A BBC TV 1971 Bootleg Report, featuring Peter Grant, Pink Floyd & Yoko “power to the people” Ono (re-upload)
Speaking of Kustom Records (as mentioned in my previous post) … a holiday present to us all (thank you, Karl!).
I guess the transmission date is 8th of April’71, after all.
The concert Peter Grant’s talking about was Led Zeppelin’s appearance at Munich’s Circus Krone on 08 March 1970 (no recording has ever appeared of this concert).
It feels like we are watching the moment Pink Floyd’s hatred for bootlegs started.It’s quite remarkable that what is likely their first encounter with one of their bootlegs was the incredibly rare Pinky, pressed in a first pressing run of just 50 copies (matrix: DJ3003),
a UK copy of this Dutch release:
Matrix: XA44332/YB44332 – first edition with the misspelling “LIFE” on both sides. Second & third corrections had “LIVE/LIFE” and finally “LIVE/LIVE” on front and back.
“Atom Heart Mother” on side 1 and “Embryo” and “Interstellar Overdrive” on side 2, recorded at the Audimax in Hamburg 1970-03-12
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Re. Kustom Records: This is the US cover for the Beatles pirate JUDY
It’s preposterous to claim these tracks were copied directly from the original masters from the Abbey Road vault, as the BBC reporter sets up the story and Mr. Collins willingly indulges him (although the claim may of course originated with him).
I still believe that Kustom was mostly a US label and they were only to happy to sell Collins a few hundred records and he had his own b&w knock off covers printed based on the original designs.
THE AMAZING KORNYFONE LABEL 
Inviato da iPhone
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It seems this video has been pulled from You Tube. Thanks.
I uploaded this to my YT account but set to “private”, so it’s a blog exclusive.
When I click on the Play button above, I get the black static screen and the message “This video is unavailable”. Am I doing something wrong?
same here
I can play it fine. I will look into this, sorry about that.
I’m getting the same message. Thanks, regardless, though!
I uploaded it again. I hope you can all watch it now.
thank you. now it´s playing fine
Plays now, thanks so much! Minor point, but, given that the date listed at the beginning says ‘8/4/71’, wouldn’t the European format make that April 8th?
I guess I’m confused by them putting the year last – but you are right, Andrew.
Another clue regarding the timeframe, Pink Floyd is shown working on the piece “Echoes” from the album Meddle, which was recorded between January and August 1971. This is a very interesting document and piece of history. I believe only the Pink Floyd/Steve O’Rourke part was included in the Floyd’s Early Years box set. So it’s great to see the entire piece of footage. Thanks
Thanks for posting this. Oh those poor record companies losing money to bootleggers LOL. Just breaks your heart doesn’t it.
Bootlegs really scared them in the early days, I’d say. Seems they believed that some punters would, for example, buy “Blueberry Hill” instead of any of the official Led Zeppelin albums, which seems a real stretch.
You are welcome. Yes, this is the long and uncut version.
I finally got to watch that clip and rather enjoyed it, like everyone else here. In the Stanley Booth book of the Stones’ 69 tour, he mentions Keith citing bootlegs as a possible new way to distribute records – presumably not through bootleggers themselves, but through using similar channels for distribution and bypassing the official rekkid business.
Also wondering where Peter Grant got the idea Blueberry Hill – the Ken n Dub title – was recorded with radio transmitters sending the signal outside, presumably to sophisticated recording gear. I recall this is how Clinton Heylin described Rubber Dubber recordings, but I am not sure if that is any more true than the fable about the records being pressed on a farm using home-made record presses and presumably plates, mothers and stampers…
I believe both Dub Taylor and Rubber Dubber recorded the Sept 4, 1970 Led Zeppelin performance at the LA Forum. So these were 2 separate recordings, resulting in 2 different bootleg releases. I’m not sure about the FM transmitter legend and Rubber Dubber (Scott Johnson). According to Ken Douglas in his TMOQ blog, Johnson was quite the story-teller. So it may be that the FM transmitter recording process was just a crock of BS concocted by Johnson, and subsequently perpetuated until it became accepted de facto. Peter Grant obviously heard the story, circa 1971.
I know those are two different recordings, but I didn’t think Rubber Dubber called theirs Blueberry Hill so that’s why I was curious about Peter Grant’s information. I’m pretty sure Dub was rolling tape – doing a great job for the dawn of the seventies, but not unbelievably so. Also, I wonder if fm transmitters would result in a thin sound like a lot of the early (1999) ALD recordings that surfaced in the E Street Band reunion tour. Some of those Bruce tapes were matrixed, as it were, with audience recordings to produce some truly excellent recordings that would have really freaked the record companies out in 1970!
You are correct, Erik, Rubber Dubber didn’t (“LIVE AT THE LOS ANGELES FORUM 9-4-70”) but Grant obviously realized they were recordings of the same concert and just lumped them together, I’d say. I’m pretty sure the technology in 1970 would not have resulted in a recording of this quality.
That urban legend, likely spread by Johnson himself even made it into the Harper’s Monthly article about Rubber Dubber from January 1974. Grant must have heard it while on tour in the US or while discussing the topics of bootlegs and how to keep audience members from recording shows.
Is that 1974 Harpers article online? I just came by here to mention a youtube audio clip of a BBC special on the history of 70s bootlegs. Interesting stuff. They talk to Clinton Heylin as well as a British guy who worked Scott the Rubber Dubber. He described Scott as a gun but from a military background who used a Nagra open reel recorder. He also said, I’m sure it was an exaggeration but still noteworthy – that Scott would buy a row of tickets and recruit friends to help bring in tea, batteries, and other gear. He said Scott ended up charged with a bunch of stuff and that he seemed to have been a criminal in other ways besides making bootleg records.