Lost Albums Found: Bootleg Confessions Vol. 1
If Your Record Store Paycheck Goes to Vinyl, Was It Ever Really a Paycheck?
The windows at Al Bum's Record Store had Fort Knox-level mesh protection and hadn’t been cleaned since Dylan went electric, so they didn’t add much light to the room. It didn't matter. The main shopping space was a semi-organized layout of genres, artists, and degrees of collectibility—navigational training wheels for those more accustomed to the fluorescent feng shui of a mall record store but probably unnecessary for experienced crate diggers. Besides, the other room at Al Bum’s was where the hardcore music enthusiasts shopped.
That space looked like three criminal crews hijacked trucks from a pressing plant, collided, and fled the scene. The room centerpieces were the vinyl bins—long, reinforced plywood monstrosities holding thousands of records. Picture something like this, but instead of sourcing it from Ethan Allen, you decided to save a few bucks and buy it from Sanford & Son:
The only indexing was intermittent, worn, and cracked placards with a letter of the alphabet scrawled in magic marker across the top. If you pulled one from the bin, you’d see the faint outlines of the artist name it used to hold in its previous life—the ghosted lines of Savoy Brown or April Wine still visible beneath years of grime—before being flipped upside down and rebranded with a generic letter.
If you were a veteran crate digger, an A-Z run through the room was 90 minutes at top speed, not counting the endless boxes of unsorted, unmarked records, books, magazines, and other memorabilia lining the walls. But the veterans rarely came for a sprint—they came to enjoy a vinyl browsing marathon. On weekdays, the crowds and customers ebbed and flowed with the comfortable, familiar sounds of record jackets flipping, punctuated by an occasional whoop of delight when a customer found a long-sought album. On weekends, it felt and sounded like a mosh pit.
My studies (so to speak) prevented me from seeking actual employment there. Still, once in a blue moon, I’d talk my way into a couple hours of grunt work. I took a combo of cash and used vinyl in exchange for sorting and stacking the perpetual flow of incoming boxes, noting and putting aside any notable items for later scrutiny. It was a rare occurrence, but I was there so often it felt like I worked there, even when I had no money to spend and just wanted to enjoy the place's vibe. Apparently, I missed Stamford Record Exchange—the second-hand record store I’d worked in back home. Pat, the owner, had become a mentor and other staff members good friends. Even on days off, I’d find an excuse to be there—Stamford Records was my happy place and fortress of solace.
While I had no illusions that Al Bum's would fill many of my emotional potholes, I missed chatting with music fans and collectors—they taught me more than I’d ever learn from the Rolling Stone Record Guide. And no passion competes with a fan on a mission.
Some were a little intense. There was a guy who’d hang around the Deep Purple section for hours, attempting to convince anyone who’d listen that Come Taste the Band was their true masterpiece and should be issued to all American citizens at birth. Another would pull LP after LP from the bin with an annoyed shout of “OVERPRICED!” as he built a stack of them—presumably to air his economic grievances to management. But every week, he’d bring his pile to the register, pay with a thick wad of cash, and walk out without saying a word. One afternoon, two ENORMOUS, scary-looking men Central Casting sent from my worst heavy metal fever dream cornered me, each clutching a copy of Yngwie Malmsteen’s Rising Force. They got in my face to air a grievance—given Malmsteen’s status as “the greatest guitarist ever who could wipe the floor with every other shitbag you’ve got in this shithole, why doesn’t HE have a white card with HIS name on it in the ‘Y’ section, geek?”
While processing the alphabetical irony of their query, I cannot confirm or deny that there may be a grungy placard in a landfill somewhere on which it appears someone used a magic marker to change the words “Yellow Magic Orchestra” to “Yngwie Malmsteen” in my handwriting.
Losing track of time in a record store is easy whether browsing, talking with fellow music enthusiasts, or attempting to avoid a Yngwie Malmsteen colonic. I didn’t even wear a watch in the Fall of 1985 when I first started patronizing Al Bum's. But that's where the windows in that room became an essential element in my decision-making as they were the clue to how much daylight remained. There was a reason for those reinforced window guards. They weren’t in place to prevent a toddler from falling out while clutching a mint-condition first pressing of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. At the time, this was a neighborhood that you’d drive through as quickly as possible with your windows rolled up and your car doors locked. Al Bum's was located on Pleasant Street—a misnomer beyond my descriptive powers—in Worcester, MA, and my walk from the store back to the Clark University campus was about a mile and a half through an undesirable neighborhood. In daylight, I'd have no trouble if I kept my head down, minded my own business, and maintained a brisk but unhurried pace while clutching my stack of newly acquired vinyl. After dark, I automatically entered that evening's Hunger Games as the locals sized up my equivalent value in booze and hard drugs the moment I set foot out the door. You'd be surprised how fast you can run with the entire Gentle Giant catalog tucked under your arm. You'd be completely unsurprised that the ladies back on campus weren’t impressed with my new land-speed record or prog rock acquisitions—seduction in 13/4 time wasn’t on the menu.
So, daylight departure was a safer bet. But on those rare days when I indulged in my little side gig, additional hours meant more money and vinyl. The thought of extra cash to keep me in pizza, beer, and weed for the weekend was compelling. As I had a steep discount on used vinyl, a Japanese pressing of Little Feat's Waiting for Columbus or a UK plum copy of Yes Fragile were added to my take-home pile with barely a thought. It wasn’t those records or the chance to work in a record store that drew me to Al Bum's, nor was it the appeal of associating with like-minded souls. It wasn't even the extra cash to skip the dining hall swill and indulge in TNT Pizza's house special: Beef Teriyaki Pizza. If that sounds disgusting, you're right. While any pizza tastes good at 3 AM after a three-hour Led Zeppelin-fueled bong session, the idea of beef teriyaki AND pizza together seemed particularly enticing. In hindsight, that was the shitty campus weed talking—the pizza should have come with a side order of Esidrix.
The allure of Al Bum’s was bootlegs, as that store stocked and sold a ton of bootleg vinyl. It was there that I first bought Todd Rundgren’s Runt A Capella months before Warner Music officially released it. I picked up the LP of Little Feat’s Electrif Lycanthrope—a 1974 radio broadcast that I had only a portion of on a crappy Radio Shack Realistic cassette, and the vinyl was a significant sound upgrade. And it was at Al Bum’s that I scored my “white whale”—the lost Yes album, The Affirmatives.
My fascination with unreleased recordings goes back to my earliest collecting days, and I could go on and on in a series of posts long enough to bring Substack’s servers to their knees. But today, I’m talking about unreleased recordings—"lost albums." Records that never saw the light of day, referenced only in artist interviews, fan chatter, or confirmed to exist by “a guy who knew a guy whose cousin knew the custodian at the recording studio.” A record that fans see as forbidden fruit—more desired because of its unavailability—while the artist, label, lawyers, or manager(s) may see it with a different perspective. Maybe the artist was unhappy with the music. Perhaps the bass player was sleeping with the drummer’s wife, or the drummer was sleeping with the singer. There could have been legal problems or technical issues. Or the label said it was too risky, inconsistent with the artists’ brand, or they couldn’t market it correctly. Or perhaps the record sucked. No matter the reason, off to the vault the tapes went, leaving only rumors, hints, and the potential for fans to wonder, “What if?”
That was then, this is now, and the changes are striking. If we compare and contrast…