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OK, I'll take numbers 1, 4, 5, 8, and 10.

Now, for some hand holding: How do I find these?

I'm a lazy hunter.

Hi Buddha,

Those are some nice choices you made there. Sounds like you're a prime candiate for the trading method of building a bootleg collection. What have you got to offer?

Here's how I come upon my copies of those five items:

1) Bob Dylan

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On a related note, I've never understood the vehement anti-bootleg stances we run into.

Sure, I get the "want to control every note for quality and integrity stuff," but a fan will want it, warts and all.

Plus, fans already buy everything an artist makes, it's not like a bootleg will cause me to not buy any standard release from an artist I like.

I think they should sell every show and focus on that great market segment more.

I agree, well almost. I'm not to sure about the selling every show but at least make them available in one form or another.

Several of the items on my list and many other items in my bootleg collection are simply one-of-kind items that many fans would gladly pay for, if they could. And many times it's not the artists who are stopping the live material from being released but the music companies and their crazy marketing departments and wacko contracts with the artists.

I'm quite sure that Tom Waits doesn't sell enough studio CDs to merit a live release and yet his live versions are just killer. The Bjork with the Brodsky String Quartet is good example of recording contracts most likely getting in the way. NRBQ - not enough sales. Elvis Costello - pure stupidity. Bob Dylan - he's just an old crank. The Rolling Stones - too much morphine, among other things. Lou Reed - no complaints, there is a very fine live CD from the same time period. Garcia - lots of legal bootlegs in circulation. Capt. Beefheart - every note he ever played should be made available, if only for the greater good of mankind.

I saw the good Captain on the day after John Lennon was shot. He did a song dedicated to Lennon - "Nowadays A Woman's Gotta Hit A Man" and it absolutely smoked, I mean it brought the house down. When the band finally wound down, Beefheart said something to the effect of "Man, that's the best I've ever played that song."

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Has anyone ever heard a quality recording of the 27 minute version of Helter Skelter?

No I haven't had the pleasure (?) but I have heard Paul Gonsalves' 27-chorus tenor solo on "Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue" (many, many times) from "Ellington at Newport", which is, quite fortunately, not a bootleg and is currently available on nicely remastered Columbia CD.

This post is in response to a question Cheapskate asked over in the Jazz section but which really blongs in this thread.

In further response to your question regarding payment to the musicians for bootlegs, there are really several things going with bootlegs that are somewhat different from normal "pirated" music.

First of all there is the fact that with many bootlegs, the people who make the bootlegs sell the bootlegs and make the money instead of the musician, which is the main reason why I try to never pay for a bootleg. The second reason is that the original source for many bootlegs is often an over the air broadcast. I figure free once, then free always.

And since I'm in the mood for making excuses, how's this. I have a good friend who I've known since college who runs a jazz management/booking agency here in NYC. He works with just about every jazz club in NYC and can get me into almost any show I would like and I would like to see a whole lot of shows. But I almost never take him up on his offer. Why? Because as much as I would love to go to these shows I feel that it would be like stealing from the musicians. Now if I was working for Stereophile (hint) and writing online reviews of these shows that would be another story but simply for my own pleasure it is just not fair. I don't work for free and I don't expect the musicians to either.