"ELSEWHERE": Bootlegs

Besides the many commercially available official releases, a lot of illegal products are sold on the market and are traded and discussed amongst fans. It is important to be aware of this when searching and buying products. This section contains information on the existing items. It is NOT intended as encouragement to buy or sell those products.

Always be aware that buying an illegal release will not support Vangelis or his associates, his record company, his distributors, or anyone else involved in the process of recording and releasing music. Also be aware that in most countries you will be violating laws and that there are ethical consequences to consider when you buy or sell such an illegal product.
Another aspect to bear in mind is the fact that usually the recordings are of low quality compared to the official releases, because they were copied from low quality media or were not properly finished, mastered or duplicated.

Introduction

Other illegal releases include the counterfeit releases in the past in East-block countries where CDs were produced and sold without paying any royalties or registering permission with the Western copyright owners. Even in recent years these kind of CDs have been made, like the Hungarian "666" (credited to Vangelis featuring Aphrodite's Child and cut to fit on one CD), "Earth", "the Dragon" and "Apocalypse des Animaux".

Sometimes the LPs "the Dragon" and "Hypothesis" are called bootlegs as well, but these were actually released by official labels and distributed via the official channels. They were however released without the permission of all the artists and were released under the name of Vangelis. This was fought in court and won by Vangelis, which made the releases illegal after all.

In case of bootlegs regarding Vangelis there is a clear line between bootlegs which were made and distributed almost professionally, or which were made by fans in small quantities to label and preserve rare recordings.

Real bootlegs

Blade Runner tape - the very first bootleg, containing selections of the original score, was sold in Hollywood in 1982 just before the film was released. Rumors of the soundtrack not being sold made it popular instantly.

OWM Blade Runner - The most famous bootleg, made in 1992, in a limited, numbered edition of 2000 by the "Off World Music" label. Was very well distributed via on-line music stores. Very well made, looking like a professional CD. The sound quality is rather poor, introducing noise, distortion and a poor audio spectrum. Many fans regard it as very listenable nevertheless and sometimes prefer it because the music is 'purer' than the official Warner release from 1994. All selections are as they are in the film itself, and there are many pieces of score which are not on the original album.

Gongo Blade Runner - a CD masquerading as a Romanian CD, but in fact produced for the American market, profiting from the rarity of the OWM bootleg. The track selection is slightly different, but all Vangelis tracks are present. It seems to sound a little bit better than the OWM bootleg. Not even slightly close to the official 1994 release though.

The Bounty - a 2CD from the makers of the OWM Blade Runner release. This time OWM stands for One-world-music. The CDs contain lots of Vangelis music as well as the traditionals as they were recorded on the set. Quality as usual is pretty bad, except for the tracks they nicked from the official Themes release. Often discussed is a long track on the album which does not seem to originate from the mastertapes for the film. It is a 20 minute compilation of themes from the film which led to speculations amongst fans that it was intended for possible release on an album.

The Sky and His Shadow - A Jon Anderson bootleg with his long improvised instrumental recording from 1975 which was never released. Some rumors (ONLY rumors!) say it was in fact recorded with Vangelis. This is highly debated.

Earth - Earth is a regular album, but in the period where this album was not availeble on CD two bootlegs were released which originated from the LP. An official CD has however been released in Greece in 1996 so these bootlegs are now technically "counterfeit" CDs. The one and only official release is Polygram Greece's CD on the Vertigo label (532 783-2).

