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Re: 1968 Upbeat Footage Survival Confirmed?
Posted: 28 May 2019 04:40
by peppergomez
we'll knight you as the patron saint of all things VU if you do
Re: 1968 Upbeat Footage Survival Confirmed?
Posted: 02 Jun 2019 18:53
by simonm
There's a live version of GIFIL that Cale has/had that he shared on a US radio interview in 1979, that's been bootlegged many times - on the broadcast he says it's from the Gymnasium, but the more distorted and compressed sound (as well as different lyrics and song structure to the Gym version that was officially released) has led some to speculate that it might actually be the off-air tape made by Conrad...
Re: 1968 Upbeat Footage Survival Confirmed?
Posted: 02 Jun 2019 22:24
by Haight Trashbury
simonm wrote: ↑02 Jun 2019 18:53
There's a live version of GIFIL that Cale has/had that he shared on a US radio interview in 1979, that's been bootlegged many times - on the broadcast he says it's from the Gymnasium, but the more distorted and compressed sound (as well as different lyrics and song structure to the Gym version that was officially released) has led some to speculate that it might actually be the off-air tape made by Conrad...
Conrad’s tape was of the Spring, 1968 appearance where the band played “Run Run Run,” so I doubt that recording was his.
Re: 1968 Upbeat Footage Survival Confirmed?
Posted: 03 Jun 2019 00:28
by simonm
what makes you so sure?
Re: 1968 Upbeat Footage Survival Confirmed?
Posted: 03 Jun 2019 02:35
by peppergomez
The band played for several nights at the Gymnasium didn't they? That other version could be from another night. In which case there was more than one full show taped? Would be nice, if so.
Re: 1968 Upbeat Footage Survival Confirmed?
Posted: 03 Jun 2019 14:39
by iaredatsun
Haight Trashbury wrote: ↑27 May 2019 23:56
I just contacted the archive that had the Velvets footage. Both appearances were wiped. To conserve tape, only the most famous artists on the show had their performances saved, and since the Velvets didn’t kept big until a decade or two after they appeared on the show, their appearances were trashed. Curiously, there is a quote from Tony Conrad where he said that he taped their 1968 performance off of his TV while it was still on the air.
He surely kept his copy, so I’d assume that the last remaining tape of this show would be in his family’s archives. We gotta look into this.
Except that Conrad purportedly gave all his VU tapes to Cale. But good luck.
Re: 1968 Upbeat Footage Survival Confirmed?
Posted: 27 Jun 2019 02:05
by Haight Trashbury
I just emailed David Spero, and he also said that all of the VU “Upbeat” appearances were wiped. There is now absolutely no doubt that Tony Conrad’s tape is the last of its kind. This discussion will now be moved to a new thread solely concerning the current location of Conrad’s archives.
Re: 1968 Upbeat Footage Survival Confirmed?
Posted: 05 Jul 2019 16:01
by Haight Trashbury
Ok. I just heard from another user that Conrad’s tape is audio-only, and that as recently as 2010, Conrad still had it in his archive. This makes for the following, difinitive conclusion on the VU on Upbeat.
1. No video survives of the VU on Upbeat.
2. Audio survives of their Spring, 1968 show in which they played “Run Run Run,” and it is located in Conrad’s archives. Although it is unclear where these archives are now, it is commonly believed that they are currently in the possession of John Cale.
Mystery solved.
Re: 1968 Upbeat Footage Survival Confirmed?
Posted: 06 Jul 2019 17:19
by Haight Trashbury
Haight Trashbury wrote: ↑05 Jul 2019 16:01
Ok. I just heard from another user that Conrad’s tape is audio-only, and that as recently as 2010, Conrad still had it in his archive. This makes for the following, difinitive conclusion on the VU on Upbeat.
1. No video survives of the VU on Upbeat.
2. Audio survives of their Spring, 1968 show in which they played “Run Run Run,” and it is located in Conrad’s archives. Although it is unclear where these archives are now, it is commonly believed that they are currently in the possession of John Cale.
Mystery solved.
Update:
I am now highly suspicious of the contents of Conrad’s tape. Come to think of it, there are no descriptions of its contents that do not rely on fifty-year-old memories, so take everything I just said with a grain of salt. Still pretty sure the masters were wiped, tho.