Velvet Underground-1969 Velvet Underground Live With Lou Reed (1975)


 

Artist: The Velvet Underground

Title: 1969 Velvet Underground Live with Lou Reed

Album 1  Album 2

Label: Mercury

Format: 2LP

Cat #: SRM-2-7504

Year of Release: 1974

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 1975 gatefold reissue

Listed Condition: VG/VG

Sell Date: 12/2/21

Sell Price: $33.99

Discogs Last Sold: 8/26/21 NM/VG+ $44.00

Low: $12.99 VG/G+

Median: $31.00

Average: $34.19

High: $55.00 NM/NM

Current low price: $29.43 VG+/VG

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 7

Have/Want: 306/171

Where Sold: Lake Worth, FL

Time it took to sell: 6 years

Where and When Bought: Worcester Al Bums $6.99 used

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade:A-

Sad To See It Go: No

Striking while the iron was hot, Mercury issued  1969 Velvet Underground recordings from October 1969 at the End of Cole Ave in Dallas and November 1969 at the Matrix in San Francisco.  The double album was released in 1974 hot on the heels of Sally Can't Dance, a blockbuster top 10 album after a run of top 6o or so Lou Reed albums.  The Velvet Underground barely scaped the Billboard 200 in it's day and even as a reissue these recordings didn't chart at all.

Aesthetically this archival release is important.  Distilled down to 103 minutes from 8 hours of recordings.  Nowaday the people buying this material would prefer the complete set of music, and I know the Matrix tapes have indeed been issued as a 4-CD set.  The Dallas tapes from a month before appear only to have been bootlegs outside of this release.  For many years they were the only available recordings of the period between 1968's Velvet Underground and 1970's Loaded until Verve started the reissue campaign with VU in the mid-80's. Cotillion had a competing live set from NYC August 1970 that was issued in 1972.    On this double, you get alot of crucial music in a transitional phase. "Femme Fatale" post Nico with Lou singing and a pre-Loaded "Sweet Jane" are prime examples.  Yule is in (and does "I'll Be Your Mirror"), Cale is out, Morrison and Tucker remain at the end of '69.

Given the importance of VU, it's a bit shocking their live output was limited often to what tape equipment the fans would bring or venues might have in their sound system.  This makes  the lower fidelity part of the enduring aesthetic, although Lou Reed solo was a different deal.

Crucial as a document, if not regular dedicated listening.


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