Velvet Underground Trainspotting Question

This seems as good a place as any to ask this question ... has anybody bought that new VU seven inch singles thing that Sundazed just put out? I don't really want to buy it, BUT: the mix of "I Heard Her Call My Name" is apparently vastly different. Would like to hear this ... mp3 anywhere?

haha I was wondering which thread to revive to discuss the "Nuns Are On The Seawall" blog...

i.e Velvets bootlegs S/D

the 'Ultimate Mono and Acetates Album' has some of those singles but not all. it does have the mono WL/WH which is really different at least on Lady Godiva's Operation, I guess I should listen to it. that may be the version of "Call My Name" you refer to.

also loving:

the Pre-VU Preview, all the demos of early 60's Reed/Cale pop music
Problems In Urban Living (Cleveland 68)
CDs from a certain minimalist composr who shall remain anonymous

Yeah, I've got that Ultimate Mono Acetates thing -- from what I understand, this mix of "Heard" is unheard until now? Less of Lou's guitar, more of the band. Or something ... But anyway -- yeah! Pre-VU is crazy, really incredible. Drop in some references to methamphetamine and "Do The Ostrich" could be on White Light/White Heat, easy. Crazy that, according to the Unterberger VU Day By Day book, there's a solo version of "Heroin" recorded during the Pickwick era. Probably sounds similar to the versions on the 1st disc of "Peel Slowly" but I'd still love to hear it.

I've got it on order, will let you know...

Cool!
Someone over on the Velvet Forum sez: "the mix of I Heard Her Call My Name is insane. At first I thought that there was a mistake in the pressing as Lou's opening vocals ("here comes count down...' ) are way down in the mix and actually sound muffled. Then they pick up a little with 'Ever since...'. Sterling's guitar is up and so it Cale's bass. For the first 30 seconds or so it sounds like a kind of lo-fi garage sound and then later the sound gets bigger with more of the impact we know. But overall the balance is restored so that you can hear Sterling's lovely rhythm guitar work and Cale's bass, which is really great. Cale's bass sound is amazing on this mix and then also makes you realised how low the bass is in the mix on most of the White Light LP."

Hmm
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0847833550/ref=pe_5050_13305760_snp_dp
$189
Little bit annoying that they're putting out all of this collector-bait stuff these days and not putting out unreleased stuff. Or barely any unreleased stuff.

A while ago, I did my own mix of "Heard Her Call My Name" with less Lou and more of the band just for fun, anyone can do it

ysi?

From that Velvet Forum, here's a list of uncirculated VU stuff that seems to actually exist.

-The demo tape Cale took to England
-Summit High School tape
-Bizarre footage
-Delmonico´s tape
-Boston Tea Party footage(any news on this, by the way?)
-La Cave 68 tape
-Hippodrome 68 tape
-Nelson Video tape 70
-Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island
-May 11, 1965 Pickwick Studios, near Long Island City, New York
-Donald Jackson VU footage
-Danny Williams VU footage
-The Primitives tape
-Ronald Nameth Vu footage
-Matrix Tapes
-Seattle 69 tape

I don't know how to do that! (xp)

-The demo tape Cale took to England

I'd be surprised if this still existed! Very! The Matrix Tapes is what we want!!!!!

xpost

what the hell is that? a 304-page hardback book, yeah, but what about the single with it?

hate it when Amazon has no info about the product.

and hey that Seattle 69 show is on the Nuns Are On The Seawall blog, it's listed as Retinal Circus. first new show (to me) to surface since the Gymnasium.

