A couple of nights ago we were channel surfing and TVLand was showing an episode of What’s Happening!! I totally watched that show when I was a kid.

The episode was classic: the Doobie Brothers were playing a big concert and these bad guys were plying the kids with great seats and in exchange they had to secretly tape the concerts. Yes, they were BOOTLEGGING. And the bootleggers were villians with shiny suits.

Not only were they bootlegging but they were using those big clunky cassette recorders that we used back in the mesomeric era before the invention of technology. It’s hard to even imagine that a crappy 3rd generation cassette recording from an orginal taped from a recorder hidden in someone’s clothes would have ever been valuable to anyone. Or that the artist would have been backed up about it.

If you’ve ever seen hippies at a Cheese (or any jam band for that matter) show legally taping with all their gear, perhaps you understand why I think this is extra funny.

This episode aired in February of 1978 and you almost want to go back to that time and tell everyone how the delivery of music to fans will change in the next 30 years because it would blow those people’s minds.