Birth of the Bootleg

Birth of the Bootlegs

New Book Reveals Tech and Turmoil Behind Trade Mark of Quality, the First Bootleg Label

Photo: Genius Books

By Clive Young

These days, you can hear almost every note an artist ever played. Go to a concert and there’s a forest of arms holding iPhones aloft, streaming the show to YouTube. Hop online and acts are sharing an endless river of covers, rehearsal footage and casual jams on their social media. Pick up a box set and there’s multiple discs featuring every nascent 3 A.M. demo that the songwriters could unearth in their basements.

But there was a time when none of that was available, and artists and their record labels wanted albums and singles to stand on their own as complete and solitary works. Who wanted to hear that other stuff anyway? As it turned out, there were armies of insatiable fans who wanted it all and more—and in the summer of 1969, two men started the first bootleg label to give them what they wanted.

The label was Trade Mark of Quality and the two men were…well, they’ve gone by a number of names over the years, but they’re referred to as Carl and Pigman in a new book, A Pig’s Tale, by Ralph Sutherland and Harold Sherrick, with researcher Steve Talia. Taking its name from TMQ’s logo—a cartoon pig—the book sifts through the illegal label’s deliberately murky history, scraping away rock ‘n’ roll mythology to reveal how two guys operated in the shadows of the music industry, built their own studio, secretly pressed albums, and ultimately changed copyright law forever. The result of six years of research, the true-crime tome recounts unexpected twists, close calls and at least one Mission: Impossible-like attempt to secure recordings worth their weight in gold.

Throughout the first half of the 1970s, TMQ released dozens of illicit albums filled with unreleased music from some of the biggest names in rock. When the records inspired others to take up bootlegging, TMQ continued to stand out from the crowd by emphasizing the “Q” with its product. Rolling Stone magazine was so taken by TMQ’s second release, Live’r Than You’ll Ever Be, capturing a sizzling Rolling Stones show at the Oakland Coliseum, that it reviewed the record in February 1970, calling it nothing less than “the ultimate Rolling Stones album.”

As the Seventies wore on, however, bootlegs’ novelty started to wear off, artists began strategizing against them (the Stones responded to Live’r by releasing the concert album Get

Carl and Pigman threw together a patchwork of Bob Dylan outtakes and oddities, and released it as the first bootleg album, Great White Wonder, paving the way for Trade Mark of Quality. Your Ya-Ya’s Out soon after), fans grew tired of getting ripped off by terrible-sounding records, and most importantly, bootleggers began to get busted. While labels like TMQ initially existed in a legal gray area where bootlegging was “only” a civil offense, major labels responded by lobbying for changes that became part of the Copyright Act of 1976. Giving copyright protection to “all misappropriated recordings, both counterfeit and pirate,” the act made producing bootlegs a federal

Photo: Genius Books crime; not so coincidentally, TMQ closed up shop the same year. It was a quiet, necessary end to a lark that got out of control. Sutherland, who describes Carl and Pigman as “just a couple of crazy L.A. music freaks who thought it would be cool to put together their own album of unreleased Dylan tracks. They had no idea what chaos would be unleashed in the music business when they did this.” That album of Dylan tracks was Great White Wonder, a two-LP hodgepodge of Bob Dylan casually playing in a hotel room, some studio outtakes and a TV performance. As avowed fans, the two had obtained the tracks on reelto-reel tapes through collector circles, but the songs were spread across different tapes. While a few collectors might daydream about somehow compiling them onto a convenient vinyl record, Carl and Pigman were in a position to actually do that—so they did. “They worked at a record distributor in

Music for TMQ’s bootlegs came from a variety of sources, and was often prepped for release in the label’s own studio.

L.A. and knew people who helped them,” says Sutherland. “One of the producers put together the master tapes himself, then it was turned over to other trusted associates to produce and manufacture the finished product. There were those in the business who could get things done for a price and keep their mouths shut. Only a few hundred pressings of Great White Wonder were made in the beginning.”

