Lou Reed & Velvet Underground Film Super8 [Part 1 of 2]

[ludvik199t]

ill be your mirror. awful sound though

[jubilaz]

This was not their first public performance. They were the house band at Cafe Bizarre in late 65, That's where Barbara Rubin found them, and then took Warhol to see them play. That was when they began their collaboration.

[filmerado]

Wow Gerard can dance

[rociopitio]

what a shitty audio

[djboony]

super 8 doesnt record sound....

[takedown03]

Nico fuked the velevts ----

[WorldAtlus]

the second song sounds like some kinda sped up instrumental jam similar to 'melody laughter' found on the extended 'velvet underground and nico' album from the peel slowly and see box. either that or almost some kinda slowed down version of 'run run run' or something like that.

either way it's the greatest band in the history of sound, doing a happening , as usual, unlike anything that's ever been heard or ever will be heard again

[octagon79]

just thought i should reccomend a bootleg called 'Caught Between the Twisted Stars" if you like melody laughter. you get the entire piece there whereas the one on the Peel Slowly Boxset is just an excerpt. If you are a fan of the velvets its a holy grail of material.

[AcePilot101]

Saw my psychiatrist today/ told him his drugs gave me a new disease/ quit everything to take up smoking/ no more problems with booze and pills/ just got laid by an playboy bunny/ cancer won't wait/hitching to Guadalajara/standing by the side of the road/blowing my mind in a field of corn/watching the river come down/outside time

[unionofthesnake17]

heroin!

[SecretIVUIIHear]

Yeah quite a sick conception: if you don't understand it, try to fix it, you'll fuck it good for sure, then you might understand part of it.

[jgidd]

wow, pretty funny considering Lou Reed got electric shock treatments for a while.

[opgerotteflikkerop]

vicious

[gamoonbat]

The Velvet Underground holds up a mirror to American Psychiatry.

[ACRTGATB]

Nico is so pretty and cool. I wanna make out with her.

[mushy85]

shes the only famous person who shares my birthday. and from what I read we are pretty similar, besides her being beautiful but what is on the inside

[Timmybear]

Oscar Wilde, October 16, 1854.

[octagon79]

yiu wanna make out with a skeleton? ew

[kidcalabria]

This is not - of  course - The Velvet Underground's '"first public appearance'". They had been playing gigs before meeting Warhol. They were playing regularly in a Greenwich Village club when Warhol first saw them. This isn't even the oldest film of them

[OneBlackRose45]

LOVEN LOU! 5 STARS!

[generacionpaluca]

yes. yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes eys eys eys eyhs eys yes yes yes eys eysbmnhey yes yes eys yes yes yes yes ye sye syeysreyy

[mcdeezno]

It's 'Ill be your Mirror'

off of Velvet Underground & Nico

crist...

[ZenPapageno]

Have you noticed that there is no rock band on the album track? There is a rock band on this film soundtrack. Krsttt..

[ZenPapageno]

Around 1970, a critic said that the spirit of a Rock song can be found somewhere in the red zone of the VU meter. This recording of the Velvets live reminds of that.  Gerard's dancing is a bit much, but I can't fault Edie's. Oh, why couldn't they just get along? I sometimes imagine Lou saying, "All right, Andy, Edie can sing with us," and they all live happily ever after, including Nico, who goes back to France and gets good movie parts.

[smithw5]

you know, I love the VU like no other, love the footage, when its visable, love the clothing, the beautiful people, but I just can't hang with the dancing. Acid made people dance like fucking idiots.

[MookyChick]

lol!

[OrchidOxycodone]

Acid at a psychiatrists convention?LOL!And if you knew about the history of the VU they werent into lame hippie shit like acid.The Warhol crowd was into amphetamines and smack.

[kidcalabria]

You actually tested the urine of The Velvets, and everybody who frequented The Factory, and you are absolutely positive that not one of them ever used cannabis and/or LSD, and that allooff them tested positive to amphetamines and opiates? Wow!!! Lou Reed was friends withThe Yardbirds, was a big fan of Hendrix, he and John Cale hanged out with Brian Jones, Nico was very close to Jim Morrison, they all admired Dylan, etc...Hold on, no, it's impossible, they weren't into the "lame Hippy 'shit'"!!!

