Schwarz
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AN OPEN LETTER TO TAPE-COLLECTORS :
"We music collectors are a funny lot. Sanctimony comes easy to us - when we're not
busy ridiculing our fellow musos' musical tastes, we're at work on the poor quality
equipment they have, the lack of vinyl in their collections, or their seeming inability to
source a good generation or dub at a decent recording level. The snobbery of some
tape-collectors, though, takes the cookie, jar and all.
The greatest crime that many so-called important tape-collectors are happy slip & slide
into is forgetting that bootleg recordings - tapes AND CDs - are (or bloody well should
be) about THE MUSIC. Dylan bootlegs, my field of swingeing expertise, are aimed at
the several thousand people who love listening to Dylan, want to hear interesting, good
Dylan, and don't have the patience to wade through another goddamn NoEndInSight
Tour show for that 'one clear moment' I wrote in BOOTLEG about. I know of a musician I
greatly admire being stunned by the brilliance of the 'Abandoned Love' on GENUINE
BOOTLEG SERIES II and reevaluating his whole attitude to audiences because of it -
THAT is not going to happen while the tape stays the sole preserve of cliques of
tape-collectors. Music-collecting should be about sharing the experience.
I admire the time & energy that many collectors devote to chronicling the art of our most
important living performers - but I do not admire any of these pathetic collectors who
castigate the bootleg CD as if what they do is somehow less illegal, more virtuous,
purer, a rarified science unsullied by baser motives. BULLSHIT. You break the same
laws trading a tape as selling a CD - actually, buying a CD is legal, trading a tape is not.
OK. So cut the shit. The question of profit is one big bloated herring, more puce than
red. WHO GIVES A FLYING FUCK if the artist doesn't get mucho denarii? The artists
certainly shouldn't because - its q.e.d. time - if they did, they wouldn't be artists.
Huh? Run that by me again. I am saying that if an 'artiste' is more worried about being
paid for a live performance put down on permanent record THAN allowing the pleasure
of hearing that performance to his fans around the world, then I doubt that he is an artist
- he certainly is no longer focusing on his art. He has become a charlatan and a hypo
crite. That this cannot happen legitimately is because of ARTISTS' APATHY (or dubious
notions of perfection) AND THE RECORD COMPANIES GREED (and fear). If one
could pay royalties for the release of an unauthorized live recording - without fear of
legal action - then those who chose not to pay could indeed be reviled and their product
boycotted. Bu t that is not the way it is.
The supreme irony of all these holier than thou tape-collectors criticizing commercial
bootleggers is that the vast majority of them got into unreleased recordings by buying
bootlegs. "What dear daughter beneath the sun would treat her father so?"
Many friends of mine - and I don't necessarily include myself - have a life. They need to
keep wives happy, kids fed and colleagues shafted. They simply do not have time to
tape shows, trade tapes, upgrade equipment, converse within the tapers loop. Doesn't
mean they don't still love the music they grew up with, or want more than the official
record companies provide. Just that they can't afford the time to trade. Money, on the
other hand, they are happy to shell out. These are the bulk of the people who buy
bootleg CDs. Hence bootlegs like GBS I+II, which I genuinely (sic) believe are a public
service - money-making they may be but I, for one, would not take the risks the Byrdman
takes to give us punters our weekly fix - one that, because of greed undiluted by any
aesthetic considerations, cannot be legitimate.
Finally (for the mo', at least), I'd like to raise the tendentious lil' matter of sourcing tapes.
This is a field bespattered with pundits professing knowledge they do not have (t'wit, Mr
Dundas's remarks regarding 'Coverdown Breakthrough' on GBS II in the 10/96 LMR) .
The fact of the matter is that ALL the important Dylan tapes that have been accessed in
the Nineties, and hence have passed into tape collector circles, have been accessed
by, or on behalf of, bootleggers. The reason why this has been the case? Because the
people who have the 'real' tapes - and I'm not about to trade that 'Caribbean Wind' on
GENUINE BOOTLEG SERIES I for an entire set of 1996 Dylan audience tapes - have,
or do, work in the record industry, and are usually not interested in music, they are
interested in money. They will sell tapes to bootleggers rather than give them to
tape-collectors because "everybody's got something to sell."
The five CDs of basement tapes, and hence Greil Marcus's new book, would not exist
without the bootlegger who stumped up the asking price for these tapes. Hence, also,
some of the hiddden goodies on GBS I+II. As one of those who contributed to the fund
that purchased the Rogan acetates simply to have the opportunity to hear the Another
Side outtake of Mr Tambourine Man, I, for one, am happy that those who did not
contribute can now hear that vital recording on GBS II (and, no Mr. Dundas, it is not
about how many uncirculated tracks you can cram onto a triple-CD - it's about listening
pleasure - try actually listening to GBS II some time).
Okay, I'm just about done. I have been, and shall continue to be, a collector. BUT I am a
music collector, not a tape collector, not a CD collector. Everybody that I collect the
music of makes a living from the music s/he makes. I buy (yes, buy) the official CDs of
those artists, without fail or query. If, after all that, they don't like the fact that I have
maybe hundreds of tapes of their live performances, hey, that's just too bad. Bob Dylan I
ain't trying to impress (or Richard Thompson or...), and you shouldn't, either. Why do you
care what they think? 'Cause they make/made good music? Like I said, pathetic.
Remember, they're the lucky ones. They got the gift from God. But which commandment
said it was their exclusive property, to have and to hold, till they die (oh, and 70 years
after that). To quote the late, great Allen Ginsberg, "[The young] Dylan ... sold out to
God. That is to say, his command was to spread his beauty as wide as possible." You
wanna get paid for your bootlegs, Neil/Bob/Van? Don't sign exclusive recording
contracts with corporate crooks.
Oh, and if Mr. Dylan 'wrote' or, indeed, even arranged 'Canadee-I-O' - for which he has
received more royalties than he would ever receive for the TOTAL sales of GBS I AND II
- I'm the Pope. How about an arrangement credit for the man you purloined it from, Bob,
a man who has no means of making a living, no longer able to even play the guitar
because of a horrific car accident that ended a promising career? After all, you once
told us all, "to live outside the law, you must be honest." Seems like you no longer
agree."
- Clinton Heylin