Needles & Grooves

Once in a record store I found a white stripes bootleg and was happily checking out and I said, "I think its wild that you have sealed bootlegs." And the cashier very seriously said, "we do NOT sell bootlegs." So I smiled and flipped the record over and said, "alright, point to the record label and bar code then."

I think in many corners of society bootleg carries the connotations of illegal and illicit. Which I guess is sort of true in these cases. My guess is they view it as a plausible deniability. Also, if a shop sells bootlegs, it may scare off customers who don't know quite what they are in the vinyl world of 2021.

I got in an argument with the A-hole who runs Port Of Sound about his use of the words "Fan Club Pressing" for things like Frank Ocean's Channel Orange. There's just no such thing.

They also love to toss around the term “unofficial import”.

Some stores like to use those silver colored “import” stickers to avoid the inevitable. Whenever I see or hear the bootleg word, I always think of live recordings and not illegal pressings.

My local calls em “Imports” but they are mostly unofficial releases. I steer clear of them for the most part but I have 2 or 3 that would still fall in that category that I am happy to own.