[OrchidOxycodone]

I never said never.Lou was known for using any mind altering substance that came across him.However the factory crowd was well known to be at odds with the flower power crowd and was much more into hard drugs than soft.And I wouldnt call Brian Jones or Jim Morrison a hippie.The Stones and The Doors both brought a nihlism to rock much like the VU

[kidcalabria]

Brian Jones, Jim Morrison, Hendrix, Dylan, were all icons for Hippies. Look at the Monterey Pop Festival, the Summer Of Love, 1967, the apotheosis of Hippiedom, & Nico & Brian Jones are right there. You're right, The Velvets didn't quite fit with Hippies, but a lot of this stuff is just stereotypes created by R&R agiography. Anyone with long hair & into R&R was considered an "Hippie" back then, & lots of "Hippies" did amphetamines & smack too. Anyway, don't take it too hard, I was only kidding

[AllenGinsbergOM]

Film by Jonas Mekas !

[jackgreaves18]

so does anyone actually know what song or songs they are playing (havent actually watched all they way through)

[tylerchap87]

Is it femme fatale?

[Euchrid]

I'll be your mirror

[akaj93]

yo vivi fiestas como estas en spain con musica dela velvet

[AllenGinsbergOM]

It's part of Jonas Mekas' brilliant diary film "Walden". Availble for rental from The Filmmakers Coop in NYC .

[AllenGinsbergOM]

this is a horrible copy of Jonas Mekas' film. 16mm not Super 8

[andydepissant]

this sounds utterly beautiful!

[punkace]

It does- and I'm pretty sure its just a very distorted version of the studio on on the banana album.

[ashica888]

what very shit sound waste of internet space man lol

[decadentcherub]

i think this is the first 'exploding plastic inevitable' appearance - velvets plus nico and all the lighting effects n dancers etc, the velvets were gigging in late 65, thats how warhol found them

[miyagijuan]

yeah, i completely agree with britishcavity, check out my vids

[AladdinInsanity98]

go edie, go.

=]

..question..why were they playing a phyciatrist's convention?..

pity the sound is so bad cos its a nice version of the song..

[AllenGinsbergOM]

this is by Jonas Mekas.

[msheydayi]

bad sound quality but its really fun to see edie and gerard dancing!

[NeeliAankhen]

If anybody can post a clip of Gerard Malanga dancing to Nowhere To Run in Vinyl - I'll be soo happy!!

[AladdinInsanity98]

do you know for a fact that such a thing exists?

:p

cos i wouldnt mind it either.

[NetWllm2]

This film is available at the Jonas Mekas website for three dollars and ninety-nine cents -- see it pure!

[lennardg]

I'm a huge VU fan for over twenty years, I was born on januar the 13'th 1966.

Quaint.

[martinmonte]

I even love the way this song sounds like shit. Few bands or people could sound this good with such shitty quality.

[staphinfection]

HAHAaaha! SO TRUE! It's frigging amazing how they pull that off.

[britishcavalry]

Yes it sounds great and shit. For me the shit sound really suits the atmosphere of the music and film. Other equally good or even (subjectively) better music can be far more adversely affected by poor sound quality. I like this a lot.

[martinmonte]

better music? dont think ive heard it.

[britishcavalry]

As you may not have noticed I included the word "subjectively". Perhaps you believe it possible to judge the quality of music objectively. Believe it or not, while I really like this music it is a fact that I can not judge it to be objectively the "best" music ever created. I like it a lot, but it is not my favourite music in any case. If that makes me an idiot or a genius or neither then so be it.

[swans1997]

Ha Ha playin' a head shrink party, classic.Uptight Psychs, that's funny. I can imagine the questions,"er, why are you so intense? "What makes you feel this way? Shining a bright light in his face, I hate shrinks.Such a sham. Then you have The Cramps playing a mental asylum yrs. later.

[iggypot]

great mix on the audio i gotta say

[disrealixgears]

Thier first preformance was in a High School in New Jersey I believe, they plaied Heroin. The majority of people there were high school students and thier parents. Most of them left in anger, a few students remainded and crowded around the stage.

[ruderocker]

Summit High School it was....and if it was as it is today....it's upscale preppy-land all the way.

[Bobb9999]

Odd, nobody's talking (in the Ginsberg+ segment)! Is this a sort of multi-person "screen test"?

-Isn't "first public performance" a misnomer? VU played in cafes/bars before Warhol ever knew anything about them. Aren't cafes/bars public venues?...Maybe you mean first recorded performance(-?)

[AntheanCeilliers]

"The second the main course was served, the Velvets started to blast and Nico started to wail. Gerard and Edie jumped up on stage and started dancing, the doors flew open and Jonas Mekas and Barbara Rubin with her crew of people with cameras and bright lights came storming into the room and rushing over to all the psychiatrists ... (dirty questions follow) "Why are you getting embaressed? You're a psychiatrist; you're not supposed to get embaressed!"

- Andy Warhol, Popism

Ahhh, I love it.

[AntheanCeilliers]

A very famous incident, one that Andy talks about in length in (I think) Popism. I can't find the passage directly about it, at the moment.

Thank you for posting!