3rd Album Deluxe - Bill Levenson drops a hint?

[gazatthebop]

MOJO Magaine review...

Towards late September 1968, Lou Reed called a meeting of The Velvet Underground at the Riviera Café in Greenwich Village. John Cale, the group?s electric viola player, bass monster and mischief-maker, wasn?t invited, because Reed had an ultimatum to deliver: either Cale goes or The Velvet Underground folds. Neither drummer Maureen Tucker or guitarist Sterling Morrison were happy about it, but on September 28, Cale left the band he?d formed with Reed three and a half years earlier.

His departure marked the most significant break with the Velvets? Pop Art past, one final act of defenestration after Nico?s departure in late May 1967 and the loosening of ties with group mentor Andy Warhol soon afterwards. Locked horns weren?t entirely to blame. Reed, whose early songwriting (notably Velvets demo Prominent Men) and mid-?60s style owed a considerable debt to Bob Dylan, had grown tired of the band being little more than an Abstract Expressionist backdrop at somebody else?s Pop Art happening. The third Velvet Underground album proves Lou Reed?s desire to rouse his inner Old Master.

VU_45th
The Velvet Underground: (from left) Lou Reed, Moe Tucker, Sterling Morrison, Doug Yule. Photos Doug Yule / courtesy of Sal Mercuri Collection

The record was as measured as White Light/White Heat had been unhinged, as themed and integrated as the ?Banana? debut had been eclectic. It was also the first Velvet Underground LP that failed to make the Billboard 200. Perhaps their original audience sensed treachery. Or did Warhol?s lingering spectre plant a seed of distrust in a record that had been critically well-received and crafted with storyteller precision?

It can?t have been the quality of the writing, not with songs as sweetly subversive as Candy Says, as wistful and lovely as Pale Blue Eyes, as joyfully hyper as Beginning To See The Light, or as near to the nub of Reed?s wearying highs and lows as I?m Set Free. When Moe?s cymbal crash rudely punctuates the chorus or when Reed picks out the saddest guitar break in the world, we are transported to the perfect centre of his imperfect universe.

The Velvet Underground is that kind of record: spirituality grounded. Raw, intimate and with moments of epiphany every bit as powerful as a Cale-injected Sister Ray, it brings us as close to Lou Reed as we?d ever get during his five decade career. No silkscreen depersonalisation, no blue mask, this was Lou eager, wise and largely unguarded. That?s probably why he rejected engineer Val Valentin?s conventional first mix for his own so-called ?Closet Mix?, with vocals pushed up front.


?It brings us as close to Lou Reed as we?d ever get.?

The Velvets? past threatens to disrupt Reed?s candid questing on just two songs. The Murder Mystery is as long as White Light/White Heat?s The Gift and, with all four voices competing simultaneously over two contrasting musical backdrops, more disorientating. Reed later regarded it as a failure, though here on the ?promotional mono mix? (a disc of dubious provenance, for most insist there was no mono mix in 1969), it makes a lot more sense. Album opener Candy Says, meanwhile, has always been in a class of its own. Launching a string of Lou?s ?Says? songs, it throws the very notion of identity into a tizz. Lyrically, it spins out from Factory face Candy Darling?s struggles with gender. But Reed?s masterstroke was to insist that Cale?s replacement, Doug Yule, handle the vocal, lending the song a generous fragility while at the same time fooling listeners into believing the singer was Lou. Warhol couldn?t have faked it better himself.

Despite the album?s later rehabilitation, accelerated during the early ?80s by a generation of British semi-acoustic indie-pop strummers, three different (but not that different) mixes of the same album would never justify the ?super deluxe edition? treatment. That?s the job of three additional discs, one of 1969 studio outtakes (potentially ?the lost fourth album?), and a pair recorded live at the end of the decade. Neither truly belongs here; genuine outtakes from the November ?68 sessions or a more contemporaneous live recording would have sat much more comfortably alongside the original album.

Those reservations evaporate with Disc 4. Much is familiar, via the archive releases VU and Another View. But with all traces of ?80s remixes removed, the performances now sound as they should ? less like a rock band and more like The Velvet Underground. Upbeat rock?n?rollers like Foggy Notion and I Can?t Stand It (with its wayward solo restored in a sympathetic new ?69-style mix) are newly vibrant. Lisa Says and Rock & Roll are strong examples of Reed?s emerging, end-of-the-decade style. By contrast, Ocean and Ferryboat Bill stray into uncharted territory. A genuine ?lost album?? Probably not. Reed was writing furiously but not with any particular direction in mind.

The two discs from The Matrix, San Francisco, in part reprise the old 1969 double live album ? though again drawn from new source tapes, they sparkle. Taped in November 1969, a year on from the third album sessions, they reveal a group no longer certain who their audience is. The Matrix, after all, was a venue rich in psychedelic associations, enemy territory for the hippy-baiting Velvets.




