Hammill/VDGG boots

Unofficial releases of VdGG and PH, or unofficially releases (aka as bootlegs) generally?

I never pay for that kind of stuff, I trade them or I download them for free. And I think I can get by that nearly everything I want.

Yes, it would be nice to have a place where at least the best of the audience recordings of the old days are available for downloading.

I'm also interested to discuss these old tapes, the sound quality of them, which are worth getting.

Well yes, I need the physical format. I’m a bit of a technophobe. I have a great trader in California who sends me my trades in cdrs to great expense I might add. I suppose the trading days are over for me as everything it seems are downloads. I just can’t get my head around it, it takes me forever to fathom it out and then I have to find the concert I want to listen to.
Seems like to much hard work, much easier for me to just take it off the shelf and bung it in the player.. although I must admit storage wise it would be nice to have them on a hard drive (if that’s the term) I have loads. Bring back Mike’s ‘Pawn Hearts’ it was much more fun. Snail mail trading anyone?

Been looking since i noticed this thread for a Cassette i have somewhere of Hammill in Italy early 70's which also has A VDGG Radio broadcast from about 1976 for the Alison Steele 'Nighbird' show New York.

Alison Steele 'Nighbird' radio shows were usually interviews + album tracks, but who knows....

I find it impossible to get into dime these days.
There are folks who still trade CDs. I have many and prefer CDs. If you download everything and keep it all on a hard drive there is a risk of it failing and you losing the lot. Then you have to have a back-up hard drive; then you get out of sync with what's on both... I download everything that comes up and then create CDs. That way if a CD fails then you have only lost one recording.
Phil.

Get a program which rips the CDs to either the usual lossy mp3 or to a lossless format like flac.

I have some concerts on CD, several as flac, and meanwhile many only as mp3. As I actually don't hear any difference between mp3 and flac (others surely do), there is not so much of a reason for me to get them lossless. And meanwhile I hear most music as mp3 anyway, not only with mp3 players but also in my car.

And copying from time to time all the stuff to another hard drive as safe copy is not much work, and hard drives get cheaper and cheaper. Actually CDs (and DVDs and Blu Rays)also bear the danger that they one day don't run anymore. But then if you loose some, with all these digital copies around it is easy to get the lost ones again.

Wouldn't it be possible to upload some of the essential VdGG concerts as flacsfor a short time, and then posting here a donwload link? But I have never done that myself, and I have no idea how much work it is to upload them.

Or to post links where one can find good downloads in the net?

I use Dimeadozen and other bit torrent sites. I always convert from FLAC or SHN to WAV and burn to CD because i'd rather listen on my stereo than the two tiny speakers on my computer. And for recordings that i want to keep, i back them up on two different hard drives (not all are worth keeping). I haven't always used backup hard drives so a lot of the shows that i downloaded before the hard drives--which applies to a significant number because i downloaded most of what i have within a 3- or 4-year period before i started using backup drives--are only on CD. I haven't had bad luck with CDs that i've burned--even those from 15 years ago. But i take care of them, don't play them in the car, etc.

I don't have a lot of pre-reunion VDGG recordings but of the list above, I have Bern and NYC ("First and Last" for the NYC show, which i haven't heard for a while but recall it being decent for a 1976 audience recording and reasonably complete). Bern is also decent for the time it was recorded. I also have "The Killer Lives," which is Brescia 1972. The sound is okay but i believe it runs fast (i haven't heard it in a long time).

Well, it seems i can adjust my own post:

the interview bits of the Nightbird show are (or were) contained in the collection 'Peter Hammill 73-92 (A Plague of Little Piece Keepers)'
a torrent from DIME that contains 25 cd of interviews and some early radiosessions.

But I agree with Phil: Dime is impossible to get working again these days.

But if anyone wants the interview files, let me know

French speaker, here!

Yes it does ! Apparently this was a "confidential concert" (as written at the end of the article), with two or three hundred spectators for an annual ball in a high school - the Lycée Janson de Sailly, in Paris. They seem to have played "Killer", "Lost" and "Pioneers over C." (maybe other tracks from "H. to He" or "The Least we can do"), in front of some astonished people. Steamhammer were planned, but they didn't come...

Getting back to Lighthouse question about best boots, here’s my take on it. Basel 72 only one in my collection. Cambridge 75 good start sounds like PH is in fine form. London poly 31,10. Noisy in the beginning, very good. Rome,01.12. not so harsh, a little quiet. Caen. 15/05. Not so good. Paris, 31,05. Standard sound. Italy 31.07 not sure if this is a boot copy, good quality but has chatter. I think this one is my best to date.

Yes, one of my favourites too. I like audience recordings although the early concerts have quality issues the later recordings are very good quality. Although they do get a bad press I think collectors like myself have all their official stuff. I’ve attended lots of concerts and festivals and this lockdown business has come into its own, I have been visiting lots of gigs. I really miss live concerts.