A few hundred records was still a lot to get into stores; they needed help—and that’s where co-author Harold Sherrick came in. “I was a high school kid when I met Pigman,” says Sherrick. “I started helping them, not with the manufacturing itself, but going to the pressing plants, picking up the orders, boxing them, sticking them in the van, driving them back and then taking them into a few record stores that were selling stuff for us.” Working in one of those stores at the time was none other than Ralph Sutherland, and a lasting casual acquaintance began.

Housed in a generic white cover with its name rubber-stamped on the front, Great White Wonder appeared around L.A. in the summer of 1969 and quickly made a splash. That put some money in Carl and Pigman’s pockets, but it was the Rolling Stones’ fall tour that year that turned the experiment into an ongoing, covert business. Asked by a friend if they could make a record that would capture the Stones live, the pair recorded six West Coast concerts in November that year, with little to no subterfuge required.

“At the time, no one thought about anyone professionally recording a live concert from the audience—and they didn’t care,” says Sutherland. “The concerts were recorded from the producer’s seat using a long, handheld Sennheiser MKH 805 shotgun microphone and a portable Uher Report 4000 reel-to-reel tape recorder using 5-inch 3M/Scotch reels at 7.5 IPS in mono. From 1969 to the mid-Seventies, this was the same equipment used to record most of the live-inconcert TMQ albums that were not recorded by others or from outside source tapes. There was also a short-lived use of the miniature Nagra SN tape recorder, which used cassette tape in a reel-to-reel format; that was used for recording live performances and was more easily concealed than the larger Uher tape deck.”

By the time the Oakland show was released as Live’r Than You’ll Ever Be and started getting national press, something unexpected was happening: The bootleggers were getting bootlegged, and grainy copies of their Dylan and Stones records were appearing in record shops. Despite that, ill-gained dollars continued to fill their pockets, so there was no question they’d make more records now—but if they were going to continue, the shady enterprise needed a name to distinguish itself from competitors: Trade Mark of Quality was chosen with tongue only partially in cheek. Since they were flush with cash, just like a legitimate startup might do, they decided to pour the profits back into the business and build their own studio.

“The goal was to produce the finest quality bootleg records possible at the time,” says

TMQ evolved from releasing bootlegs in anonymous rubber-stamped generic sleeves to carefully pressed colored vinyl releases with custom covers designed by illustrator William Stout.

Much of TMQ’s studio was paid for with profits from Live’r Than You’ll Ever Be, a concert bootleg that critics called “The ultimate Rolling Stones album.”

Sutherland. “The master tapes were made on professional studio Ampex machines, utilizing Dolby and, later, dbx noise reduction. Most of the tapes were made and edited on professional Ampex 10-inch reels at 15 IPS. There was one 1/4-inch twotrack and one 1/2-inch four-track machine with an optional 1/2-inch 3-track playback head, a four-channel Tascam mixing board, equalizers, echo/reverb units, four JBL 4310 three-way studio monitors and two Yamaha stereo amps. This also made it possible to produce Quad/four-channel masters. There were also two additional Revox A77 tape decks and a transcription turntable which could accommodate any size or speed vinyl up to 16-inch transcription acetates, with various types of cartridges and stylus. The TMQ studio was state-of-the-art for its time and no expense was spared.”

The industrial turntable was indicative of TMQ’s growing range of bootleg sources, as radio transcription discs with in-studio performances were perfect for plundering. TV programs, too, served up ample bootleg fodder, so TMQ’s studio was outfitted with a broadcast-quality Ampex color video tape recorder with stereo audio. “I was with them when they recorded a few things,” says Sherrick, “like when they recorded the Jefferson Airplane Up Against The Wall bootleg, which was from two KCTV Channel 28 broadcasts; the audio was taken off them, which made for a great-sounding record.”

Initially a number of indie pressing plants around Los Angeles were used to manufacture the records, but the quality varied, since not everyone on the take was invested in superior sound. “Later in 1970, a pressing plant not far from L.A. International Airport was discovered,” says Sutherland. “Most of the TMQ albums into the mid-Seventies were pressed there; the pressing quality improved and was much more consistent.”

