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Analyzed from 2588 words in the discussion.

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#live#https#archive#org#details#more#music#recordings#show#bands

Discussion (85 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

rigonkulousabout 2 hours ago
I am an active and enthusiastic recordist and have decades of stuff I've accumulated over the years.

One of the concerts I captured in the 90's, lives on as a bootleg which I often see around the scene of this one particularly great live electronic dance band, whose punters have created true value out of the hour and a half of live concert input I managed to record, standing right there front stage and center, with the band looking right at me.

It was a hilarious experience - I expected to get booted out pretty fast, so I held my ground as still as I could, DAT-tape rolling by, shotgun mike held in front of me like it was just normal, as if I belonged there.

The lead singer caught my eye and gave me a wide grin. I survived the concert, it was awesome, but boy was I relieved to have made it home with that DAT - which I of course, proceeded to digitize with my brand new spdf/io ..

The next year the band (who are big and famous, btw) were in the same city and I happened to be around, I got invited backstage to meet the band, participate in a bit of nerdery regarding their live setup and gear and so on, and talk about that recording I'd made.

I'd put it out as a pure bootleg, no questions asked.

Turns out they'd heard it and enjoyed it and came to appreciate the nature of their bootleggers, as avid fans who gave the band themselves something extra to think about in what was then, a burgeoning digital/online universe about to explode.

So, seeing it around, almost 30 years now .. here and there, again and again .. is quite hilarious. Youtube often recommends it to me in my playlist, its just there.

And at a certain spot in the recording, I tell my mate to stop standing so close to me (he was blocking the shottie), and prepare for my ass getting bounced - which never happened, thankfully.

So yeah, I just wanna say, if you personally have the desire to be a recordist, and have a pure purpose in it, I'd say just freakin' go for it.

Record All The Things.

Its good for the Artists, yo. And also their fans. (Its how we get rid of the managers, cough cough..)

tyrustabout 1 hour ago
Great story, but how are you going to say all that but not link to the recording?
999900000999about 1 hour ago
We shouldn’t need the managers, but the record industry does everything it can to consolidate everything.

However, I do notice that for more uncommon music, the record industry sort it just looks the other way. For example Eminem has tons of really old music on YouTube that I’m sure his lawyers could figure out how to get taken down. But it just stays up.

I would really like music copyright to change within my lifetime. It should realistically be 30 years from first release, and after that it should go straight to the public domain. By then everyone’s made their money. Even Elvis won’t be public domain until like 2050 or 2060. I don’t really think he needs the money right now.

tempaccount505041 minutes ago
I agree mostly but take issue with "not needing managers". As someone who went from split shows to big venues to touring, managers (good ones) are a godsend.

Will there be convenient parking?

Do they have adequate power?

Is the stage big enough?

Do we need to book sound?

Is there a weather contingency?

Where can we sleep?

What time is load in?

What time is sound check?

What form of payment?

How will they be advertising?

Who do we give promotional materials to?

Etc etc. Having someone take care of all this stuff allows us to focus on practicing and recording (which has another long list of questions that need to be addressed).

Not to mention networking and venue access. Put all that stuff together and it's a full time job that artists are poorly equipped to handle.

99990000099918 minutes ago
I assumed managers in this context, meant the record industry machine. Most bands don’t care if you find a bootleg of a live recording, it’s going to be a very different experience versus an actual album anyway.
euroderf43 minutes ago
> the record industry does everything it can to consolidate everything.

Financialization ? Productize, promote, push ?

erickhillabout 2 hours ago
I loved reading this with the still built-in caginess around all the identifying details. Just in case!
augusto-mouraabout 1 hour ago
You made me curious about the recording, could you share the youtube link for it? Only if you are comfortable with it, ofc
whompyjawabout 1 hour ago
What is a "punter"?
nutjob2about 1 hour ago
In this case, an attendee to the concert.

