Lou Reed RIP

http://www.berkshirefinearts.com/uploadedImages/articles/277_The-VU-on-View411065.jpg

proto twee

proto twee

This must have been a mindmelter...
http://images.wolfgangsvault.com/the-velvet-underground/poster/memorabilia/BTP680322-PO.jpg

that May BTP calendar above is just unbelievable

And the shows were probably like 5 dollars at most.

depends what show

The Who were probably more expansive

"ehhh, I saw Led Zeppelin last night, gonna skip their 2nd night and save my money for the Velvet Underground"

i wondr if there were fans of both at the time...

Nico recorded with both Jimmy Page and the Velvet Underground, was she a fan of either?

I wonder how many VU fans were perplexed by those hairy guys with two drummers and 30 minute blues jams they had as openers. "The All what Brothers or something?"

i wonder who were The Food Family

poco and family?

ah ok

also check out Roland Kirk opening for The Who

...and Joe Cocker! He must have been in for the week.

nothing's perfect

Nico recorded with both Jimmy Page and the Velvet Underground, was she a fan of either?

The Page-era Yardbirds covered "I'm Waiting For The Man" throughout 1968. Supposedly, the Yardbirds were the first band to cover VU.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBRmpNXQF4w

(little bit of "How Many More Times" at the end)

I would have loved to have seen every single band on that Boston Tea Party flier. Even Zephyr.

<i>The Page-era Yardbirds covered "I'm Waiting For The Man" throughout 1968. Supposedly, the Yardbirds were the first band to cover VU.</i>

I think the first VU cover on record is this mid-1967 45 from Dutch band the Riats. The flip side is "Sunday Morning"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voV_e0IKwzs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voV_e0IKwzs

The Riats are like the friendly VU

Love the Tommy James & The Shondells sound on that!

We did the earliest Velvets cover thing on another thread recently. This was recorded before the first album had even been released
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPwCSem3cUQ

That's a cool one. We're they a British band?

ok, apparently the first VU cover record ever: The Electrical Banana (sometimes just The Banana) "There She Goes Again", from January 1967. Only ten copies were printed; David Bowie owns a test pressing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuRd7czXHis

Just after the Electrical Banana scored a nationally-distributed record contract, frontman Dean Kohler got drafted and sent to Vietnam, where this was recorded. Here's his memoir.

so they saw VU live before they recorded the first LP and covered it?!

Evidently. Apparently through the Bowie connection - he had that acetate from before the record became available.

http://www.deanelliskohler.com/record2.jpg

Google Books excerpt, discussing the Electrical Banana's maybe-first-ever VU cover

guy has a website with a "contact me" link, maybe he can fill us in on the story....

The bulk of the songs that would become The Velvet Underground & Nico were recorded in mid-April, 1966

The album, save for "Sunday Morning" which was added later in a genuine effort to have a radio-friendly single, was in the can for about a year before it was released. Remember they didn't have a record contract yet; it took awhile for Andy Warhol to shop around and get them signed, and also some time for the pressing plants to gear up to produce the peelable-banana album cover.

Supposedly Zappa and Herb Cohen talked Verve into focusing all their attention on Freak Out!, which delayed the release of VU & N for a few months.

http://www.billboard.com/files/media/velvet_undergound_510.png

don't know if this is mentioned upthread, but Lou guest DJ'ing on WPIX in 1979 is possibly the greatest thing ever...
http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/43079765584/fuck-radio-ethiopia-this-is-radio-brooklyn-my

some good info here - http://www.richieunterberger.com/vumyth.html

"Nico sounded like a Bedouin woman singing a funeral dirge in Arabic while accompanied by an off-key air raid siren" (the Detroit Free Press)

Ahaha that's a great quote

wow, that was great, balls--thanks for sharing

http://www.popspotsnyc.com/lou_reed_velvet_underground/

that is amazing, elvis, thanks. at my first job in NYC in 1990 I used to go to that deli every day. so weird that it was max's, apparently the walls were all the same...

Also, from the Donald Greenhaus photoshoot, the band was photographed about 2 blocks away in an area called "Five Forks" where 5 streets come together. (I did this search after a website called Flaming Pablum challenged its readers to find the site.)

For me, the first "VU" cover would be the Downliners Sect "Why don't you smile now", but that's a fairly obscure source song..

Ok now i have a strong urge to make a 60s VU covers comp. Any more good ones?

FEELIES

(i know they are not 60s but the passing of lou reed has led me into the welcoming and familiar arms of the feelies)

multiple x-post from that NYT backstage with the VU at Boston Teaparty article:

But Lou was gracious and kind, talking about everything from a weird diet he was thinking about — eating nothing but lettuce — to his love of Dion and his total dislike of Frank Zappa.

Long essay/letter just released by Joseph Arthur, who I guess was a good friend of Lou's. It ends with this:

Another story I have to share is walking with a group of us
including Lou in NYC
in the early evening
and passing an apartment where
I heard them playing “Pale Blue Eyes” on the stereo thru the window.

I stopped Lou and said, “Come here and listen”
We stood outside and listened to his, and perhaps anyone’s, most beautiful song.

Then I urged him to knock on the window
I said, “How funny would it be if you did that?”
He smiled
a smile that said,
“Not a chance”
and kept walking.

Zerberts VU listener on the belly: "No one will ever believe you."

xpost he could have signed a napkin...

Loureedia is a genus of velvet spiders that live underground...

Laurie Anderson's extended farewell

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/laurie-andersons-farewell-to-lou-reed-a-rolling-stone-exclusive-20131106