"Bought Bootleg Whiskey"

So I've been cruising eBay looking for a copy of the full Basement Tapes by Bob Dylan and the Band. The Basement Tapes are a collection of demos and rough tunes they recorded in upstate New York back in 1967 as Dylan recovered from his motorcycle accident. The songs are pure Americana, the mythos and music of America distilled into bursts of absolute creative genius. It's great stuff. A two-disc set was eventually released in the mid-70s to appease fans who'd heard of the legendary sessions, but it was terribly incomplete and painted an inaccurate portrait of what actually happened (for instance, several songs by the Band that weren't recorded during the sessions were included to make things seem more balanced. The truth of the matter was that Dylan was significantly more prolific than the Band, which should come as no surprise to anyone who knows Dylan. On top of that, it was only two discs, less than 20 songs. They recorded a couple hundred songs, though). So bootleg versions of the Basement Tapes are (and have been for a long time) very popular among Dylan afficianados, and rightly so.

But here's the problem--they are bootlegs. Y'know, not fully legal. That's sorta part of the very definition of "bootleg," right? So you know going in--or ought to know, anyway--that a bootleg copy of the full Basement Tapes is not fully legit, right? I know this and accept it, 'cause I really want to hear these songs. But some folks on eBay just don't seem to get it. There were a few who ordered items of a similar nature from one of the sellers on there and complained that their bootleg CDs were fakes. Which led me to think, "um, wait, wasn't that sort of a given? Were you expecting official bootlegs?" It's like buying a Rollex off a street vendor and then getting upset when the gold turns your wrist green and the word "Rollex" rubs off. You should know going in that what you're getting is, for all intents and purposes, illegitimate. It's a bootleg. The comparison with the fake Rollex sort of ends, though, when you consider that the bootleg album is the actual, real music, just not an official release by the musician's label. A fake Rollex wasn't made by Rollex, either, but it's not like the bootleg album doesn't actually feature the real artist really playing those songs. I mostly just think people complain about stupid stuff too much.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Led Zeppelin, "The Lemon Song"