More generally someone on the buying/risk side of a transaction.

stavrosabout 1 hour ago
Customer/fan/concertgoer.
tclancyabout 4 hours ago
bahmbooabout 2 hours ago
This should be the link. Thanks
HelloUsernameabout 4 hours ago
Previous discussion: "Volunteers turn a fan's recordings of 10K concerts into an online treasure trove" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47687443 8-apr-2026 76 comments
alsetmusicabout 4 hours ago
This is one of the best things I've read about in a bit. It wasn't uncommon to buy marked-up (overpriced) bootlegs of live performances on CDs in the 90s. You never knew in advance if it'd be a quality recording or total garbage. We've lost that.

I still love when one of my live bootlegs of Faith No More comes on with them doing (sometimes mocking) parodies of popular music (their rendition of Nothing Compares to You by Sinead OConnor has been in my head as I type this). When I got to see them in 2010 (I think) they were true to form and played a bunch of short (reinterpretations) covers and it was one of the best aspects of the show. And I still have a Mr Bungle bootleg with them covering Existential Blues by Tom "T-Bone" Stankus (I always thought it was Doctor Demento's Wizard of Oz until just now when I looked it up).

How would you even know about these awesome gems without bootlegs or access to see all their live shows? YouTube is less likely to capture an entire show than a clip, whereas the bootlegs were typically the full show. There are probably areas of the internet where this stuff gets shared and traded, but having it in my local music shop meant everyone had access without requiring special knowledge.

I just did two searches, one Google and one Kagi, and neither turned up the FNM Nothing Compares to You. Who knows how many copies of it exist in the world. If my music library gets nuked, who will even know about it? I think I'm gonna start uploading my bootleg recordings of live shows to IA.

tuumiabout 3 hours ago
I remember this too. Those bootlegs were $30 each and my friend group was really into Pearl Jam. If I remember correctly a lot of these were made out of Italy. In college (maybe late 90s) I somehow managed to come up with $500 to buy a CD burner. I would make copies of these bootlegs and sell to friends for $10. I couldn't keep up and made my money back to pay for the burner relatively quickly. I think I was even able to find some to download then burning saving me the $30 at the record store. I made my own funny CD covers. Once I got my money back for the CD burner I just asked for the cost of the Cds. Great trip down memory lane.
thinkingtoiletabout 3 hours ago
Mike Patton loves pop music. Those covers were most likely not mocking anything. I love me some Faith No More but haven't heard them cover Nothing Compares 2 U (which is actually a Prince tune). I'll have to check it out.

EDIT: You weren't kidding. I can't find a cover of it. Please! Share it!

kkkqkqkqkqlqlqlabout 3 hours ago
If you really want to share it, how about torrenting it?
CoffeeOnWriteabout 3 hours ago
IA makes the most sense in the spirit of preservation.

Etree (https://www.etree.org/ ) is the longest running torrent site for tapes. It looks like only about 5% of the hundred thousand torrents have any seeders at all. Not sure how reliable requesting a seed is. I’d expect long tail stuff to get “effectively lost”. Versus IA whose purpose and funding is preservation, in addition to sharing.

schwartzworldabout 2 hours ago
It's funny to think how much effort was put into preventing bootlegging, when now everything is being recorded all the time.

The few bands that didn't care or even encouraged it reaped the benefits. I was a huge Ween fan in the 90s and bootlegged a show of theirs myself. Camera and recording devices were allowed and the result was a tremendous amount of live content available online. For some bands this might not matter, but they rarely played the same set list twice and often played songs differently from show to show. In the early internet days, there was more ween content online than you could ever hope to listen to.

reenorapabout 3 hours ago
I remember back in the early 90s I think on the internet when it was only accessible via my university, reading on a newsgroup about how people traded bootlegs from various concerts. People would mail cassette tapes around the country and would use double cassette recorders to make a copy of their bootleg and mail it back to people. It was definitely a different time
dfxm12about 2 hours ago
There was lots of "tape trading" back then. Video too. Foreign TV shows, regional programming, etc. I think this is certainly in the spirit of the Internet Archive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tape_trading

strickinatoabout 2 hours ago
I can't more highly recommend this book for getting into the headspace of the era a lot of these recordings.

