Best Of The Blogs: 100 Greatest Bootlegs

[Ojai Sam]

Name: "100 Greatest Bootlegs" (100greatestbootlegs.blogspot.com)

Host: thebasement67

Year started: 2011

Focus: The name says it all. thebasement67, who modestly describes himself as a "life long music fan" started linking what he considers the best rock ROIO's, both live and studio. After completing the project in 2016, he was forced to take down some of the links, but responded by creating an alternate top 100. A small donation will bring you this list and a bunch of other goodies. Happily, all of the original posts are still on the blog and the vast majority of these albums are easy to find elsewhere.

 

[Ojai Sam]

Adrian Borland & The Sound - 2 Meter Sessies (recorded 1987-1995, "released" 2004)

Stunning ROIO collection of Dutch radio performances by the former member of UK's seminal punk group The Outsiders. Most have an intimate unplugged flavor that heightens the power of these emotional songs.

on the Sam-O-Meter.

 

[axolotl]

ROIO = Recording of Illegal/Illegitimate Origin

Also, Roio is a frazione in the Province of L'Aquila in the Abruzzo region of Italy.



P.S. Another great idea for a thread, Threadmeister-Sensei Sam!

 

[Ojai Sam]

For our purposes here, I prefer “ROIO" as an acronym that has grown among aficionados meaning "Recording Of Indeterminate Origin" (or "Recording Of Independent Origin").

 

[Nickyboy]

Axo is a bad hombre who gravitates toward illegal recordings. He scoffs at the law. I am sure the Germans have a word for that.

 

[Unsomnambulist]

Axo is a bad hombre who gravitates toward illegal recordings. He scoffs at the law. I am sure the Germans have a word for that.

Malhombrecht.

 

[axolotl]

Axo is a bad hombre who gravitates toward illegal recordings. He scoffs at the law. I am sure the Germans have a word for that.

My moral compass is fine; thank you. I have not lost it, nor does it point me in the wrong direction.

Spoiler

 

[Ojai Sam]

Radiohead - Glastonbury Festival (1997)

I'm not a huge Radiohead fan but this electrifying performance before an enthusiastic crowd won me over.

 

[Ojai Sam]

The Rolling Stones - Live'r Than You'll Ever Be (1969)

LTYEB presents the second show of the Stones' November 9, 1969 concert, third date of the tour. The group performed at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, where the Raiders slaughtered the Denver Broncos 41-10 earlier the same day.

Wiki sez:

It was one of the first live rock music bootlegs and was made notorious as a document of their 1969 tour of the United States. The popularity of the bootleg forced the Stones' label Decca Records to release the live album Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! The Rolling Stones in Concert in 1970. Live'r is also one of the earliest commercial bootleg recordings in rock history, released in December 1969, just two months after the Beatles' Kum Back and five months after Bob Dylan's Great White Wonder. Like the two earlier records, Live'r's outer sleeve is plain white, with its name stamped on in ink.

 

[Ojai Sam]

The Beatles - Esher Demos (1968)

Rolling Stone sez:

“We are going in with clear heads and hoping for the best,” an optimistic Paul McCartney announced as sessions for the Beatles‘ new album lurched forward in the late spring of 1968. “We had hoped this time to do a lot of rehearsing before we reached the studios … but, as it happens, all we got was one day.” But the day in question, sometime toward the end of May, would be a remarkable one. Meeting at George Harrison’s psychedelic-painted bungalow, Kinfauns, in the leafy London suburb of Esher, the Fabs culled through a bumper crop of new songs, penned primarily during their time studying Transcendental Meditation at the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s secluded retreat in Rishikesh, India, earlier that year. By nightfall, 27 acoustic demos had been committed to tape, forming the bones of what would forever be known as the White Album. It was an unprecedented endeavor for the band – never before had they run through a complete body of work in advance, recording what was effectively an “unplugged” version of their next LP.

This collection has now been superseded by the third disc of the 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition of the "White Album" but bootlegs are still more fun. The exhaustive Purple Chick version even throws in the two mixes released in the Anthology collection.

 

[Ojai Sam]

Elvis Costello - Berkeley 1978

One of those wondrous KSAN broadcasts captured Declan in top form right after the release of "This Years's Model". I've listened to a lot of Costello boots and this is the highest energy show I've heard, even better than the legendary "Live At The El Mocambo" from the following month.

 

[Ojai Sam]

God Speed You! Black Emperor - Monheim (1998)

Post-rock for post rockers. I was not familiar with GY!BE, a group which its devoted fans consider to be life-changing. This collection consists of a London BBC show and a live concert in Germany less than a month later.

The blog sez:

As a suite not unlike how the band present their albums (specifically their first two full lengths), this set works very well. "Monheim" is a fantastic opening piece, building up from a bittersweet guitar strum into a churning mess of estranged harmony and intense release. A momentary pause allows us to catch our breath before "Chart #3" begins, a relatively simple piece which revolves around a sample of a man speaking very passionately about spiritual discovery. The simplistic and distant guitar chords immediately segue into the final section, "Steve Reich," and if you were looking for a payoff, you'll never find one sweeter than this.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that the fact that this and the VPRO radio sessions as the only way of hearing this incredible piece of music is the most criminal case of withholding brilliance that I've ever encountered! This is simply breathtaking from start to finish. Mimicking the eponymous composer's early experiments in form, the three guitar players present compounding riffs one atop the other, all within a relatively closed harmonic space, and all of which are both beautiful and melancholic. These three riffs are the centre of the piece, as they wail and churn within it for its entire duration, the percussion and violin/cello adding emphasis and accentuation in simplistic and perfect ways.

 

[Unsomnambulist]

If you have not heard F♯A♯∞ @Ojai Sam, I highly recommend it.

 

[Nickyboy]

If you have not heard F♯A♯∞ @Ojai Sam, I highly recommend it.

I love Icelandic music.

 

[Ojai Sam]

If you have not heard F♯A♯∞ @Ojai Sam, I highly recommend it.

I figured you would know them, Unsom. Thanks for the reco, I’ll check it out!

 

[Unsomnambulist]

Listening to Monheim now, though it took me 25 minutes to stitch the album together and edit the tags. Since mostly listening to Spotify, I'm rusty.

Thanks for posting, @Ojai Sam!

 

[Ojai Sam]

Listening to Monheim now, though it took me 25 minutes to stitch the album together and edit the tags. Since mostly listening to Spotify, I'm rusty.

Thanks for posting, @Ojai Sam!

I’m always happy to add things like this to our MG music library for the insiders.

 

[Ojai Sam]

This blog has already sent me on several scavenger hunts since most of the links are dead. My searching skills are a little rusty, too. But so far, I’ve found 100% of the first 58 posts!

 

[Ojai Sam]

Wondering where the group got its name? It’s from a Japanese film:

 

[Unsomnambulist]

Wondering where the group got its name? It’s from a Japanese film:

Wow. I always thought it was from Shakespeare.