The smattering of applause and small club ambience hint at a band down on its luck. But, since mid 1967, the out-of-town underground scene had become the Velvets? natural habitat. They still went where the mood took them: spellbinding (Venus In Furs), casual (Over You), intense (What Goes On), crowd-pleasing (We?re Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together) and, as a near-37-minute version of Sister Ray attests, defiant.

?Thank you very much, we?ll see you in a little bit,? says Lou after a phenomenal Heroin. The commercial failure of The Velvet Underground hit him hard. For a brief time in his career, Lou Reed was grateful of the applause.

[iaredatsun]

MOJO Magaine review...

Towards late September 1968, Lou Reed called a meeting of The Velvet Underground at the Riviera Café in Greenwich Village. John Cale, the group?s electric viola player, bass monster and mischief-maker, wasn?t invited, because Reed had an ultimatum to deliver: either Cale goes or The Velvet Underground folds. Neither drummer Maureen Tucker or guitarist Sterling Morrison were happy about it, but on September 28, Cale left the band he?d formed with Reed three and a half years earlier.

John Cale, bass monster!

Thnaks for the post.

[Caridad Rodriguez]

Review on Pitchfork: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/200 ... derground/

[pilgrim]

VU Live 1969 is my favorite album of all time.... and the new Matrix stuff is just bliss to hear. I can't believe the clarity on some of the songs I've been listening to for so many years. And the new versions of other songs are most welcome. I Can't Stand It is unbelievable! There She Goes Again was everything I could have hoped for in terms of the end jam. And "I'm Set Free" has this suspended-in-space beauty to it. Definitely the best live version of it I've come across, as it's never really offered any surprises for me as a live song. Also love the interplay in the new "Some Kinda Love."

Heroin's incredible on this set, and I agree that Lou's vocals are classic, although the Live 1969 version is still the all-time version for me, with its perfectly measured build up, awesome ending, and the incredibly cool feat of suspending the lyrics "going from..............................................................this land here to that." So happy to have another great version to enjoy, and to hear how the VU could differ in their approach to a tune from night to night.

Haven't had a solid 37 minutes to fully appreciate Sister Ray but am so looking forward to it.

Also, hearing more from the Matrix makes me appreciate just how well assembled/curated the Live 1969 album was. They played together so well during this time, and were covering ground from all their albums, resulting in many "best" versions for me. I guess what I love most about these recordings is the sheer power their music achieved while still coming across with such remarkable intimacy.

[Max]

Really love some of the photographs in the book,
such as Moe & Lou baseballing, or the 2 pics of them walking (away) in a mall (?), and one of Moe alone, rather glamourous.

Rgds M

[leamanc]

pilgrim, I really enjoyed your post. It echoes a lot of my own thoughts, particularly how well curated 1969: LWLR is. I've always felt that way but since more of the San Francisco performances have emerged over the years, starting with the Quine Tapes, it's clear that a lot of care went into picking a great, cohesive double-album's worth of songs.


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[iaredatsun]

Also, hearing more from the Matrix makes me appreciate just how well assembled/curated the Live 1969 album was.

Agree. I prefer a carefully sequenced album to any chronological warts-and-all or stick-it all-in-a-bucket approaches. Even live albums are better when edited and crafted into a nicely rounded home listening event. Live 1969 was good for that. Could never face the Quinne set.

[iaredatsun]

Talking about warts-and-all approaches to archive reissues, what on earth is happening at 2:30 into One Of These Days? Why did they leave that in?

[Caridad Rodriguez]

Talking about warts-and-all approaches to archive reissues, what on earth is happening at 2:30 into One Of These Days?

Exactly that, a wart

Why did they leave that in?

I always thought the same thing about the off-key backing vocals in "Stephanie Says". They really ruin the song for me, since that one is meant to be pretty.

I guess that after the too-clean Eighties versions of VU and Another View, they now went the "authentic" route, leaving all in as it was in 1968-1969. A little sympathetic restauration would've been nice here though, just ducking the obviously wrong notes. Even David Briggs ducked wrong notes with Neil Young and Crazy Horse

But I'm glad they took the big Eighties production off the songs (flanger on Lou's solo in "Can't Stand It", all the reverb, ...)

[Caridad Rodriguez]

Agree.

And me.

Even live albums are better when edited and crafted into a nicely rounded home listening event. Live 1969 was good for that. Could never face the Quinne set.

True. Same goes for the original Live at Max's (disregarding the "fidelity" of the sound), I always thought that was nicely sequenced as well, with a fast and a slow side. As for Quine, the expanded Max's and the extra live discs on the deluxe sets, I dip into them on a song-by-song basis.