Christmas spin ... the record of Velvet Underground's first studio session
If you were wondering what to buy the art-rocker in your life who has everything, wonder no more. For a mere $120,000 (and counting - the ebay bidding doesn't stop until Friday), an original acetate of The Velvet Underground's first studio session could be theirs in time for Christmas. Interested (all tomorrow's) parties should check it out here.
£65,000 seems almost cheap for an item described by the sellers, record dealers Saturn Vinyl, as "Arguably the rarest and most important rock'n'roll and art artefact in the world". They claim that this is, in fact, the original version of the Velvets' legendary first album The Velvet Underground and Nico, their proof being that producer Andy Warhol apparently sent it as the finished article to Columbia records - who responded to the depravity within with the words to the effect of "do you think we're out of our fucking minds?"
With a different track listing (it begins rather than ends with European Son), and alternate takes of the songs which spawned a billion Goths, punks, glam rockers and indie kids, it's undoubtedly an important missing piece of rock history. But it seems far-fetched to describe the acetate as the "real" version of that landmark record. Belligerent as they can be, you'd have thought Lou Reed, John Cale or any of the other Velvets might have let us know we'd spent nearly 40 years listening to something which wasn't quite the definitive article.
From The Beach Boys Pet Sounds outtakes to the Sex Pistols' Spunk bootleg (re-released earlier this year), nothing stays buried forever. Do these early sketches add to our understanding of the finished record, or do they take some of the magic away? More importantly, who should get it in their Christmas stocking?
