Author Richie Unterberger’s new Velvet Underground history Do What You Fear The Most is out this week. It surely contains many superb factoids, but one in particular will be of special interest to VU heads.
Ryan H. Walsh — leader of the great band Hallelujah The Hills, author of the Van Morrison book Astral Weeks: A Secret History Of 1968, and writer of an excellent Silver Jews retrospective for Stereogum — pointed out the big reveal on Tumblr. Walsh wrote a blurb endorsing the book, and he’s mentioned in it, specifically because of his role in uncovering a recording of a previously unknown Velvet Underground song. In the book, Unterberger credits Walsh for tipping him off to “some exceptionally rare recordings,” then elaborates:
Probably while they were in the Boston area, an unreleased tape of reasonable fidelity was recorded by the Harry Miller Express Company around this time. This could have taken place in August 1967, and possibly at a rehearsal or even studio, though Miller (who had a Boston recording studio) has said it was at a concert with an audience. Although it suffers from imperfect sonic balance, it’s a fair snapshot of how they sounded and what they played in the months following Nico’s departure, featuring a few songs they wouldn’t release on any studio albums, one of which doesn’t seem to exist in any other form.
In his Tumblr post, Walsh adds some context:
What if I told you, that during the pandemic, Phil Milstein, founder of the Velvet Underground Appreciation Society, reached out to me to see if I wanted to work with him on a VU mystery he had stumbled upon, and that this led to the discovery of an unheard Velvet Underground recording, and, most astonishing of all, a “new” VU song no has ever heard before that is pretty darn fantastic? Phil and I were calling it “I Don’t Really Care About You.” Richie’s going with “I Don’t Much Care for the Things That You Do.”
Here’s Unterberger’s description of the music from the book:
The song features a herky-jerky melody and an ominous instrumental break with collapsing, slightly chaotic rhythms, as if they’re detouring into ‘Son Of European Son.’ Moving suddenly back to a vocal section, it winds to a frenzied climax before suddenly cutting off. It’s not nearly as memorable as their best tunes, but it’s lyrically vicious even by the standards of their nastiest verse, the song’s unfortunate target not being worth a nickel or quarter in the singer’s measurement. There’s a hint of things to come, too, Reed declaring his victim isn’t good as a man and wouldn’t make it as a girl — a reference to ambivalent sexual identity that would move more to the fore in later Velvet Underground songs, and even more so in his solo career.
Walsh says he and Milstein passed along the recording to an unnamed party who hopes to get it released. He looks forward to sharing more information in the future, when we all hopefully will get to hear this tune.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source stereogum.com ’
