Velvet Underground Trainspotting Question

I want them professor tapes but I can't be arsed to register at that forum :-/

i'm sure they'll slip into general circulation pretty quickly. Not sure why there's all the cloak & dagger stuff over at the velvet forum -- plenty of other unreleased VU material circulates freely doesn't it? Doesn't seem like Lou has an intern surfing the blogs for bootlegs or anything. I would apply to be that intern, however.

I do that for my label. It's really frustrating work. Some of the file sharing sites are like "abuse? sorry, we'll take it down" (not in an email, just in their FAQ or whatever, and they do.)

Others though...have all this text saying "if you have a claim of ownership to something being hosted with us, you have to send us your name and address and explain how you own it and where you found it and who linked to it and prove this and that" and even then still don't take it down. The bloggers themselves are more response in deleting the link to the shared file, even if the sharing site still has it up.

I have google alerts for my releases and have to say either file sharing has gone up or the new CD is more popular than the last, but it's not a great feeling to get emails from google every day telling me about the various torrent sites and mediafire and rapidshare and megaupload locations that the entire CD is being hosted at.

oh yeah, i can see having someone tracking down sites that are offering officially released material, but the bootleg-y stuff seems like a different thing ... at least I hope it does, as someone who runs a bootleg blog! btw, dan, you reminded me I need to order that Method Actors disc!

these professor tapes are sounding gooooood. sound quality probably on par with the Quine Tapes now. So, not amazing, but very listenable.

Really special. Definitely better than any other boot of these shows.

Aside from alternate mixes, have any actual outtakes from the first 2/3 albums been released? Like "Sunday Morning, Take 01" or something?

actual outtakes from the first 2/3 albums

The versions of some of the tracks on that Norman Dolph acetate of the 1st album session have different takes or unedited versions (not just different mixes) of some of those songs. Other than that, I don't think so.

That's too bad, what with the wealth of VU and Loaded-era material. It'd be nice to hear some studio-quality stuff from earlier. Were the tapes destroyed? Wiped over?

yeah, it doesn't seem like there's any session outtakes from WL/WH or the third record ... but the Dolph acetate is fab, if you don't have that you should try to track it down.

never noticed it til the Unterberger book pointed it out, but Reed's little "Eight Miles High" tribute on the 12/12/68 "Sister Ray" is awesome! Pretty unmistakable. I love all of these "Sister Ray"s -- totally fun rollercoasters.

Ah bloody hell -- I grabbed the first .rar batch of these professor tapes (VUProf1-1-1) from a blog which then was guilted into removing the entire lot before I could grab the rest. So now I have three songs mocking me. Any tips on acquiring the rest of this set?

pm'd u

A limited edition run of 1969 Live was reissued on vinyl for Record Store Day last week, by the way. Two separate LPs. How limited isn't very clear (1500 of LP1 and 3000 of LP2 ????).
No new audio source, still no sign of the "Matrix tapes".

yeah, sort of crazy that they've never upgraded that set. I think the End of Cole Ave. bootleg sounds better than the official release ... and yeah, the Matrix Tapes sampler is clearly from a superior source. as nice as it is to have these upgraded Boston Tea Party tapes, those Matrix recordings are pretty much the holy grail right now.

Plus, the Cd editions both have extra tracks, and you can find the original 2LP set in most 'collector vinyl' shops.

the 7/11/69 show from the Professor Tapes is uhhh, pretty nuts. Were they drunk and/or high? That batshit 14 minute Run Run Run, the shambolic WL/WH, Reed's crazy vocalizing on Pale Blue Eyes. Shame it isn't a slightly better recording. Guitar playing here is wild.

Maybe Lou overdosed on papaya juice and wheat husks before he went on

possible. too much health food can cause serious noize jams. also cool to hear Lou sing Candy Says here as opposed to Doug.

He was seriously into health foods at the time

yeah, there are interviews from around the time where he sounds pretty hippie-ish. talking about auras, how "white light" is the white light of consciousness or something. drinking honey from a jar. lou reed, flower child.

It's the beginning of a new age.

Not gonna lie, this looks pretty amazing: http://www.sundazed.com/vu_quine.php
Not gonna pay $100 for it though ...

