Copy Cats
Amidst the Napster debate, artists quietly embrace live concert taping and trading  

By MATT PEIKEN
St. Paul Pioneer Press; March 25, 2001

The last time singer-songwriter Dan Bern came to the 400 Bar, a young woman from Petaluma, Calif., followed him to Minneapolis. She carried a backpack into the club and planted herself front and center, about 10 feet from the stage. As Bern and his band mates cozied up to their instruments, she reached into her pack and turned on a mini-disc recorder, clipped two microphones to the lapels of her jeans jacket and tucked the recorder back into its hiding place.

She didn't seem worried about getting caught. She said she was among two or three dozen fans around the country who tape and trade Bern concert recordings, mostly through the Internet.

"He's OK with it," she said of Bern. "He gets a little annoyed when he plays a brand new song, like, in California, and then people in New York hear it before he has a chance to get there. But mostly, I think he just ignores us."

While the recording industry cuts the legs out from under Napster and any other software that helps people pirate copyrighted music, the age-old practice of taping and bootlegging concert recordings is stronger than ever.

Today's tapers, as they're called, have access to high-quality, low-cost, low-profile digital recording equipment professional studios didn't own two decades ago. Plus, the Net has made it easier to find resources as well as other people who want to exchange tapes and tips of the trade. Just as important, despite the potential bite into their own record sales, scores of musical artists -- particularly those working outside of major record labels -- approve of the practice.

Many artists allow tapers to plug recording equipment directly into their soundboards or let them erect semi-sophisticated rigs at the back of a club or concert hall. Tapers and many artists agree that taping strengthens fan loyalty, helps people discover music otherwise lost in the pop ether and encourages them to buy an artist's next studio record. In return for taping privileges, some bands ask for copies -- whenever the taper gets around to making them. (Few tapers attempt to sell or make money with their work; most insist the hobby is driven solely by their love of the music.)

When tapers go incognito, as did the woman at the 400 Bar, it's more often to avoid hassles from club managers unaware of an artist's consent rather than hide from an artist's reaction. Still, when in doubt, most tapers don't ask -- they simply stash and tape.

Tale of the tape

It's a Sunday afternoon all-ages show at the 7th Street Entry, where it all began for Dan Witt. A Minneapolis 32-year-old who makes his living serving legal papers, Witt estimates he's taped 250 shows -- most of them in local clubs -- since recording Wayne Kramer five years ago at the Entry. He's burned the tapes onto CDs, labeled each with the show dates and sites and lined them alphabetically along three bookshelves in his house.

Today, Witt is standing at the back of the floor, about 15 feet from the stage. Next to him, on the ledge of the back wall, are his digital audio tape recorder, microphone pre-amplifier and digital/analog converter. Two microphones, pointing to opposite corners of the stage, sit in an X at the top of a telescopic microphone stand. Witt says he's invested around $4,000 in equipment.

He's at the Entry to tape two of his local favorites, singer-songwriters Mark Mallman and Tulip Sweet. He wanted to tape Mallman's show the previous night, but there were too many people -- not enough room to set up.

"There's been a few times I've kicked myself for not taping a show," he says. "Something great happens, and it's like those times you say "Darn, I wish I had my camera.' "

Between Sweet's set and Mallman's, an acquaintance of Witt's approaches and asks if he can get a copy of the day's show. "Yeah, I think I can do that for ya," Witt says.

Witt makes copies of local-artist shows for anyone requesting them and offers up tapes of better-known artists for trade. He's met only two or three other Twin Cities tapers but has found a community through Internet sites such as DAT-heads (www.solorb.com/dat-heads/), which hosts a mailing list of tapers around the world. The vast majority are male.

Another avid local taper is Scot, a 26-year-old who doesn't want his last name published. He figures he's taped around 70 shows, most of them from local bands such as Flipp and Dander, with their approval, though his favorite tape is a Chantal Kreviazuk performance recorded undercover at the Fine Line Music Cafe.

"It's hard to sneak something into an all-ages show, but when it's over-21, you can bring a missile in there," Scot says. "I don't like to do that. It's scary -- you can get kicked out if you're caught. Plus, it's hard enough to tape a show in the open. Some nights, I just say "screw it, I just want to have fun and enjoy the show.' But it's a tradeoff. You can enjoy the moment or have it forever."

Two sides of the record

Most recording artists, even major players who have fought to shut down Napster, make great distinctions between the illicit distribution of commercially available studio recordings and the taping/trading of in-concert recordings.

