Friday, February 25, 2011

Important Blog Announcements

Announcements (from Elvis Costello?)
Blog Announcements

Please excuse this brief interruption of the music for a few announcements, some good, some bad.

DMCA takedown notification
First, for the bad news. This blog recently received its first DMCA takedown notification from Blogger. It concerned The Kinks rarities compilations that were posted last year (Rare Anthology Vols. 1 &2, and the Ultimate Compilation of the Great Lost Kinks Album Rarities) comprising an alleged copyright infringement. As far as I knew these collections contained only unreleased outtakes and rarities. Now, I don't know what part or parts of these collections are in violation of copyright, so I had to remove the entire posts and download links. So, sorry, but these have been removed and will not be re-posted. So, that's a bummer. I have not and will not knowingly post anything that is copyrighted, and I am sorry that (if?) these compilations contained some copyrighted recordings. Fortunately, this does not affect any of the live Kinks shows that I have posted, only the rarities collections. Anyway, this is not a big deal, and should not have negatively affect the future of the blog. However, it does raise a couple of concerns. First is that now that they know this blog is here and had one copyright complaint, we might be scrutinized more closely in the future. Second, and of greater concern, is that this blog now has one complaint against us, and could be shut down by blogger if repeated complaints are received.

Blog Activity
On a more positive note, this blog recently surpassed 300,000 visits in a little over a year (since I started keeping track). Now, for some sites that isn't very much, but for this little outpost it seems quite substantial. More importantly, the numbers have been growing steadily. About a year ago, we were averaging about 500-600 visits a day, and now those numbers are well over 1200 a day, or more than double from a year ago. So, although I don't post a great volume of stuff here (average of only about 6 new posts a month), I think that what is posted is really great stuff, and at least we seem to be on the right track, that is, we do seem to have a core group of followers that regularly check back, and we are steadily adding new followers as well, so all that is good (although I wish I could get some more comments back from some of you folks. It's very hard to determine what people think of what is posted here when so few bother to comment). Now, this blog is strictly a personal (and enjoyable) thing for me. I have limited time to devote to this (and already spend far more time on this than I should), thus it will always be somewhat erratic and part-time endeavor (in other words, the current output rate is about all you can ever expect from this blog). But I will always try to provide interesting and quality stuff, that may be difficult to find through other outlets, and it will always be my own personal preference of great artists (ones that I really like). So, anyway, just wanted to give you that little progress report.

New rare, uncirculated recordings to be featured on BB Chronicles
Now here is some big, great, new, and exciting news! After posting the rare SHF Band show last month, I was contacted by a fan of the group who said he had recordings from a number of their 1974 shows, most of which he recorded himself. He sent a few of these to me, and there were some very good recordings and more extensive shows and setlists than anything I have previously seen for this great, neglected band. So, my new friend, David from Massachusetts said it would fine if I posted them here. When I asked him if he had more recordings like this of other bands, he said he had lots. David is a big Byrds and Byrds-related artist fan, so what he has is alot of shows of the Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, and various band incarnations of members, former members, and related artists (McGuinn, Hillman, Clarke, Parsons, Leadon, etc.), from throughout the 1970's and '80's. Periodically, over time, I will try to get some of these shows, too, and make them available through this blog. So, starting next week, I will feature a couple of full-length, previously uncirculated shows from the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band from David. After that, we'll see how it goes, but I expect that we should be regularly seeing more of these rare, uncirculated audience recordings from some of the best artists of the '70's and '80's. So, stay tuned.

Your friend (hopefully),
BBKron

8 comments:

  1. I generally only leave comments when I've taken advantage of your posts, but I do try to let some of my more discreet friends know if you have something they'd like. It's always worth a visit.
    If the Thought Police do take you down, please send up a flare if and when you relocate.

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  2. No official material? found this in mere seconds

    Neil Young
    A Perfect Echo
    Volume 6, in FLAC

    Continuing with the excellent live soundboard compilation by Braden S., Here's the last completed Volume, Vol. 6, for the final 2 CD's of this 12-CD compilation.

