"one hundred years ago Detroit Electric...
could go 211 miles on a charge."
could go 211 miles on a charge."
Not as perfectly distilled as the studio take which appeared belatedly on "VU", this version is allegedly recorded in Detroit, 1969; not San Francisco, as some copies have misreported in bootlegging from the bootleggers.
It very possibly pisses all over the same live performance captured by Bob Quine at The Family Dog.
And, alright. John Cale had run. Andy was no longer in the picture.
By 1969 he'd added a porn cinema to his portfolio and was otherwise busy pushing "Campbell's Soup Can II". Hot dog bean.
And his plans to cut a deal in Hollywood were given short shrift. At the same moment the Velvet Underground were rolling through the west coast, he was tied up casting Holly and Candy in John Voccaro's "Cockstrong".
Outrageous, when one considers those 'pogroms' off the hoof down in Texas.
Fresh meat was back on the menu.
Verve, too, was beset by financial problems and New York's finest were recording directly for MGM.
I believe I might originally have snared this one over at WFMU. Under a post by Brian Tanner. The bootleg is "out there", to quote from the X-Files.
There is only one solid reason to resurrect it straight on the heels of yesterday's take: the bleeding, tortured guitar solo which Lou Reed visits on the ear. A white hot foil to Sterling Morrison's and Mo Tucker's adrenalin rush.
Detroit Electric, somewhat ironically, pioneered the manufacture of a an automobile powered exclusively by a rechargeable acid lead battery. Production began in 1907, and at its peak its assembly line was turning out thousands of units on an annual basis.
While a steep rise in domestic fuel prices after the first world war did much to generate sales, its original USP lay in dispensing with all need for handcranking; and the potential for having your arm wrenched clean out its socket. Left for dead on a potholed surface before the engine even started.
The Anderson Electric Car Company was rescued after the stock market crash of 1929 and ceased trading altogether ten years later.
If "I Can't Stand It" doesn't give you a hard-on - or get you moist - you are in serious need of some grade 'A' pharmaceutical viagra.
"Sister Ray" up off her knees and prowling on the carpet. Verve to the wishbone.
Small wonder Lou got fat. Lazy. All Lestered out and drowning in lactated juice.
▼ THE VELVET UNDERGROUND: I CANT STAND IT (LIVE IN DETROIT) from "The Psycopath's Rolling Stones" CD (Bootleg) 1993 (Germany/US)
4 comments:
It´s absolutely one of Lou Reeds best monents as a guitar player. I ddn´t think i needed to hear another liver recording of VU but i was mistaken,
Hey Markus.
Lou's playing here is shockingly visceral and eloquent. It took me quite by surprise too; and more than makes up for the stolid version he rehashed on that first solo LP.
Just when you think you've heard everything the VU has to say, a nugget like this breaks yet another tooth.
It's vaguely criminal this has only appeared on bootleg.
Thank you for responding.
Unlike any guitar playing I have heard from Lou at any time. I'd say that must have been some eloquent dope was on that night.
"I Can't Stand It" was the first song I ever heard by Lou when I spun it on the family Zenith hi-fi. Still love that song, even with Wakeman and all those other English twats on it.
Pretty damn good, alright.
Lou Reed's first is an LP I often forget exists. I like the sleeve more than what's in it.
Jesus, now you mention it, I have never paid much attention to the musicians who played on it. Wakeman and Steve Howe. Talk about swapping glory for rags. Or vice versa,
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