"...I'm Set Free..."
"All You Need Is Love..." - The
Beatles said. I'd agree (mostly). Except perhaps when it comes to the muddy
cash-grab quagmire that is big-league-albums by hugely influential bands.
With the 45th and 50th anniversaries of 1967,
1968, 1969 and next year 1970 passing us by sequentially - in my not so humble
opinion, Velvet Underground fans (like everyone else) have been hit with a
plethora of dubious Multiple-Disc Sets. The all-encompassing definitive issue
(until next time that is) will have the Stereo Mix – the Mono Mix – padded
packaging and unreleased Live /Acetate stuff that given the audio cacophony
which was The VU is either unlistenable or barely rises above interesting -
tracks you'll play once in other words and never feel the need to again.
So for Art-Rock platter number three - "The Velvet
Underground" issued March and April 1969 respectively on MGM Records USA
and UK - I'd stick my foot in Door No. 1. The simple single-CD '45th
Anniversary Remaster - The Val Valentin Mix' is all you need. You get great
remastered audio from a team of three who took care - a half decent booklet of
12-pages that isn't the gatefold slip of paper of old (the inlay isn’t perfect
for sure but it is better than what was on offer before) - and best of all -
"The Velvet Underground" is generally available brand new for less
than a fiver from many online retailers. To the quietly majestic music and
those pale blue eyes...
UK released 24 November 2014 - "The Velvet
Underground: 45th Anniversary Remaster - The Val Valentin Mix" by THE VELVET UNDERGROUND
Single-CD Reissue of their 1969 third album on UMC/Polydor 0602547038661 (Barcode 602547038661) plays out
as follows (43:53 minutes):
1. Candy Says [Side 1]
2. What Goes On
3. Some Kinda Love
4. Pale Blue Eyes
5. Jesus
6. Beginning To See The Light [Side 2]
7. I'm Set Free
8. That's The Story Of My Life
9. The Murder Mystery
10. After Hours
Tracks 1 to 10 are their third studio album
"The Velvet Underground" - released March 1969 in the USA on MGM
Records SE-4617 and April 1969 on MGM Records CS 8108 in STEREO (reissued November
1971 in the UK on MGM Select 2353 022 with different artwork). The album was recorded Nov/Dec 1968 at the T.T.G. Studios in Hollywood, California.
A team of three renowned names have handled the
transfers - Supervision by BILL LEVENSON and JAMIE FELDMAN with Mastering by
one of Universal's long-standing Audio Engineers KEVIN REEVES. Reeves has done
huge swathes of the UMC catalogue over the last two decades - I think its
literally over 300 credits including large amounts of multiple-genres in the
'Originals' series. He's hits the tapes for Audio Fidelity as well. In fact if
his name is on it, like say Vic Anesini over at Sony/BMG or Erick Labson for
Chess or Ellen Fitton for Motown and so on - I want it. My battered original LP (and manky reissue for that matter) have never sounded this good.
The booklet is a pleasing 12-pages but its entirely pictures and posters,
gigs with harmonica legend Charlie Musselwhite at the Avalon Ballroom, jangling
and Prog Rock-ing with The Byrds and England's Colosseum in Boston, headlining
The Hilltop Festival in Mason, New Hampshire, sharing with The Chapter Five at
Springers in Portland, November 21, 1969 - even a ticket stub from The Whisky A
Go Go on the credits page looking like a naught remnant from the past. There
aren't any liner notes per say which for an Anniversary Reissue is bizarre - no
history - no sense of its place - zip - damn shame that. But for a fiver,
overlook it, because the music is worth it.
Disarming, perhaps even menacing, the Side 1
opener "Candy Says" oozes genuine pain and hurt – I need the quite
places, if I could walk away from me, Lou Reed sings – the remaster gorgeous
too. Back to more frantic frenetic territory with "What Goes On" –
those LR guitars sounding like a 1967 Byrds session where everyone has dropped
something small, lysergic and purple and said to hell with it – let’s distort
those axes. And again the hypnotic drone sound – so influential – you can
literally hear Roxy Music and their 1972 debut on Island Records coming in the
distance (Ferry covered the song on his 1978 solo LP "The Bride Stripped
Bare").
Sloppy and yet rumbling like a volcano about to
erupt – suddenly the guitars of "Some Kinda Love" are fantastically
clear as they do battle in each speaker. Combines the absurd with the vulgar –
indeed the possibilities are endless in this cleaned up movie. One of my
absolute VU faves – the gorgeous and emotionally delicate "Pale Blue
Eyes" is thrilling to hear in such clarity. And I love the articulacy of
linger-on lyrics like, "...thought of you as my mountain top...thought of
you as my peak...thought of you as everything...I've had but couldn't
keep..." Lou Reed then ends Side 1 with the let-me-find-a-purpose prayer
to "Jesus" – a song I've always felt was not-so-secretly about drugs
and a sincere plea for a willpower tunnel of light somewhere up in the
distance.
Strumming its melodic way out of your speakers
from Side 2 is the here-we-go-again "Beginning To See The Light" – a
tune that feels like the morning after "Jesus" when the cravings
return and the snarl of sarcasm takes over. I've always love that doubled vocal
in the opening lines of "I'm Set Free" – underpinning the emotion and
the off-the-cuff guitar solo that seems to be receding into some black hole it
can’t get out of. "I'm Set Free" is brilliant VU - lovely yet tainted
with their peculiar brand of shiny leather corruption. The jaunty rat-a-tat of
"That's The Story Of My Life" is followed by a barrage of voices and
poetry in "The Murder Mystery" - Mo Tucker's fay vocal like Nico's
younger sister. She continues to sing on the closer "After Hours" -
possibly a tad too whimsical for the hurt beauty that's preceded it.
Always somehow forgotten after the explosive
1967 game-changer debut with Nico – VU's third however has always felt like a
classic to me - even a forgotten one despite its chart placing of No. 15 in the
USA (its dullard artwork and unimaginative name did it no favours). And in 2019
- a full 50 years on - they still sound otherworldly like say My Bloody
Valentine and the Cocteau Twins - like a band from the future giving us a
lyrical and musical nod so we can prepare for the next stage.
Amazing stuff and
so damn cool too. And available my children of Reed, Morrison, Yule & Tucker & Co. (a team of lawyers in California specialising in misery) for only a
skydiver...
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