Velvets in Sheldon Renan book '67

[threechordwonder]

Here are two scans from the Sheldon Renan book "An Introduction to the American Underground Film" (but called "the underground film", without capitals, in UK).





They don't tell us anything new but the book was published in '67 in USA so this must be one of the earliest mentions of the Velvets outside the music press (and outside the howls of anguish from reviews in local papers). The book also mentions Tony Conrad, Jonas Mekas and Marie Menken and even credits Angus Maclise for his film soundtracks.

Pretty good for '67 I reckon.

[peppergomez]

I can't see the images

[iaredatsun]

I have this book. I presume the missing images are shots of pages 195 and 235, which are text and include descriptions of Andy Warhol's cinematic practice at the time including the VU light show era.

[threechordwonder]

Sorry folks, the image hosting site has a daily download bandwidth and the bots that trawl this site probably use it all up. This means that none of my posted images, neither sacred nor profane, can currently be viewed.

You can download a substitute pdf from my press cuttings share site, https://c.mail.com/@652099718028993115/ ... wdvJIhCmBA, search for "Phase15_SheldonRenan.pdf".

Yes iaredatsun, those are the pages but I included the facing images for context. I hope your copy of the book is in better condition than mine, it wasn't great when I got it and the years in storage have not been kind.

Sadly the visual effect of this post has been lost but you can still get the information.

[threechordwonder]

A lightbulb moment ... I have reduced the original images to the text page only, so it will take longer to reach the daily download limit.

[threechordwonder]

The images are now on another host site (ImgBB)

[taxine]

Great,thanks for posting.

[iaredatsun]

Another but VU-unrelated page from the book. (I think this post is mainly for Taxine)

Jack Smith in Ken Jacobs's Star-Spangled To Death

[taxine]

Another but VU-unrelated page from the book. (I think this post is mainly for Taxine)

Jack Smith in Ken Jacobs's Star-Spangled To Death

Yeahhh..these early times leads me crazy,such a beautiful picture !!
Huge thanks for posting iaredatsun.

[iaredatsun]

Sorry folks, the image hosting site has a daily download bandwidth and the bots that trawl this site probably use it all up. This means that none of my posted images, neither sacred nor profane, can currently be viewed.

You can download a substitute pdf from my press cuttings share site, https://c.mail.com/@652099718028993115/ ... wdvJIhCmBA, search for "Phase15_SheldonRenan.pdf".

Yes iaredatsun, those are the pages but I included the facing images for context. I hope your copy of the book is in better condition than mine, it wasn't great when I got it and the years in storage have not been kind.

Sadly the visual effect of this post has been lost but you can still get the information.

I was quite lucky to find a good clean copy some years back, with intact binding. It's stamped as originally belonging to the Cinematheque Coffeehouse in Haight, SF. I really like it and it's a good overview of the American art film scene at that time with nice chapter on career off people like Bruce Connor, Belsen, Jack Smith, Ron Rice, Warhol. And then another on film stars of the movies and then one on Expended Cinema. A stunningly researched book considering the time it was made – as you suggest with it's ref to the VU. It's also a good one to go with the 1971 David Curtis book on Experimental cinema or Dixon's later 1997 Exploding Eye.

Thanks for bringing the subject of the book up here.