10 years of comeback boots.

["weapons of mass destruction-related program activities" <spamtony>]

It's a recurring question on listservs -- "If you had to 
pick five (or ten, or whatever) exemplary bootlegs by our 
favorite artist, what would you pick?" It's usually a 
fairly fleeting topic, because people have a pretty firm 
idea of the most near and dear to them personally, and
even a clear idea of what they'd burn for a "newbie". 

I had the opportunity to answer this for real for someone 
with a new iPod who wanted some live Patti. I was surprised
by the experience, and discovered a few things in the 
process. 

Among the discoveries/revelations (to me, at least)...

* A lot of the commonly available 70s stuff is just not
  ready for prime time. 

  The stuff is either a woefully incomplete set, or too 
  many generationss down for someone who isn't a hardcore
  completist, or edited to fit on a vinyl LP, or what 
  have you. With the disclaimer that the 70s are woefully 
  underrepresented in my personal collection, I had
  a really tough time picking stuff out from that era. 

  I may yet slip in "Never talked to Bob Dylan", 
  which is really the only "Horses" era boot I can 
  think of in reasonable sound which has not been 
  so edited so as to be devoid of impact. But 
  so far? I just supplied the latest umpteenth 
  remaster of the Tower '79 show. The Patti of 
  1979 is not the Patti of 1976, however. So my 
  effort still lacks. In my searching, I saw that 
  there is a dead torrent up at dime of a complete 
  Bottom Line '75 show. That would be sweet, but 
  until then...


* By contrast, it was a tough job whittling down 
  stuff from 1997 to 2001 to only one or two shows. 
  I can't get enough of those days. In the end, I 
  discovered over the weekend a lone Dime seeder 
  seeding a 1999 show from Italy I hadn't heard of 
  before. It had great, fresh energy, so I decided 
  to not sweat the small stuff (a little too much 
  crowd noise, and the last song is truncated, and 
  I actually didn't listen all the way through) in favor
  of supplying something which is really attractive 
  as a whole package. Made the chore seem less of 
  a chore. (And if that seed is reading, know 
  that your generosity is much appreciated.) 


* Tom Verlaine.

  Having Tom on a show makes a big big difference, 
  IMHO. I wanted to include a complete (or near 
  complete), decent-sounding 1996 show not only 
  because of TV, but also because of the great, airy
  atmosphere a lot of those shows had. In this, 
  my choice was easily made for me, because pretty 
  much all I had that was "fit for company" was 
  the boot "Barefoot Poetess" (Hamburg 1996, made 
  from an FM b'cast). 

  The source I burned from was one I personally 
  speed-corrected for my own use, as "BP" suffers
  a long, slow, gradual speed change, culminating
  in being off by almost 5% (IIRC). 

  I gave "my" version some extra time for 
  listening, because I feared that the "correcting" 
  I did in 1997 or thereabouts would be an 
  embarrassment to hear today, but it held up 
  very nicely. Something else that held up very 
  nicely? The 4X Imation CD-Rs I burned my work 
  on to - at 2X - on an external HP USB (1.1) 
  burner. No errors on those babies, and I'm 
  guessing they are eight or nine years old 
  now. (Keep 'em dark! Keep 'em clean!) 


* Not all homegrown music maestros are so successful.
 
  It seems that a lossy-source 2001 Patti show got 
  torrented on Dime in the last year unbeknownst to 
  anybody. (Well, maybe someone DID eventually mention 
  it in the torrent's comments section, but I couldn't 
  find this torrent still in the datrabase). It was 
  the last Village Underground show from June of 2001. 

  The very first handclaps on the very first track 
  before she even speaks gave it away. They had that 
  "tunnel" artifact you get on every damn audience 
  recording that's been badly compressed and has 
  handclaps in close proximity to the taper. Ick!
  I hate that sound. 

  Turns out - this torrent, at some point, had been 
  the same exact source as was used for the show in 
  the six-disc "box set" from that engagement: 
  "Bitch can Wail". Obviously, I went for the 
  uncompressed one (before compressing it, I know, 
  I know...).  I paid cash for BCW on eBay a long 
  time ago, and don't regret it at all.