Does anyone still buy bootlegs of gigs (on cassette)?

i used to buy them a few years ago,i don't think the quality was any better...

That rather takes me back! I used to have a Metallica tape that I was lured into buying by the prospect of a cover version of Prowler by Iron Maiden. However, when it actually got round to said cover, a bloke standing very close to the cassette recorder hollered "FUCKING YES!!!" and yodelled his own version of Prowler at top volume, completely blotting out the Metallica one. So I'll never know what I was missing out on, if much at all, but you're right that those lovingly photocopied inlays often promised more than they could deliver!

I bought a Field Mice/Brighter gig from Brighton in about 1990 that has all the above credentials. It had a couple of FM songs that I've never heard anywhere else.

I used to buy loads and loads of taped gigs by The Fall. Some of them are surprisingly good quality. As mentioned above, one of the good things about these tapes is the occasional rarity lurking in the set list. Best example: I've got The Fall doing "A Town Called Malice" by The Jam, but with the words changed. Also, some of the between song comments from MES (particularly in the early days) are very good.

I went through a phase of buying such tapes of Smiths gigs. This was in the late '80s. some of them had actually quite good sound... maybe I should dig up my sad tape of the Smiths' last ever concert and see if it still plays.

They made "Rank" from that gig didn't they? I used to buy a fair amount of Smiths tapes, including the early demo tape.

Heh. Somewhere around my place I have the similarly-purchased boot of a Ride show from Slough 1991 (this was outside a Chapterhouse gig, not too surprisingly I suppose).

A mate of mine has over 400 Fall bootlegs. 400!

I used to buy them at either Second Coming Records on Thompson Street (now a Mexican take-out place) or from this enterprising young gent on 6gh avenue named Tim (who -- truthfully -- has since renounced all material possessions and gone Buddhist). So, those are my two cassette bootleg outlets out then. Strangely, the scenario was the same as Kim described with Tim -- open suitcase, colored slips with bad photocopied pics, etc. On the occaissional visit to record shows, if someone has something by a band I like, I might pick one up, but I think it's a dying sub-medium. For a start, cassettes are swiftly going on the way of the Mastadon. Secondly, any enterprising young bootlegger knows he'll up the chances of sales if he upgrades to burning the show onto compact disc as opposed to the comparably disposable medium of cassette. Thirdly, with the advent of digital technology, you can simply download this stuff....no further need to hunt through dusty record stores (I kinda miss that, actually).

I was collecting XTC bootleg cassettes for a while. Still have some lovely ones, actually.