!!! Had no idea ... Thanks! Is it good?

more from that Velvet Forum:
-the full Gymnasium tape
-the cale/sterling/reed rehearsals from cale loft 1966
-uncut recent Factory 66 tape

here's a list of uncirculated VU stuff that seems to actually exist.

i'm still hoping that footage of them on Upbeat! shows up somewhere. Lots of clips from that show are in circulation, but considering they made a handful of appearances i'm surprised nothing's around. About one of the shows: "The Velvets performed live on the Upbeat TV show in June 1968 (not June 1967). Moreover, contrary to Sterling Morrison's recollection, they performed a blistering, buzzsaw version of Run Run Run. Their rendition of Run Run Run went beyond their alloted time: thus, Upbeat cut away to a commercial while the Velvets were engaged in feedback frenzy with Lou's back to the camera."

that would be awesome. There was some comment (I think from Moe Tucker) that she couldn't believe, with all the cameras the Warhol crew had going all the time, no one just filmed a straight ahead version of one of the EPI shows.

Is it good?

here's wl/wh:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/8j4j7c

it's a soundboard!!! the only one I know of besides those Matrix tapes. as a result the vox are too loud and the guitars a bit subdued, but the overall recording is much clearer. I still think Problems In Urban Living (Cleveland Oct. 68) is my favorite live boot, love the guitar sound on that.

that's a flac btw

Already downloading from The Nuns site ... So weird that this stuff just keeps showing up. One thing I'm super interested in (that hasn't seen the light of day afaik) is a studio version of "Beginning to See the Light" with Cale.

WHAT????!??!

those Velvets Forum trainspotters mean business man.

http://www.paulvates.com/images/gatwickshuttle.jpg

But yeah, the "Beginning" with Cale is mentioned in the Unterberger book - recorded at the "Mr. Rain" session apparently? With "fuzz bass"? There was talk of it appearing on a projected WL/WH "deluxe edition, I think. Which never came out obv.

LOL, yeah, obv.

But ... maybe now that this singles set has come out, there's a chance of more VU material coming out officially? I think I read that Lou wasn't into having any more live stuff come out.

Hmmm, so I'm listening to this "Retinal Circus" VU show -- and I'm pretty sure some of these takes are the same as appear on Live 1969. Haven't a/b'd them or anything. It's an uncut tape of the show, though, which hasn't circulate as far as I know ... I think that those songs were thought to be from the Matrix, wonder what the deal is! MYSTERY. Sounds great, anyway.

yeh, the wh/wh posted above is the same as the version on the live 69 album

er wl/wh

Yeah, same w/ "heroin", "what goes on", "new age" so far. it's funny to hear these songs w/ audience applause -- on 1969 they cut off almost immediately, sort of giving the impression that the VU was playing to barely anyone. But here they've got a totally enthusiastic crowd. And why not, considering the godlike awesomeness of this "What Goes On."

so I'm fairly certain that these are ALL tracks from Live 1969, albeit in unedited form ... Maybe "Some Kinda Love" is different? Not sure.

interesting... now that u mention it the track times look very similar.

going to John Cale talk at MoMA monday!

What? Nobody told me about it.

Oh, I see.

OK, I'm there.

John Cale talk is being postponed. Very sad.

What was he supposed to talk about? Something specific, or just the Art of Being John Cale?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou0NJ_9IA4g

Sweet Jesus "Venus in Furs" sounds amazing here!

check the moma website under "Looking at Music 2". I think it as mostly about some art instillation/film he's got in the Venice Biennual now or something?

I was hoping he was going to talk in Welsh, about being Welsh.

I think he was going to interview Joe Walsh, about eating Welsh Rarebit.

Cale and Walsh need to restart their long-dormant collab Walsh Rarebit ... shit was off the hook.

ahem ILX user tylerw please report to the "five jazz album runs" voting thread

Damn, gotta check out that Unterberger book. Boring writer but his subject matter's always interesting.

Yeha, often when Unterberger inserts an opinion into his Velvets book, I find myself disagreeing with him. But as a reference, and as a history of the band, I think it's unparalleled. Also, tons of great photos/posters/ephemera, stuff I'd never seen before. And I appreciate that he has in fact listened to the bootlegs, which a lot of writers before him don't seem to have done. In general he doesn't seem too down with the experimental side of the group, even though he does give plenty of space to Cale's pre-VU work, as well as Angus MacLise, which is nice.

