QUINE TAPES

Velvet Underground: Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison (vocals, guitar); Doug Yule (vocals, organ, bass); Maureen Tucker (vocals, drums). Compilation producers: Bill Levenson, Sal Mercuri. Recorded live at The Family Dog, San Francisco, California in November 1969, The Matrix, San Francisco, California in November & December 1969, and Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri in May 1969. Includes liner notes by Robert Quine. Digitally remastered by Jeff Willens (Universal Mastering Studios-East). In the '80s, former Richard Hell guitarist Robert Quine hooked up with Lou Reed for a critically acclaimed batch of albums regarded by many as the Velvet Underground visionary's finest solo works. However, this was not the first time Quine and Reed's paths had crossed. In 1969, young Velvets fan Quine surreptitiously recorded a string of Velvet Underground gigs during what turned out to be some of the group's last great moments before slowly splintering apart the following year. Though Velvets fans have heard other live versions of much of this material, a great deal of what's heard on these three discs is illuminating, and some of it is downright revelatory. The often-overlooked sweet side of the band is shown in the wistful ballads "Sunday Morning" and "Femme Fatale" and the Mo Tucker vocal showcases "After Hours" and "I'm Sticking with you, but it's the rock & roll fury of the group that drives this collection. The minimalist-inspired guitar-drums-organ din of "Foggy Notion," I Can't Stand It," and "White Light/White Heat" is the very definition of carefully controlled chaos. Perhaps the biggest treats are the three wildly differing versions of the half-hour epic "Sister Ray." The thrilling, eclectic treatments of this tune show that the iconoclastic Velvets had more in common with the blues-rockers and first-generation jam bands of the time than latter-day revisionists would care to admit.