A few summers ago, I happened to be vacationing with my family in Cardiff, Wales, when a Bob Dylan show there was announced. It was the talk of the town—or at least, the talk of the record stores and coffeeshops I was frequenting. And sure, some of that talk was of the usual “He’s still alive?” variety. But still, it was fun to eavesdrop in town that day as word spread.
Part of my excitement was that Cardiff looms fairly large in my Bob Dylan history. No, I’ve never seen him there before. I’d never even been there before that trip. But the old CD-R the randomizer drew today was big for me when I was first collecting Dylan bootlegs.
If for you need a refresher on this series—can’t imagine why, it’s only been two full years since I did one—CD-Rchive was inspired by me finding my old Bob-boots CD-R collection in my mom’s house a few years back. When I first got into Dylan in high school and college, trading CD-Rs through the mail was how I acquired tapes. I (very) occasionally look back at one of them. More info here.
My memory was this Cardiff 2000 recording was one of the first Dylan shows I acquired, and I actually logged into my old Yahoo email address and confirmed that to be true. In July 7, 2004, just a few months after I first caught the Bob-bug, someone named Dan Verbin offered the Cardiff tape on something called DylanWeeds (thanks Dan! thanks DylanWeeds!). I was 17 years old. My email to him read:
I'd love a copy if you've got any left and I'll reweed it the moment I get it. I'm new to JamWeeds, but I've been involved in DylanWeeds, so I'm not completely a newbie. Thanks in advance!
Reading that feels like deciphering some ancient Mesopotamian scroll. I don’t remember what half those terms mean (“I’ll reweed it”??), but I vaguely remember the system being you got a disc, burned a copy for yourself, then mailed it onward. There were “trees” and “vines” too—the difference between all of them escapes me now. But if you too were trading tapes or CDs online back in the day, I bet the terms will ring a bell. I see I attached my “trade list” of the live-Dylan recordings I had at the time:
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