Hey Beatles Fans...

[BarryL]

I've started to pick up the remasters and am back into a Beatle's phase. Been about 20 years.

Does anybody have any of the bootleg Beatles studio material that's been circulating and would be willing to share? I wouldn't mind having a listen.

[Mr MidFi]

I have no Beatles boot material. But I can vouch for the remasters of Revolver and Rubber Soul, if that helps.

[BarryL]

All the remasters I've heard so far are excellent. I know everybody knows all of the Beatles songs, but if you've only heard them on the radio, you're not hearing them. McCartney's bass playing is incredible. I always love the Beatles for their inventive melodies,their great vocal harmonies, and their confidence to push the boundaries of songwriting and studio production. But now I have to add the inventiveness and melody of Paul's playing.

[Jim Clark]

If you're really lucky, perhaps J will pop his head in and see this. On this site he'd probably be the best bet. I have a couple of potential sources but I'm guessing most if not all is gonna be live and not studio. I'll check though.

jc

[ForeverAutumn]

All the remasters I've heard so far are excellent. I know everybody knows all of the Beatles songs, but if you've only heard them on the radio, you're not hearing them.

I totally agree with this statement. Up until a couple of years ago I'd never really "listened" to The Beatles. I'd heard stuff on the radio so often that I was sick of them and I'd written them off. But after a conversation on The Beatles here, I picked up a couple of the remasters and really fell in love with them. First, I was suprised at how many songs I had never heard! Second, really taking the time to listen to the songs instead of just hearing the songs opened up a whole new perspective on their music for me. It only took me 40+ years to become a fan.

[Jack in Wilmington]

I have Abbey Road on remaster from 2009, but haven't gotten any others. I guess I was afraid that I would get the remasters and then they would show up on BluRay or SACD.

I do have a wonderful Japanese pressing of Sgt. Peppers on Parlophone records that I got a couple of years ago when a local stereo shop was getting back into carrying vinyl.

[BarryL]

. I'll check though.

jc

Thanks Jim.

[dean_martin]

I have a cd of the roof top concert plus studio demos from the Let It Be sessions that I picked up about 15 years ago. I haven't checked, but I'd be surprised if it is still "boot" material.

IMO, the Red and Blue compilations were the exception to the general rule that "best of/greatist hits" albums are sacrilege. Don't write them off unless something better has come along.

[3LB]

I don't know of any live boots of the Beatles... they'd be really old and prolly shitty sounding, but then again, I don't do boots because of sound quality... if I wanna hear shitty music, I'll play it!

But I can attest to the quality of the remasters. I must admit, I didn't go for them at first. I had most everything on CD already and it just sounded like another money grab, especially since Michael Jackson was reeling from back to back lawsuits and inactivity. I heard he more than made up lost ground on these reissues. But yeah, they all that. While listening to some songs (of which I'm most familiar with but hadn't listened to in a while) I swore I was hearing alternate takes. Way more detail than I heard on the older releases. I too, was ambivelant buying these on CD yet again, but it just so happened I was in the sacred store when they were just putting them on the shelf (used) for $8.99ea. I told them I'd buy all them at once if they'd gimme a break, so they sold them to me for $6.99ea. I then turned around about a wek later and sold them my old release CDs. They already had yet another set a few months later when I was in there again, this time for $9.99ea! Glad I jumped when I did. I am surprised how good they sound, when The Beatles catalog translated very well to CD in to begin with. The copies I sold were mostly all purchased while I was in the Navy back when they were first issued on CD back in the late '80s. I think I paid $14 to $15 for those and that was the PX price.

[Jim Clark]

I don't know of any live boots of the Beatles... they'd be really old and prolly shitty sounding, but then again, I don't do boots because of sound quality... if I wanna hear shitty music, I'll play it!

But I can attest to the quality of the remasters. I must admit, I didn't go for them at first. I had most everything on CD already and it just sounded like another money grab, especially since Michael Jackson was reeling from back to back lawsuits and inactivity. I heard he more than made up lost ground on these reissues. But yeah, they all that. While listening to some songs (of which I'm most familiar with but hadn't listened to in a while) I swore I was hearing alternate takes. Way more detail than I heard on the older releases. I too, was ambivelant buying these on CD yet again, but it just so happened I was in the sacred store when they were just putting them on the shelf (used) for $8.99ea. I told them I'd buy all them at once if they'd gimme a break, so they sold them to me for $6.99ea. I then turned around about a wek later and sold them my old release CDs. They already had yet another set a few months later when I was in there again, this time for $9.99ea! Glad I jumped when I did. I am surprised how good they sound, when The Beatles catalog translated very well to CD in to begin with. The copies I sold were mostly all purchased while I was in the Navy back when they were first issued on CD back in the late '80s. I think I paid $14 to $15 for those and that was the PX price.

