My First Vinyl Bootlegs

Still keeping my first purchases in 1981, although these
are not original but mediocre pirated copies

It was a summer midnight in 1981. When I was listening to my favorite AM radio program, the female DJ suddenly and briefly introduced information from an anonymous listener reporting Springsteen's bootlegs that were right in stock at a major import record shop in my habitation area. Although I never had the experience of listening to any bootleg records back then, I already knew about such famous titles as 'E' TICKET and FIRE ON THE FINGERTIPS through media articles featuring the lawsuit against the Californian bootleggers. As I owned all the official album releases (up to THE RIVER) at that point, this information was enough to stimulate my ever-growing interest in these underground releases.

So that weekend, I went to the shop and asked the shopkeeper what bootleg titles were available. While explaining to me that some box sets were already sold out, he showed me three remaining titles that came in the crudest LP sleeves I had ever seen. Nevertheless, I bought them all without hesitation because, whatever they were, I had decided to do so since I heard of these bootlegs on the radio. This was how it all started. I still keep these vinyl LPs even though I have not listened to them for decades, and I know they are worthless pirate copies.
— To be continued.