concerts and trade tapes with other collectors.

A live concert is necessarily a transitory experience, but a tape is permanent, and the widespread recording of pop artists makes for an extraordinary type of aural history. Consider only that "The Promise" Don played for me is vastly different from the version Springsteen is currently encoring with, and that his collection includes 30 more unreleased songs. And it's hardly unreasonable to imagine that every concert by somebody like Springsteen or the Rolling Stones is being recorded. For instance, before Bob Dylan had set out on his 1974 tour with the Band, one avid collector had already arranged a network by which he would obtain a tape of each show.

But what Don thinks of as documenting history, Jules Yarnell, the special counsel in charge of anti-piracy for the Record Assn. of America, calls illegal. Yarnell is particularly concerned with three types of what he calls "copyright infringement": piracy, where an unauthorized duplicate of an already-existing recording is sold or circulated; counterfeiting, where a "pirate" recording is jacketed in a facsimile of the original cover and sold at cut-rate to retailers, and bootlegging, where an illegal taping of a live concert is pressed onto disks and sold or distributed.

"The new copyright laws," explains Yarnell, "state that one copy is enough to make you a pirate, so in this sense there is no difference between somebody taping a concert for their own private enjoyment or for purposes of bootlegging. It makes no difference if you're an avid follower. Look, I'm a great fan of $10 and $20 bills, but I can't go around duplicating them."

Nonetheless, Yarnell admits that "prosecution priorities" leave little time to chase the tape collectors who advertise their trading intentions in music magazines like Rolling Stone and the Trouser Press. Nonetheless, he is emphatic about discounting any difference between the fanatic and the bootlegger, leaving the impression that if the big-money operations are shut down (retail counterfeiting and bootlegs are estimated to gross $15 million to $20 million annually), the kids with the Sonys would be next.

George of California has worked both sides of the track — 16 months ago the FBI raided his house and confiscated the inventory of bootleg albums he was distributing. "It was all I could do to keep them from taking my private collection of bootlegs," George remembers, relieved that he hasn't heard from the Feds since then. "So I've stuck to tape trading, specializing in Dylan and Springsteen, and have about 100 live tapes of each."

George admits that the line between tape traders and bootleggers is thin — it's not unusual for somebody to trade a tape and later find it on a bootleg — and that they might eventually end up on the same docket. Eventually the small collectors may come under legal scrutiny, but the growing number of cultists dedicated to "capturing musical history" on tape may prove to be difficult to squash.

Consider only that the fanatical tape collectors look at their tape collection like a junkie looks at heroin — "I mainline rock and roll," admits George — and that the growing nationwide network of tapists give collectors an opportunity to obtain obscure performances.

From his New York home, Rick distributes a tape list to other collectors that lists more than 1,200 individual performances. Springsteen heads the list with 93 entries (tapes from his current tour are not yet listed), but the avid collector stocks himself with other performers so he has tradeable material.

Looking over the list is to the pop fan what a dig is to an archeologist. From the Fillmore East in New York, Rick offers the original Jeff Beck Group (with Rod Stewart singing lead) from a 1968 performance. Or how about the original demonstration tapes recorded by New Wave heavyweights Television and produced by the British progressive, Eno? You say you like Todd Rundgren? How'd you like to hear some outtakes from Todd's original band, Nazz? Bun E. Carlos, the cigaret-puffing drummer for Cheap Trick, is among those who've traded with Rick for the Nazz material.

While many artists are disturbed by the widespread taping, Rick tells me about a particularly intriguing coup. "Some friends of mine were at an Elvis Costello show, and Costello's manager Jake Riviera happened to see that they were singing along with the El's brand-new songs. He came up to them later and asked how they knew the words, and when they said they had tapes of earlier shows on the tour, he told them that he'd be glad to trade them some unreleased Elvis tracks and demo tapes for some live Costello tapes.

"Hey, look," Rick continues, "I know I'm fairly nuts about this stuff, but I'll tell you the best thing about this network of tape collectors. We're all fanatics, and it's nice just being in contact with people who have the same jones as you."

John Milward is a free-lance rock writer whose articles have appeared in The Sun-Times and Rolling Stone.


Tags: Bruce SpringsteenAsbury ParkThe Rolling StonesBob DylanRolling StoneTrouser PressRod StewartTelevisionBrian EnoTodd RundgrenCheap TrickJake Riviera

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Chicago Sun-Times, September 3, 1978


John Milward's report on concert taping and trading includes a Jake Riviera anecdote.

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1978-09-03 Chicago Sun-Times page S-2 clipping 01.jpg
Clipping.


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