peterintoronto

Wow. You are awesome. Do you accept PayPal? I will be mailing everything back to Saturn Records tomorrow.

I actually asked the guy this. He claims to have never owned the original box - he bought it in it's bootleg state at a record show . He probably made CDR 'masters' of it, and sold the original a long time ago.

Though I have been lurking these forums for about a year, I have never really felt the need to chime in with anything until today. Ever since I discovered The Art Ensemble Of Chicago, I have been buying up their albums whenever I see 'em, whether it be on vinyl or compact disc. As soon as I read of Chuck Nessa's long-out-print 5-cd set of the A.E.O.C., I knew one thing: I wanted it badly! I already knew from searching these very forums that others had inquired about the box, and I knew Chuck's response: "they're long gone"! Well, about two weeks ago I somehow stumble onto the site of a record store in Oakland, California, called 'Saturn Records'. Clicking on their 'free jazz' stock link, this line greeted me (still there, by the way): Art Ensemble Of Chicago 1967/1968 Ind No# Chicago Studio 67-68 5CD $50.00 Buy Now I remember making this face: :excited: . This looked like Nessa's long-out-of-print and highly coveted box! And at a hell of reasonable price too! I emailed the store, and dutifully sent a money order the very next day. I even emailed the store a week later to make sure they got my money order, as didn't want them forgetting that I had sent payment. Fast forward another week. Yesterday I got a delivery slip in the mail, and today I picked up the parcel! More :excited: right? I'm gonna let the pictures tell the story for a bit now: Yay! Here it is! A free DVD? Cool! Here it is!!! Uhhhhhh...huh? Did they send me the wrong item or something? Nope! It's a bootleg! How awesome for me and especially for Chuck, who I'm sure is flattered right about now. Right? What exquisite packaging! 5 unlabeled CDRs and a 1 page photocopy! This puts Mosaic and Bear Family to shame! So. This is clearly not what I had expected. I called the store immediately, and about an hour later my message was returned. Apparently the owner (who included an 86-page catalog of thousands of other bootlegged material), had "no idea that the material was commercially released". He offered that I send the discs back for a refund, but seemed wholly nonchalant about the whole thing. What the heck do I do now? Send it back and pray for a refund? Send it to Chuck as evidence? Please advise! P.S. The free DVD? A bootleg of course!