Site news
2023-09-02 – First post! The only ‘news’ here is that there’s still a lot to do!
About The Archive
The Banshee Archive is a not-for-profit endeavor that freely shares rare, unofficial live audio recordings of Siouxsie & The Banshees for historical preservation.
Over the decades, some of these recordings have been appropriated by commercial bootleggers to press on CD, LP, etc. From the early days of bootleg LPs, to the early 90s “protection gap” CD era, it was clear that retail bootlegs were merely an exercise in ripping off the band and its fans. You need only look as far as a particular well-known auction site to have that notion confirmed even today: the commercial bootleggers still think you’re going to pay $$$ for a lesser copy of a recording you could’ve gotten for free from actual SATB collectors who aren’t in this for profit.
The traders of the past were insistent that these live tapes should be openly shared with the fans for no monetary gain and I feel the same.
How to find
At present, Siouxsie live bootleg recordings are traded in the FLAC audio format, which, unlike MP3 and AAC, is uncompressed audio, meaning no data is discarded when the file is created.
For tracking down FLAC files of live Siouxsie bootlegs, you are encouraged to visit the following:
- www.dimeadozen.org. This is a long-running site for sharing unofficial recordings of numerous live bands. SATB material shows up there from time to time. The site is free to use, though it requires registration of a user name and enforces a ratio system. Downloads/uploads are handled via the Bittorrent protocol, so make sure you’re familiar with that first.
- You can find many unofficial live SATB shows files on Soulseek. Be sure to read the documentation and understand how to open the correct ports on your firewall and router for Soulseek to work as intended. And by the way, while the official Soulseek client is good, you are encouraged to try the Nicotine+ client. Visit: www.slsknet.org and nicotine-plus.org. The Soulseek Reddit page can also be helpful, so visit: /r/Soulseek.
This page, like the rest of the site, is a living document. So come back!
One more thing!
This website is inspired by the exemplary effort at the Depeche Mode Live Wiki. Whether you’re a DM fan or not, be sure to visit and take a look at the extraordinary amount of work they’ve put in!