11 chapters about DIY / Punk / Hardcore bands of the 1980s underground scene.

(The audiobook in particular is fun as it's read by musicians influenced by the artists in their respective chapters)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Band_Could_Be_Your_Life

pjmorris6 minutes ago
Seconded. This was a great read, and led me to a lot of great listening. And some wondering about how far Minutemen would've went if D. Boon hadn't passed so early.

I also think there's a lot to learn from the book about DIY for any startup or community organizer.

Lastly, if you read and you want to learn more about 'The Replacements', 'Trouble Boys', Bob Mehr, is a terrific read.

darknaviabout 3 hours ago
I enjoyed "live albums" a lot growing up.

The Mark, Tom, and Travis show was always a blast to listen to with my friends.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mark,_Tom,_and_Travis_Show...!)

dfxm12about 2 hours ago
HN thinks the exclamation point is punctuation and not part of the URL. Luckily wikipedia has a redirect already set up that will work: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Mark,_Tom,_an...
bguberfainabout 1 hour ago
Not to demerit the recording, but I felt more nostalgic for the last sentence of the article "Sometimes, the internet is good" than for the musics itself.
lokarabout 3 hours ago
Tangent idea: musicians should record every live show, and then put it on a streaming service, only for people who bought tickets to the show (possibly for an extra small fee on the ticket). Extra revenue for the artist, and a cool benefit for the fan (the liver performance you attended).
dfxm12about 2 hours ago
Why restrict it to ticket holders? I'm sure bands don't want to leave money on the table either. Metallica surely doesn't: https://www.metallica.com/store/live-metallica-cds/
petetntabout 3 hours ago
Fugazi released almost 900 shows on CD in the early 2000’s, costing 5 bucks a piece. Some of them are available on their Bandcamp page these days too https://fugazi.bandcamp.com/.
tracker1about 3 hours ago
At the last "That Damn Show" in Phoenix (2001 iirc), a couple of the bands were burning and selling CDs from that show. Was kind of nice/wild to see.
ClifReederabout 3 hours ago
This is very much a among jam bands - see https://www.nugs.net/
lokarabout 2 hours ago
That looks like just a subscription thing, right?

I saw David Byrne last week, during checkout for the ticket I would probably have paid an extra $10 to get access to the recording of that show.

natiosabout 3 hours ago
why not have it accessible to everyone so collectors can have a field day with it!
deweyabout 3 hours ago
Are you working for free too?
xd1936about 3 hours ago
Available for everyone to purchase*, not just the local venue ticket holders.
RajT88about 3 hours ago
There's a niche market for this. Whoever builds it will make a good living, I feel.
bilekasabout 2 hours ago
I have my worries about Internet Archive more and more recently.

I'm wondering though is there any decentralized IPFS or P2P Archive of the entire archive that can be helped with for preservation ?

https://www.wired.com/story/the-internets-most-powerful-arch...

sdellisabout 2 hours ago
According to the Wikipedia page, it seems that copies of the archive are stored around the world.

LOCKSS is a decentralized strategy for preservation which includes archival copies at remote sites. It has been in use for a very long time. I feel like preservation via IPFS would introduce quite a bit of risk to the goal.

badlibrarian33 minutes ago
I can find no current public document from the Internet Archive explaining what is backed up, where, or at what redundancy level.

From a 2016 blog post:

"Do you do backups too, for example to guard against corrupt data getting mirrored across both copies, or accidental deletion?"

John Gonzalez, the author and IA infrastructure lead, replied:

"We have done experiments to confirm that we can back up large portions of our corpus... but this is not a regular practice for us at this time."

https://blog.archive.org/2016/10/25/20000-hard-drives-on-a-m...

bityardabout 1 hour ago
Yeah, there is some popular misunderstanding about what IPFS is... a lot of people seem to think its essentially free or subsidized distributed cloud storage. But the more you dig into it, the more you realize it's just a fairly inefficient caching system.

