While creating the Godspeed You! Black Emperor archive on Bootleg.fm (and getting into their music at the same time), the name mthrfckrrdmr came up a lot. I didn't realise back then, but this was also the creator of the live recordings database we used heavily to build the catalogue.

So I was glad when she joined the Discord server soon after we started sharing the catalogue online. Since then I learned a lot about archiving from her, and I'm happy to present my interview where we talk about her archiving journey. Bolded sentences are mine, non-bolded are hers.

When and how did you first get into archiving live recordings?

My introduction to the world of live concert recordings, bootlegs, etc. is probably not that much different than most people. When I was a kid, I was big into classic rock. Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, all of those sorts of bands. I would go onto blogs that had download links to complete live concerts, and the quality would just blow me away sometimes. I think it was the very famous soundboard recording of Black Sabbath at Asbury Park in 1975 - which I first heard when I was like 12 years old - that REALLY blew me away. All of the songs were just performed way better live and y'know, they had improvisations, jams, medleys and stuff that didn't exist anywhere else. So that was my introduction. But it would take another 5 years or so before I would become a very big fan of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and their catalog of live recordings, and then I got into the archival side of things after that.

Is GY!BE the first band that you started archiving?

Yeah. I had been uploading Godspeed tapes to the Internet Archive since 2019... maybe 2018? I don't remember. There was some stuff already there before I started sharing but, now I think the majority of the uploads there on the GYBE page are either mine or by my partners in the project. I would have never imagined that my journey over those years would end up with me and several very dear friends (who this wouldn't be possible without) working with an ex member of that band and having permission to archive video and audio recordings of them that we otherwise would've never had access to - shout out to Bruce Cawdron for that.

Has it been hard at first to digest all the culture around archiving tapes? Stuff like lossy/lossless, different encodings, tape generations etc., did you pick this stuff up as you went along or were there any resources that you went through?

I know there are some people that struggle with that sort of technical stuff but for me I learned quick. I had minor experience with analog stuff even before then so that wasn't new for me. But when it comes to audio and video preservation, I just soaked up all that knowledge naturally. I mean, to me it's just common sense - from an archival standpoint - that recordings, these historical documents, need to be saved in the highest quality they can possibly be, with nothing lost or damaged any further. Lossless masters are very valuable for that reason, so I'm always on the hunt for those (or even just lower gen recordings in some instances).

I do know some torrent trackers like DIME have sort of a like, rough guide for audio specs and stuff and for video, the videohelp forum was what Tankhaus (a fellow archivist who usually does a lot of the video restoration work for me) and I would consult usually. But going back to the preservation aspect, I've seen a lot of careless folks. They usually mean well, but it definitely is kind of alarming how there's a number of recordings that are only available on, say, YouTube and nowhere else. No download links or anything. What if the artist strikes the video and it is lost, or the channel gets terminated for some other reason? I know YouTube downloaders exist, but the file you get would still be marred with very visible compression artifacts and low quality OPUS audio. Which just bugs me. Like I understand just throwing a tape onto YouTube seems like the easiest option and it's accessible and I know the people who do that ultimately mean well but like I said, there's problems inherent in that.

Interesting, I see your point about some tapes only being on Youtube. Even if the channel or the video isn't removed, I don't know how long Youtube will exist for and having the raw binary files out there definitely seems safer, but that is a different rabbit hole. A lighter question next: What was the tape that took you the longest to find so far?

It's hard for me to really single one out that took the longest. A lot of the Godspeed related shows I had been hunting for copies of for like 5 or 6 years. But once my friend Joel C., who along with gvid (another archivist) are like the hardest workers in the whole GYBE archival project, and I started working with Bruce Cawdron (formerly of GYBE) and another taper who I'll just call Y.P., my wishlist was quickly eviscerated. I guess I would have to single out the 2002-01-25 concert at Bordeaux's C.A.T., the longest Godspeed show ever. Once we were able to not only get the full show, but practically the whole soundcheck online thanks to Bruce and YP, that quickly became a cult hit with the fanbase overnight. That's why I do these things.

But there are STILL some Godspeed shows (and some from other bands) that I am looking for, and have been for over 7 years. Dec 6 and Dec 7 2000, at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC. I just want to know if those setlists are even real.

How did you end up working with Bruce Cawdron?

