more dodgy CD's?

Paul Mather paul at GROMIT.DLIB.VT.EDU
Fri Apr 15 18:10:32 EDT 2005


On Fri, 2005-04-15 at 15:23 -0500, Rich wrote:
> While Neo-Quark did have it's merits in the days of old before the taping
> ban.
>
> I did start seeing dealers selling the neo-quark recordings at U.K. record
> fairs which was well out of order.  EVEN at one of the fairs where Dave was
> signing stuff which was just taking the piss.

If you look back at the early history of neo-quark, a lot of the
recordings spread via trees, B&P offers, and the likes were liberated
bootlegs (e.g., The Hawk Logs Master Series).  So, it's not surprising
you saw "neo-quark" recordings at record fairs, because a lot of them
came from there in the first place (though often "cleaned up" and
improved by neo-quarkers). :-)

Later on, there were more "original releases" of old stealth recordings
lying around on cassette.  There were even some stealth recordings of
contemporary gigs, or of things like interviews taped off the radio,
etc.  All this stuff had and would have circulated around the Hawkwind
fanbase.  Whereas it might have been easier for bootleggers to get ahold
of these recordings via neo-quark, it's unrealistic to think that they
wouldn't have percolated through to the bootleggers anyway through
natural osmosis from the collective fanbase (or through direct
involvement of the bootleggers).

Neo-quark never sold anything, nor did it force any dealers to sell any
of its output.  (In fact, neo-quark were always at pains to point out
they were for trade only and not for sale.)  Those dealers made up their
own minds to rip off the band---as had been the case before neo-quark
existed, and is the case now that neo-quark no longer actively trades
Hawkwind material.  If anything, neo-quark was competition for the
bootleggers: it provided equivalent "product" for next to nothing.  It
lessened the chance that a fan would be disappointed at being ripped off
having paid a lot for a "rare Hawkwind release."  Ripped-off Hawkwind
fans have less money to spend on legitimate Hawkwind releases (assuming
such things exist still these days:).  They're also more likely to
become disenchanted and drift away from buying Hawkwind output.
Unfortunately, neo-quark can no longer act as competition for the
bootleggers, so it's business as usual for them once again.

My experience of neo-quark was that it promoted an interest and
excitement for Hawkwind.  People felt energised about kollecting the
back catalogue and going to see them live.  That's not a bad thing in my
book.

> So not really a great police force.

It's not realistic to expect an online group to "police" the offline
world, at least not in my opinion.  I never saw neo-quark as "policing"
anything.  They'd report illegal eBay auctions when they found them,
because it was felt that selling bootlegs was bad for the band and the
fans.  They never saw it as some "holy mission" though.  I could be
wrong.

Cheers,

Paul.
--
e-mail: paul at gromit.dlib.vt.edu

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production
 deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
        --- Frank Vincent Zappa



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