NEWS

March, 2004
I just wanted to drop you a line to thank you for setting me up as a trader on bobsboots.com.  I have copied all the traders I have dealt with and want to thank them all again. I have met so many wonderful traders on this site and within a five week period I have been able to get over 40 CD's.  Uri from Italy was great to deal with and I see that he has recently joined up - welcome to a great site, Uri.  Steve (e-mailed to Sheehy) sent me a couple of shows without anything in return, Nick Rogers was good enough to do some B&P, Michel and Daniel (also from Europe) were great to deal as was fellow Canuck, Jonathan Waller and I can't say enough about Chuck Feltch from the US who has helped me with artwork and traded me 20 CD's (more than I sent him).
Thanx again to the webmaster for all your good work and all the traders I've met.
Best Regards,
Enrico

Dec, 2003
u guys rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tom Petty

Sept, 2003
bobsboots.com is the most informative Dylan bootleg reference guide ever created. CD Pinkerton is amazing!
Allan Zimmerman

May, 2003
"bobsboots.com is one of the best sites in the whole web"
Wolfgang and David Hamm
 

April, 2003
You guys are incredible! Not only are you by far the best Bob Dylan site, you are my favorite web site of all! The only thing I don't understand is how you are offering this massive work for free!!?? I'm sending a donation today, but I'd gladly join the club if you made it a pay site. Best wishes to Craig and the gang, and congrats on what must surely be decades worth of work!
John Jeffreys
Actually, I'm now going on 3 decades worth of chronicling. :-) Thanks for the e-mail!
Craig

March. 06, 2003:
Hello webmaster,
what can I say about your site ?
The same as every Bob Listener - its a wonderful site and one of my favorites in the whole web.
Keep on your important work
Heartily form germany
Cylaea
 
 
 
 

Dec. 24, 2002:
Hello. I have been purchasing bootlegs for several years now. Dylan, Stones, you name it. I've been purchasing them all on CD because I thought surely a vinyl copy of a bootleg tape would be horrible sounding. But lately I've really been wondering If I'm right about that. I'm aware that every bootleg recording is different, so it's hard to compare... but in general.., are bootleg vinyls any worse in sound quality? Also, is it very common for the contents of a vinyl bootleg to have come from a CD recording in the first place?...  because that would certainly ruin the idea of it being on vinyl.
Thanks,  Jack Fisk

Reply:
Great questions!
We can't answer about boots in general... only Dylan boots.
There are no known vinyl boots that have used a CD source.
There are a very few titles that were released on both mediums that used the same original analogue tape source.
As a general rule of thumb, boot vinyl is not quite as high of a sound quality as CD. As for our star guide.. it compares vinyl to vinyl only (not vinyl to CD). There are many physical reasons for the differences... but the most important reason is that, knowing the limitations of the analogue medium, LP manufacturers were never under pressure to maximize equalization, remove white noise, lower the noise floor ratio, etc. That is not to say that vinyl is bad... and there are many exceptions. One glowing exception is Ten of Swords. The quality of most recordings here has yet to be matched on CD. Of course, there is a CDr version, but it lacks the warmth of the vinyl. Speaking of defeating the purpose... while no vinyl came from CD, many early CDs came from vinyl!
Vinyl is sought now mostly as a collectible, and not for daily playing. However, as with any analogue to digital comparison, There is a "feel"... some call it a "warmth" of the vinyl that can never be reproduced by digital means. (In the same way that a lithograph of an oil painting can never duplicate the feel and texture of the oil). This phenomenon is due to the fact that the human organs are analogue devices. Ultimately, then... all signals will reach our brains as filtered through the analogue ear drum. The ear drum cannot operate as a digital device, and therefore analogue produced sounds create a more natural stimulus to the ear. If you're not an aficionado of the analogue feel, I wouldn't recommend buying vinyl only for the sound (If you have no interest in it as a collectible). On the other hand, if you find a good deal on vinyl, use our rating guide to determine if you might enjoy an alternate listening experience. The last thing to keep in mind for your vinyl experience is the equipment on which it is played. You can buy an OK used turntable at the flea market for $30.... you can buy a good new turntable for $300,... you might be a vinyl connoisseur and choose to purchase a great one for $3,000... or you can invest in an (I'll never play another CD) top end turntable for $30,000.00. And, of course, any and every price range in between these extremes. Within the digital realm, there is no such comparison. A $10 disc player can assimilate the same information as a $1,000.00 one. The ability to reproduce analogue signals from vinyl is quite another thing. Think of a turntable in the way that you would think of an automobile, or a computer. While even the lowest priced model you could find will perform the function.... the better, more expensive models perform better. Is the cheapest available what you will ultimately be happy with? To learn more about the technical reproduction of sound from vinyl, see our page on the subject. To learn about proper vinyl care, see our Album Care Tips.
-Craig Pinkerton-
 

