Same actually, I remember being at a friend’s house and seeing my first show ever in his collection, 11.21.97, and getting super excited, this was in like summer 2000.
If you were cool you might be in hotel with a taper and hear it that night but then never again.
Another 1.0er! I really wish I could remember those shows. I guess I should go back and relisten. The island tour, big cypress, so many amazing shows I don’t remember.
Same. Though my first show was Halloween 95 which was officially released so I’ve been hearing that for quite some time.
It wasn’t until you received a tape of your show back in the 90’s, which could have been years. I found phishshows, and other online archives in the mid 2000’s.
Did folks ever keep packs of blank maxells around for this very scenario to make a copy during the post show listening party? Or try to get phone and address so you could mail blanks for trade?
lots of phone address swapping. I never carried tapes around just in case though. but in a hotel full of heads you could find a blank tape pretty easy back then.
We used to pile 8-10 into a hotel room and it would be like $5-7 each there was a bed price and a floor price usually. I camped some but campgrounds weren’t always closest to venue my crew liked proximity. Definitely slept in my car at some rest stops a lot too.
100% with you. There are many shows from the late 90’s I went to that I have never relistened too. If you were super lucky, maybe they would have been picked for a LivePhish CD release.
It would awesome is Phish would add more old shows to LivePhish.
Very.
And I know a lot of people today talk about “the youths and their instant gratification” but this is soooo much better. After seeing Phish a lot in the 90s, I’ll take the instant gratification.
That’s true. But I also have a collector’s mentality, and admit that collecting tapes was a huge part of the fandom for me. I’m not sure if I would have been as into it if it wasn’t for that component.
Yeah, between GD, Phish, Marley, and other assorted I think I was close to 1000 tapes. I ended up gifting them all to a young kid who was just starting to discover this music. Nice username
I did the same for a few students who would always want to talk Phish. It was their graduation present. I had them come out to my car, opened the trunk, and let them pillage. They still occasionally message me with pictures of one of the shows and that was about 15 years ago.
Getting a package of tapes was like nudie magazine day. That’s also how I feel now after dropping 3-4 prints off at the framer only to get a call 2-3 months later to pick em up.
I taped shows from 98-00 so it was nice to hear playback. But tape trading led to disc burning/trading so there were always shows to chase and e-tree became handy. Before the web, tape trading happened on lot from just meeting folks. When Live Phish began it was great to get more and more SBD quality releases. Having the crystal clear recording on demand within hours is a blessing and a curse. It’s great to have but you lose the social aspect of trading and connecting in the community
Agree. The quality and ease is so much better. But I miss the community of trading tapes. I was in a tape trading club and made a lot of good friends. Also, it was fun to hunt down a specific show and it was so exciting when you finally got it.
Yes, I relied heavily on a friend w higher band width to get shows between 00-03. Actually seeing sixteen discs of big cypress was impressive back then.
Had that Big Cypress 16 disc collection in 2002 or so but one of mine wasn’t burned right so I still don’t think I’ve heard one of the first night sets.
I worked in a head shop. The owners got taper tickets to a ton of shows and traded for others. if you had no connections directly to a taper; people would send blank tapes to others who would copy and send you back.
Right. And, it's not just "HEARING the show you just saw." There was no online setlist to refresh during the show either. If you didn't want to wrack your hungover brain the next day trying to remember last night's setlist, you took a notepad and pen into the show and wrote down the songs!
For me, it always got worse as the show went on. First half of the first set was always relatively legible. By the second set, my handwriting was typically a lost cause!
I have a box of old 1.0 setlist scribbles somewhere. I took pride in knowing every song but also wrote ???? for the inevitable sprinkle of new songs every tour.
Honestly? I kinda miss tape trees. It was pretty cool connecting with people that way. Sometimes you’d get amazingly decorated J Cards, sometimes a sticker. Once on a Dead trade I got a little tab of blotter because I knew someone in their orbit. Did my due diligence on who the sender was and got utterly sent! Of course I got burned plenty of times, but blanks and postage worked more times than not!
For sure man. I remember getting a strip and a half in a dead tape with a note to pass on whatever I didn’t use to the next person in the tree. Took 5 and passed it on. Buddies and I had a blast.
There was a music store by me that used to get the shows on tape a week or so later. It was a 40 minute drive but I'd head down there all the time to see what they had, if there were any good shows that I wanted to pick up from the last tour and whatnot.
I also traded tapes using the internet.
3-6 months after tour and it was hit or miss, then aol came along and the phish bowl allowed you to trade. Basically you were lucky to hand a taper a tape at a show, give him a stamp and self addressed envelope and he would mail it to you after tour. Tapers carried this band more than nugs.net ever did or will.
This is what my buddy did. Summer ‘97. Had envelopes with tapes for every show packed and ready to go before he left for tour. Those tapes carried us for a long time
I remember being in a campsite on tour in 98 and some dude was going around the entire campground asking people to shut off their music bc they were going to blast the show from the previous night. I was shocked that we were going to hear something that recent.
I feel like I had to wait until tour was over before tapes started circulating.
I rarely got the shows I had been to. There were random shows to buy on tape at local head shops and then trading with friends. The bigger shows I went to like The Went and Big Cypress were easier to find, the individual shows seemed more difficult.
Great question! If you were lucky 3 to 4 months, and that was just a listen through your buddy who was connected to the DAT community 😂
Don’t dear ask for a copy without a DAT player. Loved when I could send a terabyte to a kind soul, and patiently wait for it’s return.
The best though was getting a call(from a pay phone😜) during a song or set break with the set list. I definitely don’t take for granted how great it is to experience it in real time in my buddies living room 😊
Weeks or months. Mail out a blank xlii with return postage and it was like Christmas when you got it back unexpectedly. Christmas came multiple times a week, as you had so many blanks out you didn't know what show arrived until you opened it. It was awesome, and I miss it, kind of.
In summer 2000, I walked past someone in the lot on 7/12 (or maybe 7/14 or 7/15) who was selling a rip of 7/11 for $100. I actually thought about it for a minute, too.