From Hickey:

Cale and Conrad … had been invited to a party on the Lower East Side, and there they’d been introduced to Terry Phillips of Pickwick Records. Phillips had seen their long hair and asked if they were musicians, so they’d answered “yes”. He asked if they were in a band, and they said yes. He asked if that band had a drummer, and again they said yes.

By this point they realised that he had assumed they were rock guitarists, rather than experimental avant-garde string players, but they decided to play along and see where this was going. Phillips told them that if they brought along their drummer to Pickwick’s studios the next day, he had a job for them.

The two of them went along with Walter de Maria, who did play the drums a little in between his conceptual art work, and there they were played a record:

[Excerpt: The Primitives, “The Ostrich”]

It was explained to them that Pickwick made knock-off records — soundalikes of big hits, and their own records in the style of those hits, all played by a bunch of session musicians and put out under different band names. This one, by “the Primitives”, they thought had a shot at being an actual hit, even though it was a dance-craze song about a dance where one partner lays on the floor and the other stamps on their head. But if it was going to be a hit, they needed an actual band to go out and perform it, backing the singer. How would Cale, Conrad, and de Maria like to be three quarters of the Primitives?

It sounded fun, but of course they weren’t actually guitarists. But as it turned out, that wasn’t going to be a problem. They were told that the guitars on the track had all been tuned to one note — not even to an open chord, like we talked about Steve Cropper doing last episode, but all the strings to one note.

Cale and Conrad were astonished — that was exactly the kind of thing they’d been doing in their drone experiments with La Monte Young. Who was this person who was independently inventing the most advanced ideas in experimental music but applying them to pop songs?

And that was how they met Lou Reed

There's not actually anything new in that account, to be honest, but LOL at Pickwick thinking "The Ostrich" could be a hit. Also it doesn't actually sound like the guitars are all tuned to one note. It's a good story though.

Maybe one guitar was and somebody embellished, which is maybe what you mean.

A dance where someone stomps on someone else’s head seems a very VU thing to do.

By now everybody's seem the video of Lou's sister, Merrill, dancing along, I hope. No heads were stomped in the making, iirc.

has this month's mojo been mentioned yet? cover-mounted cd with vu-related stuff on it, and another 'best 50 songs' list (am sure they do this every year)

https://www.discogs.com/release/26766839-Various-The-Worlds-Behind-You-A-Velvet-Underground-Companion

Obviously having the Seeds and Iannis Xenakis on the same CD is a great thing but I don't know what either of them are doing on there.

"it's hard not to hear a kinship in this epic garage-rock freak out" is their justification for the seeds, and seemingly because it's nearly as long as sister ray.

and xenakis was "another striking influence on john cale [] who taught him [] at tanglewood"

That "50 best songs" is all of Lou Reed's solo stuff as well as the Velvets songs.

I think (OK I know) there aren't any VU songs that Lou doesn't have credit on, excepting the "Squeeze" album obviously..

As far as fan "remixes" go this is pretty great. Person basically separated all the sections of the WLWH tracks using AI tech and made some stuff ...err.. spiffier. Sounds good to me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GihCAuHRyeM

against my better judgement ... it does sound pretty good! kind of crazy to hear Moe's drums better on "Sister Ray" — she's actually holding it down (not that much of a surprise when you hear later live versions, but there's always been a bit more chaos on the studio recording).

"it's hard not to hear a kinship in this epic garage-rock freak out" is their justification for the seeds, and seemingly because it's nearly as long as sister ray.

― koogs

the full-length "900 million people daily making love" would be a better fit IMO

Mike McG posted that Sister Ray mix on FB, I love it

kinda makes me wonder if it'd be possible with ai to take the sweetening off _chelsea girl_...

