Out of all the bootlegged and circulating material still unreleased, that's the stuff that seems most obvious for an official release. There have been dribs and drabs released, between the 1969 Live album, the What Goes On box, and the 1990 CD single, totally a mere 8 tracks. As far as everything else that circulates, a bootleg box like @ralphb suggested would probably be best. That would be a good way to collect all those audience recordings and a few various orphaned tracks (like I'll Keep It With Mine with Nico and the European Son/Suzie Q performance, or the performances of Heroin and Venus In Furs without Lou.) But of course, I'd be most interested in seeing never-before-heard material getting released. Hopefully one of these days, and it won't be long.
I wonder if they taped a backing track, and had a live vocal and guitar for the performance. And what we have is the vocal and guitar only.
Some other points to note - the mix is similar to the alternate Gymnasium version - you can't hear the drums and bass on that version either. Just Lou's vocal and 2 guitars But again - drums become vaguely audible during the solo - I think the choppy rhythm guitar pattern is masking the snare frequency, and when one of the guitars breaks off to do the solo then the drums fill the space Also - this alleged Upbeat version is very short compared to the other 1967/1968 versions, which would fit with it being a TV pop show promo appearance And finally - the guitar lick in the stop after the first bridge (around the 1 minute mark) is vastly different to the other versions, so suggests an early take, which again points towards Upbeat January 1967 being a credible source PS - people questioning the youtube upload date. I don't believe that you can change the date on an upload. If you could then I'm sure you'd see that abused all over the place by conspiracy theorists The most likely explanation is that he uploaded it but had it set to private, so you couldn't find it via search - only via someone giving you the direct URL. If he changed that to public recently then it would suddenly appear in searches but retain the original upload date
I thought the same thing about the Gym having a similar arrangement but then the more I listened to it, I didn't think it did. I hear no drums at any point and the 2 guitars are there the whole time. It just seems drums weren't played or somehow not mic'd at all. The "Upbeat" audio is much more strange. I definitely hear drums rather than just a rhythmic sound. It starts a couple beats before the solo, lasts through the solo and ends with the du-du-du-du-du-du-dut before the pause. Both before and after the solo, this moment has the sound of drums hitting but the other time it happens in the song, I don't hear the hitting sound, just the guitar strums. It sounds like the faders got changed in anticipation for the solo when the hits start on the last few beats before the solo. Are you sure uploaders can't update old listings with new videos and titles? I don't know. I've never uploaded videos. Yeah, it could've been a private video since then, which would be an explanation. I'm not so much finding it hard to believe it was uploaded in 2014 but that it was available to be found and no one noticed it until now. So having it private until recently could explain that.
That solo section is the pesky part, though. Something changes during that moment and then goes back. The idea of this being one channel of a stereo mix is getting my vote for best explanation for the recording we are hearing. Still, I'm far from convinced about anything surrounding this recording. Just spitballing. Like maybe the VU brought a stereo studio tape to mime to and when it was played in the studio, they heard it properly but in the mono broadcast, only one channel ended up being heard. The band wouldn't have known there was an issue during the recording of the episode. But everything is wild speculation at this point and I'm getting pretty wild with it. This might drive me mad!
I'm surprised you guys cannot hear bass and drum on the Gymnasium version. Bass is very clear and I think I can hear a hard drum sound like hitting a rim of something. I wonder which version are you describing? The officially released Gymnasium recording or the other version that Cale played on the radio?
We’re talking about the one Cale played on the radio. I’m listening to the one from the Lou bootleg A True Rock n Roller.
There are a lot of ways an uploader can change a video after uploading it. They can change the title, edit sections out, replace or mute audio, etc. But I think the explanation given above is the most likely one. It was probably private or unlisted and only recently made public.
I ordered the RE LOADED 45th Box Set from shipped and sold by amazon and shockingly the box set looks near mint! Sadly the DVD disc won’t even play. It looks to not have scratches but blotchy / cloudy looking film on it and wiping it doesn’t help at all. Some of the CDs are the same way but most CDs look good. already doing a replacement from amazon hoping the new set has better looking discs fingers crossed.
Somebody (hkmartin) on the velvet forum has the Upbeat DVD. He said: The recording sounds like Upbeat ‘that cheering in the VU clip is absolutely from Upbeat’ he said. They sometimes did record bands live They did not know how to mic live bands. And he said: It sounds like it was taped from TV. TV buzz.
Apparently somebody on youtube has it in their playlist from 2015. So these ‘private’ or ‘edit’ theories now sound unlikely
I got the credit for that post all wrong as i was switching back and forth between the two forums on my tiny phone. The above stuff was all by member 'stadtwerker'. HKMartin found more about the full identity of the youtube poster (and his politics blog). The youtube poster is also a Lou Reed fan.
You can still share private videos though. Could just be that the two you tubers knew each other. I think the most important tidbit now is that the original poster also has posted some other sixties music from Cleveland.
>Could just be that the two you tubers knew each other I suppose that is possible. >the original poster also has posted some other sixties music from Cleveland And he was in radio broadcast
I agree about the cheering but we can't be sure that wasn't edited on. However, I see/hear no indication of edits. The odd mix could certainly be as easily explained as them not knowing how to mic a band, but damn, they were really bad at it if this is what they came up with. I'd be curious to know if there is an example of another live band performance that turned out in a similar way. This definitely does not sound like someone holding a recorder up to TV speakers. If this was taped from TV, someone had the ability to do line recordings. Was there a consumer setup for that? If not, I think the theory this sources from someone in broadcast makes more sense.
Yeah many questions. We'll probably never know. But if he was from broadcast (and that is now established) then he could have had a line out on his TV. Old TVs even had headphone sockets. You still think it's faked to sound like it's from the show? You are a hard customer to satisfy @rnranimal . My theory is the applause is added during broadcast hence no edits.
We know they dont have the master track tape for Chelsea Girls, so seems unlikely they’d have outtakes. She doesn’t seem to have been involved in any demo recordings. There’s just the Warhol rehearsals and the November ‘66 Valleydale Ballroom performance (on 45th set). I think she’s on at least one other long improv piece from earlier that year. I forget which one.
if it *was* broadcast in stereo and he was taking a mono line out from a stereo headphone jack then it might explain why it only got the channel with guitar and vocals? All conjecture, but life in VU land has been barren since the Complete Matrix excitement
Broadcast in stereo? Back in 1968? Doubt it. As I say, the sonics sound just like my “built in mic, portable cassette recorder” tape of the who at charlton, bbc2 broadcast.
A bit strange they would play a relatively obscure track that they never even completed a studio version of on TV. But hey, the band never did the most obvious things. Maybe they had grand plans for the song at one point.
