When I was 17, my family moved to Tokyo in January 1974 as Diplomats. Our apartment was right between Roppongi and Akasaka, the hottest areas in Tokyo for entertainment back then. Roppongi had quite a few discos and live music bars, it was the 70’s, just after the Vietnam War. I was a regular at Discos like “Nepenta”, “T.G.I. Friday’s”, “Java Jive”, “Lexington Queen”, “Za Makeup”, “Red Shoes”, “Giga”, “Cavern Club” … and there was “Byblos”, right next door to the disco I would practically live at, “Mugen”.
I became involved in several facets of the music and entertainment industries. Starting with DJ-ing at Tokyo’s most popular disco “Mugen” in 1975, where I helped discover “Confunktion” , DJ-ed with Wolfman Jack, worked with Rufus and Chaka Kahn, Santa Esmeralda, The Miracles and others. Next came sourcing and bringing various artists and bands to play throughout Japan including Blood Sweat & Tears, The Mama’s and Papa’s, Barbara Fairchild, Jeannie C Riley, The Kingston Trio, Rose Royce, Elvis Elvis Elvis and others in music clubs and on the U.S. military bases, where I did everything from band/tour manager, promotion, van driver, equipment setup, mixing boards, lights and MC-ing. Tokyo was a much smaller city back then, and I ran into and partied with many stars at the local clubs. Scott McKenzie and I sang “If You’re Going to San Francisco” together in a karaoke bar. I partied with The Stylistics around a piano at the New Otani Hotel, spent a night sitting in a bathroom with Al Green. I “Helped” Ritchie Blackmore snag a few groupies to take to his hotel, introduced KISS because nobody recognized them without their makeup…
A few years later I worked for a company to set up collector’s stores in Harajuku Tokyo. The first was a Beatles collectors store “Get Back“, next an Elvis Presley store “Love Me Tender“, then a Rolling Stones store “Gimme Shelter“, a movie collectables store “Hollywood” and an early UK rock store “Yardbirds“. Through this work, I travelled the world buying up rare and collectable items from Elvis Presley stage outfits, Marilyn Monroe dresses worn in movies, Michael Jackson’s scarecrow costume from “The Wiz”, Beatles gold discs, autographs, rare records, dolls and other memorabilia to Robert Taylor’s costume from “Ivanhoe” and even George Harrison’s personal Aston Martin DB5 sports car, one of which each Beatle purchased in 1965 after seeing the James Bond movie “Goldfinger”.
Through my travels and various worldwide connections, I was involved in the “grey area” bootleg records business, as a buyer and importer at first, then soon became personal friends with several of the original bootleggers. You’ll see my own original version of The Rolling Stones “Blind Date” in here with the title stamped 4 times, as well as a few picture discs I had made for fan clubs.
Bootleg records are actually a labor of love, a way of paying homage to the artists, by offering true fans an opportunity to own a rare piece of history. The sound quality on bootlegs varies from barely audible, or noisy live recordings, to actual mixing board recordings. The material on bootlegs is generally unused outtakes, studio recordings, interviews, or otherwise “leftovers”.
I know of many stories of recording artists actively collecting their own bootlegs, as they contain alternate versions or performances of many songs. The creator of John Lennon’s “Snap Shots” album had his first copy of the brand new album in his hand, and by chance was in the same elevator with John Lennon himself who saw the cover and asked what it was. John asked for it for his collection, and received it as a gift from a true fan. I was even given a list of their own records which The Rolling Stones wanted. As a “thank you” for all the promotional work we did with our Gimme Shelter shop, I was invited to meet the Stones backstage at Tokyo Dome during their “Forty Licks” tour in 2003. Thus the photo at the top of this page.
Keith Richards says:
“I was always very nervous with the Stones, or at least I felt the Stones were very nervous so that if they knew they were being recorded, then they start to treat the show like a recording session and you wouldn’t get that live thing sometimes you know, so what’s interesting about these bootlegs is that the band don’t know they’re being recorded so they don’t give a shit, and they’re just playing what they’re playing, and you get a natural feel you know, and that to me is what’s interesting about this interest in live music as well.”
Google Play Mini Doc “The Rolling Stones Bootleg Series 2012
This site is a trip through my collecting history and brings back some wonderful memories.