Most of these songs were included on the "Peel Slowly and See" box set. However, I thought they were presented in a really dumb way. For the first six songs here (all acoustic demos recorded in July 1965), multiple takes were included, but in each case they were lumped together as one track. So, for instance, you couldn't just hear a demo of "All Tomorrow's Parties," you had to hear five versions of the song, each version almost exactly the same as the last. I grow very tired of bootlegs that have the same song repeated over and over. So I picked the best version of each song and only included that.
The next five songs are more acoustic demos, from a December 1965 session. These also are from the box set, but they were put on another disc. I think it's better having all these demos together. Finally, there's an unreleased instrumental from very early January 1966 as the last song. It fits the acoustic sound of the rest of the album, because it's just a guitar and bass playing.
This makes up a nice 44 minute long album. Seven of the 12 songs would never be done by the Velvet Underground again (with the partial exception of "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams" - Nico did it for her 1967 solo album, and the rest of the Velvet Underground backed her on that recording.)
01 Venus in Furs (Velvet Underground)
02 Prominent Men (Velvet Underground)
03 Heroin (Velvet Underground)
04 I'm Waiting for the Man (Velvet Underground)
05 Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams (Velvet Underground)
06 All Tomorrow's Parties (Velvet Underground)
07 There Is No Reason (Velvet Underground)
08 Sheltered Life (Velvet Underground)
09 It's All Right [The Way that You Live] (Velvet Underground)
10 I'm Not Too Sorry [Now that You're Gone] (Velvet Underground)
11 Here She Comes Now (Velvet Underground)
12 Green Onions [Instrumental] (Velvet Underground)
https://www.upload.ee/files/16701104/TVELVTUNDRGRND1965_PrminntMnErlyDmos_atse.zip.html
For the album cover, I used the cover of the recording tape box for some of the demos on this album. It comes from the "Peel Slowly and See" box set.
Great stuff! I'll have to give it a listen.
ReplyDeleteJust a small question: weren't some of the demos, like "A Sheltered Life" and "Here She Comes Now" recorded after they recorded their first album?
Also, I came up with a ficticious 1971 VU album, made out of a lot of songs the Velvets demoed that Lou later recorded himself. Here it is:
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - ALASKA (1971)
Men of Good Fortune - 4:37
Walk and Talk It - 3:40
Caroline Says - 3:57
Satellite of Love - 3:42
A Sheltered Life - 2:20
Oh, Jim - 5:13
I Love You - 2:21
New York Telephone Conversation
Wild Child - 4:41
Love Makes You Feel - 3:13
Sad Song - 6:57
Goodnight Ladies - 4:19
You probably have something similar planned, so if that's right, I'd love to hear your take on it!
Good question about the demos. I've seen some references to the 12/65 batch being recorded in 1966 or 1967. Lots of confusion on that. But I looked into it and determined they were from 1965.
DeleteAbout a last album, yeah, I have something coming that's mostly 1970 VU stuff. But I also found an album's worth of acoustic demos from just Lou Reed that are mostly songs that VU never did (recorded mostly in late 1970, just after he left the VU). I'm going to post that too. So one could imagine that as the album that could have been had he stayed with them a little longer.
Love this. Great job editing down the senselessly patched-together 15 minute demo tracks from Peel Slowly!
ReplyDeleteThanks. Yeah, the way that did that was a real head scratchier. Especially not even separating the different takes into different tracks, so you're forced to listen to five versions of the same song in a row, or nothing.
Deleteshame you decided to use mp3
ReplyDeleteI have a bootleg that is two tracks, all instrumental that has no other information on it except "1966". It sure sounds like the band. Do you know of this? here's a link to what I have: https://drive.proton.me/urls/Z6H8N5CT1M#fulsMnuRCb1u
ReplyDelete