The Velvet Underground: "Never Get Emotionally Involved With A Man, Woman, Beast, or Child"

The Tony Conrad Archives might be more impressive than the LR archive.

(Geez, if he recorded that you’d think I might’ve showed up to a few live shows with his recorder. )

 

Wow. I'm surprised that Jamie Klimek didn't record it.

 

Put Your Money Down - Previously known as Put Your Money Down The Tab, an unconfirmed Pickwick cowrite.

 

Syscrusher, sorry to correct you, but it's 'Put Your Money Down on the Table'.

 

Only One Left Standing is clearly an early title for Like A Possum off Ecstacy.

Interestingly there's no songs from Time Rocker musical in the Reed archive.
He wrote loads of songs for that, and only a few have been released (Future Farmers, Turning Time Around, Why Do You Talk, Into The Divine, On The Run).

Nothing But The Truth is the title of the Ruben Blades LP that Lou appears on. Maybe an outtake from that?

There's a tune called L.A. Bars listed for the Sally Can't Dance sessions, but it might be an early title for "Billy".

 

Conrad gave a shoebox of VU tapes to Cale. That included the Conrad-recorded tape of The Falling Spikes rehearsal. So, if this stuff exists, it's in Cale's hands.

 

I see ‘Like A Possum’ listed on the same list as ‘Only One Left Standing’, therefore I hypothesized that it is a different song that was later incorporated into ‘Like A Possum’. I used the phrase “possible new songs” for this reason.

I was hoping for a whole slew of Time Rocker demos too, but there are a couple Time Rocker somgs on one of the live shows, December 9, 1998: I Don’t Need This, Alone At Last, and Blood Of The Lamb(I’ve heard the first two but not Blood Of The Lamb.)

 

It's most likely the same song.
There's a cast recording of a Time Rocker rehearsal from Amsterdam floating around that has Blood of The Lamb etc, but sung by the cast and not Lou, obviously.

 

Is that Doug singing harmony on that snippet?

 

Lou and Cale. It's 1965; Dougie joined in October 1968.

 

Okay, I see the '65 indicators above now. Thanks.

 

i think a lot of the tapes were Cale solo, the box belonged to Cale, Conrad just had a better place to keep them safe than JC

 

I always assumed that Conrad had kept (some of ) Cale's tapes. But with regards the VU material, that's not the whole story we heard before is it?

 

Any speculation about what's going on with this recording session(see below) for the 3rd album? Is this where the Cale version of Beginning To See The Light originates from? Cale is in the band here. Date wrong? Or more new Cale versions?


Copied from the Lou Reed Archive:



The Velvet Underground [1969 Album]
560624
XII - 4/68 [Velvet Underground]
1968 July 5

1. Jesus
2. Pale Blue Eyes
3. Beginning To See The Light
4. Story Of My Life
5. If You Close the Door [After Hours]

 

Song title reminds me of the hairy band Canned Heat- Lets Work Together.

 

You're right! I never noticed that date – assuming it was Yule period. And yet Beginning To See The Light is dated as May 29th 1968 on the 45th anniversary set. But the sound is so different to the Rain recordings, so this later date could be more likely. If this is correct we have five versions of '3rd' songs with Cale playing on them. I guess they are 'live' run-throughs/demos in the day that Light is. Well spotted!

Who is going to go to the archive to book a listening appointment?

Hope you don't mind – I just quoted you and your post over at the velvet forum.

 

What's 4/68? Is that another date?

 

I just picked up the Ruben Blades 1987 album Nothing But The Truth. It's meh except for two tracks Lou appears on. Lou also co wrote a third, Hopes On Hold, and cut a version with Ruben, but the version on the album is an alternate Lou-less recording.
So there's apparently 2-3 unreleased Ruben/Lou tracks in the vaults, possibly including the title track Nothing But The Truth, which is not on the album.

 

I think it just a typing mistake. But who knows...

 

It'd be cool to hear some Lou vocals on those tracks. Previewing Hopes On Hold on iTunes now, not as good as the other two but I'll have to download it for completists sake.

 

The entry header reads:

'XII - 4/68 [Velvet Underground] 1968 July 5

As you say in your later post, it could all be down to typos. But I'm hopeful. The following tapes for '3rd' start in November.

 

Yeah, I'm wondering why two dates are listed. Maybe recorded in 4/68 and mixed July?

 

The Velvet Underground were playing the Hippodrome, San Diego 4-6th of July 1968 whilst touring the west coast. They played LA 12/13 July and back in SF the weekend after. But they'd already recorded in LA at other times, so no reason they could not have fitted a session in.

 

4/68 seems very early to me for that group of songs. In April they were still playing WLWH era material like Sister Ray and Hey Mr. Rain live along with Sweet Sister Ray and Heroin. The box could have been mislabelled or labelled twice. But no descriptions of any of those '3rd' era songs being played live in July. No set-lists and scant 1st person reports of what they were playing mid '68. Sweet Rock n Roll mentioned by Morrison in July.

 

Pale Blue Eyes and Story of My Life definitely predate June 1968, and I've always figured at least a few of the 3rd album era songs must also date from the first half of 1968 or earlier...



I guess they jam a bit on the unknown 'Sweet Mama', this could also be any number of known songs with a different title.