Bootleg Series, Vol. 1: The Quine Tapes Captures the Muddy Splendor of the Velvets' Sound

The first thing to know about The Quine Tapes is that despite the best digital mastering, these recordings still sound like bootlegs. Recorded by guitarist Robert Quine (Richard Hell, Matthew Sweet, Blue Mask-era Lou Reed) in mono at a series of California dates in the waning months of 1969, the fidelity on these never-before-heard tapes is perfectly acceptable for fans, but may be frustrating to those unfamiliar with the muddy splendor of the Velvets' sound. That said, only the worst kind of ignoramus could find fault with this set. At nearly four hours of music, The Quine Tapes is longer than all of the band's original albums put together. Who could have expected such a generous offering?

Until now, the only officially released confirmations of the Velvets' fearsome reputation as a live act were Live 1969 and a few cuts on the Peel Slowly And See box set. (I'm discounting Live at Max's Kansas City, which was recorded without Maureen Tucker, and Live MCMXCIII, which feels like a museum piece.) Here we get three long versions of "Sister Ray," including one from the Matrix in San Francisco that goes on for a lovely 38 minutes: almost as long as a therapy session, and you can dance to it. It doesn't quite match the original's lurching intensity, but the song holds up just as well as a leisurely jam. Reed spins out the lyrics in a soft sing-speak, breaking off every now and then to indulge in some delightfully weird solos. (By the way, the unofficial Sweet Sister Ray's Murder Mystery bootleg has a 40-minute piece that was just the introduction to the song.)

Quine's tapes were made right before the Velvets went into the studio to record Loaded, an experience so negative it made Reed quit the band and move back home to Long Island. You can hear that sound foreshadowed in the versions of "It's Just Too Much," "Ride into the Sun" and "Follow the Leader" offered here. Good-natured and bouncy, they show off Reed's love of old-school rock 'n' roll and Sterling Morrison's effortless rhythm work. At the other end of the spectrum sit the old Factory-era chestnuts "Venus in Furs" and "The Black Angel's Death Song." In their original incarnations both these songs were built around Cale's heavily droning viola, and it's instructive to hear how well the band evokes the junky creepiness of their first album without him.

"Death Song" is followed by an 11-minute "I'm Waiting for the Man" that transforms the mean subway pulse of the original into a slow ride down the Pacific Coast Highway, Reed ad-libbing verses like a beatnik while Morrison and Yule strum away in the backseat. It's everything the Velvet Underground supposedly were not: laid-back, smooth, even sexy. In the liner notes Quine writes that by the end of their Matrix run the band had begun to pack the house. If that indicates they were starting to win over the generally unresponsive California audience, the music shows the Velvets were letting more California influences into their sound. Imagine if they had stuck together for a few more years?they might have completely changed the West Coast soft-rock scene. They might have given the Eagles a run for their money.