Take a trip Downtown circa 1966 as Tom Pinnock uncovers some eye-opening revelations about The Velvet Underground via a bunch of new interviews. You’ll also find Tom’s story illustrated with a number of previously unseen photos of the band from the Billy Name archives.
New interviews with Bibbe Hansen and a few others with old quotes from John Cale interviews with Uncut. Essentially, it's an account of 1966, being 60 years ago now.
Don Fleming, speaking of an unreleased demo, is noted as curating more Reed demos for release.
Jason Stern, as Reed's archivist, contributes an interesting comment about Lou late in life reflecting warmly.
Saw and bought this in the local supermarket yesterday. The first thing I noticed was that Lou Reed was pissed off about the WLWH Super Deluxe when it arrived at his home - because 'they did this without him' . That surprised me a lot. But then also it says that he listened, and immediately wrote to Cale telling him how great his playing was (it doesn't say which thing he was listening to).
I always thought Reed was a part of music choices made on the releases. But apparently not necessarily.
I admit that when I saw it on the shelf, I went straight to the end of the article/section looking for any new release news. Unfortunately nothing. Apparently UMG know nothing about this 60th anniversary of the band being signed to Verve. Only hope next year brings us something.
iaredatsun wrote: ↑02 Feb 2026 11:49
I admit that when I saw it on the shelf, I went straight to the end of the article/section looking for any new release news. Unfortunately nothing. Apparently UMG know nothing about this 60th anniversary of the band being signed to Verve. Only hope next year brings us something.
...ditto....!
Lou's comment surprised me as I thought he would have been involved in some element of the selection of tracks.
But then... no-one apparently showed him the UK gatefold 12" of 'What's Good?' in '92; 'what's this?' he snarled as a fan handed it through the gate at the back of Birmimgham Symphony Hall to sign.
TJeffriesUK wrote: ↑01 Feb 2026 23:20Don Fleming, speaking of an unreleased demo, is noted as curating more Reed demos for release.
It strikes me that the, now almost ubiquitous, process of 'curating' is a very long and drawn out procedure. I wish they'd all go back to plain and simple skill of 'collating', or 'compiling'. We might then see something this decade. I noted that the actual sentence in the article uses the even less imminent-sounding phrase 'for eventual release'.