LOCKSS looks interesting but it seems like it's exclusively for libraries.

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WalterBrightabout 2 hours ago
Many software companies in the 80s were quiet about their software being bootlegged because it turned out to be great for building a critical mass of users of their software.
monoosoabout 4 hours ago
A discussion from six days ago (same story, different source):

https://apnews.com/article/aadam-jacobs-collection-concerts-...

EvanAndersonabout 4 hours ago
Here's the discussion from 3 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47687443

I was pleased to find some "They Might Be Giants" in the archive.

pimlottcabout 4 hours ago
Really interesting to see how far this story has spread, I saw it in my Chicago groups first and now it’s popped up in outlets all over the world. I guess it shows how nostalgic we are for an earlier time, both in music and internet culture.
cyanbaneabout 3 hours ago
Some stuff I snagged the other day when it was posted:

Elf Power Live at Lounge Ax 1998-04-25 https://archive.org/details/ajc01382_elf-power-1998-04-25

Fountains Of Wayne Live at The Vic Theatre 2003-11-19 https://archive.org/details/ajc00691_fountains-of-wayne-2003...

Fugazi Live at State Theatre on 1991-08-06 https://archive.org/details/ajc02237_fugazi1991-08-06.ajcpro...

Godspeed You! Black Emperor Live at Lounge Ax on 1999-09-16 https://archive.org/details/ajc02676_gybe1999-09-16.ajcproje...

Iron & Wine Live at Abbey Pub 2004-07-02 (Late show) https://archive.org/details/ajc01329_iron-wine-2004-07-02.la...

Josh Rouse Live at Schubas Tavern 2004-04-26 https://archive.org/details/ajc01208_josh-rouse-2004-04-26

Midnight Oil Live at Cabaret Metro 1988-04-30 https://archive.org/details/ajc02792_midnightoil1988-04-30

Neutral Milk Hotel Live at Lounge Ax 1997-05-01 https://archive.org/details/ajc00789_neutralmilkhotel1997-05...

OK Go Live at Belmont-Sheffield Music Festival 2003-05-31 https://archive.org/details/ajc01120_ok-go-2003-05-31

Pavement Live at Lounge Ax 1992-06-12 https://archive.org/details/ajc00811_pavement1992-06-12

Polyphonic Spree Live at Metro on 2003-10-07 https://archive.org/details/ajc01050-PolyphonicSpree2003-10-...

Ratatat Live at Abbey Pub 2004-05-14 https://archive.org/details/ajc01220_ratatat-2004-05-14

Rogue Wave Live at Schubas Tavern on 2005-01-30 https://archive.org/details/ajc01227_roguewave2005-01-30.ajc...

Super Furry Animals Live at Abbey Pub 2002-04-19 https://archive.org/details/ajc01144_super-furry-animals-200...

The Decemberists Live at Intonation Fest on 2005-07-17 https://archive.org/details/ajc00642_decemberists2005-07-17....

The Folk Implosion Live at Schubas Tavern 2000-02-29 (Late show) https://archive.org/details/ajc00963_folk_implosion_2000-02-...

The Shins Live at Schubas Tavern 2001-08-24 https://archive.org/details/ajc01131_the_shins_2001-08-24

mesofileabout 2 hours ago
Fugazi enjoyers should also know about their own very extensive archive of live shows

https://dischord.com/fugazi_live_series

darkstarsysabout 1 hour ago
But what about copyright? Asking for a friend.
sphabout 1 hour ago
My friend Sam Altman said not to worry.
tracker1about 3 hours ago
I have a friend that used to record a lot of concerts... a surprising number of bands would even let him plug into the panel to do so. IIRC, mostly using a digital tape recorder later transferred to computer over firewire in the late 90s and 00s.
rolphabout 3 hours ago
if you really want to hear a live performance, there seems to be a nudge from amazon lately.

