The Oracle has spoken... about the Velvet Underground

My YouTube algorithm has become something of an oracle. At times, it is the medium of something like Divine Providence.

The oracle can be a thoughtful friend, introducing me to recherché treasures such as Fish Karma’s Disco Entropy cassette, or grainy Turkish soap operas from the ‘90s with stony, melodramatic synth scores. Things it knows I will enjoy.

But the oracle has also gone cold and distant on me. The fucking balls, recommending lamebrain videos like the one on Jack White’s garbage artwork exhibition. Do you even know me? And to think that the once mighty Damien Hirst saw fit to exhibit this hogwash at his Newport Street Gallery in London.

While I often feel the oracle understands me, it is more often a stranger. At its worst, the oracle is a vampiristic agent of chaos seeking to suck my time with plastic fangs of politicized clickbait.

Not today…

Because today the oracle offered something truly exquisite. A pearl from the depths of the murky sea of YouTube detritus and sludge: two minutes and one second of never-before-released (to my knowledge) fan footage of the Velvet Underground and Nico (as part of Andy Warhol’s multimedia happening, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable). This is a live capture from their landmark three-night stand at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco in May of 1966.

This is significant. In fact, it’s the most significant find since the Dallas Peace Moratorium footage from October 1969 was uploaded to YouTube six or seven years ago.

The ’66 Fillmore video starts with Nico singing “All Tomorrow’s Parties.” Andy’s favorite tune, featuring Lou’s “ostrich guitar” solo. Nice flashes of Gerard Malanga and Mary Woronov in action. The second tune, beginning at 1:10, is “I’m Not A Young Man Anymore,” one of the rarer numbers, captured live only a couple of times. The video ends with a house replay from some soundboard recordings captured at the Art Museum in Provincetown, MA, from what I understand.

These three Fillmore shows, along with one at the Trip in L.A. earlier in the week, had Zappa’s Mothers of Invention opening. Both bands were signed to Verve/MGM, and there was some unfriendly rivalry there. I’d love to get into how, every year, the Velvets sound better and better, and Zappa sounds worse and worse, but that’s another story.

So, here we see and hear the Velvets at one of their peak periods. And while I really love the John Cale-era records (particularly White Light White Heat; the first Velvets record I bought as a teenager), I’m into the Doug Yule-era material just as much, but in a different way. Like the “Live 1969” records, for example, they’re magnificent, and I probably listen to more than the studio LPs at this stage of my life.

It’s a short video, granted. But, at this point, I’ll gladly take whatever Velvets I can get.

Enjoy.

Jaime Paul Lamb is embarrassingly out of touch with modern American culture but tries to comment on it anyway. He thinks he has some people fooled. That's possible. He says he's a musician, a writer, and an astrologer. Decide for yourself: www.jaimepaullamb.com.