Cale-Era Concert Tape Recovery?

[Haight Trashbury]

I’m sure you’re all aware of the Velvets concert tape made by Jamie Klimek (of Mirrors) back in the sixties. However, I should still clear things up for fans who haven’t. Anyway, Klimek taped a complete Cale-era performance of the band at La Cave in April, 1968, which contains the only known recording of “Sweet Sister Ray,” a song used by the band as a prelude to “Sister Ray” during live gigs. 90% of the recording was accidentally wiped years ago, and “Sweet Sister Ray,” fragments of “Venus in Furs” and “Sister Ray,” and “Heroin” are the only songs that were spared. The reel included the only known recording of the Cale lineup in 1968, and includes the only(?) known live recording of “Hey Mr. Rain,” alongside other awesome goodies. After the accidental erasure, all of this material was presumed to be gone forever. The surviving contents were bootlegged, and the tape was shelved away indefinitely. End of story.

Well... Not quite.
You see, I read an article online explaining that, more often than not, wiped reel-to-reel recordings are, at least in part, easily recoverable. This works because tape machines’ erasure heads very often fail to completely line up with the tracks that they’re trying to wipe, and thus only delete part of the signal. Of course, your typical tape player won’t pick up on this leftover data (which is probably why its existence so often goes unnoticed), but many more advanced devices can. I was thinking that if we sent Klimek’s tape (hopefully the original master still exists) to a professional media preservationist, we could very easily recover at least some of the concert. I’m very much hoping that this is possible, and am excited to see what you have to say about it.

[Low]

It is an interesting idea, but I don't think Klimek is interested in getting approached about his velvet tapes at the moment, atleast from what I've read on this forum in other threads.
Even if he would like that, the original tape has likely deteriorated in the past 50 years (I'm not sure however what kind of tape or recorder he used on that April 68 concert).

But, of course, I hope it hasn't and that it's possible to recover, or that maybe Cale or someone else has a copy of the full concert somewhere.

[Low]

Btw, found this on youtube, it's Klimek's band Mirrors performing a cover of Sweet Sister Ray a couple of years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVLlSdO539g

[iaredatsun]

Nice idea, but my guess is that there's as much hope of this being possible as there is of extracting the sound vibrations still embedded in the original concert venue walls.

We can only hope that one day it turns out that Lou or John made a copy of the tape.

[peppergomez]

grasping at straws here, sadly

[Mark]

Damn, someone really needs to find Klimek and talk sense into him. He taped some incredible gems that need to see the light of day in full - far more so, imo, than the frankly quite dull Professor and Quine stuff.

[peppergomez]

if it was all erased, what can he possibly do?

[Mark]

Part of one tape (La Cave April 68) was erased. He taped loads of stuff - every Cleveland area concert for a few years supposedly, only some of which has made it out.

[peppergomez]

do we know for a fact he taped all their Cleveland appearances?

[Mark]

I only know what it says here:

http://olivier.landemaine.free.fr/vu/li ... erf68.html

"Klimek taped every single Cleveland Velvets show from the Plastic Exploding Inevitable on out but most of those tapes unfortunately haven't surfaced. People who had chance to hear them all say that there is still some excellent stuff that hasn't surfaced, like the long, winding Sweet Sister Ray intro to Sister Ray that goes on for some 15 minutes of trippy, dreamy VU, and a superb Waitin' For My Man with Cale."

Could be Chinese whispers but I see no reason why it would be untrue. We do know that Klimek taped at least 3 shows - La Cave 68 x 2, and Jan 69 - none of which we have in full.