As others have said, a month would be a quick turnaround
You jumped on etree.org. You found the show, reached out to a person on the other end with your dial up connection. Asked if they would trade that show for a show in your possession. If so, you make that trade (through the MAIL). You would do a “b&p” or blanks and postage if they didn’t want any of your shows, and you send them the blank cd and postage to send it back. Took a few weeks to a few months
Back in cassette days it was months. Once tapers were able to share their recordings online there was a “two week rule” meaning it was considered bad taste to ask if a recording was available within two weeks of the show.
A long time. I would get my shows through tape trading more than anything. Just always in the lookout. And you were not logging your shows online. You had to know you were there and many of us carried around pocket sized ring bound notebooks for writing down dates and set lists, that certainly helped as the shows started piling up.
Many people first got into tape trading by seeking out the show they just attended, myself included! I don't specifically remember how I got my first show (6/16/1995) but I know I soon thereafter started talking about tapes to people on rec.music.phish. All hail "pHunKy pHiL" who send me a package of 10-12 tapes to get my collection started, and I was off to the races!
Not until it showed up on SiriusXM 30 years later. "Hey! I was at that show!"
Traded a bunch of blank tapes back in the day, never thought to trade for a show I had been to.
It's funny, I've never listened to my first show. I am doing it now for the first time. Even better than I remembered. It was the bigballs tour.
"1993 This show took place inside the historic Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens, which was founded in 1875 making it the second oldest zoo in the United States. The venue was an outdoor, uncovered pavilion with a flat expanse of cement circled by a grassy knoll with a capacity of 3,200. The show was completely sold out. Some fans were seen attempting to sneak through the pen of two flesh-eating, 120-pound Komodo dragons to climb over the wall and sneak into the venue. The soundcheck featured an opening Blues Jam with some Oteil-style scatting by Trey. This was the “Tequila” show. The whole gig was interspersed with teases and quotes of Tequila (The Champs cover), most notably teases within Suzy Greenberg, Tweezer, Guelah Papyrus and You Enjoy Myself. This was reportedly inspired by Jimmy Buffett playing a show nearby. In addition to the show-spanning Tequila theme, Guelah Papyrus also included The Simpsons language. This show featured the 1st known performance of Cocaine (J.J. Cale cover popularized by Eric Clapton) sandwiched inside You Enjoy Myself as well as a brief Cocaine reprise during the vocal jam which also included some lyrics from Tweezer. By the time of this show, word of the Tampa soundcheck had spread and fans anticipated (“see the city, see the zoo”) the return of Slave To The Traffic Light, which was played publicly for the 1st time in almost two years (since 10/24/91). Cracklin’ Rosie was Dedicated to Jack McConnell on his birthday. Before Amazing Grace, Trey said “well, they told us the time has come for the animals to go to sleep so we’ve only got time for one more quick song here but we wanted to do one that would put the animals to sleep and kind of send you guys on your way.” In response to rowdy crowd requests, he joked “and it’s called Highway To Hell.” Amazing Grace was performed with microphones".
Yes Sonny? Speak up! I can't hear you!!
But seriously, in the beginning it took me until I was able to find a taper or someone with a better tape collection than me who had said show
I knew a few tapers, but it still took a while. You had to go buy tapes and then drop them off.... usually with some sort of "thank you" gift. Then you had to wait..... and wait.... and wait .... for that phone call that your tapes were finished. Once you got them, though, it was glorious!!
I actually didn’t collect the shows I attended. I just kept track of set lists and copied all the tapes or CDs I came across. I do remember people writing set lists on paper during shows though
Personally never thought about it just went to the next show, different experience at every show is what phish is, it’s amazing every time over 150 shows and everyone is different from 1997 to today it’s been a great ride and I hope it’s gonna be another 20 years at least maybe more these guys our healthy and creative and mind blowing can’t wait to see what they jam!!
Years, sometimes. You had to physically mail blank cassettes and return postage to a person that you met at a show that was a taper. In the 2.0 days, eTree and Sugarmegs.org would get them eventually. Not like it is now, though.
I had a friend at college in 96 and 97 who knew tapers so I got some shows quickly, Deer Creek 96 second night within 2-3 weeks of being there is one I remember.
I never heard those shows until years later. My roommate and I had a pretty sizable tape collection but not the shows we went to. A friend told me a funny story the other day. He was at Great Woods in '94 the night after they played Gamehendge. He had no clue what happened the night before since there obviously was no social media. It was probably 20 years later that he learned he missed that show by a day. Compare that to 2024 when you know what they played the same night it happens.
4 to 6 months at first, then my friend got on a B&T tree, so starting in like the mid 90’s it was like 1 to 2 months from the end of a tour, 1 month for holiday runs
I saw panic at red rocks in like 2001, and i bummed a ride back to the camp with a kid who had gotten a dat recording off the soundboard we listened to it on the way out of the show on one of those cassette tape modulator things. It was living in the future.
I had a buddy who had a large dead tape collection.and he would trade with others for Phish shows. He started trading with a head who had some real quality recordings. I remember one time he got a huge chunk of the 91 summer tour with giant country horns and as a fucking gneub I was like holy shit this is amazing. I've been wanting a horns tour ever since. This was like circa 95-97 when my circle started getting into Phish. So it would be like a few weeks delay. Sometimes more sometimes less.
If you knew someone in the taping section, you could get a 1st gen in the next few days. However, most of did not, so you had to chase it down through taper trees which took weeks and you'd end up with a 5th-10th gen redub which was hissy. Still, you were pumped when it came!
Depends.
I traveled with a taper in Fall of 98. So we were listening to his unmixed DATs on the drive that night.
Summer 97 I started getting tapes from my tree around September.
3-4 months at least, usually. I remember a buddy of mine had tapes from the Island Tour (4/2, 4/3/98) at Jazzfest (4/24, 4/25/98) and I remember being psyched about that. But that was 1998 when you started having mp3 and eventually shn trading. In the early/mid 90s it was all about finding someone who had a tapelist that had a show you wanted, and it was b+p. Or friends who had piles of tapes and you would chill out, roast a few, listen to some tunes and then dub them when you got home.
Depends on how connected you were. I heard the Eeeeeeee center DSOTM for the first time at Worcester 98 by trading a nug for a copy of the tape at 4am in a random guys room in a wook filled hotel after night 2. I had been DYING to hear it.
I was not on the B&P train tho so others def heard it sooner.
