Gentle within the Attic Data has launched one other tantalizing piece of Lou Reed and Velvet Underground lore within the type of the earliest identified recording of the tune “Heroin.” The monitor will seem on the upcoming archival Reed assortment Phrases & Music, Could 1965, due out on Aug. 26.
Put to tape by Reed in Could 1965, almost two years earlier than its launch on The Velvet Underground’s landmark debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico, this model of “Heroin” finds the artist accompanying himself on guitar. Structurally, it’s basically the identical because the album model though it’s greater than three minutes shorter than what was ultimately launched in 1967.
This demo predates by two months a model of “Heroin” recorded by Reed and Velvet Underground bandmates John Cale and Sterling Morrison on the group’s loft on Ludlow Road in Manhattan’s Decrease East Aspect. The latter was launched on the Velvet Underground compilation Peel Slowly and See in 1995.
As beforehand reported, Phrases & Music, Could 1965 rounds up recordings that sat unplayed in an envelope for greater than 50 years and was overseen by Reed’s widow Laurie Anderson. Reed made the tapes whereas working as a songwriter for New York-based Pickwick Data after which mailed them to himself in what’s known as a “poor man’s copyright.”
Gentle within the Attic beforehand launched Reed’s demo model of “I’m Ready for the Man,” which The Velvet Underground additionally recorded for his or her 1967 debut. The label can be readying for launch on Aug. 26 a Phrases & Music-themed podcast hosted by TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe. Future archival Reed releases are within the planning levels.
