Why Don't You Smile Now: Lou Reed at Pickwick Records 1964-65

This is a dream release. Way cool stuff. I wonder who wrote the sleeve notes - Phil Milstein already did the definitive pre-Velvets article in Ugly Things.

Watch out for little cycle Annie!
 
I just bought a few downloads. Okay, so I don't get the artwork which comes with the CD, BUT I don't have to pay for a bunch of songs I don't want; I don't have to pay any postage - often exorbitant to Australia; and I don't have to worry about loss of sound quality from reading errors or jitter from less than perfect CD transport / CD pressing etc. And there's no wait!
 
Only one unreleased song on the entire collection ("Sad, Lonely Orphan Boy"). According to Unterberger's notes, there are two additional Pickwick-era demos of "Heroin" and one of "Buzz Buzz Buzz" not yet released. Also odd to make one record at 33 and the other at 45 rpm - and not the best songs on that one.

One good previously-unpublished photo.
 
chas_kit said:
Only one unreleased song on the entire collection ("Sad, Lonely Orphan Boy"). According to Unterberger's notes, there are two additional Pickwick-era demos of "Heroin" and one of "Buzz Buzz Buzz" not yet released. Also odd to make one record at 33 and the other at 45 rpm - and not the best songs on that one.

One good previously-unpublished photo.
Click to expand...
Yes, there's also instrumental piece recorded by Cale at same session as Heroin which somewhat reminds of All Tomorrow's Parties.
Should had been on second CD along with 30 minute Primitives rehearsal tape. That stuff continues to be guarded like NATO secret for some reason.
 
Hallucalation said:
Yes, there's also instrumental piece recorded by Cale at same session as Heroin which somewhat reminds of All Tomorrow's Parties.
Should had been on second CD along with 30 minute Primitives rehearsal tape. That stuff continues to be guarded like NATO secret for some reason.
Click to expand...
does the Primitives rehearsal tape feature Angus Maclise? or is it the classic line-up with Mo Tucker?
 
December 3, 1964
Walter De Maria's Bond Street loft, New York City, New York
John Cale - Tony Conrad - Walter De Maria - Lou Reed - Jimmie Sims
  1. Won't You Smile (1st take)
  2. The Ostrich (1st take)
  3. The Ostrich (2nd take)
  4. Won't You Smile (2nd take)
  5. Johnny Won't Surf Anymore
  6. Teardrops In The Sand
  7. Sad Lonely Orphan Boy
  8. Shame, Shame, Shame
A full review of this Primitives rehearsal tape is available in Beyond The Dream Syndicate | Tony Conrad and the Arts after Cage by Branden W. Joseph. Won't You Smile is an early version of Why Don't You Smile Now. Shame, Shame, Shame is a Jimmy Reed's cover.
"Tony Conrad lives here in town. I met him once--he was picketing LaMonte Young's concert. LaMonte had been sitting on the Theatre of Eternal Music tapes for decades and Tony and John were still pissed at him for it. (I turned up and gave him the one TEM cassette I had, from a public radio broadcast.)
He told me he used to have a tape of The Primitives in rehearsal, presumably running through "Do The Ostrich." The quality wasn't great but it was listenable. He mentioned it to Cale, who freaked out and demanded that Tony send it to him. "And don't let anybody hear it!!!" So he did. We probably won't get to hear that for awhile, but it does exist."
[posted in Madcapslaughin Yahoogroups, circa 2004]
"Tony still has a copy & parts were played at an event he did with Branden Joseph at Other Music in New York a couple of months ago. For decades he stored some boxes of Cale's tapes from the 60s at his house in Buffalo. I don't know what they contained but presumably there would be unheard Velvets material."
[posted in The Velvet Forum | The Primitives tape?, Juky 8, 2008]
Count Reeshard: "Tony Conrad was one of my professors when I attended grad school at SUNY Buffalo in '77. We became friendly and, as I was traveling with a mammoth record collection at the time, Tony thought I might be interested in hearing the contents of (literally) a shoebox of cassettes and other tapes he possessed, much of it relating to the Velvets. I enjoyed epic-length listening sessions at Tony's loft, hearing "Booker T' and many other pieces for the first time. One Velvets concert was recorded by Tony from a phone connection; someone at the gig left a lobby pay phone off the hook so that Tony could run tape.
Some years later, Tony told me that one of his students (who ran a record store in his home town) offered Tony some money for the box of tapes. John Cale, with whom Tony stayed in touch as they were (and are) two parts of the anti-LaMonte Young faction, heard about this and freaked, instilling Tony with fear of Lou's lawyers. Cale later collected the box of tapes."
[comment posted on The Houndblog |Velvet Underground Pre-Op, April 27, 2010]


 
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