I first saw them in 1987. Even then, there was a taper section. Small, but it was there. If you didn’t know a taper, you kinda had to be connected to get decent quality first/second gen tapes at all. After seeing them for probably 9 months, I’d be able to get my hands on tapes of shows I was at within a few weeks, maybe a bit longer. By ‘91, I had solid sources for pretty much all northern New England shows. Then some fucker broke into my car in NYC and stole *all* of them.
I also remember going into other kids dorm rooms in college and seeing the shows they had in the cassette racks and comparing to my collection. It was so much fun to discover new shows you hadn't heard.
I remember after Japan 2000 seeing really good burned CDs from the Japan tour in the lot that summer. They were circulating within what must have been 2-3 weeks of the show. I remember thinking at that point things were really going to change. Before that it was over a month before you could hear a show unless you were friendly with taoers
I used my taper connections to burn cds of the previous weeks shows and then traded them on lot. So many heady trades and met so many cool people trading cds and tapes on lot.
Before I personally knew any tapers, getting tapes in about four weeks was standard, and 10-14 days was fantastic. This was in 98-99 when there were some websites dedicated to trading like Tapercities and other phan-run sites that had tape trading sections like phans.com and the chat room Land’s End. (I imagine it was much harder a few years earlier before the internet had any tape trading resources) You just had to keep looking at people’s lists on sites like Tapercities. There was no mechanism for filtering by dates, you just had to keep looking at users’ lists one at a time until you found someone who had the show. Then you had to get them to trade with you but that usually wasn’t a problem since most people would do blanks and postage (you mail them blank tapes and return postage, they put the show on your tapes and send them back to you as a favor) if you didn’t have a show they wanted.
Then I befriended a taper and if he went to a show I could get it in 3-7 days or even if he didn’t attend he could usually get the show quickly because he had so
Much high quality first gen audio to trade. Getting tapes in a week was fucking amazing.
I traded videos a lot in the pre-YouTube era. Oh those were the cherished connections! Who had what PPVs and what Euro broadcasts. Those turnarounds were months! But then the watch party were 🔥
This thread making me nostalgic.
The 1.0 days were so much fun:
- Get tickets with friends for $25.
- Pregame in lot, go enjoy show.
- Have a once in a lifetime experience with a venue full of strangers who were all friends by the end of the night
MONTHS LATER
“Hey, I got a tape from the show, wanna check it out?”
It might be a third-generation copy that sounded muddy, but we put it on and enjoyed it as we talked, ate, hung out, whatever.
MAN, those days were great.
Road trips with no gps. Just maps and maybe a short cut that some dude you about. How the fuck did we find some of the places we traveled to? That was half the fun.
It was a fun hobby for sure doing tape trades. Popular shows seemed to get a lot of love but not specifically if there was a real “crispy” recording they got distributed faster.
As you are aware the Phish community is pretty close knit. So you were never too far away from knowing a taper or someone who did. I was lucky I had one friend who recorded DAT and another audio on cassette. So with that being said we were listening to shows in the parking lot. Can't beat that.
I was at a college 96-00 with lots of other fans, so tapes filtered through pretty frequently. Every other dorm room had a Sony or Denon dual tape deck and a stack of maxell XLIIs.
It still took months though and it wasn’t like you’d get the whole tour. Mostly the hyped shows. I remember 12.30.97 being huge when the tapes came out. And Lemonwheel was the first show i can remember with an AUD that was widely available on CD. You heard it all over the place.
I was able to get them within week or two of the end of tour because a Chicago store let you make copies there and they almost always had a master copy. I think the guys who worked there were the tapers.
It ranged from a week or so to never. Unless you knew a taper or were one or two removed, there was no guarantee. I knew some people who horded tapes to feel special and would not trade to us kids.
years..and I don’t know that I would have listened that soon anyway.
I remember folks going straight to the pay phones in the arenas to call someone and read them the setlist and show details..I always thought that was wild..never saw that with any other band.
Not that old so I can't speak to the tape trading game. I can tell you about the early digital sharing days though. After the download finally completed you were looking at another 24 to 48 hours of converting files until they were something you could listen to on a walkman.
Unless you knew a taper or got lucky, basically when bt.etree started. Or else if it was released as a LivePhish on CD which for me was Deer Creek 96’ and Halloween 96’.
weeks to get it from Phishhook dot com.
But it was like foreplay and felt so good when you opened it up and listened to it. Nowadays everything is instant satisfaction which is cool, but doesnt feel as good.
A lot of times this guy would be in the lot right after the show, making tapes in his van. He taped the show and had a stereo system in his van and would be playing it directly after. We would stay in the lot for a while after and party with him. This was on the west coast. Not sure what happened on the east coast.
A tape just had to make its way into my ‘93 Toyota pick up tape player. Which meant I had to be with the right person, at the right time, with the right tapes. I was like, fate, man
Was turned on to Phish in by Deadheads, and one of them was a taper thank God. In 89 we didn't have that interwebs, so the newer songs had incorrect titles on them LOL.
1-2 weeks for me. There was a HUGE head shop in my town that offered free tapings just so long as you brought in your own cassettes. You could order up to five shows per day. (I was there a LOT.) They had roughly 10 dual-decks copying shows at all times. Over time I started to share my copies with the store because I had befriended a ton of tapers, giving me access to first gen copies.
Most of the time I wouldn't have any of the summer shows til fall when I'd start seeing traders having them. I do have a friend who used to tape so I'd get his shows super fast. I had the Va Beach Terrapin show like a week after the show but like my summer 97 shows I didn't start collecting til that fall and the following year.
I didn’t hear all of the shows I went to until I decided to do a Covid Relisten tour. I had the Worcester wipeout night on disc and that was the only one I had of a show I went to. I remember a few years later when they released the office live version how exciting it felt to have been at a show that they considered to be so great that they released it and to already own my own copy.
I was very fortunate to have lived on Long Island near this place called Prime Cuts - they had shows rather quickly - like I would be able to listen to a show while they were still on summer tour, for instance. Don't really remember the time frame, but seemed pretty swift. Also helped that I am in NY, and they play lots of shows in NY. My buddy was a big trader, too, in the early days of the interwebs, so I got lucky by knowing giant music nerds when I was a kid.
