RELISTED DUE TO A NON-PAYING BIDDER
VELVET UNDERGROUND - VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO 1ST ALBUM - ORIGINAL 1967 VERVE STEREO LP V6-5008 WITH BANANA STICKER AND THE UNCENSORED, ORIGINAL TORSO BACK COVER ERIC EMERSON S TORSO IS PRESENT, BUT IS NOT VISIBLE IT IS COVERED WITH A LARGE BLACK STICKER
THE BANANA STICKER IS 100 TOTALY WHOLE AND COMPLETE ABSOLUTELY NO PART OF IT IS MISSING , BUT HAS A 1-INCH TEAR AT THE TIP OF THE BANANA WHERE A PEEL-OFF WAS ATTEMPTED
ORIGINAL U.S. PRESSING
ORIGINAL BLUE VERVE LABEL WITH LARGE T-SHAPED LOGO AND SILVER PRINT.
THIS IS THE ORIGINAL, AUTHENTIC, FIRST U.S. PRESSING THIS IS NOT A REISSUE, AN IMPORT, OR A COUNTERFEIT PRESSING.
ORIGINAL GATEFOLD COVER, MADE OF THICK CARDBOARD AMERICAN STYLE
THIS IS A MONSTROUSLY RARE TORSO VERSION OF THE COVER WITH THE PHOTO OF ERIC EMERSON S TORSO HANGING UPSIDE-DOWN, SUPERIMPOSED OVER THE GROUP S PHOTO ON THE BACK PANEL. THIS SHORT-LIVED ORIGINAL VERSION WAS IN PRINT SEEMINGLY ONLY FOR A NANOSECOND: PRACTICALLY IMMEDIATELY UPON RELEASE, VERVE WAS FORCED TO APPLY A LARGE STICKER WITH ALBUM TITLE ON THE BACK COVER TO CAMOUFLAGE THE PROBLEMATIC TORSO SECTION IN ORDER TO AVERT A COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT LAWSUIT THESE SECOND VERSIONS ARE USUALLY REFERRED TO AS SECOND STATE COVERS . SUBSEQUENT PRESSINGS WITH OR WITHOUT BANANA STICKER, ALL HAVE THE OFFENSIVE TORSO AIRBRUSHED THESE ARE KNOWN AS THIRD STATE COVERS. WE PROUDLY OFFER THE RAREST VERSION OF THEM ALL: THE BRUTALLY RARE FIRST STATE TORSO COVER.
NOTE: THIS IS A STICKER VERSION OF THE COVER: THE VERVE LABEL HAD APPLIED A LARGE STICKER WITH ALBUM TITLE ON THE BACK COVER TO CAMOUFLAGE THE LEGALLY PROBLEMATIC TORSO SECTION IN ORDER TO AVERT A COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT LAWSUIT. THE IMAGE OF THE BACK COVER WITH TORSO SHOWN BELOW IS FROM OUR PREVIOUS AUCTION AND IS SHOWN HERE ONLY TO ILLUSTRATE WHAT WINNING BIDDER WILL FIND ONCE THE STICKER IS PEELED-OFF.
THICK, HEAVY VINYL PRESSING
CLEAN, WEAR-FREE LABELS
PLEASE SEE THE IMAGE OF THE COVER, LABEL OR BOTH, SHOWN BELOW
Note: this is a REAL image of the ACTUAL item you are bidding on. This is NOT a recycled image from our previous auction. What you see is what you ll get. GUARANTEED
We claim without any reservations or exaggerations, in full responsibility, sound mind and good conscience that THIS is the single most important album in Rock history and the single most influential Rock session of the 20th Century far exceeding in musical and historical importance EVEN the most important albums by The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin or The Doors. BID NOW. DON T WAIT. THE ORIGINAL PRESSINGS WITH UNCENSORED TORSO COVERS APPEAR ON EBAY ONLY EVERY OTHER YEAR OR SO
Why do we believe that this modest first album recorded by a heretofore unknown band, under medieval and chaotic conditions, to no corporate fanfare, with very little promotion or marketing and almost zero sales, managed to surpass in its musical brilliance and artistic and stylistic importance even such cornerstones of Rock music as The Beatles Sgt. Pepper s Lonely Hearts Club Band The Rolling Stones Beggar s Banquet Jimi Hendrix Are you experienced or Bob Dylan s Blonde on Blonde ?
