Pre-Velvet Underground
 

Your favourite bands Reed played in or co-wrote for, pre-Velvet Underground. A poll is on the way.

Jesus... I feel so ignorant. I'm pathetic.

You must know at least The Primitives' The Ostrich as that appears on countless bootlegs.

No, sorry to say. I have only one VU boot, the Unripened thing.

I have had some not at all unenjoyable exposure to the Beachnuts.

Someone needs to YSI a mix. I've never listened to any pre VU reed.

I was thinking of upping an excellent Italian bootleg where i first got hold of all this stuff. With patience, i'll pm it to whoever is interested.

Pookie, i won the battle for the least popular poll in the history of this message board's polls. I'm the only one who voted, call yourselves Velvet Underground fans, damnit!

I m interested in hearing this Porky.

I've heard lots of Cale's pre-Velvets stuff, but none of Lou's. Kind of weird that, actually.

http://www.badongo.com/file/2887068

1- THE JADES/LEAVE HER FOR ME
2 - THE PRIMITIVES/THE OSTRICH
3 - THE ALL NIGHT WORKERS/DON'T PULL ALL YOUR LEGS IN A BUSKET
4 - THE BEACHNUTS/CYCLE ANNIE
5 - THE INTIMATES/I'VE GOT A TIGER IN MY TANK
6 - THE ROUGHNECKS/YOU'RE DRIVING ME INSANE

The Ostrich features the first appearance (i think) of the infamous 'Ostrich Guitar'. It's a short mix but i hope you will enjoy. Many of the songs that Reed wrote for the Pickwick label were written very quickly and for a few bucks, so the actual quality is pretty throwaway, but it still serves as a document of what went on before The Velvet Underground.

More info on the records themselves can be found on here:
http://olivier.landemaine.free.fr/prevu/lrprevu.html

Wow! This was an eye opener for me. I didn't know about anything of this stuff. The badongo link isn't working by the way...

The link is working fine, just checked it.

well crap on me then, must be my computer...

Wait for the countdown to finish and enter the code in capital letters.

Wish I could get that far...

It's your pc, then. Try later.

Thanks for the link.

From wiki:

The ad hoc group, called The Primitives, included John Cale, who had recently come to the city to study music and was playing with the composer La Monte Young. Cale was surprised to find that for the novelty song, Reed tuned each string of his guitar to the same note. This technique created a drone effect similar to that which Cale's avant garde ensemble had been experimenting with.

Is that true or is it just bullshit?

Yes, that's true. Conrad and Cale joined the group after they were spotted at a party because of their long hair, which was considered hip back then. I can't remember the name of the person who did, but he worked for the Pickwick label and he took them into a recording studio where they met Lou Reed.

Man, the link still won't work. This sucks.

hey, awesome. thanks for the mix.
i've never really bothered to check out lou's pre-velvet stuff. what bootleg is that you're talking about?

I'll check the title when i get home later because i can't remember now. Pookie has been cheating in this poll, it's not fair.

Even without my cheating, you still wouldn't have won the battle for least popular poll.

Although I like to think my input spurred people on to vote.

Megalomaniac!

Haha.

I didn't mean because it was me who voted. I just meant that maybe people were scared to be the first to vote and possibly make fools of themselves.

therr's a fantastic VU exhibit at a rare bookstore at 50 1/2 E 64th Street in NYC right now. They have an amazing catalog of all the posters and rare magazine articles and photos, I just need to scrape together the $45 to get it...

I want that. Do you know if the catalogue can be bought online?

I'm sure you could mail/phone order it if not online...they were really nice people...

http://www.johnmcwhinnie.com/current...ion/index.html