Upbeat TV show

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Mark
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Upbeat TV show

Post by Mark »

If you check the TV appearances page on Olivier's site, you'll notice that the Velvet Underground made several live appearances on a local Cleveland TV show called Upbeat in 1967/68. I've just chanced across this post on the old yellow VU discussion board that suggests that, two years ago at least, there was some possibility of this material finally surfacing:
Miss R
Upbeat TV show on DVD
Thu Jan 9, 2003 00:19
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this was buried in posts below re the 'lost lp', and talk of the VU on local tv in Cleveland in 67 and/or 68.

This from Esquire Records in Clevo:

We are advised that there are 180 color tapes of Upbeat that still exist.
They are in New York with an engineer who advises that he is currently working on greatest hits DVDs. They are supposed to be available soon and we hope to be able to offer them. We will keep you posted.
Anyone heard any updates on this?
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simonm
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Post by simonm »

I never heard from them again.... (miss rayon was/is me, fact fans)
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Post by Homme Fatale »

http://www.esquirerecords.com/default2.asp - anyone wanna ask 'em about it?
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Post by Mark »

Bump!

It seems Esquire Records is no more. Wonder if anything ever happened to this project?
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simonm
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Post by simonm »

I eventually heard from them - they could only tell me what was planned for release, not what the whole collection contained - so: no VU was on the DVDs they were preparing, but they might have just been written off as not pop enough or whatever.

I suspect the rest of the project ran into licensing problems.
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MJG196
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Re: Upbeat TV show

Post by MJG196 »

Mark wrote:If you check the TV appearances page on Olivier's site, you'll notice that the Velvet Underground made several live appearances on a local Cleveland TV show called Upbeat in 1967/68.
Actually, UPBEAT was a syndicated show out of Cleveland (on WEWS-TV), hitting more than 100 markets outside of Cleveland. Perhaps someone at CBS (it used to be a CBS affiliate) can answer some questions? If there are Shindig! DVD's circulating on the torrent sites, which was broadcasting in the early 60's, there might be a chance some Upbeat episodes are out there...somewhere...
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Mark
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Post by Mark »

If it went to over 100 different stations, surely one of them's gotta have copies of the VU material.

It's so frustrating... it seems there was a huge amount of VU stuff on film and TV at one time, but we barely have access to any of it. Think Heliczer, Warhol, CBS News, WNET, Upbeat, Mekas, Nameth, those couple of things that Doug mentions in the Final VU notes... where is it all? Mekas and Nameth in particular must have shot reel upon reel of stuff at The Dom and Poor Richard's that got boiled down to the little bits that circulate.

If someone had the foresight (and money) to set a media researcher onto the job of spending six months tracking all this stuff down and securing the rights, there could be the makings of an absolutely killer DVD. Apparently not going to happen though!
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Post by lurid_uk »

I remember hearing a few years ago that a researcher had started to do just as you suggest in order to compile a video collection similar to the Doors one, but that he/she had "given up" because there was nothing to collect....
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Post by dsulpy »

I can see that happening. I mean, really, what use is the Exploding Plastic Inevitable film besides the soundtrack? 10 minutes of beyond jerky pretentious garbage footage, with NO clear footage of the band. Ugh.

It's frustrating to know the CBS footage exists - with soundtrack, but all we've been able to see is excerpts of the video, with no sound included.

... and the only decent footage that exists is "Symphony of Sound" (which is also pretentious garbage, but at least you can see the band), and THAT'S a boring hour long jam... (insert sound of grinding teeth).

I wonder if Cale has any film footage, rotting in some basement somewhere next to the Gymnasium reels and the early demo tapes...
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Re: VU TV/film

Post by warhol »

i don't think there will be that much more footage in existence. pretty much anything from the warhol years would have been identified by callie angell from the warhol film project. everything jonas shot would be in his films, most likely ron nameth too.

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