You'd be surprised with the quality of some of the bootlegs out there. Of course there are some with low quality but you'd also be surprised with how serious a great many of the tapers take their hobby. I've got a lot of prized boots that sound way better than any commercially produced live album I've ever heard. Naturally, there are some that definitely sound poor and I have my share of those too.

Barry, sorry but my main source (dimeadozen.org) doesn't seem to have any seeded Beatles bootleg studio recordings, sorry about that : (

[dean_martin]

I did a little research and found that the film and soundtrack of the "roof top concert" (a/k/a The Get Back Sessions) is due to be released (or, re-released) in 2013. The cd I have is called "The Beatles: As Nature Intended" from Red Robin records. It has an "import" sticker on it which was sometimes code for bootleg at the old record store where I got it. I think there may be some overlap with the official release of "Let It Be: Naked" that came out a couple years ago. The sound quality from that live performance on the roof top of Apple ain't bad, 3lb, as the film and music were intended to be released at the time, but there were disagreements among the bandmates over the edits due to tension and George Harrison had quit briefly during filming.

[BarryL]

Thanks guys. I'll keep asking around. Somewhere they will show up.
Slowly picking up the remasters. There's some stuff that gets played so rarely and that I haven't listened to in so long that it seems like new Beatles stuff!

They were certainly all they were cracked up to be.

[MindGoneHaywire]

Honestly, after the remasters...well, to be specific, the Mono Box...I don't really have any desire to hear anything that hasn't come out. I think all the holy grails have been accounted for (the Revolution that leaked out a few years ago I have an MP3 of...)

The mixes on the Mono Box I'd mostly never heard, at least the ones where there are easily noticeable differences, especially Revolver & the White Album. I already had the two volumes of the Capitol Albums. The Mono Box has stereo mixes of Help! and Rubber Soul. So the only remaster I really felt it necessary to pick up was Abbey Road, but at some point I found them on sale & got Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, and the White Album.

Beyond that I was okay with just having the 1987 releases on the earlier stuff; I didn't have to have Please Please Me or With The Beatles 4 different ways. But the stuff on the Anthology discs satisfied any bootleg envy I might have had. And the Live At the BBC is incredible. Also have the Yellow Submarine Songtrack somewhere, Love is interesting, 1 is good to have, and homemade CDRs of the Red & Blue collections I started listening to 35 years ago (those greatest-hits get a little tired after while, though). The Mono Box took care of any stray tracks I might have been missing from the EP Collection. I still have a vinyl-to-CDR of Live At The Hollywood Bowl...never got around to running copies of Rock And Roll Music or Love Songs. Some day...

They never got around to selling the mono albums separately, did they?

[Jack in Wilmington]

Honestly, after the remasters...well, to be specific, the Mono Box...I don't really have any desire to hear anything that hasn't come out. I think all the holy grails have been accounted for (the Revolution that leaked out a few years ago I have an MP3 of...)

The mixes on the Mono Box I'd mostly never heard, at least the ones where there are easily noticeable differences, especially Revolver & the White Album. I already had the two volumes of the Capitol Albums. The Mono Box has stereo mixes of Help! and Rubber Soul. So the only remaster I really felt it necessary to pick up was Abbey Road, but at some point I found them on sale & got Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, and the White Album.

Beyond that I was okay with just having the 1987 releases on the earlier stuff; I didn't have to have Please Please Me or With The Beatles 4 different ways. But the stuff on the Anthology discs satisfied any bootleg envy I might have had. And the Live At the BBC is incredible. Also have the Yellow Submarine Songtrack somewhere, Love is interesting, 1 is good to have, and homemade CDRs of the Red & Blue collections I started listening to 35 years ago (those greatest-hits get a little tired after while, though). The Mono Box took care of any stray tracks I might have been missing from the EP Collection. I still have a vinyl-to-CDR of Live At The Hollywood Bowl...never got around to running copies of Rock And Roll Music or Love Songs. Some day...

They never got around to selling the mono albums separately, did they?

Very impressive collection.

[BarryL]

But the stuff on the Anthology discs satisfied any bootleg envy I might have had. And the Live At the BBC is incredible.

I haven't gotten around to buying the Anthologies, although I have a CDR of #2. They're a bit pricey IMO. Probably should have got them when they came out.

Live at the BBC is probably something worth picking up to round things off.

I bought the live in Japan DVD which contains two shows from 1966. The second show is a better performance. I guess they weren't as tired. What's just as interesting is the collection of Japanese TV footage of anti-Beatles street protests and the bizarre press conference they held.

Yeah, I'm on a renewed Beatles kick. I sickened myself of them in my early 20's and them moved on to The Moody Blues. But I've been giving them a fresh listen and I"m loving it. They had the knack for bizarre but beautiful song writing. They made complex chords, time-signatures and sounds meld into something that seemed universally simple, right, and timeless. That was their true genius.