if your into providing music, dont default to a live version.

some live recordings are good, you can actually hear the music, and the crowd is only noticble between songs.

im thinking that an online archive of live concerts will only steepen this trend.

im just going back to all my mp3 media more often nowadays [bcz i actually bought it mp3 versions, decades ago when you still could]

that way i can hear music, instead of a bunch of people screaming over the music.

now heres somthing else, maybe you remember that concert, you were there, you love hearing you and friends at the concert, maybe people who no longer live are still there. jimmy dean, rock on,

xoxxalaabout 3 hours ago
I'm reading this article and Weird Al's Don't Download this Song pops up on random play. Did Microsoft add Copilot to Media Player or something?

"Don't download this song (Don't do it, no, no) Even Lars Ulrich knows it's wrong (You can just ask him)"

loloquwowndueoabout 3 hours ago
Windows, right? If so, that’s your problem. Your computer is controlled by someone else.

(Just being snarky btw lol)

LargeWuabout 3 hours ago
For those interested, Relisten is another repository of live concert recordings. It skews heavily towards improvisational music, ie jambands, but there's some indie rock on there as well.

https://relisten.net/

bigfishrunningabout 3 hours ago
Cool site, thanks! it seems to also be backed by archive.org, i wonder if there's a way to move more stuff into that interface. the nirvana performance in the article isn't there for instance.
ClifReederabout 3 hours ago
One of the authors/maintainers of Relisten posted that they are working on adding the Aadam Jacbos collection - https://bsky.app/profile/saewitz.com/post/3mjawvvklls2v
criddellabout 3 hours ago
> he has to use anachronistic cassette decks to play the tapes, which get converted into digital files

Anachronistic?

It seems like a complicated way of saying "the tapes were digitized".

FarmerPotatoabout 2 hours ago
Yeah, anachronism means 'not belonging to the time period'. If you made a 1980s movie and had the protagonist transfer cassettes to a laptop via USB interface, THAT would be an anachronism.

I think the author meant "old-fashioned" or "obsolete". Though using a cassette deck to read cassettes, geez, what else are you going to do? Build your own using an Arduino?

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nour833about 3 hours ago
Yeah but you know DMCA may intervene to delete it if they are copyrighted (as it happened with many media content before)
tiahuraabout 3 hours ago
There are so many concert recordings of awesome performances that sound like crap because they are audience tapes.

Often before a performance recorded music is played and captured in the audience recordings.

Would it be possible to train a model on an archive of these concert audience recordings of studio recordings paired with the original studio recordings to develop a system to “clean up” audience recordings?

tracker1about 3 hours ago
Maybe... however, most bands tend to drift a LOT from the studio versions of songs while touring.
charcircuitabout 1 hour ago
>listen now

These are dangerous words to use for an archive site for material still protected under copyright.

GaryBlutoabout 4 hours ago
Good, but I doubt they'll last long on there before a DMCA takedown or lawsuit.
joecool1029about 4 hours ago
They covered it in the apnews source. Takedowns are available but only a few bands requested it, most were supportive of the archive.
Scoundrellerabout 3 hours ago
> Takedowns are available but only a few bands requested it

101% chance Metallica did this

RajT88about 3 hours ago
Who? I feel like there used to be a band by that name. Not sure what became of them.
Ylpertnodiabout 3 hours ago
101% kiss
vaylianabout 3 hours ago
To quote:

> Jacobs said the majority of the artists he recorded are pleased to have their work preserved. As for copyright concerns, he’s happy to remove recordings if requested, but added that only one or two musicians so far have asked that their material be taken down.

I think the keyword here is "preserved". These are old recordings that cannot realistically be recreated by any other method. AI may reconstruct some parts, but it's still not the real thing. These recordings are time capsules.

zoobababout 4 hours ago
Mirror the archive before it get taken down.