(TV) T.V.'s Loathing of Bootlegs

["Leo Casey" <LeoCasey@comcast.net>]

This is a belated follow-up to the discussion on Tom being against the
selling of bootlegs of Television (or his Solo career) shows.

I agree it would have been better visibility-wise and in the long run
financial-wise for Television's and Verlaine's solo career if he had
"blessed" (or even encouraged) the spread of these bootlegs.

That he did not most likely derives from two factors.

First, being the perfectionist that he is, it probably drives him batty to
hear some of the poor sound quality of some of these bootlegs but to have no
control over it, or/and to a hear a sub-par performance by himself or the
band on a bootleg.

Second, Verlaine from many interviews has always been angry (and usually
justifiable so) about the music business especially Elektra screwing him and
the band out of money.  In the Nov. 1981 issue of Boston Rock, he told the
interviewer this regarding the unreliability of record company's claims on
sold units:

BR: Did Elektra make you even more wary of this business? 

TV: Well to this day I don't know what those records sold. It took a long
time to get off Elektra although it was easy to get another deal. I was
supposed to do three records for Elektra and they didn't want to let me go.
It took a year to get off. ***The latest Elektra accounting report said that
one cassette has sold in Canada in the last six months!*** 

BR: Why didn't you turn to an independent after that experience? 

TV: Well, you know we started out with Ork Records. Most independents are
worse, let me tell you. They're just these guys walking around picking your
nose blah blah blah ... But that's not really fair - Rough Trade's a good
one.

BR: Are you planning any live Television releases to file next to the Arrow
bootleg?

TV: That's not a bad bootleg at all. I'm still trying to find out who did
that one. There's close to 200 tapes floating around. I know a guy who has a
hundred shows on tape - every show we did in New York City except for the
first five or six. I doubt I'll do anything. I'm not crazy about them and
it's time consuming to sit there and pick the better versions, which ones
are half way in tune, which ones you can hear the vocals on.

Leo

-----Original Message-----
From: tv-owner@obbard.com [mailto:tv-owner@obbard.com] On Behalf Of Joe
Hartley
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 9:41 AM
To: tv@obbard.com
Subject: Re: (TV) Phew!

On Mon, 28 Jan 2013 23:16:40 -0500
"DennisD" <dend@nyc.rr.com> wrote:
> I later found out most of 
> the Television CDs he sold were recorded by a friend of mine. I know Tom 
> used to be totally against bootlegging of Television stuff and felt ripped

> off by Carlucci and I think he went in there once and "confiscated" all 
> Television bootlegs. So that would be a reason why Carlucci didn't want
Tom 
> in his store. 

Gee, how'd that not make it into killing moon's screed?  I guess that 
level of anger's easier to maintain when you've got blinders on.

I don't necessarily agree with Tom here - I think that allowing recording
and free trading of live shows actually helps bands - but it's his music
and his right to try and shut down the unauthorized CDs, especially
when someone else is making some coin which doesn't flow into his pocket.
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