Classic Vinyl Bootleg Revisited: THERE AIN'T NOBODY HERE FROM BILLBOARD TONIGHT original black vinyl pressing (Part 1 of 3)

I love old, amateurish, slick/insert covers!

One of the fun things to collect bootlegs is to be able to enjoy a wide variety of cover sleeves irrespective of whatever they look like (excellent, mediocre or awful). Although professionally manufactured color sleeves of 1980's bootlegs are attractive, I rather have a preference for slick or insert covers when it comes to vinyl bootlegs. It's because, along with rubber-stamped covers, that's the way these stuff came out originally. In other words, the amateurish appearance of many of slick covers represents what vinyl bootlegs were supposed to be in the first place. Thankfully, these days second-hand vinyl bootlegs are available at much cheaper than they used to be in the 1970's through 1980's when the bootleg industry was at the height of its prosperity (for one example of such a purchase, see a past blog post here).

No one but me was interested in this classic boot?

Last month, I obtained an original, pristine copy of THERE AIN'T NOBODY HERE FROM BILLBOARD TONIGHT also known simply as THE ROXY, a double LP released 43 years ago on Hoffman Avenue Records. It was sold on Yahoo! JAPAN auction in original shrink-wrapped condition. The opening bid was 500 Yen (approximately US $4.66 according to the current exchange rate) and I won the auction without competition. Though luckily, this was somewhat an unexpected result, which made me feel as if there were no serious vinyl Bruceleg collectors out here but me!

Two famous deadwax inscriptions BRUCE I WANT YOUR BILLBOARD! on Side 1 and CATCH ME IF YOU CAN — V. V. on Side 4. The other sides have two hand-etched dedications THIS SIDE FOR MELINDA (Side 2) and THIS SIDE FOR JEAN & MARK (Side 3).
 

Vicky Vinyl is credited, together with Eagle Eye,
as the bootleg producers (also shown here).

Although for most part of the blog readers I don't think this classic title needs thorough introduction, it is purportedly the second ever Springsteen bootleg capturing the early show that was broadcast live by KWEST-FM from the Roxy Theater, Hollywood, CA on October 17, 1975. It was the Summer/1987 issue (#21) of the Backstreets magazine from which I first obtained substantial information on this bootleg (Remember we didn't have internet at that time and in my case, such information was available only from literature). As I already mentioned in the previous blog post, an anonymous reader called Eagle Eye (whose identity is almost certainly Mr. Lou Cohan who made the bootleg) left quite critical comments on an article about a history of Bruceleg that was featured on the previous issue (#20). His criticism mainly argued against the release order of pioneering Brucelegs, what exactly Vicky Vinyl was involved in the album production, and how she felt about Springsteen. Following is a partial transcription of his description after explaining THE JERSEY DEVIL (for which a short note here) as the first ever Springsteen bootleg:

The second Springsteen bootleg was "There Ain’t Nobody Here From Billboard, Tonight," also on Hoffman Avenue Records. It was pressed in November of 1975 and Vicky Vinyl's only input was having "Catch me if you can" scratched into vinyl on one side of the sides and putting up half the money for the initial pressing. She never admired Bruce. She couldn’t stand him before he and CBS busted her, so you can imagine how she feels about today.

If what is written is true, it is interesting that the bootleg production has completed in rather a short time (it took only about one month after the original broadcast date?). As you might already know, you can also refer to this post on THE AMAZING KORNYFONE LABEL blog which is more informative although there she was reported to put up 1/4 rather than 1/2 of the money for the album production. The TAKRL blog post also reports that this bootleg is supposedly the third, but not the second, to have appeared on collectors' market following the famous Coral Records version of LIVE. This point is still controversial and there is yet another view (for example, see Hobbes's comment here).
— To be continued.