Metallica has opened sections of seats specifically for people bringing in video and audio recorders, though the band put the kibosh on that practice when people began peddling scores of black market tapes. Pearl Jam, which also has allowed taping, started combating piracy another way -- releasing its own high-quality, low-cost soundboard mixes of every live concert from its most recent European and U.S. tours, circumventing bootleggers who would do the same.

For recording artists without such fame and resources, the Net has opened channels of unprecedented exposure and demand. Local artists fortunate to sell a few thousand discs have seen their music on Napster and quietly lament the potential loss in sales. Still, they choose to see far more upsides to the practice of in-concert taping and embrace it as a sign their art is connecting with people.

Mark Mallman, 27, says the handful of people who tape his shows "are vital to my sanity."

"I use Napster, but I'm not for it at all. I lose money on it. It would bug me if my live stuff ended up there, but it hasn't happened yet," says Mallman, who says he's sold roughly 1,000 copies of each of his two CDs.

"But I know the guys who tape my shows, and they're good people. They drive to Northfield and St. Cloud to see me, and they care enough about what I'm doing to buy the CDs and tell other people about me," he says. "I'm not in it to be a star; I'm doing it to communicate. But if I ever did get big, I'd probably let these guys tape my shows forever if they wanted to."

Happy Apple, a local jazz trio about to release its fourth record, has mixed feelings about people taping its shows and was chagrined to learn, days later, that at least two people had sneaked recording equipment into a recent show at the Cedar Cultural Center. At the least, tapers should approach a band for permission, drummer Dave King says.

"Our music is very different from night to night, so it's rare, and to have that circulating without our control is very unnerving," says King. "We might have an awesome show, but we might have one that, in our eyes, sucks, and we may not want that out there. Plus, people should know we put a lot of time and money into this band, and we keep our ticket prices at the minimum the club will allow, so we need to sell records to keep doing what we're doing."

Bern doesn't tape his own shows and rarely listens to tapes others make, but he sees a personal benefit from the practice. Tapers can release music that Bern doesn't have time or money to record commercially. He sees his live performances as belonging to the public and doesn't worry that taping cuts into sales.

"It's like the early days of TV, when they started broadcasting baseball, there was this fear among team owners that people would stop coming to the games," he says. "Fifty years later, just the opposite has happened. If I'm doing it in public, that's part of the game."

Rather than work on demo tapes, Mallman uses copies of his live shows to evaluate new songs before bringing them into a recording studio. For his second CD, "How I Lost My Life and Lived to Tell About It," Mallman pulled a few seconds of crowd noise from a show Witt had recorded and used the snippet at the introduction to the last song. Mallman credited Witt in the liner notes.

"That was the coolest thing. I never expected anything like that," Witt says.

Copyright laws notwithstanding, nothing but trust and ethics keep people from posting music online for anyone to download and, in turn, distribute as they wish. Witt admits he hasn't asked every artist for permission before taping but says those he's approached have never turned him down. He largely tapes artists with minimal followings beyond the Twin Cities and doesn't believe the practice cuts into an artist's record sales.

"I could hoard it and press a bunch of CDs and sell them as live bootlegs, but that's not why I do this," he says.

Occupational hazards

Tapers say they listen far more often to their own recordings than to the studio discs of their favorite artists. They remember specific moments of music and onstage banter and view the tapes as living snapshots.

"It's made my appreciation of local music so much stronger," says Witt, who has mulled the idea of turning on-location recording into a business.

But the rigors of recording quality audio are too much for some. There's far more involved in taping a show than pointing a microphone and pressing the record button, though those steps shouldn't be overlooked. Scot spent one entire show with his recorder on pause. He's also run out of disc space, and batteries have died on him without backups ready to go.

"No matter how prepared you think you are, the first time out with new equipment, you'll screw it up," he says. "You have to learn where to stand to avoid dead zones, but that doesn't always work because you have to move around drunks and bodies, and people yelling "You guys suck' right next to the mike. People come up and ask "Can I have a copy?' while I'm taping, and I'm like "Yeah, if you shut up.'"

Scot tells of a friend who once got stopped at the door of Paisley Park Studios trying to smuggle a recorder into one of Prince's impromptu performances -- the microphones were built into the frame of his glasses. Another friend, who introduced Scot to taping, began cataloging and selling his concert tapes but got scared, sold his equipment and got into wrestling.

Scot doesn't foresee himself outgrowing his hobby, though. As it is, he wants to save enough money to buy better equipment.

"There's a lot of bands I'd like to tape and just haven't gotten around to it, and it's great to find someone new and maybe be the first to tape them," he says. "If I could, I'd be out there every night. But if someone didn't let me tape, I'd be like "Screw you, I'm not going to any more of your shows.' "