I think you could almost do it yourself using something like the Moises app let's you isolate drum tracks from any song... can we use its power for good?

you are greatly overestimating my level of executive function :), but that's good to know

honestly i'm listening to the title track now and i didn't realize the damn thing was in beatle stereo, it's probably been done already haha

record porn:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/394614756689

The bidding history on that is great. Shout out to bidder e***9 who's all "yeah, I'll bid a dollar on that but nothing more" and then the run-up between o***7 and n***6

dang

The final run-up from $3750 to $7600 all takes place in 11 minutes.

here's one. in the new Keith Richards cover of "I'm Waiting for the Man," he sings "beat up shoes and a big straw hat."

that's not right, i thought. but what does Lou sing? i realized that i had been hearing "Dior shoes" all these years, but didn't have any reason to think that was definitive. but i did google for a pair of vintage Dior shoes that conformed to the image i had in my mind of The Man. something like this:

https://i.imgur.com/kE5GDfH.png

but according to the website genius, what he sings is "PR shoes." this is the gloss:

This is a reference to PR shoes – Puerto Rican shoes – he was wearing what was popular in the height of Harlem for a smack dealer circa 1968. “P.R. shoes” are the type of zapatos associated with hip uptown Puerto Ricans at that time: shiny leather with pointed toe

Lou Reed noted in his book of collected lyrics “Between Thought And Expression” that what’s meant here is “Puerto Rican Fence Climbers”. Which makes sense for a man who may have to make a swift getaway at any time, the ability to climb fences on the run is extremely necessary.

setting aside that the song was recorded in 1966 (and a few other things), this seems like it's legit. but is anybody with access to liner notes from the "Between Thought and Expression" box able to confirm what Lou actually wrote?

google search doesn't turn up much for these, but i did get this. i do feel like i know this shoe.

https://i.imgur.com/S7t3mXc.png

anyway, feel free to post some pics of Puerto Rican Fence Climbers itt

I can do better than that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqENMQnbnxw

("PR shoes" is indeed the correct lyric btw)

We had a thing on this here year back… I also had always thought it was “Dior shoes”

Thread needs some David Lee Roth:

Of "The Full Bug", Roth said 'PRFCs' were "great shoes for when the cockroach moves into the corner and you can't get at it with your foot or the broom anymore. You just jam your toe into the corner and hit as hard as you can. And if you did it right you got the full bug. So this slang means — bammm! — you have to give it everything you've got. Make the maximum effort, do everything possible, get the full bug."

Unfortunately the Diver Down wiki has been edited down, taking away more DLR discussion of said shoes, including a detailed explanation of where their name came from.

no way is the man wearing "beat-up shoes," wtf Keef

XP Found the full quote:

Dave: "You know when you have a cockroach and they run round the house and get into a corner? We used to have these shoes called PRFCs - Puerto Rican Fence Climbers, okay? And this was aptly titled because if you were running from the police or what have you, and you were wearing your PRFCs, you could hit the fence at a dead run and your foot would stay in and you could commence climbing immediately, which was the essence of the whole sport anyway. And these were also great shoes for when the cockroach moves into the corner and you get at it with your foot or the broom anymore. You just jam your toe into the corner and hit as hard as you can. And if you did it right you got the full bug. So this slang means bammm! - you have to give it everything you've got. Make the maximum effort, do everything possible, get the full bug."

yeh I always thought it was Dior shoes as well

much amused by this song by 1977 punk jokers The Snivelling Shits, which is Waiting for the Man but the lyrics are about his love for crap UK soap opera Crossroads

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhjWdz541wM

but is anybody with access to liner notes from the "Between Thought and Expression" box able to confirm what Lou actually wrote?

It's not the liner notes to the box, it's in his book of lyrics of the same name. It's literally just an asterisk next to the line "PR shoes" with "* Puerto Rican Fence Climbers" written at the bottom of the page.

thank you!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eihW4LdR6yw

Lou explains the reference mid-song (2:23)

great, thanks for this as well

New very chopped up version of "I'll Be Your Mirror" bgm on some corny-ass Expedia TV CM.