Classic Vinyl Bootleg Revisited: Suki on double vinyls! — YOU CAN TRUST YOUR CAR TO THE MAN WHO WEARS THE STAR from the mid-1970s and NEW YORK CITY SERENADE from the late-1980s (Part 4 of 5)

I bought this double bootleg in 1989 at a flea market in Rome, still with the price tag on the front sleeve asking for 37,000 lire (equivalent to US $26 and JP 3,700 Yen based on the then exchange rate). Of course, I negotiated a discount (down to 32,000 lire or so), and the shop owner accepted it because I also purchased two brand-new bootleg CDs from him.

A wooden wall decoration given at
Moon Valley Hotel, where I stayed in
Seiano 33 years ago (the dates and
location are stamped on the back;
see the inset above).

Back in June 1989, when I was in my mid-twenty, I got my first opportunity to visit foreign countries in Continental Europe: Italy, Switzerland, and France. First landing in Rome after an exhausting long flight from the Far East, I took trains and headed south to the first destination, Seiano di Vico Equense, a beautiful site south of Naples with a full view of the Gulf of Naples and Vesuvio (Although I have had no chance since then, someday I hope to visit there again). I stayed there for a week or so to fulfill the main purpose of the trip, then moved up to the north, and before reaching Switzerland, stopped in Rome and Milan for a couple of days. While I enjoyed the sightseeing, history, and culture in these ancient cities, I did not forget to expand the bootleg collection of my favorite artist, hopefully by picking up some rarities otherwise unavailable here (In those years, I was still much more interested in bootlegs rather than official products).

Despite what the back cover says on this second release from Exodus Records (ER-002), no serial number is printed or hand-written on my copy. Also available on black vinyl. Maybe an Italian bootleg (though Discogs reports the U.S. origin), but can anyone confirm (or deny) that?  FLAT TOP AND PIN DROP, the first release of this bootleg label (ER-001), also available as picture and black vinyl editions, is most probably an exact copy of the old bootleg of the same title (see 5/10/2018).

In 1989, Great Dane Records released 20 titles of live
CDs from various artists, including five Springsteen
albums. Scanned from the booklet for the Master-Plus
version of THE SAINT, THE INCIDENT, AND THE MAIN
POINT SHUFFLE (GDR CD 9012).

Unfortunately, however, I could not find any interesting items wherever second-hand record shops or stores I had my eyes on. Maybe the times were not right for vinyl hunting, due to the format transition from vinyl to CD in the bootleg industry. After all, it was a flea market in Rome where I dug out what I did not own. For Springsteen collectors, the year 1989 is remembered for the advent of the first bootleg CD from Great Dane Records, Italy. At this point (early June 1989), their first release, YOU MEAN SO MUCH TO ME (GDR CD 8901; 10/12/2014), was the only available title at import record/CD shops here in Japan, and I did not know what titles would follow the next. Then I found the two new CD releases at the flea, LIVE IN THE PROMISED LAND (GDR CD 8906; original, not the Master-Plus version) and LIVE AT THE BOTTOM LINE (GDR CD 8907), both coming in a bulky jewel case. Just beginning to circulate, bootlegs in the CD format were undoubtedly the hottest collector's item in the late 1980s. So, I was fairly satisfied with the result of hunting and almost skipped checking a container full of vinyl discs at the flea shop, where I found a double-record set never seen before in terms of the package and recording date. Further unexpected were the two vinyl pressings, which were picture discs.

The hand-etched matrix numbers read SOOD 007 1A-A on SIDE ONE
(upper) and SOOD 007 1D on SIDE FOUR (lower). SIDES TWO/THREE
are SOOD 007 1B/1C (not shown). The bootleggers seem to have
imitated those of the Singer's Original Double Disks (SODD) label
releases, such as YOU CAN TRUST ... (whose dead-wax code is
shown on 10/22/2022), although "SODD" is misspelled as "SOOD."

NEW YORK CITY SERENADE (Exodus Records, ER-002) mainly presents the October-19-1974 performance at Memorial Chapel Concert Hall, Union College, Schenectady, NY. This concert was perhaps the 6th or 7th among about 40 shows at which Suki Lahav joined and played between October 1974 and March 1975. Although the picture-disc set covered only the first eight of 14 songs from that night, two essentials to which Suki significantly contributed were included (i.e., Incident On 57th Street and Spanish Harlem). Moreover, two of the three bonus tracks were culled from the same era (New York City Serenade and A Love So Fine from Trenton, NJ, November 29, 1974). So, this release was one of the only two vinyl bootleg titles in existence, along with an all-time classic,  YOU CAN TRUST YOUR CAR TO THE MAN WHO WEARS THE STAR, that captured rare live concerts featuring Suki and represented young Springsteen's talent. This explains why I consider it a classic vinyl bootleg even though not a complete set, not in excellent sound, and so late to have come out in the vinyl era. In fact, I have never seen any bootleg guidebooks on my hands that list this release (i.e., three volumes of so-called Bootleg Bibles, the concise Unofficially Springsteen, from the U.K., and the vinyl album section of the WANTED book Volume One by Jan Rodenrijs).

— To be continued to Part 5 / back to Part 1, Part 2 or Part 3.