The Velvet Forum

Howdy all,

I'm sure most of us who keep up with music trends have read that cassettes are "cool again", what with Cassette Store Day, tape-only labels, and box sets coming out in the format. I've always had a soft spot for tapes, as they were the dominant format when I first started obsessively collecting music. And when I got my first CD player in the late 1980s, I was underwhelmed with the sound quality (especially after all the "perfect sound forever" hype). Things have improved with time, as producers and labels seem to now know how to properly master older analog recordings so that they don't sound flat and thin on CD, but just as often, they digitally compress things for the "loudness" effect that blows out any subtlety.

Anyway, my 10-year-old Volvo S40 has both a cassette deck and CD player, and I thought it would be fun to collect Velvets albums on cassette. Hey, there's only so many times I can buy these things on vinyl and CD before I need something different. And cassettes don't skip when I hit a pothole! So I was pretty quickly able to pick up 10 VU tapes on eBay and Discogs, followed by a hard plastic case that holds exactly 10 tapes. I printed out a Warhol banana, put some adhesive backing on it, and voila...my own VU cassette box set!



I was able to pick up nearly all of these tapes still sealed from one eBay seller. The exceptions were: 1.) Loaded, which was very, very hard to find on cassette. The only thing I could come up with was a used European press on Atlantic that is titled "Art Gallery - Loaded", via Discogs Marketplace. I'm not sure what "Art Gallery" means, although I am guessing it was a reissue series of some sort (the copyright date is 1975); and, 2.) The last tape is a 2003 European comp apparently meant to capitalize on the popularity of "I'm Sticking With You" having been used in a Hyundai commercial. I did get this one sealed and on eBay, but from a different seller. The tape was manufactured in Thailand, likely one of the last few places in the world still making tapes in 2003.

Needless to say, I've been enjoying listening to the tapes in the car. They all sound pretty great. White Light/White Heat, in particular, has not had a CD release that I really like yet (I've got really high hopes for the upcoming 45th anniversary set), and "Sister Ray" sounds great in this analog format. I've enjoyed the 2003 comp quite a bit more than I expected to. It leans more towards the Velvets' more mellow side (something they admit to in the liner notes). Many songs are in different versions than are on the other tapes -- all but one of the included Banana Album tracks are in mono, and "Sunday Morning" is even the mono single mix; all the tracks from the 3rd album are Closet Mixes, except for "Pale Blue Eyes"; and "Sweet Jane" and "Rock and Roll" are the "Full Length Versions" from Peel Slowly and See/Fully Loaded. It seems weird to have these versions on a commercial cassette, when they only became widely available in an era when CDs had pretty much killed cassettes in most of the world.

Leaman, nice collection. I can't imagine anyone collecting VU cassettes but I love the set and the cool flight-case idea. Like the kind of thing you could grab in an emergency.

There was a time when the only VU I had access to was some cassettes whilst my LPs were in storage. These are the ones, although the WLWH was a more recent acquisition. All these are UK releases.

The WLWH here is dated 1984 and has the title song and IHHCMN switched. I bought the V.U. cassette when it was released and the 'Safety film' compilation is I think the the oldest of these cassettes. The latter is a strong compilation and maybe one worth adding to your collection ? if you have room in that box?

iaredatsun wrote:Leaman, nice collection. I can't imagine anyone collecting VU cassettes but I love the set and the cool flight-case idea. Like the kind of thing you could grab in an emergency.

There was a time when the only VU I had access to was some cassettes whilst my LPs were in storage. These are the ones, although the WLWH was a more recent acquisition. All these are UK releases.

The WLWH here is dated 1984 and has the title song and IHHCMN switched. I bought the V.U. cassette when it was released and the 'Safety film' compilation is I think the the oldest of these cassettes. The latter is a strong compilation and maybe one worth adding to your collection ? if you have room in that box?

Thanks, Simon! Yes, it is a little hard to imagine, but as the Discogs seller that I bought "Art Gallery - Loaded" from pointed out, I must be an obsessed fan, and the "obsessives are the best to deal with," according to him.

There was a little bit of poignancy to buying that cassette though. As mentioned, I had a hard time tracking down a cassette of Loaded. I find it hard to believe that it was never released on cassette in the USA, but that may well be the case. I got the tape in the mail on a Friday, but the first time I had the chance to listen to it was in the car on the Sunday following -- shortly after finding out Lou had passed. I had a bit of a long drive to make, just long enough to hear the whole album, and I can say for a fact that it's the only time that Loaded brought tears to my eyes. Although it was probably more the circumstances than the album itself, it was very sad to hear Lou sound so alive on "Sweet Jane" and "Rock and Roll", and "New Age" and "Oh Sweet Nothing" revealed some new layers to me.

But, I digress...

I don't have any more room in that particular case. It holds 10 tapes, and I've got 10 Velvets tapes, exactly. But two of them are comps, and I could easily swap out one of them, at least temporarily. The 1989 "Words and Music of Lou Reed" comp is hardly my favorite Velvets album, but it does have some "extended length" versions of a few songs that are apparently not found elsewhere. "I'm Waiting For the Man" and "Beginning to See the Light" are ~10 seconds longer, "What Goes On" is ~20 seconds longer, and "All Tomorrow's Parties" is supposedly some sort of remix. Apparently they started with the "single voice version" from the 1986 CD, and then "re-doubled" Nico's vocals, so that it's like the original album version, but not exactly. So, I keep it around for those slight differences, but yeah, Id probably prefer the "film strip" comp a little better. It's not as cut-and-dried and by-the-book in its song selections.

While I was cassette hunting, I did see White Light/White Heat copies like yours, with the toy soldiers cover. I am really tempted to pick it up, because I've always been a fan of that alternate cover.

I have a few myself. Two nice UK 1971 VU & Nico and Wl/Wh, a mid 80's Canadian Wl/Wh black no skull, UK mid 80' s VU & Nico and some Spanish issues: Wl/Wh , Historia de la Musica Rock comp, and the original 1974 censored Lou Reed & The Velvet Underground.

The Holly Grail of the cassette collector, if that exists, should be the original 1968 USA Ampex tape of Wl/Wh with shull and "Searchin". One was ebay auctioned by Subterranean Records years ago ... Only one i have seen in my life...

A Promotional MCMXCIII tape can be found here: Price is more or less reasonable...