The Velvet Forum

Hi all

I wrote this some time ago but never got round to "publishing" it on my group jimjims. Feel free to discuss the ideas at length or perhaps offer a different viewpoint.

Sean (aka jimjim)

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"...it’s always struck me as odd that in the era that bootlegging was just starting out (Great White Wonder, Get Back & Live R being the 1st 3 to be released that year[1969]) that some dodgy geezers somehow managed to get their hands on high quality, stereo recording equipment to tape their heroes. In addition it also seems odd that they were also sked by the same heroes to come forward to get better sound and then went backstage to tape them in a singalong session. It seems to me very unlikely that someone was that lucky to have all this to hand without “the man” getting suspicious.

One key factor in explaining this is “Live 1969”. It wasn’t until the CD era that we discovered that part of “Live 1969” was taken from fragile acetates as, until then, the vinyl covered all the hidden crack(le)s, so to speak. Perhaps to explain this at the time, it was revealed by some VU aficionados that VU manager Sesnick had handed over mere acetates to Mercury in 1974 for use in this now classic live album. So, when LAECA came out on boot around the same time everyone was stunned by both the appearance of tracks from “Live 1969” and the dramatic difference in sound quality between the official and unofficial versions. The question was asked, “why did Mercury or Sesnick use acetates and not the tape?”. For the moment, we can point the finger at Sesnick for having something to do with the tapes but as yet we do not have the “why?”.

But, there’s one other twist. When putting together LAECA & TFN ["The First Night", its follow-up set] the new bootleggers also discovered a stash of demo tapes tagged on at the end – “I Found A Reason”, “The Countess Of Hong Kong”, “We’re Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together” and “Ride Into The Sun”. These had previously been undocumented and caused a stir when they first appeared at the end of TFN. But also, of interest, it was claimed that these tracks also appeared at the end of the same acetates that were handed over to Mercury all those years ago. When the former two of these tracks were finally released officially in the mid-late 90s it’s interesting that Atlantic were not given a licence credit for using “The Countess..” on PSAS and vice versa for “I Found A Reason” & Polydor in reference to the re-packaged “Loaded”. There is a simple explanation - because neither have the rights to these acetates. Given that the VU were coming to the end of their Verve/MGM contract around the time LAECA was recorded and as both PSAS & Loaded (FLE) claim the demos were recorded not long after, it seems obvious that as no-one has a claim to them, they must have been recorded out of “wedlock”. This may explain why Mercury (who were not then part of Polygram/Universal) were approached over Verve/MGM to release “Live 1969”.

So we have QED: as the idea of a bootlegger in 1969 having access to high quality stereo equipment seems to me very unlikely, is it possible that the source of these tapes is an internal one? Hell, yeah. Either Sesnick or Verve/MGM would be the most likely to have any access to these sorts of things. But Verve wanted to bin the VU at the end of 69 & so that leaves only Sesnick as a source. But why did he record the band independently in demo & live form, then put together an acetate which he then kept in preference to the tapes? The answer is simple: he used them to plug the band to new, potential record companies after Verve had said goodbye and the silly git didn’t bother keeping the tape, leaving it with the people who actually did the taping.

It’s a great shame that all we have of the demos is the acetates. If only the tape for this resurfaced!

I was tangentally involved in the preperation of "Live '69," so let me tell you what I know.

The A&R person in charge of the project knew I was a VU fan and asked me if would listen to ALL the tapes acquired and come up with a sequence/song selection for the double LP. I was sent seven reels of 7 & 1/2 i.p.s. reel-to-reel tapes to listen to. Each box was marked as a 1:1 transfer (i.e., direct copies of what Mercury had; possibly the original reel-to-reel tapes were transfered from acetates; I don't know).

The tapes pretty much had all that was eventally released on vinyl except for a longer, slower version of "Heroin" (later issued on the CD version), a track called "Rock & Roll Moody (an acoustic version of "Rock & Roll" wtih Lou and Mo), a version of "WL/WH" which sounded suspiciously like the version that was released (they timed out EXACTLY the same), and a supposedly alternate version of "Ride Into The Sun" (again, both released and alt versions timed out EXACTLY the same). To me, "Ride Into The Sun" was a demo, not live, but I could be wrong.

I do know that Sesnick did NOT directly sell the tapes to Mercury. HOWEVER, the third party that did sell them may have acquired the tapes/acetates from Sesnick--or someone else. I was not privey to that info.

FYI, no demos were included the tapes sold to Merc ury (except maybe "Ride"). I know this because I received a copy of the memo sent by the A&R person to the studio that had the tapes instructing them to send me EVERYTHING they had. No distinction was made between live or demo tracks.

If I remember correctly a very nice, concise history of the recordings that appeared on "End Cole" is included in the "Uptight--The VU Story" book.

who taped these shows is written about in LAECA & TFN sleevenotes. From memory it was a local film or sound guy, who setup his kit at the show, at the inviation of the band.

hobokenlad wrote:I do know that Sesnick did NOT directly sell the tapes to Mercury. HOWEVER, the third party that did sell them may have acquired the tapes/acetates from Sesnick--or someone else. I was not privey to that info.

I remember reading that Sesnick tried to sell the tapes (to Mercury or another company), that Lou got wind of it, sued, won, and had the tapes released himself. Do you know if your "third party" was (representing) Lou?

Till the early '70s (maybe even later), I think acetates were the common medium for short-term archiving within the music industry - kind of like CDRs now I suppose. Cassettes were unreliable and of variable quality, and not everyone had access to a reel-to-reel machine, so what do you do if you've got a tape in the studio that you want to take home to check out or play to someone else? Get an acetate cut. Hence certain VU tracks surviving in acetate form whilst the original tapes have been lost or forgotten.

I guess Hobokenlad would be more qualified than me to say whether this hypothesis is accurate!

Another question regarding the tapes - were any of the tape boxes marked with information about the sources? Of course we can now identify the tracks that come from the End Cole Ave shows, but it would be neat to precisely date the Matrix stuff.

I tried to post this, but nothing happened, so I'll do a quick recap.

The tapes I received had no point of origin, other than a cryptic "H" and other letters (long since forgetten--sorry).

As for the "third party," I never heard of a lawsuit, although I do know the A&R guy was friends of Lou, so maybe he worked a compromise.

The End Cole Ave tapes and the "Countess" acetate are from completely different sources - I suspect that the "Countess" acetate came from Sterling or Moe's archive. In the mid-1980s there was a 90 min "1969 outtakes" tape in limited circulation which contained all of the (2nd night) End Cole Ave songs which were NOT on the "Live 1969" official release as well as the 4 songs from the "Countess" acetate.

Mr P, the guy who "arranged" for the "End Cole Ave" and "First Night" boot CDs to come out, bought DAT copies of the original End Cole Ave tapes (from the original sound engineer) and added the 4 "Countess" acetate songs which he sourced from the 90 min "highlights" tape. Take it from me because I know that it's true... sadly Mr P died in 1995 before he could "engineer" more tasty VU boots for our listening pleasure. Linger on, Guido.

lurid_uk wrote:...died in 1995...

Does that mean who I think it means?

yes i think...one great guitar

I'm not sure who you think I meant? He was a big Lou/VU fan, but not otherwise involved in the music industry.