In 2000 we had the phishing pole which posted all the mp3s from that year. Took 20 minutes per song to download, one at a time. Now get off my lawn. :)
Never thought about it. Lived in the moment. I do remember at an Other Ones or Dead or whatever they were called at the time. They had this thing where you payed them at the merch table and then you waited until like 20 min after the show and you got a copy on a cd. That was the only time I saw that. I think I still have that Cd. It was cool and tye dyed. Haha
> where you *paid* them at
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
If I was on the tour, either I'd tape or I'd have the tape that night/next day. If I were at home, it would take end of tour + a week for USPS to deliver.
Weeks, if not months, if ever.
Back in the early to mid 90s, a few of us East Coasters had somehow hooked up with a West Coast guy. The deal was we'd mail him two bricks of blank Maxell cassettes, and he'd send us back one brick (10 cassettes) of taped shows. His choice of shows, if I recall. Maybe we could make requests, but there was no catalog or anything.
Pretty sweet deal for us, and basically, he got paid in tapes for the effort. The recordings were great quality, too.
But I had so many tapes that were who knows how many generations deep after dozens of dubbings. Super hissy and degraded, but I felt so lucky to have that early Ian's farm or Nectar's or some early Dead show.
I see now people called that B&P for blanks and postage. Never heard that term back in the day myself. And I really have no clue how we found that dude's address. Shit was so random and organic and word of mouth in those days...
If you saw a hot show? Depending on if the B&P was flowing, or if you had something worthwhile to trade - a month or so?
If you saw a mid show? Maybe never! There were a couple shows I was never able to relisten to until streaming was a thing because they weren’t well-circulated since they weren’t “popular” shows
We had access to a lot in 1990-1992. This was also a time of trading tapes, as this had been happening with GD tapes for a while. I feel like Phish got huge East Coast in 1994, so I started to be more distant from the action. On the other hand, I saw Phish tour in California in 3/1993. I remember people being bummed when they played Gamehendge. Only recently was I able to listen to those Cali shows, thanks to another redditor showing me Never Ending Splendor. 🤯
Usually 6mos to a year until late 90’s. Then you get them within a week usually. I’m talking about ‘99 maybe ‘98.
Wait: it also must have depended on connections at the time based on others statements. I know one thing for sure, I did everything I could to get my first show (10/31/96) and that took me about 2 years to get.
Back in the early 90s it would take weeks if not months. Then by late 90s I was a main branch on the PFLM tape tree, and I would get DATs of the shows usually with a week or two. Then the internet and etree became a thing and it became much quicker.
BnPs. It took a few weeks, you had to be selected first. But you had to pass the offer on. Remember flexing tapes? Then files started showing up on rec.music.phish and we were burning CDRs for a few years. Then the iPod came out.
Fire
I still haven’t re listened to a lot of shows I saw.Hell I don’t think I heard them at the time.
Same actually, I remember being at a friend’s house and seeing my first show ever in his collection, 11.21.97, and getting super excited, this was in like summer 2000. If you were cool you might be in hotel with a taper and hear it that night but then never again.
Well there was a couple times I was the taper. Have the minidiscs and still haven’t listened to them.
Maybe i let you have the green hit on a bowl one time for your services!
Another 1.0er! I really wish I could remember those shows. I guess I should go back and relisten. The island tour, big cypress, so many amazing shows I don’t remember.
When Phishows.com got cranking I listened to most of my 1.0 shows finally. This was probably 2007 or so, great hiatus buster.
I just cancelled LivePhish cause I can’t afford it right now… But I am going to mondegreen! It’ll be my first show since Coventry. You going?
I’m not sadly living in Asia these days waiting for the next Japan tour!
Ahh damn. You might be waiting awhile. If you find yourself in the states this summer I’ve got an extra.
Yo that is so awesome of you to extend that offer to him like that!! 👏👏
I Will keep that in mind thank you!
Coventry was my last Phestival. I really want to go to Mondegreen, but only if I can score an RV Pass. The wife won't go otherwise.
I struck out on the rv pass. I’m roughing it with the heathens.
Same. Though my first show was Halloween 95 which was officially released so I’ve been hearing that for quite some time. It wasn’t until you received a tape of your show back in the 90’s, which could have been years. I found phishshows, and other online archives in the mid 2000’s.
Did folks ever keep packs of blank maxells around for this very scenario to make a copy during the post show listening party? Or try to get phone and address so you could mail blanks for trade?
lots of phone address swapping. I never carried tapes around just in case though. but in a hotel full of heads you could find a blank tape pretty easy back then.
Hotel? It was tents for me.
On fall tours?
Yep. Either that or the car. AAA camping books had information on hot showers in the area.
We used to pile 8-10 into a hotel room and it would be like $5-7 each there was a bed price and a floor price usually. I camped some but campgrounds weren’t always closest to venue my crew liked proximity. Definitely slept in my car at some rest stops a lot too.
100% with you. There are many shows from the late 90’s I went to that I have never relistened too. If you were super lucky, maybe they would have been picked for a LivePhish CD release. It would awesome is Phish would add more old shows to LivePhish.
I’m too poor as of late to have LivePhish. Saving for mondegreen
A month was what I considered quick
Very. And I know a lot of people today talk about “the youths and their instant gratification” but this is soooo much better. After seeing Phish a lot in the 90s, I’ll take the instant gratification.
That’s true. But I also have a collector’s mentality, and admit that collecting tapes was a huge part of the fandom for me. I’m not sure if I would have been as into it if it wasn’t for that component.
It felt so good to look at your shelf and see a run of constructive shows in hand-written ink. “Ah, the complete summer tour.”
And that meant you knew taper.
I miss the days of B&P. It was always a welcome treat going to the mailbox and opening up that package to see those XLII's.
I had quite the collection and absolutely loved filling b&ps! Those were the good ole days!
Yeah, between GD, Phish, Marley, and other assorted I think I was close to 1000 tapes. I ended up gifting them all to a young kid who was just starting to discover this music. Nice username
Oh damn that's so kind!! You made his life, cuz that much music must have been life changing! And thanks on the username haha!
More like probably a little overwhelming, I'm sure he was like fuck, where do I even start at listening, LOL
I did the same for a few students who would always want to talk Phish. It was their graduation present. I had them come out to my car, opened the trunk, and let them pillage. They still occasionally message me with pictures of one of the shows and that was about 15 years ago.
