This one is probably the most interesting of all for those just have their studio albums, including "VU" and "Another View," because the songs here come from a wide variety of sources. Most have been officially released, but two have not.
The songs on the first half of the album were recorded in late 1969. The first two were recorded in September and October, then the next four were all recorded at the Matrix Club in November. The first two of those, "Sweet Bonnie Brown" and "It's Just Too Much," are unreleased soundcheck versions from that club.
I made a drastic edit to "Follow the Leader," to say the least. I cut a 17-minute-long song down to just three minutes! The reason is because the 17-minute version is pretty much a jam with the only vocals being in the three minute section I kept. I would be perfectly fine with the jamming except that the sound quality is poor. But since it's an original song by the band, I figured I should keep at least the vocal section for it. By the way, when Lou Reed finally recorded a version of this song for one of his solo albums, in 1976, he only did a two-minute-long version.
The last seven songs here (not counting the bonus track) were recorded in 1970. Most of them were recorded in April 1970, but "Love Makes You Feel Ten Feet Fall" is from July. This takes us right to when Lou Reed left the band, as he played the last concert with them in August. The group did soldier on for a while without him, but I'm not interested in that version of the band.
Although this comes from a variety of sources, when you put it together, I think it makes for another very solid album. Evidence of this can be seen in the fact that most of the songs on it eventually came out in different versions on Lou Reed's solo albums. In fact, eight of the ten songs on his first solo album in 1972 (cleverly titled "Lou Reed") were originally recorded by the Velvet Underground, and still more dribbled out on his solo albums through the rest of the 1970s. (Note that he changed the title of "Love Makes You Feel Ten Feet Tall" to just "Love Makes You Feel.")
The bonus track "Wild Child" is another song that he later put on a solo album. Unfortunately, the version here is just an acoustic version that's less than a minute long, as he was teaching the song to the other band members in the last month he was with the band. It is known the band played the song in concert, but no bootleg of that is known to exist. This recording also has rough sound quality, so between that and the very short length, it only makes it as a bonus track.
01 We're Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together (Velvet Underground)
02 Lisa Says (Velvet Underground)
03 Sweet Bonnie Brown (Velvet Underground)
04 It's Just Too Much (Velvet Underground)
05 Over You (Velvet Underground)
06 Follow the Leader [Edit] (Velvet Underground)
07 Ride into the Sun (Velvet Underground)
08 Oh Gin (Velvet Underground)
09 Walk and Talk It (Velvet Underground)
10 Sad Song (Velvet Underground)
11 Love Makes You Feel Ten Feet Tall (Velvet Underground)
12 Satellite of Love (Velvet Underground)
13 I Love You (Velvet Underground)
Wild Child [Acoustic Rehearsal] (Velvet Underground)
https://www.imagenetz.de/bWctp
Most of the album cover art comes from a Velvet Underground concert poster for a concert at the Hippodrome in San Diego in 1968. The art style is a bit out of fashion for 1970, but not that far off. I removed the central part of the poster (which named the supporting bands) and replaced it with a photo of the band from 1970, and check out the "groovy" clothes they're wearing. I resized the rectangular poster to make it squish into a square space, and I added a background color, plus the album title at the bottom.
No comments:
Post a Comment