Words and Music May 1965 - Lou Reed

[Mark]

Looking forward to this release, but what I'd really love to hear is something from when they were a 4 piece with Maclise. When they were doing improvised soundtracks for Piero Heliczer events or slowly edging towards the sound that was fully formed by early 1966. That to me is the lost piece of the jigsaw, and sadly it doesn't seem like there's any surviving document. Maybe it sounds better in my head anyway!

[peppergomez]

Looking forward to this release, but what I'd really love to hear is something from when they were a 4 piece with Maclise. When they were doing improvised soundtracks for Piero Heliczer events or slowly edging towards the sound that was fully formed by early 1966. That to me is the lost piece of the jigsaw, and sadly it doesn't seem like there's any surviving document. Maybe it sounds better in my head anyway!

Agreed, that would be more interesting than the poor man's Dylan thing that Reed was doing with acoustic guitar.
Though the true holy grail IMO is their live shows in 1968 with Cale. Wish those would surface.

[mangue]

Looking forward to this release, but what I'd really love to hear is something from when they were a 4 piece with Maclise. When they were doing improvised soundtracks for Piero Heliczer events or slowly edging towards the sound that was fully formed by early 1966. That to me is the lost piece of the jigsaw, and sadly it doesn't seem like there's any surviving document. Maybe it sounds better in my head anyway!

Fully agree! The music from the period between acoustic guitar demos and Up-tight/EPI performances is so far completely missing.
Searching for something else [WBAI, Bob Fass] came across two potentially interesting collections at Columbia University Libraries:

--Bob Fass Recordings and Papers [1935-2011], which includes audio [a.o.radio shows, demos, live recordings] - https://findingaids.library.columbia.ed ... d_11749061
acc.Sterling [in Up-tight] Bob Fass "would air a few cuts [of VU&N] a night for a long time"
maybe he had some special recordings of them; and for sure said interesting things before/after having played VU cuts

--Angus MacLise papers, 1956-2010 [incl.audio-visual material]
https://findingaids.library.columbia.ed ... d_10260984
there seems to be quite some tapes of the 1965/66 period archived there

[Wick Pick]

Thought I'd just share this cool dream I had last night. I've been having a lot of crazy dreams lately, but this one might just be my favourite. And I've had a couple real cool music dreams. This one clearly was inspirted by my exicitement over the coming release of "Words and Music Lou Reed". Copied below from my dream journal.
To avoid confusion, nothing written below is true, it's just a dream.

I found myself in university, visiting someone else’s music class. The prof was playing an old tape he had acquired somehow. It was a tape of a young Lou Reed playing his songs on acoustic guitar. I made notes of each song on the tape, and wrote down the year that I figured it must have come from, “’63-’64”. I heard each song and then wrote down the name. It was the writing in my dream that has helped me to remember. The first song was one I’ve never heard, and it’s not even a real Lou Reed song title, but I heard it in my dream and can remember the refrain. It was called ‘I’m Just A Poor Country Boy’. The second song was cool because it started with a bit of music I didn’t recognize, but there was no mistaking those opening lyrics, and I wrote down the title ‘Guess I’m Falling In Love (partial)”, as it was only the first verse. The third song was another unheard, and even earlier version of ‘Heroin’. There were more songs after that but I don’t remember any of them until the final song, which was the song that gave me the greatest thrill. The prof introduced it as ‘The Black Angel’s Death Song’, but it was totally different. It was played as a love song of sorts. It was very melodic, had different words, and even had a beautiful chorus that doesn’t exist on the real-life recording of the song. I wish I could remember exactly how this went. Most of the songs were played as snippets. I remember the class full of students. I was the only one standing up, and I was really leaning into it, listening hard to every nuance of the recording. When I woke up, it took me a while to drift fully into reality, and I can remember my disappointment in realizing that it was just a dream. But I made mental notes before I drifted off again.

[iaredatsun]

I just read of a June 8th (although that’s a sunday) announcement. Presume it will be the release of this copyright tape.

[iaredatsun]

I just read of a June 8th (although that’s a sunday) announcement. Presume it will be the release of this copyright tape.

I think now that I worked out / remembered that Ecstatic Peace have a VU book up their sleeve, I suspect my connection of 8th June with the 1965 tape release announcement is a RED herring.

[hkmartin]

Light in the Attic is hinting on Twitter that they'll be announcing something good on Monday.

[hkmartin]

Here it is! It's not live yet, but I figured out the url. 30 second samples of all the songs.
https://lightintheattic.net/releases/8749

[Mark]

Very cool!

Did we know about the 1958 and 1963/64 tracks? I don't think they were listed in the archive were they?

[Mark]

Ah wait, it looks like those tracks are taken from this tape:

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/ite ... 2e1d74cc91

It's labelled 1967 at NYPL though, wonder what made them change their mind on that?