I'm past the point that I care about the object as fetish, so I'll be happy with the cds.

yeah, it's obviously bait for ummm VU trainspotters. speaking of which, wow, there are some *serious* completists over at that VU forum.

That forum scares me a bit. The cocksmanship is pretty unappealing.

yeah, kind of a weird scene. still, I'll keep lurking if things like those professor tapes keep showing up ....

Totally. That was worth it.

Indeed! Thanks for that heads up, tylerw!

anyone who wants to hear that Heard Her Call My Name from the Sundazed singles box, ahem: http://decrepittapes.blogspot.com/2010/01/velvet-underground-singles-1966-69.html

for some unknown reason i've never checked out the band's live material until recently... suddenly i find myself sucked into a frenzy of exploring this stuff. i discovered i have the first disc of the 'caught between the twisted stars' bootleg, which i downloaded and never got round to listening to at the time. i'm currently half way through acquiring the first of the professor tapes so looking forward to hearing it.

i admit to being tempted by the sundazed quine tapes set. my few rational brain cells are arguing that for that price i could get the cd version, along with the Live 1969 cds, and still have room for the sundazed singles box to scratch the vinyl itch.

Live 1969 is essential Puppa, so I'd listen to your brain cells there. The fidelity of the Quine set isn't so great that vinyl is going to make a difference over the cd versions. (I totally understand the fetishism of the lavish vinyl packaging though).

Thanks Officer Pupp. It's a sunny Sunday morning (ha!) here so I think I'll head on down to the record store and see what they've got. Good point on the Quine set fidelity. Sometimes one must set aside fetishistic tendencies.

I was never aware of how improvisational the band was. That becomes obvious when you start listening to them live of course, but usually whenever you read/hear about them the focus seems to be on their influence, the avant-garde aspects, the lyrical content, Andy Warhol, rather than the Velvet Underground as live band.

Does anyone know where I can find the new Professor tapes? Can't seem to find them anywhere

yeah, the guy who put them out asked that it not be put up on blogs for the time being ...
i'll get around to upping them at some point for people who missed em the first time around.

still available via Nuns Are On The Sea Wall blog, btw

is it? i thought he took it down ... if it's there, grab it while it lasts!

and while this thread is revived, this is probably appropriate:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Inevitable-World-of-The-Velvet-Underground/133663983326915?v=wall
A compilation of VU newspapers and magazine ads, articles and reviews published from 1966 to 1975.
• More than 340 pages
• Actual reproduction of the ads, articles and reviews.
• Numbered Limited Edition of 500
• A Bonus CD with radio ads and interviews

I haven't been able to get them working from that blog, it's a rar file, and i'm not sure what to do with it, I've gotten lots of VU downloads to work but i'm having trouble with this, I'm not that great with this sort of thing. Also,how much better is the quality than the older Boston tapes?

i just picked up some of these recently. you realize these are flac files right? the quality is a little "bass-y", but really good. better than the quine tapes official release

My files are all messed up then. Is there anywhere else I can get them? I'm dying to hear these.

If you are on a Mac you can unpack the rar archive using UnrarX. The equivalent program for Windows would appear to be WinRAR. Once you have done that you will have your flac files which you will need to convert to wav files for listening and/or burning to CD. There are some music players that will play flac files direct but it's a bit hit-and-miss.

That said I note there are some comments on the blog saying the files are corrupted or some such. I haven't tried downloading them so don't know whether it's true or not.

yeah, i think i had to use unrarx to get these files, they're uploaded kind of strangely.
i dunno if they're better quality than the Quine Tapes -- maybe the January show is. But they're a big improvement over the versions that have floated around in past decades -- a lot more listenable.

I've unzipped them using 7-zip with absolutely no problems at all. That's an excellent little bit of software, does what you want it to do with no fuss.

I've used Winrar and 7-zip and they both keep asking for a password. Does anyone know what the password is?

says it in the blog

lol thank you, can't believe I didn't see that

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=lKhbmRwBA50&feature=related

i can definitely hear the influence of denny vertigo here...

Haha, I came on this thread to post that.