Themes 2 (Polygraph) - A professional looking release from 1997 which is filled with glitches. The Cosmos theme was taken from bad quality LP while it is available in good quality Heaven and Hell CDs, the Fete Sauvage track is actually from Ignacio, and the Sex Power track is the opening and certainly not the main theme as the tracktitle promises. Most embarrassing however is the title which seems to suggest being a follow up to Polydor's Themes album. Which led to a lot of confusion since an official Themes 2 album existed in France and Belgium since 1995. The official Themes 2 album however has no unreleased tracks. This bootleg does, and most interesting is the excerpt from the preview version of Blade Runner, which has the Love Theme scene with Harrison Ford and Sean Young with completely different music by Vangelis. On the CD you can hear dialogue and soundeffects over it, but the recording is unique. Other interesting tracks are the endtitles from the film "the Plague" (sadly in mono), and edits (by the bootlegger) from Bittermoon and Francesco which seem taken from the laserdisc releases of the films.

Event of Excellence - A widely distributed bootleg by the famous Japanese bootleg label "Highland". It offers a recording of Vangelis' free outdoor concert in Rotterdam, the Netherlands during the summer of 1991. The audio was taken from the TV broadcast of the event, but the sound quality is very low, featuring unnecessary noise and even digital drop outs. It also suffers from a few interruptions the broadcast had due to technical problems. The graphics used for the booklet at not from Eureka but from the Athens' "Song for Athens" concert that promoted Athens' bid to get the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. On top of all that the music of the event is not very interesting: most of it where edits from CD versions, mimed to by Vangelis due to the bad weather and difficult organization of the event. The closing song was a special version of Hymn that has appeared in a little different mix and edit on the Portraits compilation albums. The only rarity left is the short opening tune of the event.

Another Page of Life - The second Vangelis related bootleg by Japanese progressive rock specialists "Hightland". This time they combined the recordings of the first unreleased version of Page of Life and the 1986 demorecordings by Jon and Vangelis (unreleased in this shape) into an alternative to both official Page of Life releases. There's some noise and a lack of higher tones, but admittedly the best available. Most of the music was available on the Omtown edition of Page of Life, but editted slightly different there. The only thing really missing from the Omtown version was the instrumental intro to "Change we Must", here included as "Open Up". The 1986 demo recordings have no real connection with Page of Life. They were only available on some obscure Anderson bootlegs after recordings were traded on tapes among fans.

Sensitivity plus "Alpha" - The third Vangelis related bootleg by the Japanese Highland records has an audiance recording of the Paris concert that Vangelis did in 1978. The bootleg does not feature the entire recording, as not all of the music fits on 1 CD. The quality is comparable to the tapes that were traded amongst fans for all these years. The bootleg is pretty well distributed in Japan and from the outside of it it is not very clear that this is in fact a low quality bootleg release instead of a regular album. Be warned.

Kavafis (Storm label) - The Storm label is actually a Russian black market label who counterfeit normal albums, and it seems unlikely that they would actually release a bootleg as 'specific' as this one, so the label is probably falsely being used by others. This pressed CD contains the never released music from the 1996 Greek movie "Kavafis". The sound has simply been taken straight from the film, so you hear monologues and dialogues over it. Some say there have been voices removed, but in most cases the music simply fades where there would be too much talk over it. The sound quality of this CD is however very good. Clear, lots of high tones, no noise but also no sign of noise removal, which makes the CD certainly a lot more listenable than the Hifi stereo videotapes of the movie that go around. They must have had better sources. The CD doesn't contain all cues from the film, but there is a bonus track to make up for this, in the form of the Night of Poetry concert's reading of a poem by Kavafis. This music that Vangelis played there seems thematically linked to the film, even though this concert took place 5 years before the film was released. Sound quality of this track is also surprisingly good.

