3rd Album Deluxe - Bill Levenson drops a hint?

[flippikat]

As above - I'll get excited when there's something to get excited about. Ie not just a rehash of stuff we already have. A complete high quality La Cave would indeed be great.

It's hard to see what they can do with this. We have versions of 3rd that are probably hard to improve on mastering-wise.
Are there outtakes? All the live stuff from the era has already been booted.

As has been expressed above, the only thing I can think of that would interest me is a sympathetic (dry) remix of the 4th album material.
And the inclusion of Ferryboat Bill, this time, please. But would I buy another shelf-filling huge box-book for that?

I think they should keep the 3rd album and the lost album stuff separate. The next two releases should be

* The third album, deluxe 2 disc version containing the Valentin and the Closet mix, plus a few outtakes or alt mixes - with a 3 or 4 disc set also available that adds La Cave 1968 in best possible quality.

* The definitive "lost album" compilation, with good dry mixes - and maybe a surprise or two if session tapes still exist. This would basically gather all the 1969 tracks from VU & Another View in one place. I'm not sure whether this needs a live show added to the set, but it could be part of a super deluxe version.
It makes sense to do a "lost album" deluxe edition, since the 1968 tracks from those compilations have now found their logical home on a deluxe White Light/White Heat set

Then the Bootleg Series can re-start, with the best remaining live shows cleaned up & packaged with decent liner notes and photos.
Sure there's a lot from 1969, but there's also some reasonable candidates from earlier and later that are either circulating right now or supposedly in the hands of private collectors.

[iaredatsun]

* The definitive "lost album" compilation, with good dry mixes - and maybe a surprise or two if session tapes still exist. This would basically gather all the 1969 tracks from VU & Another View in one place. I'm not sure whether this needs a live show added to the set, but it could be part of a super deluxe version.
It makes sense to do a "lost album" deluxe edition, since the 1968 tracks from those compilations have now found their logical home on a deluxe White Light/White Heat set

Then the Bootleg Series can re-start, with the best remaining live shows cleaned up & packaged with decent liner notes and photos.
Sure there's a lot from 1969, but there's also some reasonable candidates from earlier and later that are either circulating right now or supposedly in the hands of private collectors.

re. Lost album. Keeping it separate is a nice idea. But there's technically no 45th anniversary reason for the release date to be in 2014. I guess then that would have to wait another year as two boxes in 1 year would be unlikely.

But I think they'll do this:

Deluxe
disk 1 and 2 - Closet and Valentin plus session material tagged on to both ends
disk 3 - 'Lost' would fit on one disk
disk 4,5,6 etc classic unreleased (but booted) gigs from 68 and 69.

2xCD Standard
Closet and Lost CDs

LP? Closet and best of 'Lost' tracks double vinyl.

[rnranimal]

I'm hoping they have enough session material for it's own disc.

If they are including the 4th album stuff, I REALLY hope they use it all and not try to create a standard length album like Sundazed. Their track selection was pretty bad (TWO backing tracks and a song you get on Loaded), but no matter what you choose, essential tracks would get left out.

[flippikat]

I think including the 'lost album' sessions on a 3rd album reissue box would be a huge mistake.

For a start, the 3rd album was recorded in late 1968 and the 4th album was mid-late 1969 - enough time between to treat them as separate reissue projects.

In terms of style, the lost album is far more upbeat, fun and at times far more jokey than the 3rd album.
Sure, they added the early 1968 Cale sessions onto the White Light/White Heat reissue - despite the change in tone there - but there was never enough material for a separate release of those sessions, and it would have been silly to add Cale line-up tracks to a Yule line-up set if they held them back for the 3rd album extras.

I just think the 1969 sessions need a release of their own, all in one place and complete - in the best possible mixes.
If there's no alternate takes or mixes and it fits on 1 CD, then that's fine with me. Who-ever said that reissues HAD to be 2 or more discs, anyway?

[iaredatsun]

I just think the 1969 sessions need a release of their own, all in one place and complete - in the best possible mixes.
If there's no alternate takes or mixes and it fits on 1 CD, then that's fine with me. Who-ever said that reissues HAD to be 2 or more discs, anyway?

I hope the 4th is a separate project too.

Boxsets sell and boxsets don't get remaindered. They're the perfect format for record companies. And, as Lou Reed said, I think that'll be the short and long of it.

[flippikat]

I just think the 1969 sessions need a release of their own, all in one place and complete - in the best possible mixes.
If there's no alternate takes or mixes and it fits on 1 CD, then that's fine with me. Who-ever said that reissues HAD to be 2 or more discs, anyway?

I hope the 4th is a separate project too.

Boxsets sell and boxsets don't get remaindered. They're the perfect format for record companies. And, as Lou Reed said, I think that'll be the short and long of it.

By my rough maths, all the lost album tracks on VU & Another View add up to about 52 minutes - that's not including 'Countess From Hong Kong', nor does it include multiple versions of 'Ride Into The Sun'

So I suppose there is a possibility this could be a 2-disc set if there are session tapes to draw alternate takes or mixes from.

If they wanted to add in a show from 1969 as well (take your pick) a box set is possible too.

The first disc should be a core collection of the 1969 lost album sessions though.

[rnranimal]

That's why the 4th album stuff needs it's own release. Things like the Countess acetate have zero place on a 3rd album set, but would fit well on a collection of stuff recorded between the 3rd album and Loaded. That Countess acetate still needs a proper release. It's been split up over different releases over the years (some rare) with varying degrees of clean up and mastering. I Found a Reason is in good form on the Fully Loaded set, but Countess was collapsed to mono and reverb added for the Peel Slowly box. It's a cool song and really needs a better mastering. I hope these tracks don't fall through the cracks, since I think a 45th anni of Loaded is unlikely.

[alfredovu]

Didn't Alfredo mention a while back that he was contacted by UMG about helping with this?

Hi all

Good to see that folks are starting to wonder about the status of the 3rd Deluxe 45th.

So far Universal has been doing an excelent job with the Banana and Wl/Wh Deluxe sets, and the 3rd Album will not be an exception. Our guys will take good care of us!
This is what I can say at this point: a selection of the Peter Abrams Soundboard Tapes half inch, 4-track, stereo live recordings of the band at The Matrix Nov 1969 will be part of the Deluxe issue. The quality of these recordings is absolutely fanstatic
and the performances are superb.
As you know there are 42 songs in 4 hours of recordings. Universal still working on which songs will appear, looks like 20 songs in 2 cds. Night and day with the Quine Tapes and Live 1969.

Juts these 2 cds will make the 3rd Deluxe a must for any VU fan.

Stay tuned

[Mark]

That's great news. So let's see, there are 13 Matrix tracks on the original album (15 if the two CD bonus tracks were also Matrix - or are they End of Cole?). It would be neat if this release covered everything not included on the original album. Would there be space for that?

Agreed re the Countess acetate - those 4 tracks need to be with the rest of the 69 stuff and properly restored. My theory is that they were only done a few weeks after the end of the VU/Another View recordings - otherwise Ride into the Sun would have the bridge as per the Quine version.

Third album reissue is the best place for the 69 tracks imo. While they're important (and in places great), I don't think they're strong enough as a whole to stand on their own.

[bobbydriver]

Great news that the unreleased Matrix tracks are finding a home at last. The snippets that got sampled last year sounded amazing.

Kind of makes me wish that they?d just done a deluxe of Live 1969 though ? with everything on the tapes in their entirety