VU&N Boxset reviews

[leamanc]

[leamanc]

Discs 5 and 6 are currently in the CD changer.



And, finally, the back cover.

[iaredatsun]

leamanc. thanks for the photos!

But, hey ? that list in the booklet looks suspiciously like this list from the VU biographer and rock critic, Richie Unterberger's own website!

Ten strange and bizarre facts you didn't know about Teh Velvet Underground that make it all the more remarkable how successful they were.

1. No band before the The Velvet Underground has ever put a fruit on there cover, let alone a banana.

2. Their first gig featured a naked whip dancer called Gerald who used a live pet mouse in his gyrating performances.

3. They once got sacked for playing a nursery rhyme as an encore at a party for NY advertising executives.

4. The band's first manager was a fashion shoe illustrator who knew nothing about art, music or big business.

5. In late 1967, John Cale the band's lead viola player, over a period of four months, made an underwater concert sound system out of concrete breezeblocks. The rest of the band were so upset they sacked him for seven days, allegedly for spending all their drug money on the failed project.

6. Lou Reed once spent a month in a New Jersey lunatic asylum so that he could improve his ideas for lyric writing. Whilst in there he had his head shaved, wore a straight-jacket and had electrodes applied to his genitals.

7. The band originally planned to record their third album in the cubicles of a disused public toilet in the South Bronx

8. The band's drummer originally wanted to be a tax accountant and had only learnt the drums as method of communication with African tree spirits.

9. The band's female singer was an ex-German housewife from Cologne who as a child had originally been raised in a Bavarian forest. She didn't speak a word in any known human language until she was phonetically taught to sing her first single I'm Not Saying by British prog-rock guitarist Jimmy Page.

10. The band named themselves after a range of lingerie they had seen in a Seers and Robuck's catalogue, whilst crowded into Lou Reed's mother's small dark closet at his parent's house.

Richie Unterberger

[bradski]

I'm looking forward to getting this.
Just an observation......
I really dislike the way those cds are held in place. I prefer the old box sets where you actually got a case or card sleeve of some kind. You pay over ?50 for something and the best way they come up with to hold the precious cds is this? God help us.
Anyone that bought the recent Can 3cd set will recognise this stupid method.... the cds weren't properly held in place by anything... so if you planned to move your boxset around... or even store vertically... then the cds fell out of their recesses, rattled around and got marked real quick.
The VU set looks a BIT better, in that they are partically secured, but not much.

Apart from that slight whinge ... yeah it does look good and from all accounts the sound is tip top too.

Makes you wonder what they're gonna do for the 50th anniversary.

[leamanc]

But, hey ? that list in the booklet looks suspiciously like this list from the VU biographer and rock critic, Richie Unterberger's own website!

No worries about plagiarism, as Richie Unterberger is the one who wrote the liner notes for this set!

Well, self-plagiarism, maybe.

I enjoy Richie's work quite a bit. His "day-by-day book" is one of my favorite VU books. I had an idea to do something similar years ago, but he actually took the time and did it -- and did a good job with it.

[bleach]

10. The band named themselves after a range of lingerie they had seen in a Seers and Robuck's catalogue, whilst crowded into Lou Reed's mother's small dark closet at his parent's house.

Lou spent most of the 60s in the closet..Funny guy that Richie.

[threechordwonder]

"Fact" 9 - Nico recorded 'Strip Tease' in 1963 before 'Not Sayin'.

Are the other "facts" crap as well?

[DavidH]

Are the other "facts" crap as well?

Yep, every one of them

I'm looking forward to this hitting the streets here.

[iaredatsun]

It's hot!

Cancelled the box as, if I wait, I can a free copy at the end of the month. But I really couldn't wait so got a cheap copy of the stereo/acetate double CD. Haven't got to the acetate yet as I'm still reeling from the experience of the stereo remaster. The difference is not subtle. What third rate n-generation tape copies have we been listening to all these years? You can suddenly hear the instruments, the sound, everything. It's like someone just washed the net curtains after twenty years smoking Senior Service.

[MJG196]

It's hot!

Cancelled the box as, if I wait, I can a free copy at the end of the month. But I really couldn't wait so got a cheap copy of the stereo/acetate double CD. Haven't got to the acetate yet as I'm still reeling from the experience of the stereo remaster. The difference is not subtle. What third rate n-generation tape copies have we been listening to all these years? You can suddenly hear the instruments, the sound, everything. It's like someone just washed the net curtains after twenty years smoking Senior Service.

Hey bro, is that compression or is it remastering? I am dying to hear how much improved this is over the Deluxe Edition from a few years ago.