What's Next From The Velvet Underground Vault?

Over the last few years, we've had an unprecedented bonanza of Velvet Underground releases, including expansive Super Deluxe boxes of all four of the band's studio albums and a complete set of the legendary Matrix Tapes. Based on the paltry nature of the known remaining archive, it would be reasonable to assume we've now heard the last official word on the band (aside from inevitable "Greatest Hits"-type compilations yet to come).

Except, obviously, there is more out there. And with copyright laws being what they are (at least in the EU), it might be use it or lose it. So I wouldn't be surprised to see even more releases in the foreseeable future. But what would they include? What would be worthwhile to present to a wider audience?

Here are what I think are the most plausible possibilities (I know the titles I've used in the interest of clarity are spectacularly uncreative):

1.) LIVE 1969 Reissue: The one catalog title that hasn't been re-examined/reissued yet. The original live 2LP set was a long cult favorite, but so far it's the only "core" VU album not to get revisited in the recent campaign (though one could argue the Matrix box is indeed a "revisit" of the album, certainly). You have to think a 2CD version of the album from the best available sources would be worthwhile (though, as @rnranimal has pointed out, the high quality Abrams tracks will almost certainly clash sonically with the handful of Cole Ave tracks), perhaps rounded out with well chosen bonus performances from Cole Ave. Just getting it as a single 2CD set (rather than separate releases) would seem worthwhile, as the sequence always has seemed to work best when considered in it's entirely.

2. FROM THE LIVE ARCHIVE: There are a number of circulating concerts out there. Only "Live at End of Cole Ave- The Second Night" may truly possess the sound quality usually associated with official releases (and Universal seems to possess an even higher quality source tape than what currently circulates) but there are several other titles in general circulation, most (all?) of which were previously intended (and reportedly, mastered) for release on the official Bootleg Series that was cancelled after a single volume. But, c'mon, Universal included the notorious 2nd Fret Show on the recent Loaded box. Clearly they recognize that sound quality isn't the only worthwhile factor when it comes to the VU. And with the copyright laws being what they are, it's hard to imagine the band and label will be content to let the existing unreleased archive all far into the public domain in the next few years.

3. THE INFORMAL RECORDINGS: About the only studio recordings the various Super Deluxe Editions overlooked were the various demos and rehearsals that the band recorded, most notably the ones recorded between VU&N and WL/WH (mostly included on the Peel Slowly and See box, but not completely). This could also include the Honeymoon acetate and the remaining Warhol Rehearsals tracks. One potential complication to this scenario is that any '65 demos (aside from those already released on PS&S) will have ALREADY fallen into public domain (including the known but uncirculating demo tape that includes the legendary "Never Get Emotionally Involved With Man, Woman, Beast, or Child")-- then again, who is in a position to argue that the tracks weren't recorded in, say, 66 (if the label choses to be, er, less than forthright). This is the one area the SDE seemed to consciously avoid (aside from the handful of Warhol Rehearsal highlights) so it seems possible they were being saved for something else.

4. BEFORE AND AFTER: I think there is some merit in the idea of collecting the hodge-podge of recordings that feature various VU members recording with one another apart from the full band, both prior to the formation of the band and after it broke up. I haven't worked up a track listing or done the math, but I suspect there is at least a couple discs worth of material, maybe more (much more if you include Cale's work as Nico's producer). This one could be a lot of fun, but surely a licensing nightmare. This could be a nice place to put those famous pre-VU Reed demos of "Heroin" (or perhaps on the "Informal Recordings" set).

I welcome anyone to join in with their own insights and speculation. I've ignored Squeeze in my thoughts here (draw your own conclusions), but anyone is certainly welcome to make the case for a retrospective on that album here.

 

My 2c:

Complete Boston Tea Party box set - there was a leaked version of this that came out on bootleg about a decade ago. Huge upgrade in SQ compared to previous versions of theses shows.
Complete Warhol Tapes - the rehearsal was a teaser but there's loads more out there. Some 1966 live material surfaced on boot a while back - wasn't as awful as some other Warhol sources.
Complete Live At End Cole Avenue Tapes - Both nights but the jams can be left out of this one!
Demos/Outtakes/Rehearsals 1965-1969 - There's bound to be tapes of Lou and/or demoing songs. Perhaps that elusive '65 demo tape too. Do session tapes from the 1st three albums exist (other than the Scepter acetate)?
Complete Pickwick Recordings set - probably no masters exist for this but there are plenty of clean sounding vinyl available to needledrop.

 

I'd certainly buy everything you mention here! Though I agree with Cole Ave jams could be left off, I'd certainly want the "Rock 'n' Roll" rehearsal.