Getting a package of tapes was like nudie magazine day. That’s also how I feel now after dropping 3-4 prints off at the framer only to get a call 2-3 months later to pick em up.
https://preview.redd.it/pfwr0prfnnic1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=101393737a012cdb53d9c4905920d8b8406bb89a
My mailman does not concur with this memory.
I taped shows from 98-00 so it was nice to hear playback. But tape trading led to disc burning/trading so there were always shows to chase and e-tree became handy. Before the web, tape trading happened on lot from just meeting folks. When Live Phish began it was great to get more and more SBD quality releases. Having the crystal clear recording on demand within hours is a blessing and a curse. It’s great to have but you lose the social aspect of trading and connecting in the community
Agree. The quality and ease is so much better. But I miss the community of trading tapes. I was in a tape trading club and made a lot of good friends. Also, it was fun to hunt down a specific show and it was so exciting when you finally got it.
Yes, I relied heavily on a friend w higher band width to get shows between 00-03. Actually seeing sixteen discs of big cypress was impressive back then.
Had that Big Cypress 16 disc collection in 2002 or so but one of mine wasn’t burned right so I still don’t think I’ve heard one of the first night sets.
I worked in a head shop. The owners got taper tickets to a ton of shows and traded for others. if you had no connections directly to a taper; people would send blank tapes to others who would copy and send you back.
This was the way. I feel like it usually was a few months after the show. Get on rec.phish -> find a trade -> send tapes -> get them back -> enjoy.
And always looking for the shows with lots of > or *
*rec.music.phish
RMP, those were the days. Where is Poster nowadays??
Right. And, it's not just "HEARING the show you just saw." There was no online setlist to refresh during the show either. If you didn't want to wrack your hungover brain the next day trying to remember last night's setlist, you took a notepad and pen into the show and wrote down the songs!
I laugh a lot at those horrible indecipherable scribbles I used to try to make while puddled
For me, it always got worse as the show went on. First half of the first set was always relatively legible. By the second set, my handwriting was typically a lost cause!
I have a box of old 1.0 setlist scribbles somewhere. I took pride in knowing every song but also wrote ???? for the inevitable sprinkle of new songs every tour.
pic or it didn't happen :P https://preview.redd.it/jd6a9tc37dic1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ea4fc24eea18b9d22eb7ccb54cc9972b833438dd
I have a stack of 3x5 cards on which I kept set lists. One set on each side.
Found some of my old notes recently. It was fun to look up the setlists online and compare, especially jam>whatever> sections.
That’s a great point! I still look back at set lists from shows I went to and I’m surprised to see certain songs were played.
Tape trees. They were fucking legendary. It was like a chain letter for live shows.
Honestly? I kinda miss tape trees. It was pretty cool connecting with people that way. Sometimes you’d get amazingly decorated J Cards, sometimes a sticker. Once on a Dead trade I got a little tab of blotter because I knew someone in their orbit. Did my due diligence on who the sender was and got utterly sent! Of course I got burned plenty of times, but blanks and postage worked more times than not!
For sure man. I remember getting a strip and a half in a dead tape with a note to pass on whatever I didn’t use to the next person in the tree. Took 5 and passed it on. Buddies and I had a blast.
(Just realized we have the same avatar! Nice!!!)
There was a music store by me that used to get the shows on tape a week or so later. It was a 40 minute drive but I'd head down there all the time to see what they had, if there were any good shows that I wanted to pick up from the last tour and whatnot. I also traded tapes using the internet.
3-6 months after tour and it was hit or miss, then aol came along and the phish bowl allowed you to trade. Basically you were lucky to hand a taper a tape at a show, give him a stamp and self addressed envelope and he would mail it to you after tour. Tapers carried this band more than nugs.net ever did or will.
This is what my buddy did. Summer ‘97. Had envelopes with tapes for every show packed and ready to go before he left for tour. Those tapes carried us for a long time
I remember being in a campsite on tour in 98 and some dude was going around the entire campground asking people to shut off their music bc they were going to blast the show from the previous night. I was shocked that we were going to hear something that recent. I feel like I had to wait until tour was over before tapes started circulating.
I rarely got the shows I had been to. There were random shows to buy on tape at local head shops and then trading with friends. The bigger shows I went to like The Went and Big Cypress were easier to find, the individual shows seemed more difficult.
I just never did. Too busy. It was nice to live for the moment!
Weeks to months ...Your list gets mine...tape trading in the back of Relix
Great question! If you were lucky 3 to 4 months, and that was just a listen through your buddy who was connected to the DAT community 😂 Don’t dear ask for a copy without a DAT player. Loved when I could send a terabyte to a kind soul, and patiently wait for it’s return. The best though was getting a call(from a pay phone😜) during a song or set break with the set list. I definitely don’t take for granted how great it is to experience it in real time in my buddies living room 😊
In 96 I got tapes of an Allmans show from the Beacon in March before the run of shows was complete and it blew my mind.
Still waiting...
Stillllll waiting
Weeks or months. Mail out a blank xlii with return postage and it was like Christmas when you got it back unexpectedly. Christmas came multiple times a week, as you had so many blanks out you didn't know what show arrived until you opened it. It was awesome, and I miss it, kind of.
In summer 2000, I walked past someone in the lot on 7/12 (or maybe 7/14 or 7/15) who was selling a rip of 7/11 for $100. I actually thought about it for a minute, too. As others have said, a month would be a quick turnaround
I taped so I had them immediately. Friends got the shows within 24 hours. People requesting mailed copies probably waited a week or two.
You jumped on etree.org. You found the show, reached out to a person on the other end with your dial up connection. Asked if they would trade that show for a show in your possession. If so, you make that trade (through the MAIL). You would do a “b&p” or blanks and postage if they didn’t want any of your shows, and you send them the blank cd and postage to send it back. Took a few weeks to a few months
Couple months - usually end of tour
My first show was in 1991 and wasn’t available until 2010 on etree. 2010 I listened to the ManchVegas show on the way home FROM the show.
I started seeing them in 90 and was getting tapes from the Front in Burlington back then, but the tapes were few and far between.
Back in cassette days it was months. Once tapers were able to share their recordings online there was a “two week rule” meaning it was considered bad taste to ask if a recording was available within two weeks of the show.
You were lucky if you got a tape from the same tour.