The story is kind of funny and long. In 2020 there was a YouTuber who doesn't really post anymore called The Godspeed Guy, who alerted me that he got a DM from someone on Reddit claiming to be Bruce Cawdron, and that he had a lot to share. The username was plausible, and then eventually I got the same DM on reddit as well from him. However, I wrote that off as a troll, and never responded... Well in 2023 I was getting a little frustrated at how futile the whole gig was starting to feel. Many of these old traders are old and retired and even deleted their music collection in some instances. Just terrible how much history could be lost there... So I found Bruce's email on his acupuncture website, contacted him with screenshots of the old Reddit messages and it turns out, it really was Bruce that reached out to us 3 years prior. Now his archives were on physical media that he did not have the equipment to transfer. He had cassettes, CDs, VHS, and DATs. So someone had to physically be there to do the work. But the problem was, Bruce lives way up in rural Quebec near Gatineau, and I live thousands of miles away down in the Cajun prairies of southwest Louisiana. But luckily, I had two contacts in Canada - Joel and Tankhaus - and that solved the location issue. Every single recording I've uploaded from Bruce (and YP's) collection was transferred by Joel, and many were restored in some way by Tankhaus (who also oversaw the VHS transfers) and gvid. We've got quite the crack team here and it's really special. It was amazing and it is kind of sad that we have basically gone through and uploaded everything there is to upload, although I still plan to upload scans of several hundred flyers, handbills, song writing notes and stuff to the Internet Archive.

Have you interacted with anyone else from GY!BE or anyone from their label since starting your archiving efforts?

I did briefly have a conversation with Dave over email around a year ago and have of course met them at a show and conversed lightly with them, but other than that nothing as extensive as with Bruce. I don't think any of them want to be involved with the live show archival work personally, but that's fine, they've given the fans the green light to do that sort of thing and not a lot of bands do. Some like King Gizzard take it even a step further, allowing fans to make actual bootlegs for sale, as I've been told.

Have you noticed a shift in the bootlegging culture since you first got into it? You mentioned being frustrated around 2023 with many old traders retiring, do you think there's many others coming up to carry the torch or is the field getting smaller?

It's kind of a mixed bag and not really something that has a black or white answer. I guess today, more people than ever are recording shows in a way. But they are just taking phone videos and putting them on YouTube, and we discussed the issues with that earlier. So the old school taping and trading community is getting smaller. dimeadozen.org is steadily getting smaller and smaller, and they're the last really big torrent tracker for what we do left. And many of the old career tapers are either retired or dead. But there's a new generation of tapers who are getting professional equipment, and recording the shows, mastering the recordings and getting them to sound good. There's now cloud drives that just have terabytes of lossless live recordings. This brings me to what will be my New Years resolution, which is that I'm going to start going out and tape a bunch of local Cajun music shows where I live just for the sake of having a permanent historical document of the state of the music of my homeland today.

With dimeadozen today though, it's really sad. They're basically running out of money because a consequence of their userbase shrinking is that nobody is really donating anymore, and they run entirely on donations. Any minute now, the admins could probably decide that it's no longer worth it and pull the plug. But I hope it doesn't come to that.

You touched on this slightly, but can you expand a bit further now: What are the GY!BE tapes that you're still looking for?

Well, anything I don't have especially from 1997 to 2003 or from the 2010s. I do have a list which would be too long to repeat here but some I would love are 2000-12-06, 2000-12-07 (NYC); 2001-10-01 (Columbus); 2002-02-06 (Geneva); 2002-02-17 (Vienna); and 2002-03-26 (Bradford, UK). On one hand because for a few of them I wonder if the setlist is even real, and on the other hand, they would round up a period that is otherwise mostly complete and available online (in terms of known recordings). I also saw someone on Reddit tell me he had a master clone of 1998-04-25 SAW Gallery, but have yet to hear back from him when I inquired further.

The absolute white whale though is not necessarily a recording, but rather I just wish we knew what the full route of their first US tour, in September 1997, was. Almost nothing is known about the tour, but the scant descriptions that exist online of a show in that period sound otherworldly.

What would your advice be to someone who enjoys listening to live performances, and wants to contribute to archiving efforts for bands that don't already have dedicated fans that catalogue their stuff? Let's assume this person mainly listens to live performances on Youtube and isn't currently familiar with the bootlegging culture.

I would say don't be afraid of messing up on your first try. But anyway, the hobby is not for everyone. Invest in a cheap recorder like a Zoom H1n or something and then go through a trial with it a few shows to see if you enjoy being the human microphone. If you enjoy it enough, then it's worth saving up a bit more money and get some higher end microphones -- though you will want to buy used most of the time because otherwise it would be extremely expensive. Some people on eBay have no idea what they're selling and you may be able to score some premium stuff for far, far less than it is worth. Record in lossless quality, and share the lossless files somewhere permanent. The taperssection forum is a good resource for new people to consult.

Let's say you're stuck on an island and can have only 3 bootlegs that you can listen to for the rest of your life, which 3 would you choose?

Hmmm for any band? That's a hard question. I know first place would be Godspeed 1997-10-05. That's just my favorite show, period. Nothing else like it. Second place might be the Asbury Park 75 show from Black Sabbath, I listen to that multiple times a year and it never fails to blow me away. Third place, I really don't know, there's a lot to choose from. Maybe Sonic Youth in Los Angeles 1998-05-29, the day after a show that was officially released. Been a frequent listen for me lately, and one of my favorite tours.

Check out Nico's Archive.org page, and her Instagram account @thee_mighty_gybe_archives. You can reach out to her by email at mthrfckrrdmr@gmail.com or on Discord (mthrfckrrdmr).