TMQ’s bootlegs became an underground hit so quickly that by the spring of 1970, The Who appropriated their rubber-stamp aesthetic for the packaging of its classic—and official—Live At Leeds album. Even then, however, TMQ was starting to leave that look behind, releasing records with colored vinyl and better packaging. In 1973, commercial illustrator William Stout, who would go on to create covers for Rhino and other legitimate labels in the decades that followed, was brought on to create witty covers that became synonymous with TMQ, starting with another Stones bootleg, All Meat Music. By that point, the bootleggers had been using offset-printed inserts wrapped around generic sleeves for years. “I was there when Led Zeppelin Live On Blueberry Hill came back from the plant,” Sherrick recalls. “We had the cover and we inserted that in there; that was really a lot of fun.”

As time went on, Carl and Pigman’s ambitions grew, but so did their chances of getting caught, so they tried to find new ways to covertly record shows. Today considered by rock historians to be a crucial document of Led Zeppelin in its prime, Live On Blueberry Hill was a perfect example, says Sherrick: “I’ll tell you a story that’s not in the book; it slipped our minds and we kind of regret that now. I saw a British documentary from 1971 on bootleg

As time went on, TMQ pressed so many albums that it had its own generic cover sleeve, seen here on a compilation of Beatles fan club recordings sent to members every Christmas.

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records, and they interviewed Peter Grant, Zeppelin’s manager—and he mentioned our bootleg and that it was done at The Forum in Los Angeles. The guy asked him how it was recorded and he said, ‘Well, I think they used radio transmitters for that one.’ And we laughed because Pigman’s idea actually was to record that with transmitters! They were going to bribe the stagehands so they could bug the stage, tap the sound equipment and record the show. The plan was in effect until they realized The Forum was directly in the flight path going in and out of L.A. International Airport. The radio equipment would interfere with the control towers—the FAA would be coming down, trying to trace that back—so they just did it the usual way with the shotgun mic, sitting in the first couple of rows.”

TMQ kept rolling out releases throughout the first half of the 1970s, but as an all-cash, illegal business, there were no invoices, no records of how many albums were pressed and no real gameplan. While that helped keep The Man off Pigman’s tail at the time, 50 years later, it made life difficult for the A Pig’s Tale team when they assembled their book’s key feature, an illustrated, definitive discography that separates fact from fiction and faux represses from the real records. “The two most difficult titles to research also happened to be the two worstselling albums from the original TMQ days,” says researcher Talia. “They were Donovan The Reedy River and the Blood, Sweat And Tears BS&T 5 album. By a miracle, there were two members on the Steve Hoffman online forum who saved me when it came to digging up information on the both of them.”

Carl and Pigman went their separate ways in 1971 and each continued to use the TMQ name; in the meantime, competitors started springing up…and getting caught. “There was Rubber Dubber and Wizardo, and Rubber Dubber didn’t last long at all; he got nailed really fast,” says Sherrick. “He did an interview with somebody, revealed too much and the Feds went right to his house and raided his place. Pigman just got out when it was the right time, because when you’re getting eyeballed by the Feds, you get tired of that. He was aware of it, and he was real smart about things, you know? You have to be when you’re at the top, doing something like that; you have to use common sense and you can’t let your ego run away with you. Pigman kept his cool and left when he did, and said it was a nice run while it lasted.”

Today, the viral spread of unofficial music over the internet is a key artist career tool, and a soccer mom posting phone clips from a Bon Jovi concert doesn’t have to fear a visit from the Feds; perhaps that’s just as well. Time has consigned TMQ to the realm of memory, and now to the history books as well—all of which can’t help but make Sherrick a little wistful: “For me as a high school kid, it was so much fun, one of the greatest times of my life. It was another time and another place—because, boy, it is nothing like that now.” n

A Pig’s Tale is available from Genius Books and tmqpigstale.com.

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