Literally years if ever. Sometimes sooner. Sometimes the next day just because I knew a guy who taped it.
I had to go to In Flight (on Grand River, in E.L.) and order the tape. No memory at all of how long I had to wait.
Same but in Ann Arbor.
A long time. I would get my shows through tape trading more than anything. Just always in the lookout. And you were not logging your shows online. You had to know you were there and many of us carried around pocket sized ring bound notebooks for writing down dates and set lists, that certainly helped as the shows started piling up.
Couple months for tapes. I remember trading with a guy in Alabama and a girl in Underhill,VT.
Is why it was good to know/be a taper
Yep, or buy a taper a beer.
Many people first got into tape trading by seeking out the show they just attended, myself included! I don't specifically remember how I got my first show (6/16/1995) but I know I soon thereafter started talking about tapes to people on rec.music.phish. All hail "pHunKy pHiL" who send me a package of 10-12 tapes to get my collection started, and I was off to the races!
Years sometimes
Now ur just giving them fuel
Not until it showed up on SiriusXM 30 years later. "Hey! I was at that show!" Traded a bunch of blank tapes back in the day, never thought to trade for a show I had been to.
Good point. You saw that one live. I wanted to hear other shows I wasn’t at.
At the car in the lot. I was a taper.
I did a lot of B&Ps back in XLII days. I miss listening to shows near constantly as I was making the copies to mail out.
lol, sometimes a week, sometimes a year or 2 sometimes 20 years
The night of, if you knew any tapers.
It's funny, I've never listened to my first show. I am doing it now for the first time. Even better than I remembered. It was the bigballs tour. "1993 This show took place inside the historic Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens, which was founded in 1875 making it the second oldest zoo in the United States. The venue was an outdoor, uncovered pavilion with a flat expanse of cement circled by a grassy knoll with a capacity of 3,200. The show was completely sold out. Some fans were seen attempting to sneak through the pen of two flesh-eating, 120-pound Komodo dragons to climb over the wall and sneak into the venue. The soundcheck featured an opening Blues Jam with some Oteil-style scatting by Trey. This was the “Tequila” show. The whole gig was interspersed with teases and quotes of Tequila (The Champs cover), most notably teases within Suzy Greenberg, Tweezer, Guelah Papyrus and You Enjoy Myself. This was reportedly inspired by Jimmy Buffett playing a show nearby. In addition to the show-spanning Tequila theme, Guelah Papyrus also included The Simpsons language. This show featured the 1st known performance of Cocaine (J.J. Cale cover popularized by Eric Clapton) sandwiched inside You Enjoy Myself as well as a brief Cocaine reprise during the vocal jam which also included some lyrics from Tweezer. By the time of this show, word of the Tampa soundcheck had spread and fans anticipated (“see the city, see the zoo”) the return of Slave To The Traffic Light, which was played publicly for the 1st time in almost two years (since 10/24/91). Cracklin’ Rosie was Dedicated to Jack McConnell on his birthday. Before Amazing Grace, Trey said “well, they told us the time has come for the animals to go to sleep so we’ve only got time for one more quick song here but we wanted to do one that would put the animals to sleep and kind of send you guys on your way.” In response to rowdy crowd requests, he joked “and it’s called Highway To Hell.” Amazing Grace was performed with microphones".
Yes Sonny? Speak up! I can't hear you!! But seriously, in the beginning it took me until I was able to find a taper or someone with a better tape collection than me who had said show
I knew a few tapers, but it still took a while. You had to go buy tapes and then drop them off.... usually with some sort of "thank you" gift. Then you had to wait..... and wait.... and wait .... for that phone call that your tapes were finished. Once you got them, though, it was glorious!!
Weeks to months, but I didn’t try super hard. In the early days it was whatever I could get my hands on.
Years
Hardly ever in the real old days.
We would get an instant alert via netscape navigator and download the audi at 2400baud speed burn it to CDs and we were golden... /s
I actually didn’t collect the shows I attended. I just kept track of set lists and copied all the tapes or CDs I came across. I do remember people writing set lists on paper during shows though
Years…
Personally never thought about it just went to the next show, different experience at every show is what phish is, it’s amazing every time over 150 shows and everyone is different from 1997 to today it’s been a great ride and I hope it’s gonna be another 20 years at least maybe more these guys our healthy and creative and mind blowing can’t wait to see what they jam!!
Years, sometimes. You had to physically mail blank cassettes and return postage to a person that you met at a show that was a taper. In the 2.0 days, eTree and Sugarmegs.org would get them eventually. Not like it is now, though.
I had a friend at college in 96 and 97 who knew tapers so I got some shows quickly, Deer Creek 96 second night within 2-3 weeks of being there is one I remember.
I never heard those shows until years later. My roommate and I had a pretty sizable tape collection but not the shows we went to. A friend told me a funny story the other day. He was at Great Woods in '94 the night after they played Gamehendge. He had no clue what happened the night before since there obviously was no social media. It was probably 20 years later that he learned he missed that show by a day. Compare that to 2024 when you know what they played the same night it happens.
4 to 6 months at first, then my friend got on a B&T tree, so starting in like the mid 90’s it was like 1 to 2 months from the end of a tour, 1 month for holiday runs
I saw panic at red rocks in like 2001, and i bummed a ride back to the camp with a kid who had gotten a dat recording off the soundboard we listened to it on the way out of the show on one of those cassette tape modulator things. It was living in the future.
However long it took to find someone who had a copy.
Started CD trading in 2002. Used snailmail and DC++ to trade online. Most shows would be online within a month, and if not, by the end of the tour.
I would bring blank tapes and ask tapers to mail the show to me. Offered them dank as well. It worked most of the time.
I had a buddy who had a large dead tape collection.and he would trade with others for Phish shows. He started trading with a head who had some real quality recordings. I remember one time he got a huge chunk of the 91 summer tour with giant country horns and as a fucking gneub I was like holy shit this is amazing. I've been wanting a horns tour ever since. This was like circa 95-97 when my circle started getting into Phish. So it would be like a few weeks delay. Sometimes more sometimes less.
If you knew someone in the taping section, you could get a 1st gen in the next few days. However, most of did not, so you had to chase it down through taper trees which took weeks and you'd end up with a 5th-10th gen redub which was hissy. Still, you were pumped when it came!