 

Yule/Morrison/Powers/Tucker, 1971:

'She'll Make Your Cry', 'Friends'

The two studio recordings that bridge the gap between the studio work of the Velvet Underground canon and the apochyphal 'Squeeze'

The Rosetta Stones of Velvet's recordings!

Release em now!

 

La Cave/the Jamie Klimek tapes. End of Cole Ave. Although both of these are obviated a little by the better sounding Matrix Tapes. The Boston Tea Party recordings are pretty rough to release on their own.

 

Plus more Cale-era live recordings!!

 

I would kill for that (not really, but ya know...). I suspect a time traveller would have access to a mind-bending archive. But since time travel is impossible (my personal belief) that's never going to happen

 

I would love to see a 10" with the contents of the late '69 acetate: Countess From Hong Kong & Ride Into the Sun b/w We're Gonna Have a Real Good Time Togther & I Found a Reason. Countess from Hong Kong is, I think, the only proper VU 'song' that had been previously released but was left off the Deluxe Editions. Record Store Day?

I would kind of a dig a post-VU odds and sods set, "Ride into the Sun(set)" or something, including Lou's demos from early 1970, the Live at the Bataclan performance, a VU live show without Lou but with Doug, Sterl and Mo, Squeeze & sessions

 

The Honeymoon Acetate would make a great RSD release.

 

Always well considered postings on the VU threads -- thanks for getting it going, Dee!

For my part, I have to say that, after the bounty of the recent reissues, I'm probably nearing the end of my VU buying interest, though I'd certainly pick up a Live 1969 or an End of Cole Ave set. I'd also be tempted by any of the others DeeThomaz mentions, but... whether I'd actually pony up the cash is anyone's guess.

I was, however, just wondering the other day whether there might be well-informed rumors of post-VU Lou Reed re-issues. I guess the Sire albums just came out, but I was wondering more particularly about earlier stuff. But maybe that's a topic for a different thread. Cheers, RH

 

I assume that when you are referring to the 'honeymoon acetate' you're all talking about the post-MGM/Verve (late 1969) recordings that were tagged on at the end of the End Cole acetates? Fallbreaks has the correct track-listing I'm thinking of that's been common knowledge among VU fans for a long time. I've got be honest and say that although I've been a super-fan since the late 1980s, I've only ever heard those recordings been called that in the last 5 years or so. Where did that term arise from?

 

Cale have wealth of tapes that he hasn't bothered to find for deluxe editions. I'm in into any of 1965-1968 Cale Era stuff. Tired of constant live recordings from 1969-1970.. That's enough for me. Don't want to pay for another 10 minute slow version of Waiting For The Man

 

1) Pre-VU tracks (Pickwick stuff in pristine quality, Primitives rehearsal tape, 1965 demos of Heroin and Cale piano track)
2) Soundtracks from Warhol's films
3) Any live tapes from 1966-67. Rhode island school of design soundboard tape, please
4) Outtakes from 3rd album.

No more live tapes of dismal quality from 1969-70, please...

 

http://www.richieunterberger.com/vubeg.html

Lou Reed demos, May 11, 1965: Never circulated even on bootleg, but heard by this author, these were done for Pickwick Records. Of by far the most note are the first two known recordings of "Heroin," as two takes done right each other. Though with more of a Dylanesque talking folk-blues feel than the version the Velvet Underground would record for their first album about a year later (and with yet more of a folk-blues feel than the sparse July 1965 demo on the Peel Slowly and See box set), the lyrics are even at this early stage virtually identical, the arrangement even including the same accelerating tempos. Of lesser but certainly considerable interest, the tape also includes a Reed version of "Why Don't You Smile Now," a song he and John Cale were credited (along with other Pickwick staff songwriters) with writing that was covered on mid-1960s singles by the All Night Workers and the Downliners Sect. Also on the tape is a relatively trivial Reed tune titled "Buzz Buzz Buzz" that bears slight similarities to Chuck Berry's "Memphis," and an untitled John Cale solo piano instrumental that sounds much like the piano part he plays on "All Tomorrow's Parties."


Various other 1965 demos: The Velvet Underground are known to have done some batches of demos in 1965, some of which circulated in England in an attempt to stir record company/management interest. It's known that at least some of these are different than the ones from July 1965 included on Peel Slowly and See, as John Cale has remembered "The Black Angel's Death Song" (not included on that box set) being demoed at Ludlow Street, along with a song titled "Never Get Emotionally Involved with a Man, Woman, Beast or Child," of which no version has ever been circulated. In addition, a Lou Reed feature in Q magazine in 1996 reported his recent discovery of a sealed, self-addressed package from 1965 containing a reel-to-reel tape, probably mailed at the time as proof of copyright for the songs it contains. "I'm not going to listen it," he informed reporter David Cavanagh. "I don't want to hear these things any more."

