Velvet Underground Trainspotting Question

UPDATE: My speaker wire was connected to the right main and right remote outputs. I fixed the problem.

I'd like to thank everyone who was with me from the beginning, without your help this project may have never been completed. I'm confident that with the teamwork displayed in the last couple of days our dream of sending an ex-member of the Velvet Underground to the moon will soon become a reality.

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."

borat voice: my WIRE

Autocorrect is a scourge

it is but this was absolutely fat fingers

It’s my wire and it’s my lyre

“Take my Wire, please!”

Autocorrect is a scourge

Before the scourge:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDm_cptMRNI

I used to think Gerard was a joke with all that whip dancing, but I’m starting to warm up to him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfUkipNBq70

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGrMhyqcI08

I’ve decided I like Mary Woronov much better when she is talking about her own would-be boyfriends and dishing on the other Factory denizens rather than just shooting hippie Phfishes in barrels.

Swimming Underground: My Time at Andy Warhol’s Factory (the subtitle sometimes changes) is really well-written, for one thing.

Never knew about this guy: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/18/arts/allen-midgette-an-ersatz-andy-warhol-dies-at-82.html?referringSource=articleShare

The sore thumb in the Greil piece is the Godard quote, which he really doesn't need: I've done it too, it's a crutch, it's overselling, it's a little touch of (I guess unwitting)self-parody (has he written so much about Elvis that he's a little touch off Elvis), it's too late to stage an intervention, but it's also the dues we pay to read his music, man, so be it.

But also, far as I know, it's the most vivid mult-d film review-as-tenacious-tracking shot since this one:
https://www.filmcomment.com/article/the-power-the-gory-martin-scorsese-taxi-driver-manny-farber-patricia-patterson/

it's a crutch a symptom of somehow feeling like you need one, no matter how good the rest of it is. Also a symptom of knowing you might be wrong about how good the rest of it is, aieeeeeeeee

also scraping the absolutism off godard is like stripping an insect of its exoskeleton: highly likely it stops doing the work you're requiring of it!

(which come to think of it may actually be GM's underlying half-intuited concept and he ran out of time to hit it more exactly and fashion it less thirstily)

(seeing as there's a haynes-ray connection -- with far from heaven -- that he doesn't make out loud)

"just like nicholas ray said" <-- right there dude

Couldn’t hit it sideways

Always though of Far from Heaven as more Sirk, but yes, Ray fits as well.

lol oops yes

split slightly and caused little rhythmic sirks of red to pulsate gently in the morning sun <-- right there dude

Doug Yule / Doug Sirk, what's the difference?

David O. Selznick/Steve Sesnick etc

ppl coming round to my way of critical thinking at last

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkiIwV6m0zk

Another VU:

Michael J. Kramer
@kramermj
The new Todd Haynes doc tries to make the Velvet Underground into the Beatles, while the new Fab Four doc Get Back makes the Beatles into a durational Warholian VU experience.
8:15 AM · Nov 27, 2021· Which was my impression of 1970 Lindsay Hogg making-of Let It Be doc, though I preferred Warhol or whoever made any Warhol-branded film up to that point (did indicate that Yoko was *not* the real prob).

this doesnt seem a very accurate review

No, but I'd like to see him say more about the first part (since Get Back as endurance test or experience does seem plausible [however much it may or may not plausibly compare to Hayes/Warhol/VU], given my Let It Be experience, though it didn't help that I didn't give a shit about most of those songs in the first place, just went to see it because **Beatles**)

VU as Beatles, ? as Yoko, re "breaking up the band": was/is there such a figure, according to some fans?

lou reed iirc

I trusted you not to say that! I meant not a member of the band, but some one too close by, according to some---

Sesnick!

^

Just walked past signed picture of Jonas Mekas at Lincoln Center cinema. #One Thread

Also

ppl coming round to my way of critical thinking at last

Compare use of split screen in the VU doc vs end of Jackson's "Get Back"

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1966/01/14/79280001.html?pageNumber=36

Amazing

Can't see it, no account (have I) sorry thanks.
One last attempt to justify pasting that tweet:
VUare Bizarro World Beatles. Beatles impact: Hot! Fast! Massive! VU: Cool, slow-growing, infiltrating---as Beatley sounds become more niche, going to power pop etc., VU becomes less so, more of a given in punk, new wave, "post-punk"(which as mark says, could also be pre- and para-punk)(I'm paraphrasing).
Beatles stopped touring because things(girls) getting too massive and wild, discovered Epstein had sold off ancillary rights etc, had to keep cranking out records for income, but also overheard was no excuse not to keep slaving away to meet expected standards. also flooding the market no excuse because it didn't happen because they were the Beatles, prisoners of success.
VU made all their money playing out, records mostly sounded like bootleg. VU not prisoners of success.
Beatles media, incl. making movies and having press conference. VU multi- media when working w light show, only "movies" silent footage and Lou's Warhol "Screen Test," no press conferences per se that I know of, or that they were known for (I'm old, had contacts, would have heard about it).
More?

I meant *overhead* (not "overheard") was no excuse to slack: They could afford (the studio time it took) to keep slaving away, because they kept slaving away, and people bought fruits of their labors

Sorry, that link is to an article about The Velvets's first Warhol gig, an infamous event at Delmonico's for The New York Society For Clinical Psychiatry.

Not Secure but: http://smironne.free.fr/NICO/FILMS/delmo.html

Nice

Apparently that was also pretty much the last time Edie hung with them. She sat there with Bob Neuwirth watching Nico sing ("I'll Keep It With Mine"?) and realizing it was over as she herself tried to sing along, at least according to Gerard according to Andy.

I don't think it was one of the incarnations of Delmonico's restaurant, seems to have been the Hotel Delmonico, now named after someone else.

Think that article neglects to mention Barbara Rubin and comoany going around the room shoving microphones at the shrinks to harass them with invasive questions about their love lives before the VU performance.

And

The event is also covered by the New York Herald Tribune, for whom Seymour Krim writes: “The neo-Jungians, Harry Black Sullivanites, existentialists and just plain bread-and-butter head doctors got an electric shock treatment they’ll never forget…While blinding sun-gun lights bombed the dress-suited psychiatrists as they attacked roast beef and red wine, movie cameras ground away, the Velvet Underground rock outfit began pounding the beat as if it were fire-engine time, and underground film star Edie Sedgwick began to shake it while poet Gerard Malanga went into his Whip Dance. The first five Freudians left in a huff. Dr. Marcel Heiman, as striking-looking as any underground actor but very much a street-level gent with an office on Fifth Avenue, said, ‘I’m ready to vomit.’” The performance even gets a mention in Newsweek later in the month.

Oddly, Seymour Krim’s story suggests there are currently several vocalists involved with the Velvets. “Inside the ballroom,” he writes, “singers Nico, Jane Odin, and Chic Cicarelli added to the unaccustomed spire in the hardworking analysts’ lives by dishing up Bob Dylan-negro-blues-bossa-nova-type material while the Velvet Underground blasted the room with high-decibel sounds.” It seems most likely, however, that Odin and Cicarelli have joined in informally, as their names will not pop up again in the VU saga.

Unterberger, Richie; Unterberger, Richie. White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day-By-Day (Revised & Expanded Ebook Edition) (pp. 208-209)

Bob Dylan-negro-blues-bossa-nova-type material while the Velvet Underground blasted the room with high-decibel sounds.” AKA what shrinks used to call BREAKTHROUGH--thanks James! And thanks, Seymour KRIM!https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Krim

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3WMbxheyaQ