To mark the 45th anniversary of the debut release of ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’ in 1967. UMe are to release a super Deluxe six-CD collection on the 29th of October 2012, which features previously unreleased recordings from Factory rehearsals, Scepter Studios acetate, live performances.
When The Velvet Underground & Nico album was released in March 1967 on Verve Records, with its Andy Warhol-designed, peel-off banana cover, it was far from a chart-topper. In fact, as the famed quote attributed to Brian Eno famously put it, the album may not have sold many copies, “but everyone who bought it formed a band.” And its reputation as a groundbreaker has only increased over the four-and-a-half decades since its original release.
Universal Music / Polydor will celebrate the now-iconic album’s 45th anniversary on October 30, 2012, with a multi-format, worldwide release October 29th and 30th that includes stereo and mono versions remastered from the original tapes, as well as previously unreleased recordings of the band’s rehearsals in Warhol’s Factory and the subsequent rare April 1966 Scepter Studios recordings captured on acetate featuring early, alternate versions of songs later issued on The Velvet Underground & Nico.
A limited-edition, Super Deluxe six-CD box set will also feature a previously unavailable November ’66 live concert performed by the Velvets’ original, five-person lineup—Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, Moe Tucker and Nico—at the Valleydale Ballroom in Columbus, Ohio, and Nico’s Chelsea Girl, an album released in October 1967 (seven months after the Velvets’ disc) which included all the members of the band as well as a teenage folksinger named Jackson Browne. It also includes an 88-page booklet featuring a new essay by band biographer Richie Unterberger. All remastering, tape transfers and digital assembly at the prestigious Sterling Sound Studios in New York were overseen by veteran A&R producer Bill Levenson, who has been involved for more than 30 years in previous Velvet Underground reissues like VU and Another VU in the ’80s, the banana-covered box set in the ’90s and UMG’s first expanded, deluxe edition of The Velvet Underground & Nico in 2002.
The six-CD set captures the Velvets in a crucial period in their development, starting with the band’s Factory rehearsals in January ’66, covering the original Scepter recording sessions that April, then a live show in November, leading up to the March ’67 release, almost a year after the album was finished. Nico’sChelsea Girl, which came out in October seven months later, completes the set’s almost two-year arc, chronicling the band both before and directly after its historic debut.
The Super Deluxe set allows fans to compare the mono and stereo versions of the album. Longtime Velvets aficionados have touted the mono mix because of its lo-fi quality, with the music coming off even tougher as a result of its compression.
The Velvet Underground and Nico is considered the holy grail around the world. The release earned the original band a slot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Rolling Stone placed it No. 13 on the list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in November 2003, dubbing it “the most prophetic rock album ever made.” Spin magazine placed it atop its list of the “Top 15 Most Influential Albums of All Time” that same year and the album is one of 225 recordings in the prestigious Library of Congress National Recording Registry.. In Czechoslovakia, the band gave its name to the Velvet Revolution, which overthrew the Communist regime in that country. Globally, the album is seen just like Sgt. Pepper’s and Pet Sounds, as a seminal, influential high-water mark in rock music history.
Universal will release the album worldwide simultaneously in six different physical and digital versions. Aside from the Super Deluxe edition, The Velvet Underground & Nico will be available in a brand-new two-CD Deluxe Edition which includes a stereo version of the album along with a separate disc of the Factory rehearsals and Scepter Studios sessions. There will also be a digital exclusive and a one-CD original stereo album remaster in both physical and digital form. Alongside a re-mastered vinyl edition
The deluxe edition and digital reissue of The Velvet Underground & Nico is not only for hard-core fans, but for anyone who wishes to trace the two-year development of a world-class band in the process of creating one of the greatest rock albums in history through rare and previously unreleased recordings.
Click here for product details;
Box set – http://zaphod.uk.vvhp.net/v-v/
Deluxe Edition – http://zaphod.uk.vvhp.net/v-v/
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John Cale’s new album Shifty Adventures in Nookie Wood is scheduled for release on 1st October. For more information contact doublesixrecords.com.
DISC ONE
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO V6-5008 (Stereo Version – Newly Remastered)
Originally issued as Verve V6-5008, March 1967.