 

The Ostrich



I am quite happy with the regular 1969 sets and like the grittiness of the CDs,
As well as the authenticity of the Quine box.
As a matter of fact having all the deluxe editions I am a sucker for any new Velvets.
Yet since I got The Matrix set I see that it is the best way to listen to the entire thing. Happy Happy Happy. What a beaut of a set.
Bring on Cole and Boston in reissues if possible and whatever else is out there.
Maybe more Ludlow street demos??

 

Sort of begs the question: what is left that would merit repeated listening? A lot of the demos from the PS&S box are interesting, but hardly essential for anyone but the curious.

Are there any studio cuts other than Squeeze and related recordings not already wrapped up on the four SDEs that would need a home somewhere?

 

I neglected to mention perhaps the most enticing possibility:

THE JOE FREEMAN TAPES:

01 I’m Waiting For The Man
02 White Light/White Heat
03 I’m Set Free
04 Lonesome Cowboy Bill
05 Who Loves The Sun
06 Sweet Jane
07 New Age
08 Unidentified Instrumental
09 It’s Just Too Much
10 Ocean
11 I’ll Be Your Mirror
12 What Goes On
13 Head Held High
14 Oh! Sweet Nuthin’
15 Some Kinda Love

From his post when he revealed the existence of the recordings:

“I recorded an entire set at Max’s (around the same time as [Brigid] Polk’s). The tape was recorded on a Sony TCS-124 a portable stereo cassette recorder with an external single stereo mic. The quality of the tape is very good and has never been bootlegged. I may be interested in having this tape surface as a legitimate release.”

He posted short excerpts of all of the tracks, and they are indeed of relative high quality. I'm not convinced there is a vast market for live '70 recordings of the Velvets, but as it stands, (at least from an audio perspective) it's probably the best unreleased known Velvets tape out there (even if I prefer the performances on some of the '69 tapes).

It would have seemed to be an ideal match for the Loaded SDE, and I have to presume Universal would have been able to contact him if they so chose. If so, it's certainly possible he asked for more money than the potential sales of the box could have ever justified. But, in a few years, the tape will have very little monetary value to either Freeman or Universal, so both parties might be inclined to negotiate.

 

Another plausible possibility is a combination of a couple of the initial concepts I mentioned in my initial post: A Super Deluxe Edition box of LIVE 1969, with the first two CDs devoted to a remaster of the original album (from the upgraded tape sources that have since become available) and the last two discs consisting of Live At End of Cole Ave- The Second Night.

 

Where's the DVD --- any decent, full-length disc --- featuring vintage VU, in-action, circa 1965-1970?!!!

The old stock response has been that there were no shows which were filmed.


To that jaded cancellation, I insist that the archivists need to "get over it"...and get to work now!



A suggestion:

It's time to thoroughly mine the Warhol film archives for documentation on the band's rehearsals and early public performances. Several will be found there.

If audio doesn't exist for the visual documents, then sound should be synched up from other sources --- numerous live Factory & gig material is out there --- to complement and 'match' the video performances.



This needs to be done...and I look forward to the day when such a project is completed and a DVD is then made officially available.

 

Cale doesn't seem very interested in his own 1970s-1980s back catalogue / live archive (except the recent revisitatiom of Music For a New Society) let alone his earlier VU time. I admire his non-nostalgia attitude but of course the VU / Cale / Reed fan in me simultaneously thinks... aaaargh! Come on John!

 

According to Moe Tucker, no EPI era shows were filmed.

 

A "deluxe" "Live 1969" would mean mining the Matrix tapes for the third time in a very short period of time. Bad idea, IMO. A free-standing complete Cole Ave seems like a better option.

While they did give us the 2nd Fret, it was a bit buried beneath better sound quality material. I would think a release that is so-so (or worse) sound quality across the board, as a Boston Tea Party release would be, is unlikely.

 

When it comes to live vault material, I think people have to come to grips with the fact that the sound is what it is, take it or leave it. There will never be a great sounding version of Sweet Sister Ray's Murder Mystery or La Cave 1968, but it would be nice if they were widely available with proper annotation and photos, perhaps as a live box with a warning sticker regarding the lo fi sound. Personally I have no problem with sub-standard sound (whatever the hell that is) if the performance is worthy.

 

I'm always thinking of the relatively new fan (who hears "Rock and Roll" on the radio, and wants to buy something by the band) or the person Christmas shopping ("Oh, The Velvet Underground, I know Fred likes them"), who winds up with a copy of the 2nd Fret (or some similar future release) in their hands, and a "WTF?" reaction follows. Of course us grizzled veterans are ready for whatever they have in store, as long it is the best quality available (even if that quality is relatively poor), is properly identified, and is as complete as can be. Or maybe my mindset is too 1980s, and the audience members I'm concerned with don't particularly exist in 2016.

 

This is just beautiful, lousy quality be damned.