1967 Gymnasium tapes

[papaya]

I bought a copy today!

I hope I really hope that this is not a fake.

Cant wait

[Mark]

They did play two sets at the Gymnasium. So maybe the other set is the one with Booker T, Walk and Talk, the second version of Guess I'm Falling, and others.

[stooge]

I bought one too today!
Really hope we won't be disapointed
see you all...

[simonm]

this is too much for me on a monday morning!! I got a copy too! 4 left
i've not been listening to much VU in the last 6 months, but this is driving me crazy already.
A totally new song! and if it's the Cale-on-the-radio version of Guess I'm Fallin In Love in decent quality I might die before I get to Sister Ray.

[Elvis Plebsley]

I couldn't resist either... likewise it's doing my head in.

[bleach]

I too join this Gym LP preorder club!...really looking forward to it - just hoping that the bootleggers aren't the same guys that spent years recycling the live 69 tapes..

[citizensmurf]

Oh my oh my this is all too much. A friend of mine went to a dinner last night with John Cale. A told him to ask John about the Gymnasium tapes and what was going on with them. And John replied they're out! Someone has already bootlegged them "and the horses had ran away". I don't understand how this could have happened. But this must be the one!

I'm a bit confused, do you think that Cale was implying the tape was stolen from him or that someone copied a tape when they were being worked on for official release.

[iaredatsun]

Like everyone else I can hardly believe this is happening right now. I saw the start of the thread and thought - just more talk - but was more than a little curious. Then just as quickly the link to ebay was posted (many thanks to the poster above). A coincidence or what? Well, it must just be because it's my birthday this week !

I'm a bit confused, do you think that Cale was implying the tape was stolen from him or that someone copied a tape when they were being worked on for official release.

I guess everyone knows this but there's an interview with Cale in 2005 (Perfect Sound Forever) where he talks about the sound set up at the Paraphernalia gig and which is interesting because he says of the Gymnasium Tapes :

The quality of those tapes is just unbelievable to me. Somebody knew what they were doing. I don?t know who made those tapes, but DAMN!
...
Look, believe me, there?s a guy at Universal named Bill Evanson (sic), and if there were any tapes he would have got ?em out years ago. But the Gymnasium tapes are really good. ?Walk It as You Talk It? is really crunchy. Great guitar sound. But no, I don?t know where they are.

And this is after he supposedly gave them to Universal back at the time of the boxset. So, apart from remembering the sound quality I guess we have to assume that his memory of the tapes is pretty hazy or he was being deliberately vague over their whereabouts during that interview.

There's always been this understanding that Tony Conrad has looked after many tapes from that period - maybe he would have had them.

Next week seems such a long way off !

[iaredatsun]

My other theory is that someone called GloopyMuzak mixed a whole load of Yule era 1969 VU tapes together with some 1966 Warhol film noise, re-eq'ed them, dithered them down to 17 bit lossless ferrous oxide Phillips cassette tape and issued the whole LP himself!

[papaya]

Hey iaredatsun
just read your last post and laugh my ass off