The Velvet Forum

Mey, MeirR, what is your tracklist? The one that was on EZtree recently was:

1. ATP
2. These Days
3. I'll Keep It w/ Mine
4. Little Sister
5. ATP
6. I'll Be Your Mirror
7. Femme Fatale
8. IKIw/M
9. Little Queenie
10. Little Sister
11. ATP
12. Somebody

It looks like this is a PARTIAL recording of the Bedroom Tape listed on the RnR Animal website. The tracklisting is SO similar, that it definitely looks like a cut & paste job from the original tape.

Additionally, considering the date, I wouldn't be surprised if (as is the case w/ the "Acoustic Demos") one of the voices was Richard Robinson. Keep in mind that is a total guess!

If someone can find out what month Desertshore was released (and where Cale & Nico recorded it), perhaps we can narrow it down a bit?

(I think this falls under "all aspects of the New York legends" so I moved it here from general discussion.)

There's a longer version than this with lots of false starts and mistakes and stuff. It's quite hard to listen to (the edited highlights version is probably the best bits). It's interesting to hear the whole thing for Lou's acoustic playing and Nico's vague complaining.
Another possibility for the un-named man could be Danny Fields (another pure guess!)
FWIW April 1970 is as good a date as any, I know some people assume it to be around Bataclan time, 1972, as there's no known reason why they would be together in April 1970. I think it was just some random thing that got taped - maybe Nico was offered a gig but she was was expected to play her accessible Chelsea Girl and VU songs, it's a bit of a mystery, not mentioned in any of the biogs AFAIK.

Shit, where did I read about those dogs barking?! It looks like you have another version of the Bedroom Tape where each take is marked as a single track. Whether it was recorded in a Bedroom or not has yet to be established, but it looks like you have yet another incarnation of the Bedroom Tape.

I must say, 1968 makes more sense than '70. If it were '70, I'd imagine she would be practicing some new tunes. And I refuse to believe this has ANYTHING to do w/ Bataclan.

I must say, 1968 makes more sense than '70. If it were '70, I'd imagine she would be practicing some new tunes. And I refuse to believe this has ANYTHING to do w/ Bataclan.

Okay, but why do the names 'Richard' and 'Lisa' keep popping up during the tape? If they are messrs Robinson then they didn't meet Lou until July 1971 (according to Bockris) and so far no record of a Nico gig circa 1968 or 1970 involving Lou exists. That makes Bataclan a more likely reason for the rehearsal. Perhaps a duet between the two was mooted but Lou didn't know any of Nico's newer songs to rehearse with (and - ipso facto - didn't want to either!).

Well, I am pulling this from the depths of my memory banks, so I may not be 100% correct. If I remember correctly, Bataclan was very important to Lou and they rehearsed very intensely for several days. It seems odd to me that Lou would sit there relatively carefree running through songs which would not be performed.

Oh, and FYI, there is an old online interview of Lou Reed I dug up! It can be found at http://www.lemanszone.dk/vu/andet/loutrans.html . If you can weed through all the chaff, there may be a nugget or two in there. It was from a Compuserve online chat...wow, brings back memories!!

MeirRachel - that could be the version that I made, that I have traded a bit in the last couple of yrs or so. I cleaned up the version that was part of A Walk With The VU vol 3 and split it up into one track per take. On the original CD-R the dog barking was VERY LOUD, so I quietened it down a bit.

Datewise I would go with 1970, because that's the date that given. What reason do we have to dispute it? There's a hypothesis in science that says that the most likely answer is usually the right one unless there is evidence to the contrary (eg Is there a God? probably not. Occam's Razor).
At one point Nico refers to it being a long time ago that she was singing these songs, and that she hated them - this is about the only evidence of the date other than the normally attributed date of April 1970. I don't remember hearing any refs to Richard & Lisa on the tape, but I wouldn't rely on V Bockris as a reliable source of info anyway, so it could still be 1970 even if the Robinsons are mentioned.

I think it's only called the bedroom tape because of the ambience, I doubt it's really in a bedroom.

On the original CD-R the dog barking was VERY LOUD, so I quietened it down a bit.

Datewise I would go with 1970, because that's the date that given. What reason do we have to dispute it?

I agree with you about 1970 because at one point Lou says that Anne Murray's new album cover looks like 'Desert Shore.'

I can't imagine a hotel room with a dog nearby that's barking

VERY LOUD

as you say.

OAN, couldn't find the artwork and http://larrue.free.fr/VelvetLouArchive/
doesn't have it so I created my own. The one I saw at Oliver's site looks like it doesn't fit not for the size but because it looked like VU circa 66 - 67 with Nico and Andy. One of my pet peeves is the cover and the contents being an anachronism. Anymore, I go to http://artwork.easytree.org/ and if it's not there, I create it myself. Hope that doesn't disappear as I hear easytree was recently busted?!?! Bad Reputation was great too especially for solo Lou but he too was busted.