1. SUNDAY MORNING 2.55
2. I’M WAITING FOR THE MAN 4.39
3. FEMME FATALE 2.38
4. VENUS IN FURS 5.12
5. RUN RUN RUN 4.22
6. ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES 5.59
7. HEROIN 7.13
8. THERE SHE GOES AGAIN 2.41
9. I’LL BE YOUR MIRROR 2.14
10. THE BLACK ANGEL’S DEATH SONG 3.12
11. EUROPEAN SON 7.47
ALTERNATE VERSIONS:
12 . ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES (alternate single voice version) 5.57
13. EUROPEAN SON (alternate version) 9.06 Unreleased Version
14. HEROIN (alternate version) 6.17 Unreleased Version
15. ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES (alternate instrumental mix) 5.51 Unreleased Version
16. I’LL BE YOUR MIRROR (alternate mix) 2.20 Unreleased Version
DISC TWO
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO V-5008 (Mono Version – Newly Remastered)
Originally issued as Verve V-5008, March 1967.
1.SUNDAY MORNING 2.55
2. I’M WAITING FOR THE MAN 4.46
3. FEMME FATALE 2.38
4. VENUS IN FURS 5.13
5.. RUN RUN RUN 4.24
6. ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES 5.59
7. HEROIN 7.14
8. THERE SHE GOES AGAIN 2.41
9. I’LL BE YOUR MIRROR 2.14
10. THE BLACK ANGEL’S DEATH SONG 3.12
11. EUROPEAN SON 7.57
THE SINGLES:
12. ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES 2.51
13. I’LL BE YOUR MIRROR (alternate ending) 2.18
Mono single, issued as Verve VK-10427, July 1966.
14. SUNDAY MORNING (alternate mix) 3.13 Unreleased Version
15. FEMME FATALE 2.40
Mono single, Verve VK-10466, released December 1966.
DISC THREE
NICO: CHELSEA GIRL (Newly Remastered)
Originally issued as Verve V6-5032, October 1967.
1. THE FAIREST OF THE SEASONS 4.10
2. THESE DAYS 3.34
3. LITTLE SISTER 4.27
4. WINTER SONG 3.20
5. IT WAS A PLEASURE THEN 8.06
6. CHELSEA GIRLS 7.27
7. I’LL KEEP IT WITH MINE 3.21
8. SOMEWHERE THERE’S A FEATHER 2.20
9. WRAP YOUR TROUBLES IN DREAMS 5.10
10. EULOGY TO LENNY BRUCE 3.46
DISC FOUR
SCEPTER STUDIOS SESSIONS (Previously Release As A Bootleg):
Acetate cut on April 25, 1966
1. EUROPEAN SON (alternate version) 9.02*
2. THE BLACK ANGEL’S DEATH SONG (alternate mix) 3.16*
3. ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES (alternate version) 5.53*
4. I’LL BE YOUR MIRROR (alternate version) 2.11**
5. HEROIN (alternate version) 6.16*
6. FEMME FATALE (alternate mix) 2.36**
7. VENUS IN FURS (alternate version) 4.29**
8. WAITING FOR THE MAN (alternate version) 4.10**
9. RUN RUN RUN (alternate mix) 4.23**
* from tape / ** from acetate
THE FACTORY REHEARSALS:
January 3, 1966 rehearsal, previously unreleased.
10. WALK ALONE 3.27 Bootleg Release Only
11. CRACKIN’ UP / VENUS IN FURS 3.52 Bootleg Release Only
12. MISS JOANIE LEE 11.49 Bootleg Release Only
13. HEROIN 6.14 Bootleg Release Only
14. THERE SHE GOES AGAIN (WITH NICO) 2.09 Bootleg Release Only
15. THERE SHE GOES AGAIN 2.56 Bootleg Release Only
DISC FIVE
LIVE AT VALLEYDALE BALLROOM, COLUMBUS, OHIO, NOVEMBER 4, 1966:
(Newly Remastered)
1. MELODY LAUGHTER 28.26 Bootleg Release Only
2. FEMME FATALE 2.37 Bootleg Release Only
3. VENUS IN FURS 4.45 Bootleg Release Only
4. THE BLACK ANGEL’S DEATH SONG 4.49 Bootleg Release Only
5. ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES 5.03 Bootleg Release Only
DISC SIX
LIVE AT VALLEYDALE BALLROOM, COLUMBUS, OHIO, NOVEMBER 4, 1966:
1. WAITING FOR THE MAN 4.50 Bootleg Release Only
2. HEROIN 6.42 Bootleg Release Only
3. RUN RUN RUN 8.43 Bootleg Release Only
4. THE NOTHING SONG 27.56 Bootleg Release Only