Dec. 09, 2002:
I still say that bobsboots is a priceless resource for dylanophiles like myself.  Keep up the great work. I have had many good experiences with traders thanks to the bobsboots trading page. Another great service from your fine website.
Michael Garrett

Nov. 12, 2002:
Thanks for offering such a good thing for bob fans...and thanks for your generosity.
Lauren Hinsley

Oct. 26, 2002:
 Hi webmaster!
Just wanna start off saying that I have been a devoted viewer of your amazing site ever since I got into Bob,
and my bootleg collection sparkles because of your devoted time and effort you put into your site.
David Elliot
 

Sep 2002
You have the most amazing site for Bob and his shows!  Keep up the GREAT work!
Thanks,
Brian

Aug. 28, 2002:
Many thanks, Bobsboots.....you have  an absolutely wonderful site, and long may you run.
Billyb

Aug. 27, 2002:
Thanks for an excellent site. You've created an incredible service!!
David Bokovoy

Aug. 16, 2002:
I'd like to take a second to tell Craig and all what an invaluable resource Bobsboots is to me.
As a Dylan fan and CDR trader, I use your website almost daily.  The work you've put into the
site, and the information it contains is too good to be free!  Thank you for this service.
-And-
Aug. 03, 2002:
Bobsboots is one of the 3 best Dylan websites out there
(Expecting Rain and My Back Pages being my other faves).
I thank Craig and all others involved in creating and maintaining such a wonderful resource for Dylan fans.
Words cannot say enough...
Thank you,
Michael Garrett

DATE:    Tue, 9 Apr 2002 09:54:17 EDT
TO:    <webmaster@bobsboots.com>
SUBJECT:    Greetings from Rob Stoner
Great site, man!!!
Rob Stoner

 

Jan. 03, 2002:
Hi, I'm a music teacher and tech coordinator at The Grammar School in
Putney, VT, currently doing a 5th grade history/music unit on Martin
Luther King. Came across "The Children's Crusade...do you know the
origin of Dylan's calling this concert by that name? Is there any
connection?  BTW, I did my honor's thesis at Barnard on Dylan in 1970.
Glad to find your website.
Alli Lubin

Reply:
Alli,
Thanks for the email!
This was not the name of a Dylan tour, rather a moniker dubbed by the manufacturer of this exhaustive collection of shows. It is only conjecture on my part, but I believe that they came up with this fanciful name for one of the European shows, and that it accidentally got attributed to the Melbourne & Adelaide shows within the set. My logic behind this stems from the fact of Dylan being in Europe, land of the medieval "Children's Crusade", and a play upon the brilliant 1966 Barry Feinstein photo sessions in Liverpool. During the sessions, children began flocking around Dylan. They had no idea who he was, but just wanted to hang around him. Dylan loves children, and enjoyed having them around because they saw him as a friend, not as "Bob Dylan". The original title and artwork are from a 1966 Ralph Gleason article on Dylan published in The New Yorker.
-Craig Pinkerton-
 
 

Nov. 18, 2001:
You have cost me an awful lot of money!  I've been collecting Bob for years (I have vinyl boots going back to the 70s) and it's always a crapshoot buying "unauthorized" releases.  Naturally, I'm always on the lookout for magazines/websites that review or discuss Bob's boots with some authority so I have some information to go on (after all, this can be a very expensive hobby). I have been relying on the Deep Beneath the Waves reviews on the expectingrain website but they're irregularly published, and haven't done an update since last summer.  Your site was a real find for me! Especially your ratings and comments! But back to my first line:  The Basement Tapes may be my favorite collection of Bob material from his entire career.  Like so many others,
I had the original release on a vinyl boot (in my case, Billion Dollar Bash).  Then, in '86, I brought home the two double LP sets that snuck into the stores without fanfare and introduced us all to All You Have to Do Is Dream and the host of cover songs released on those albums. And finally, the Genuine Basement Tapes.  I should have been satisfied, and yet -- the sound was dull and uninteresting, not even as warm as the (crackly) vinyl releases.  I was still not satisfied. And then I saw your review of Tree With Roots.  It sounded like the answer to my dreams of the perfect Basement Tapes collection. Well, I finally picked it up last weekend.  And it lived up to all the hype.  The sound is stunning.  On some cuts, you feel like you're hiding in a corner of the basement eavesdropping on the music.  And I owe it all to you guys and your review. But damn!  this thing's expensive.  Still, how could I resist?  You were right, dammit!  It was worth every penny.
Thanks, and keep up the good work.
-BJ-
 

Nov. 13, 2001:
Thank you very much for the scan. I really don't know what I would do without sites like yours. I certainly wouldn't have known about Bob Dylan's bootlegs, even though I do have all of his store available releases. I now have a collection of about 200 titles (although finding time to play them is another matter). It's not just that... it has also made me more computer literate (and for someone who saw Buddy Holly perform live in the UK; that is not too bad). I try to find my way around Quark and photoshop playing around trying to make my own pathetic attempts at producing covers that I cannot track down.
So thank you,
Regards,
Les