Ongoing History Daily: The Canadian bootleg caper
Before digital music piracy, there were physical bootlegs. Unauthorized recordings first started showing up on vinyl in the late 1960s and increased in popularity throughout the 70s and 80s. Cops were often busy busting up bootleg rings.
A big one happened on March 8, 1980, in the town of New Hamburg, Ontario. It was a multi-million-dollar operation called Groove Flake Productions that sent out bootlegs across Canada, the US, and Australia. They could produce up to 42,000 records a month featuring recordings made at Maple Leaf Gardens, the University of Toronto’s Varsity Stadium, and Toronto’s El Mocambo club. Acts involved included The Rolling Stones, Blondie, The Who, Yes, Jimi Hendrix, and a ton of others.
Cops also seized all kinds of recording gear and record pressing equipment. There were raids on record stores not just in Canada but also in Cincinnati, Atlanta, Nashville, and Pittsburgh. It was one of the biggest bootleg busts in history.
