The Wembley Wizard Touches the Dial

This bootleg has a very interesting history.

It originally was released in Japan by a Japanese label, Marc, as "Don't Touch That Dial", with a single production run of 2,000. Japanese law at the time allowed the production and sale of any LPs by non-JASRAC artists, so long as the recording had been made before 1978. Thus, the original Marc release was perfectly legal under Japanese law.

A small number - less than a hundred - of the Marc LPs were obtained by a Dutch distributor, Unique Records, who then sold them outside of Japan.

BPI's press officer, Richard Robinson, then convinced David Bowie's label at the time, RCA, that tens of thousands of copies of "Don't Touch That Dial" had been pressed in the USA and were being sold all around Europe.

"Operation Moonbeam" thus began. BPI's main investigator, Bill Hood, became involved with several British bootleg sellers, and was convinced he could track down the source for all British bootlegs. So he copied "Don't Touch That Dial" into a new pressing plate, and had printed up 2,500 copies as "The Wembley Wizard Touches That Dial". He then attempted to trace the distribution and sale of this BPI-issued bootleg LP, with less than 250 copies being recovered.

The only real influence it had was that Rough Trade Records, which was in the process of changing from a record distributor into a record producer, was caught distributing bootleg LPs, and was fined £10,000 by the BPI. (Rough Trade was also the main source for punk bootlegs in the US; coincidentally, the availability of punk bootleg vinyl in the US following Operation Moonbeam dropped significantly.) Otherwise, little came from the sting. It was seen as an utter failure by BPI and the British press, Bill Hood resigned in disgrace, and more than 2000 copies of the BPI-pressed bootleg LP remained in distribution.

Today, outside of Japan, the BPI LP is much easier to find than the original Marc LP. It remains famous, however, as the first bootleg produced, distributed, and sold by the recording industry associations which have as a main goal to eliminate the production, distribution, and sales of bootleg releases.