Classic Vinyl Bootleg Revisited: FOLLOW THAT DREAM 3LP (Part 4 of 4)

Two matrix codes on
the Disc 1 deadwax.

This concludes a short series of blog posts on one of a few classic vinyl bootlegs from the 1981 European leg of THE RIVER tour. It has long been said that, like the sister release TEARDROPS ON THE CITY, the original audience recordings no longer exist that were used for making this bootleg. This makes it distinguish from almost all of the other vinyl underground releases whose source recordings have been successfully digitized and circulated. So, collectors of live recordings and bootleg maniacs still highly value the original pressing of this old vinyl stuff.

An excerpt from "Stockholm 81 - Revisited", an essay by Drutten and Gena (2002), which mentions the loss of master concert recordings (taken from the booklet accompanying the vinyl-sourced remastered CD-R release by the Piggham Records).

Unfortunately, however, this release was limited to a rather small number of pressing (as the number 2 issue of the Backstreets magazine reports 500 copies). Moreover, as far as I've seen, there was at least one fairly well-reproduced reissue floating around in 1987, which nowadays in many cases is regarded erroneously as the original (BTW, since I wrote in the last post about this rather widespread misunderstanding, I have received "disappointed" responses from a few readers of this blog who hold this reissue copy). So, in the previous three consecutive posts, I pointed out this mix-up and clarified the apparent differences between the two releases, first, as to the custom record labels, and second, as to the full-color gatefold sleeves. Then, what about the vinyl discs?  Is the reissue a repressing using the same stampers to the original's or just one of the copycat products?

Left Two: "BS - 1" stamp found on the Side One deadwax of the original (left) and 1987 reissue (right). Right Two: "SG 1" (or "SG I") hand-etching on the original press (left) that is scratched out on the repressing (right: Note that "BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN" is not printed on the label).

According to Blinded By The Light (P. Humphries & C. Hunt, 1985; Plexus, London), the core matrix code of the original pressing is "BS" on this bootleg (obviously referring to the initials of the bootlegged artist). In fact, the six sides of the three original discs are stamped on the dead wax serially from BS -1 on Side One to BS - 6 on Side Six. In addition, SG 1 (or SG I) is hand-etched on all the six sides although it is unknown what it refers to. The reissue also has these same  "BS" stamps on Side One through Side Six. In my copy, however, the hand-etched code is scratched out on all sides except for Side One. Though, I'm not sure if this only occurs with my copy or is a general case for all the reissue copies circulating on the second-hand market. Anyway, from these observations, the reissue discs were found to be repressed vinyl records rather than pirated copies (to the original bootleg). Note that the U.S. editions from the early 1980s (easily recognized by different record labels and inner gatefold picture) bear different matrix numbers (FTD-1/2/3/4/5/6), indicating that they are pressed from different stampers and thus classified as counterfeited copies of this famous bootleg.

Inner sleeves from the original (left) and repressing (right). The
stamped number found in the TEARDROPS repressing is N 21/1/1.

Lastly, inner paper record sleeves are compared. The two releases in my possession came with different ones: high-quality white paper sleeves without corner cut for the original, and rather generic paper bags for the repressing. The latter are the same kind as those used for the repressed copies of TEARDROPS, since each paper bag is cut at upper two corners and has a stamped number (N 30/2/6 or N 30/3/6) in the same style on the bottom right corner of one side only. This indicates that the supplier of the paper bag is the same, and probably so are who repressed the two bootleg titles and the location of production (Sweden or somewhere in Europe?).

I remember that most of the original European bootlegs, especially once copied or re-bootlegged in the U.S., were hard to come by here, because it was the U.S. pressings rather than the European that constituted major vinyl imports from foreign countries to Japan. In fact, living in the Far East, I've seen the original (or exactly what I believe the original) copy of FOLLOW THAT DREAM only one time before, which was when I obtained the copy in my possession.

Classic Vinyl Bootleg Revisited: FOLLOW THAT DREAM 3LP (Part 3 of 4)

The triumph success of BORN IN THE USA has not only delivered the plethora of new live bootlegs mainly from the 1984-85 world tour, but also brought back the past recordings of previously bootlegged live concerts. Such revival issues include FOLLOW THAT DREAM, TEARDROPS ON THE CITY, and BORN TO BE THE BOSS, the famous THE RIVER tour bootleg trio from Sweden originally released in the early 1980s. I remember these re-releases hit the Japanese market around summer 1987 (see the last post for a scan of a mail-order catalog issued by a Japanese bootleg retailer). The bootleggers reproduced the original LPs, including cover arts and record labels, fairly well when compared with rather crummy earlier reproductions that appeared soon following the original releases (again, see the last post).       

The artist's name is removed from all six side labels on the three discs of the 1987
re-release (right). There is, I guess, the possibility that bootleggers might have
modified the labels intentionally to differentiate the two editions, because except
for the labels, the reissue faithfully reproduces the original artwork and design.

As a result, bootleg collectors and auction sellers often refer mistakenly to these three 1987 re-releases as the originals. That said, several distinct differences exist between the original and the faithful reissues. The subsequent sections explain what I have noticed by closely examining my copies of the two editions of FOLLOW THAT DREAM, just like I did before for TEARDROPS, a companion release to this.

First, the most obvious difference is observed in the custom labels on the vinyl discs. Although the 1987 release comes with black labels which are also used for the first pressing as described in the bootleg section of the Blinded By The Light book, the artist name is missing on all the six side labels of the re-release. In addition, it seems to me that these labels are slightly more contrasted between black and white colors (i.e., denser black and brighter white) compared to the labels on the first pressing. It is of note that no such differences are seen in TEARDROPS LPs where the record labels of the 1987 version are indistinguishable from those of the original pressing.

Left: Outer side of the first press (left) and 1987 reissue (right) gate-fold sleeves. Right: Close-up images of the album cover lettering. Note the inferior printing quality on the reissue sleeve (lower) compared with the original (upper).

Second, I recognize the following differences with respect to the full-color gate-fold sleeve. While the two editions share the same sleeve design, the color tone is slightly brighter in both the outer and inner pictures of the 1987 edition. Furthermore, a close examination revealed that the border around the edge of the album title/artist lettering is apparently blurred and fuzzy on the sleeve of the re-release. So, the printing quality of the 1987 cover artwork is somewhat inferior to that of the first pressing, which most probably resulted from photocopy reproduction from the original sleeve rather than using original fine prints. This case is the same as that for the previously reported TEARDROPS.

Left: Inner side of the first press (upper) and 1987 reissue (lower) gate-fold sleeves. The color tone difference is much more noticeable compared to the outer sleeve. Right: Close-up images of the center folded portion. Note an apparent convex (凸) shaped along the fold line on the original sleeve (lower) which is rather flat on the reissue cover (upper).

The visual difference is more obvious in the inner side of the sleeve artwork. As mentioned above, the 1987 sleeve features a brighter photo image of the stage shot (probably due to reproduction of the original); however, compared with the original, it takes on deeper black gloss on the background of the track list space on the left. A minor but interesting fact is that the original double sleeve gets more nicely folded than the reissue cover — check the convexed (凸) fold line on the center of the sleeve — a result of careful work in sleeve production. Again, these differences are commonly found in the two versions of TEARDROPS. The next and final post on this topic will examine and compare the differences in vinyl discs.
— To be continued.