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.