Lou Reed - Winter 1970 demos: a query

[simonm]

Is this the one with 'Looking Through The Eyes of Love' on it? IIRC the first song is 'I'm So Free'? No chat or other voices?

I had a 99th gen tape of this that I digitised and cleaned up substantially a few yrs ago - could this be what's been torrented? I might be able to yousendit the version of Kill Your Sons later if I remember - if Papaya can confirm it's the same I can probably get it out to you somehow. I like Megaupload. If Papaya says it sounds crap compared to the torrent, it'd be a waste of time.

[calamine]

Well, I have to climb into the way-back machine, put on my thinking cap and go back to 1978 or so, when I first heard these tapes. From what I recall, they are almost certainly post- VU, not that Lou could not have written some of them during the Loaded era. By the way who remembers Lisa Robinson from the early USA network, she was the rock & roll correspondent (wit the Noo Yawk accent) on the old Night Flight and Radio 1990 shows in the early 80's, hence Lou being featured on and showing up on those shows. This is a nice clean version, better than the one I had back then. Great to hear it again!

thank you for the information! very cool.

[papaya]

@Simon: Yes it seems to be the same.
The sound is not that good but...who cares Im happy to get anything

[papaya]

Now I get it and learnt how to upload files fia megaupload. Hope it works fine.

And here it is (Lossless quality)

Part 1 (The first 6 of 12 songs)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=044KG8SK
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DJZFJ8E2
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SMZXR92Z
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=G6GS0V46
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=K8VKUAMR
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8DXHD0PM



Lou Reed 1970 Acoustic Demos
Fall and Winter 1970

Fall 1970

01 I'm So Free
02 I Can't Stand It
03 Walk And Talk It

Winter 1970

04 Going Down
05 Ride Into The Sun
06 I'm Sticking With You
07 Lisa Says
08 Kill Our Sons (aka Kill Your Sons)
09 Lonely Saturday Night (aka Goodnight Ladies)
10 So In Love
11 She's My Best Friend
12 Looking Through The Eyes Of Love (aka Oh Jim)

Total time: 30:52

From a cassette received in trade in 1973.
cassette (azimuth adjusted)>CD-R>EAC>Audacity (amplify)>CD Wave>FLAC

[papaya]

Part 2

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=B2MC66PQ
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7EKHILNN
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7467CGNY
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=OKLW0SSX
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=P1GV01GB
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=65ERFV21


Papaya

[calamine]

too much! you are the best, papaya!

[cc]

these demos are fascinating to listen to, but... as music I find them really terrible. And I say that not as any kind of anti-Lou Reed, VU-era purist. But listening to these as well as the contemporary interviews that have been seeded recently, I'm getting a better sense of how at this stage he really seemed to want to jettison the experimentalism of the VU and get into what he calls "straight rock and roll." But not even that: on these demos he plunks on the guitar like some kind of coffeehouse geek and takes the songs in oddly tight-assed directions. The added lyrics on "Ocean"--the stuff about Banquo, lords and ladies, etc.--are a travesty. All told, I've revised my opinion that Richard Robinson was to blame for how bad the first solo album is--he certainly was no producer, but it seems to have taken Bowie--who according to one of these tapes, Reed had not yet heard of!--to get him on the path to making interesting music again.

Probably, also Bob Ezrin deserves credit for making Berlin something other than a first album redux, as there are some of those coffeehouse elements there as well, but they're very effective. It seems as if Lou Reed didn't bring in his own production concepts until (re-?)discovering funk on Sally Can't Dance, and getting deeper into that sound as the 70s went on.

[MJG196]

The added lyrics on "Ocean"--the stuff about Banquo, lords and ladies, etc.--are a travesty. All told, I've revised my opinion that Richard Robinson was to blame for how bad the first solo album is--he certainly was no producer, but it seems to have taken Bowie--who according to one of these tapes, Reed had not yet heard of!--to get him on the path to making interesting music again.

Probably, also Bob Ezrin deserves credit for making Berlin something other than a first album redux, as there are some of those coffeehouse elements there as well, but they're very effective. It seems as if Lou Reed didn't bring in his own production concepts until (re-?)discovering funk on Sally Can't Dance, and getting deeper into that sound as the 70s went on.

Remember, these demos are exactly that: demos. He wasnt playin' 'em to record. He was working out melodies, lyrics, and chords as he went.

I think Berlin is Ezrin's greatest production achievement and could never have been the masterpiece it is without him. As for Sally, everyone (Lou, engineers, production) says that Lou had very little to do with the entire album other than lyrics:

They'd make a suggestion and I'd say, "Oh, alright." I'd do the vocals in one take, in twenty minutes, and then it was goodbye. - Lou

As an artist Lou was not totally...there. He had to be propped up like a baby with things done for him and around him. - Steve Katz

I'd say Lou started bringing his own production to the fore (as a solo artist) with Metal Machine Music. That LP, and everything after, is 100% Lou. Sally has a bit of funk, but I can't offhand think of any other LP's w/ it. Maybe The Bells? I havent listened to that one in so long...I cant remember.

[Jez]

A big thank you to everyone that has helped to distribute these to the wider masses.

Much appreciated.

[MJG196]

Additionally, I am gonna go out on a limb and say this is the Winter of 1969/70 as opposed to 1970/71. In the Deluxe 2CD Loaded Edition, the booklet has a picture of a studio recording sheet dated 15-16 April 1970, and the song "Oh Gin" on it. At that point, the song was almost in its final form.

Also, I have always read that Kill Your Sons dates from Lou's VU-era, yet I can't recall ever hearing a version of it from that time. Perhaps this is it...finally seeing daylight?

Based on those two points (one is fact, the other is somewhat hearsay), I'd say this is still Lou while he was still in the Velvet Underground. This is NOT solo Lou.

This is all conjecture of course.