Unreleased 1968 VU full band demo

[fletchercjohnson]

I was listening to the Lou Reed archive at the New York Public Library and I found something that I haven’t heard anyone mention before. There is a tape titled:

“560545 1. Reed. 2. No John Blues [Demo Jam Session/Reed in Conversation with Someone About Hypnosis] circa 1968.”

This tape features six takes of a song they’ve titled “No John Blues” and, between the second and third take, there is a track labeled “[Untitled Song]”. This untitled song is what grabbed my attention.

It starts with light percussion and an electric guitar picking quiet, arpeggiated high notes while a second guitar (or possibly bass) strums some muddy chords. Lou begins singing, “Here I stand” and then two voices (John and Sterling to my ear) come in with a falsetto harmony “feeling alone.” They repeat this and then Lou goes on: “no I need your love / And I stand above / I can’t help loving you.” All the while there is a harmonium or some other kind of air organ (probably Cale?) noodling in the background. This organ player is clearly not that familiar with the chord changes because there are a number of off-key notes. After repeating the verse twice the song moves to a short chorus of Lou singing “Here I stand all alone.” All of this is then repeated a second time with some slight variations on the lyrics.

This is a slow, quiet song which runs almost three and a half minutes. The recording quality is on par with tracks like “Sheltered Life” and “It’s All Right (the way that you live).” This demo would be very at home with those early 1967 demos

[iaredatsun]

I was listening to the Lou Reed archive at the New York Public Library and I found something that I haven’t heard anyone mention before. There is a tape titled:

“560545 1. Reed. 2. No John Blues [Demo Jam Session/Reed in Conversation with Someone About Hypnosis] circa 1968.”

This tape features six takes of a song they’ve titled “No John Blues” and, between the second and third take, there is a track labeled “[Untitled Song]”. This untitled song is what grabbed my attention.

It starts with light percussion and an electric guitar picking quiet, arpeggiated high notes while a second guitar (or possibly bass) strums some muddy chords. Lou begins singing, “Here I stand” and then two voices (John and Sterling to my ear) come in with a falsetto harmony “feeling alone.” They repeat this and then Lou goes on: “no I need your love / And I stand above / I can’t help loving you.” All the while there is a harmonium or some other kind of air organ (probably Cale?) noodling in the background. This organ player is clearly not that familiar with the chord changes because there are a number of off-key notes. After repeating the verse twice the song moves to a short chorus of Lou singing “Here I stand all alone.” All of this is then repeated a second time with some slight variations on the lyrics.

This is a slow, quiet song which runs almost three and a half minutes. The recording quality is on par with tracks like “Sheltered Life” and “It’s All Right (the way that you live).” This demo would be very at home with those early 1967 demos

Glad someone is in there listening to things for us who cannot trip to NY just to go to the library.

I kind of assumed reading the title of this tape, that 'No John Blues' might have indicated that it was made after John Cale had left? If it is Cale then that's very interesting.

[bobbydriver]

Interesting. And what is "No John Blues" like? Just a rambling jam? Any good?

[peppergomez]

Interesting. And what is "No John Blues" like? Just a rambling jam? Any good?

So much for the days of when they would theoretically fine one another for playing blues licks I guess. John took the Avant garde with him when he left.

[fletchercjohnson]

Interesting. And what is "No John Blues" like? Just a rambling jam? Any good?

My notes on the "Untitled Song" are from a little while back. I can't exactly remember what "No John Blues" was. I believe it was Lou singing while playing the piano but there were a couple songs with that arrangement in the archive so I might be confusing it with a different one.

The "Untitled Song" was the only unreleased full band Velvet Underground song that I found in the entire archive. For me it was incredibly exciting to hear!

[Mark]

Someone really needs to break some of these recordings out of NYPL. A specially adapted pair of headphones with a through link to a concealed Zoom recorder should do the job...

[peppergomez]

I'm sure UMG will find a way To convince people who already own the band's full discography to buy yet another re release of an album that has 1 or 2 of those tracks tacked on his bonus

[Ancar]

[Mark]

Someone really needs to break some of these recordings out of NYPL. A specially adapted pair of headphones with a through link to a concealed Zoom recorder should do the job...

Well. Marshall apparently make a very nice mid-price headphone set which happens to have a jack socket on the 'phones themselves so you could connect another listening (or recording) device.

https://www.marshallheadphones.com/gb/en/major-iv.html

Anyone feeling brave?