UPDATE4: The top bid(s) were bogus, and the auction ended without a buyer. Looks like it was too good to be true. Regardless, sounds like he’s going to give it another go, “Montreal man thwarted in eBay auction of rare record to try again” As always there’s some fun Monday morning quarterbacking going on over at digg.com on the issue.
UPDATE3: The auction is over, winning bid $155,401.00
UPDATE2: I’ve found more info on the original recording (and the likely source of the FLAC posted for download here – which while it has plenty of surface noise is still very, very cool) plus a full listing of this record on a VU archives site. Check it after the jump.
UPDATE: Some are saying that some of the bids are bogus, just people looking for their “15 minutes of fame” (Warhol pun intended!)
There is an extremely rare acetate Velvet Underground record that was found at a NYC flea market years ago is now up on eBay, the highest bid at this moment is at $110,100.00! Oh, and there’s still over 4 days to go on the bidding! The story is the stuff of any record collector’s dream, “In September of 2002 Warren Hill of Montreal Canada was perusing a box of records at a Chelsea, New York street sale when he happened upon a nice Leadbelly 10″ on Folkways, a water damaged copy of the first Modern Lovers LP on Beserkely, and a brittle 12″ piece of acetone-covered aluminum with the words “Velvet Underground. 4-25-66. Att N. Dolph” written on the label. He purchased the three records for 75 cents each.“So the skinny on the recording is that this acetate is the recording of what would have been VU’s first album, Velvet Underground with Nico, as Andy Warhol recorded it. For me nothing beats Loaded, but Velvet Underground with Nico is how I got into VU, so this is amazingly cool. Goldmine Magazine describes the research of the recording:
…We cued it up and were stunned — the first song was not “Sunday Morning” as on the Velvet Underground & Nico” Verve LP, but rather it was “European Son”- the song that is last on that LP, and it was a version neither of us had ever heard before! It was less bombastic and more bluesy than the released version, and it clocked in at a full two minutes longer. I immediately took the needle off the record, and realized that we had something special. Between the two of us we had heard many Velvets outtakes on both official and less than official releases, but the present material had never been heard by either of us. [...] The recording is comprised of the primitive first “finished” version of the LP that Andy Warhol had shopped to Columbia as a ready-to-release debut album by his protege collective “The Velvet Underground”. This acetate, which is possibly the only surviving copy, represents the first Velvet Underground album as Andy Warhol intended it to be released.
I’m holding out hope that this is bought by a label or someone who releases it to the public; I’ll buy it (not for +100,000$ though…) In the meantime, someone has released what they say is the same thing in Flac format, get the links from the comments section in the original article. I *think* this is the same thing that can be found on P2P networks labeled: Velvet Underground and Nico – 1966-4 Scepter Studios, Norman Dolph Acetate
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