    Disc 1: 1971-1999

    Massey Hall, Toronto, ON 1/19/1971
    1. There's A World
    2. Bad Fog Of Loneliness
    3. See The Sky About To Rain

    and Massey Hall is official http://www.amazon.com/Live-Massey-Hall-CD-DVD/dp/tracks/B000MTPANQ/ref=dp_tracks_all_1#disc_1

    funny how all you bootleggers are claiming you're doing nothing wrong, when it fact you're not doing much right. If it's on DIME, safe bet to say it's clean.. if it's from ANYWHERE else.. check the hell out of it before posting

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  3. good news. Love the blog and enjoy your comments and insights

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  4. Hey BB. Love your blog. I have made a "clone blog" with a variance of my blogs name so if it gets taken down I will be back the next day. Something to think of and it is very easy to do, with the back-up feature on blogger. I have had one complaint and removed one post. The post did not have official material. Just anyone can complain and cause you some trouble, like some one who thinks mp3 is wrong Vs. lossless. Anyway great blog and congrats on the 300,000. AZ Jones

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  5. Hey all, Thanks for the words of support.
    As for Raoul, well I asked for comments, so I guess I have to take the good with the bad, right? Now, I don't quite know what his beef is, but there are several things about what he said that bother me. First, I resent the implication inherent in 'All you bootleggers', as if me and anyone and everyone who has ever listened to, collected, or traded unofficial recordings, are all exactly the same, with the same intent, motives, and supposedly underhanded activities. Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I am just a music fan, plain and simple, and all I wanted to do with this blog is share some of my musical knowledge and experence, make some of this incredible music and shows I have found available to more people, and hopefully lead other people to listen to some new artists or music they hadn't heard before, or wouldn't have been exposed to otherwise. As stated in my blog notes, the music posted here is intended to supplement all officially available music for those that want to explore further into an artist's music with live shows, outtakes, demos, etc. I fully expect followers of this blog have, or will buy the official releases of these artists once they find those that they like most, as I do.
    As for his characterization of 'bootleggers', well, I KNOW I'm not doing anything wrong, I wouldn't be doing this otherwise. I'm not trying to 'pull anything over' anyone, or get away with anything here, I'm just sharing some music and knowledge that I think others would appreciate.

    I'll continue my response to his find of 'official material' in a subsequent comment post.

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  6. As for rauol's example of 'official material' here, well, that too, just shows how far he had to dig to find anything 'official'. That compilation, A Perfect Echo, was compiled long before the Massey Hall show was officially released, and the recordings it contained are different from the officially released versions. This type of 'official material' does occur from time to time in bootlegs like this, and this was probably similar to what happened with the Kinks rarities posts. Some of these previously unreleased songs (from the Kinks collection) have more recently been released as bonus tracks, etc. on newer CD issues (although usually in somewhat different versions or forms), so now, some of these songs have now been 'officially released'. But these compilations are not official, and the 'official' material only constitues a small part of the whole collection. It's not like I posted the complete released version of the Massey Hall concert (or any other official release), these are just a couple songs from that show, in earlier bottleg recording versions, not the 'official versions'. But, yes, technically speaking, rauol is right, although the compilation predates the official release, upon that official release of this material, those specific songs probably should have been removed from the post. However, they also can serve as a historical footnote, the oriignal version of songs from the show that was ultimately remixed and released, and also as an advertisement for the full set. If people like the sample of these songs incuded here, they can go buy the full show, in much better sound quality. But, overall, inclusion of this 'official material' is a small part of the overall compilation (3 songs out of a 12-CD compilation?). Thus, I think it is still justified to not omit these songs from the bootleg release, as they still serve an important place in the overall collection, and do not really infringe on anything. Anyway, thanks for the comments, I'll keep this in mind in the future.

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  7. regardless of the current thread here - i look forward to the "new" material from your new taper - One of my favorite areas of music is that whole birds, FBB axis - I hope you choose to post a lot of it including the SHF band - Always loved CHris Hillman -
    thanks

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  8. Thanks for posting the SHF shows. I am looking forward to the other Byrd/Byrd related posts. Can you tell us anything about the Gene Clark shows? Thanks again.

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