Private releases

Memoires - This series of 6 CD recordables was limited to 20 recordings each and featured various recordings. Volume 1 is an expansion on the older "Rarities" private release (See below). Vangelis' first solo release "the Clock"/"Our Love Sleeps on the Wather" is among the additional tracks. Volume 2 has "Sex Power" and "Fais Que Ton Reve Soit Plus Long Que La Nuit", both rare and officially only available on LP. The sound quality is excellent. Obviously mastered from LP but very well denoised and clicks were removed. Part of "Fais Que.." didn't fit on the CD, so it's incomplete. Volume 3 has the audiance recording of the London Drury Lane concert ('79) that used to spread as tape copies among fans. Volume 4 has Bittermoon. The sound includes the soundeffects of the film, but no dialogues. In some European countries films are dubbed into the local language, and for this they use a master of the film that is mixed with music and sound but without dialogues and voices. It seems such a master was used to compile this illegal CDR. Also some pieces from Blade Runner are included in the same quality. Volume 5 is Blade Runner again and is the most complete in music and quality. The music however has been mixed into longer tracks with added soundeffects, and is therefor a bit further away of the original recordings as were the regular bootlegs by OWM and by Gongo. Volume 6 features the Sophia Antipolis concert (audiance recording), volume 7 seems not to exist but it could be the "Blade Runner special edition" private release. Then Volume 8 a good quality audio recording of the "Arbre de Vie" interview featuring unreleased music and excerpts from the Rossif wildlife soundtracks and volume 9 contains the "Electric Theator Show" episode called "Vangelis teh Man and his Music", a TV interview with unreleased music (see the "other works" section of this site).

Euterpe - Two CD recordables with music from various sources, mainly from films, recorded from videotapes and laserdiscs. The audio quality is not very good. Tracks include music from the 1492 laserdisc, and excerpts from naturefilms by Frederic Rossif and Jacques Cousteau.

Rarities - This is one of the first private releases made. It contains a selection of rare singles, B-sides and other rare tracks including the unreleased parts of See You Later (see section "His other works"). Audio quality is good. Later turned into Memoires 1 with additional tracks.

Reflections - This CD by "Lightnet Multimedia" is a very special release, as it is not an audio recording like the other private fan products but in fact a full multi media CD-rom. It exists mainly from information compiled from the web (this web-site, the Lyrics site, the Oddysey page, etc.) added with a huge amount of low quality audio file (MP3). All these texts, pictures and sounds are presented in a browsable structure which runs on the Windows operating system (32 bit). It was released in Spanish and English, and privately distributed among interested fans. There also was a second edition with more sound, more info, etc.

Fake OWM bootlegs... Long after the success of the OWM pressed CD bootlegs (Blade Runner and the Bounty) someone stole the name and started producing CDRs with Vangelis music. Examples include "Bittermoon", "Neurenberg", "1492", "Picasso", etc.. The quality is usually inferior, with added chorus to imitate a stereo recording, rediculous editting of small bits to make longer tracks, multilayering of extra soundeffects and samples, etc. But especially the looping makes these releases very annoying, having to listen over and over again to the same bit, sometimes just seconds long, expended to be tracks of over 2 minutes. In the mean time bits of music where someone happens to be speaking are left out, just because the recordings need to seem "rare recordings", to hide the fact that they are recorded from videotapes, TV broadcasts, etc. This way most of the interesting pieces are omitted. More FAKE OWMs, all bad: "Chariots of Fire", "Antarctica", "Cousteau", "Missing", "the Plague", "La Fete Sauvage", "Morandi" and more. Avoid!

Crime & Passion - Several copies of this CDR (limited to 100 copies) were sold via the Ebay auction site for high prices. The CD seems to be a recording of a 16mm print of the film. The quality is horrible and the sound is mono with dialogs still in place. Video releases of this movie are scarse, especially in a version that contains the Vangelis score (the US "Crime and Passion" doesn't, the Japanese "Ace Up My Sleeve" does and so does the German "Frankensteins Spukschloss") but they are always in better quality.

For the rest these CDs are not easy to categorize. Various people made CDrs of audiance recording tapes or radio recordings (Brussels, 1979) of concert performances. Also interviews have been compiled and rare releases have been compiled into CDrs in numerous forms.

Outside link: More comprehensive information about the various bootlegs and private releases can be found in the Rarities section of the "Vangelis Odyssey" site at www.anunna.net.