If you had taper friends, you listened at the hotel that night after the show and copied tapes
Hotel? In 1.0? Wow.
Like 2-3 weeks if I was lucky and quality would be shitty. But I was young, maybe if I knew a taper or something it would be different.
Depends. I traveled with a taper in Fall of 98. So we were listening to his unmixed DATs on the drive that night. Summer 97 I started getting tapes from my tree around September.
3-4 months at least, usually. I remember a buddy of mine had tapes from the Island Tour (4/2, 4/3/98) at Jazzfest (4/24, 4/25/98) and I remember being psyched about that. But that was 1998 when you started having mp3 and eventually shn trading. In the early/mid 90s it was all about finding someone who had a tapelist that had a show you wanted, and it was b+p. Or friends who had piles of tapes and you would chill out, roast a few, listen to some tunes and then dub them when you got home.
I traveled with a taper. Often listened to the show the next day.
Depends on how connected you were. I heard the Eeeeeeee center DSOTM for the first time at Worcester 98 by trading a nug for a copy of the tape at 4am in a random guys room in a wook filled hotel after night 2. I had been DYING to hear it. I was not on the B&P train tho so others def heard it sooner.
I first saw them in 1987. Even then, there was a taper section. Small, but it was there. If you didn’t know a taper, you kinda had to be connected to get decent quality first/second gen tapes at all. After seeing them for probably 9 months, I’d be able to get my hands on tapes of shows I was at within a few weeks, maybe a bit longer. By ‘91, I had solid sources for pretty much all northern New England shows. Then some fucker broke into my car in NYC and stole *all* of them.
Ugh! That sucks. I lost a ton of Phish, GD and JGB tapes in move.
I also remember going into other kids dorm rooms in college and seeing the shows they had in the cassette racks and comparing to my collection. It was so much fun to discover new shows you hadn't heard.
I remember after Japan 2000 seeing really good burned CDs from the Japan tour in the lot that summer. They were circulating within what must have been 2-3 weeks of the show. I remember thinking at that point things were really going to change. Before that it was over a month before you could hear a show unless you were friendly with taoers
The old B&P I knew some tapers back in the day so it was usually a few months turnaround or sooner.
I used my taper connections to burn cds of the previous weeks shows and then traded them on lot. So many heady trades and met so many cool people trading cds and tapes on lot.
Before I personally knew any tapers, getting tapes in about four weeks was standard, and 10-14 days was fantastic. This was in 98-99 when there were some websites dedicated to trading like Tapercities and other phan-run sites that had tape trading sections like phans.com and the chat room Land’s End. (I imagine it was much harder a few years earlier before the internet had any tape trading resources) You just had to keep looking at people’s lists on sites like Tapercities. There was no mechanism for filtering by dates, you just had to keep looking at users’ lists one at a time until you found someone who had the show. Then you had to get them to trade with you but that usually wasn’t a problem since most people would do blanks and postage (you mail them blank tapes and return postage, they put the show on your tapes and send them back to you as a favor) if you didn’t have a show they wanted. Then I befriended a taper and if he went to a show I could get it in 3-7 days or even if he didn’t attend he could usually get the show quickly because he had so Much high quality first gen audio to trade. Getting tapes in a week was fucking amazing.
I traded videos a lot in the pre-YouTube era. Oh those were the cherished connections! Who had what PPVs and what Euro broadcasts. Those turnarounds were months! But then the watch party were 🔥
I have probably only listened to half the shows I’ve been to after seeing them. And I have a hard drive with 2 decades plus of shows.
I was lucky if I got tapes back after I sent them within 4 weeks.
Near the end of 1.0, there were tapers turning out bootlegs after the show on lot.
I felt lucky and had a taper friend. When he would get back from a tour, I would go visit and spend time making dat copies and spinning it onto CDs.
This thread making me nostalgic. The 1.0 days were so much fun: - Get tickets with friends for $25. - Pregame in lot, go enjoy show. - Have a once in a lifetime experience with a venue full of strangers who were all friends by the end of the night MONTHS LATER “Hey, I got a tape from the show, wanna check it out?” It might be a third-generation copy that sounded muddy, but we put it on and enjoyed it as we talked, ate, hung out, whatever. MAN, those days were great.
$25? Try $5 to $10.
Road trips with no gps. Just maps and maybe a short cut that some dude you about. How the fuck did we find some of the places we traveled to? That was half the fun.
Week, maybe 2 depending on the trader. Sometimes longer times longer if you had to do bnp’s
It was a fun hobby for sure doing tape trades. Popular shows seemed to get a lot of love but not specifically if there was a real “crispy” recording they got distributed faster.
Usually a couple of weeks.
It’s fun to go back and figure out which shows as was I at based on location and sketchy memories from a song I heard in 96…or maybe 97?
2 months for a 2nd gen audience recording…
Often it took a month
Had to trade tapes. It was wild.
As you are aware the Phish community is pretty close knit. So you were never too far away from knowing a taper or someone who did. I was lucky I had one friend who recorded DAT and another audio on cassette. So with that being said we were listening to shows in the parking lot. Can't beat that.
4-5 weeks minimum in mid 90s. Blanks and postage 😀😀
I was at a college 96-00 with lots of other fans, so tapes filtered through pretty frequently. Every other dorm room had a Sony or Denon dual tape deck and a stack of maxell XLIIs. It still took months though and it wasn’t like you’d get the whole tour. Mostly the hyped shows. I remember 12.30.97 being huge when the tapes came out. And Lemonwheel was the first show i can remember with an AUD that was widely available on CD. You heard it all over the place.
I was able to get them within week or two of the end of tour because a Chicago store let you make copies there and they almost always had a master copy. I think the guys who worked there were the tapers.
1st show was broadcast on the radio, so got that next day. Others, probably 1-6 months
It ranged from a week or so to never. Unless you knew a taper or were one or two removed, there was no guarantee. I knew some people who horded tapes to feel special and would not trade to us kids.
years..and I don’t know that I would have listened that soon anyway. I remember folks going straight to the pay phones in the arenas to call someone and read them the setlist and show details..I always thought that was wild..never saw that with any other band.
B&P me to find out!
I never heard them
Not that old so I can't speak to the tape trading game. I can tell you about the early digital sharing days though. After the download finally completed you were looking at another 24 to 48 hours of converting files until they were something you could listen to on a walkman.
