Retinal Circus Recording Late 69 ???

bleach · Post by **bleach** » 17 Dec 2005 14:25

At the moment there is a torrent advertising its from the Retinal Circus - i have always assumed that when a recording is labelled with this venue it turned out to be one of 'Live 1969' recordings..

Waldo the uploader also mentions a poss VU recording made at Eagle Theater Seattle I have never heard this before anyone know anything about this?? Below is the details of the torrent.

There are some good VU torrents being uploaded at the moment its always worth checking to see if they have a better source.

The Velvet Underground "Retinal Circus" live late November (?) 1969

1. Heroin
2. New Age
3. White Light White Heat
4. Some Kinda Love
5. What Goes On
6. Over You / Sweet Jane
7. Sweet Bonnie Brown / Foggy Notion / Just Too Much
8. I Can't Stand It
9. The Ocean
10. Rock And Roll

The Retinal Circus was a venue in Vancouver, B.C. that hosted concerts by the likes of Cream,
The Byrds, et al. The Velvet Underground played there several times and were well liked there.
The last time they played there would have been at the end of their '69 tour.
That said, there is speculation that this recording comes from The Eagle Theater in Seattle.
The Eagle had its own in-house recording system and recorded most shows there for potential
radio broadcasts. The Velvets would have shared the bill with one or two other big acts, and
played for a larger audience than usual. Most of the original Eagle Theater reels were bought
by a collector in the mid 1970's and have only begun to circulate in recent years.
The source for this is a Maxell XL II cassette made from a large 15ips reel. The cassette is
at least 15 years old but has held up pretty well.
It is not known if this show was ever broadcast.

-Waldo

The sound is good, definatley a must have for all VU lovers

deckarep · Post by **deckarep** » 17 Dec 2005 14:26

Have a look at the Torrent announcements thread, and you will find this info :

''the retinal circus is not what it claims - sounds mostly like live 69 with added cheers in between the tracks!''

''Yeah, don't bother downloading this one. It's all songs from Live '69 with added crowd noise and Lou talking between songs. The "this is a new song" at the beginning of "New Age" is actually from Bataclan introing "Wild Child".''

This was upped at the Pirate Bay some time ago:

http://thepiratebay.org/details.php?id=3419875

The Velvet Underground "Retinal Circus" live late November (?) 1969

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 22 Dec 2005 00:41

How is that done? Adding the crowd noises etc, and what purpose does it serve?

tarbaby2 · Post by **tarbaby2** » 22 Dec 2005 03:19

The purpose it serves is to make us all think that someone has found something that has been missing for all these years. They do it because they think we are all so anxious for something new that we'll download anything. Many times they are right. I paid over $50.00 for a tape that was supposed to be from the Vulcan Gas Co. in Austin, Texas. Everyone knew that it had been recorded, but that the tapes were supposedly lost when their owner comitted suicide. I was hoping that I'd be the lucky guy to get them and unleash them to a waiting world. It turns out that all I got was a taped recording of the 1969 Live vinyl LP. Live and learn I guess.

bleach · Post by **bleach** » 22 Dec 2005 17:04

I too was caught out over 'The Great Banana' boot CD that claimed to be Chicago 67 wow! Actually it was another Live 1969 collection. In the dark pre interweb days it was quite difficult to get bang up todate info and hence you had to take a chance..