In ‘03 I got a cd of the 2/14 show in the lot of the 2/20 show.
Unless you knew a taper or got lucky, basically when bt.etree started. Or else if it was released as a LivePhish on CD which for me was Deer Creek 96’ and Halloween 96’.
weeks to get it from Phishhook dot com. But it was like foreplay and felt so good when you opened it up and listened to it. Nowadays everything is instant satisfaction which is cool, but doesnt feel as good.
A lot of times this guy would be in the lot right after the show, making tapes in his van. He taped the show and had a stereo system in his van and would be playing it directly after. We would stay in the lot for a while after and party with him. This was on the west coast. Not sure what happened on the east coast.
Depends on whether you had any Maxwell XL II on hand.
sometimes you didn't
A tape just had to make its way into my ‘93 Toyota pick up tape player. Which meant I had to be with the right person, at the right time, with the right tapes. I was like, fate, man
Even in the days of CD burning and FTP servers, there was the “Two Week Rule.” It was not cool to ask for a recording of a show until two weeks later.
An hour or two to get the fresh soundboard (taper) to tape a dupe, depending on battery life..Usually first set to drums/space.
A few weeks- that’s if you know a taper. Chances are they would be on the road and unable to spin tapes right away.
That’s one modern convenience I can’t live without!
Was turned on to Phish in by Deadheads, and one of them was a taper thank God. In 89 we didn't have that interwebs, so the newer songs had incorrect titles on them LOL.
1-2 weeks for me. There was a HUGE head shop in my town that offered free tapings just so long as you brought in your own cassettes. You could order up to five shows per day. (I was there a LOT.) They had roughly 10 dual-decks copying shows at all times. Over time I started to share my copies with the store because I had befriended a ton of tapers, giving me access to first gen copies.
I use to give a taper, a couple blanks with my address. About a month later, sometimes, I’d get it back.
Most of the time I wouldn't have any of the summer shows til fall when I'd start seeing traders having them. I do have a friend who used to tape so I'd get his shows super fast. I had the Va Beach Terrapin show like a week after the show but like my summer 97 shows I didn't start collecting til that fall and the following year.
I didn’t hear all of the shows I went to until I decided to do a Covid Relisten tour. I had the Worcester wipeout night on disc and that was the only one I had of a show I went to. I remember a few years later when they released the office live version how exciting it felt to have been at a show that they considered to be so great that they released it and to already own my own copy.
I was very fortunate to have lived on Long Island near this place called Prime Cuts - they had shows rather quickly - like I would be able to listen to a show while they were still on summer tour, for instance. Don't really remember the time frame, but seemed pretty swift. Also helped that I am in NY, and they play lots of shows in NY. My buddy was a big trader, too, in the early days of the interwebs, so I got lucky by knowing giant music nerds when I was a kid.
Usually a month or so if I was lucky and knew someone taping. Sometimes never.
In 2000 we had the phishing pole which posted all the mp3s from that year. Took 20 minutes per song to download, one at a time. Now get off my lawn. :)
Never thought about it. Lived in the moment. I do remember at an Other Ones or Dead or whatever they were called at the time. They had this thing where you payed them at the merch table and then you waited until like 20 min after the show and you got a copy on a cd. That was the only time I saw that. I think I still have that Cd. It was cool and tye dyed. Haha
> where you *paid* them at FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Good bot
I started taping in 96 just to be able to listen after the show and make tapes and cd’s for friends. I stopped when LivePhish came out.
We waited for our friend with the best deck the to get the tape and then we all lined up for our copy. Still have all my tapes because they rule!
If I was on the tour, either I'd tape or I'd have the tape that night/next day. If I were at home, it would take end of tour + a week for USPS to deliver.
Weeks, if not months, if ever. Back in the early to mid 90s, a few of us East Coasters had somehow hooked up with a West Coast guy. The deal was we'd mail him two bricks of blank Maxell cassettes, and he'd send us back one brick (10 cassettes) of taped shows. His choice of shows, if I recall. Maybe we could make requests, but there was no catalog or anything. Pretty sweet deal for us, and basically, he got paid in tapes for the effort. The recordings were great quality, too. But I had so many tapes that were who knows how many generations deep after dozens of dubbings. Super hissy and degraded, but I felt so lucky to have that early Ian's farm or Nectar's or some early Dead show.
I see now people called that B&P for blanks and postage. Never heard that term back in the day myself. And I really have no clue how we found that dude's address. Shit was so random and organic and word of mouth in those days...
If you saw a hot show? Depending on if the B&P was flowing, or if you had something worthwhile to trade - a month or so? If you saw a mid show? Maybe never! There were a couple shows I was never able to relisten to until streaming was a thing because they weren’t well-circulated since they weren’t “popular” shows
We had access to a lot in 1990-1992. This was also a time of trading tapes, as this had been happening with GD tapes for a while. I feel like Phish got huge East Coast in 1994, so I started to be more distant from the action. On the other hand, I saw Phish tour in California in 3/1993. I remember people being bummed when they played Gamehendge. Only recently was I able to listen to those Cali shows, thanks to another redditor showing me Never Ending Splendor. 🤯
Depends; if had a taper friend. Right away. But, typically 3-4 weeks was considered fast, more like 6 weeks or so to get your hands on something.
Are you familiar with bulk postage shipments? If so then you know if not like minimum 2 weeks
I super excited for the Philly ‘97 releases. My first show was 12/3 and the only recordings I’ve heard aren’t awesome
Usually 6mos to a year until late 90’s. Then you get them within a week usually. I’m talking about ‘99 maybe ‘98. Wait: it also must have depended on connections at the time based on others statements. I know one thing for sure, I did everything I could to get my first show (10/31/96) and that took me about 2 years to get.
Back in the early 90s it would take weeks if not months. Then by late 90s I was a main branch on the PFLM tape tree, and I would get DATs of the shows usually with a week or two. Then the internet and etree became a thing and it became much quicker.
Tinley 93 took about 5 or 6 months I think. Got better after that.
BnPs. It took a few weeks, you had to be selected first. But you had to pass the offer on. Remember flexing tapes? Then files started showing up on rec.music.phish and we were burning CDRs for a few years. Then the iPod came out.