The answer is simple. All these fine rock classics sold millions, made a huge splash, big noise, exploded for a few weeks or months, topped the charts, illuminated the minds of their contemporaries and rivals alike, influenced some artists and alienated the others and then retired into a comfortable niche of the rock classic status bestowed upon them over the next few years and decades. In other words, they may be historically and critically important, but they are for all practical purposes DEAD they are museum exhibits, of their time and place, but not of this moment of this time and place beautiful pieces carved into cold, hard marble, but aged, cold and definitely not breathing. Make no mistake: all these rock classics are our personal favorites. But they carry no immediate or permanent importance, personal resonance and contemporary message. Their age shows, and it shows in ways that are not always complementary or graceful.
Not so with Velvet Underground and Nico. The album has had a life like no other in the history of popular music. From its modest, humble beginnings except for three tracks, the sessions took place after Columbia already declined to sign up the band, in a decrepit Wand/Scepter studio that was literally being demolished as the band was recording in it , the album snowballed despite all possible legal, commercial and marketing complications and distractions into a massive force of its own an artistic equivalent of avalanche or tsunami. A cultural paradigm not unlike that of the Birth of Jazz, or the dawn of the abstract art Andy Warhol s subversive, eye-popping, brain-teasing banana artwork clearly playing a major role in this .
If, in fact, there is another work of art comparable to this album and this is a BIG if , it surely would not be a Rock album -- for there are NO known cultural antecedents and predecessors in the world of popular music, and no points of reference either. The only comparable thing that comes to mind would be Picasso s Girls of Avignon, or Stravinsky s Rites of Spring both from 1913 . In the world of contemporary music, the only session that comes reasonably close to the level of the chutzpah and artistic courage of the Velvets first album would be John Coltrane s Ascension recorded barely a year prior to Velvet Underground and Nico, and quite possibly exerting a strong influence on both Reed and Cale compare, for example, the maddening cacophonics of the Velvets European son with the gushing, unrestrained eruptions of Coltrane s pure, protean expression, to see what we mean .
And it is easy to see why there are not too many precedents. These works of art are some of the most radical, revolutionary conceptions ever, causing uproar and upheaval of galactic proportions and in the case of Stravinsky s Rites of Spring, even a public riot quite literally just like Velvet Underground s first album, these astonishing works are one-way-ticket departures from all existing norms and forms, dispensing with all structures, conventions and rules once and for all. Think of the Velvets first album as Lou Reed and John Cale taking pop music to the guillotine and waving its somewhat slightly detached head to the shocked masses thereafter. Forty one year later, it is still too radical and revolutionary for some narrow minds.
If Lou Reed wasn t always able to maintain this level of brilliance over the next 40 years of his career, he can easily be forgiven: this album has more brilliance, creativity and ingenuity and make no mistake, Nico, Cale, Tucker and Morrison ALL equally co-participated in it to last a lifetime certainly more than many artists entire careers worth of. It s almost as if Lou Reed spurted all his creative energy on this one session, leaving precious little left for his subsequent works although this by no means was his sole masterpiece there would be more to come .
In short, the branch of Rock evolution that Velvet Underground single-handedly begat and nourished is still alive and well, bearing shoots, leaves and fruits and an occasional dud here and there long after many larger and thicker branches of Rock evolution have withered, died and fallen off. The Velvets esthetic vision is as alive and vibrant today as it was 40 years ago, if not more so. If it were for its lasting durability and longevity alone, the album would deserve to be called a Titan.
Read on don t lose patience - there s much to read
ABOUT THE ALBUM:
What else can be said of this album that hasn t already been said? The album that defi n ed the era the music that shattered conventions, the production that influenced everyone over the next four decades, the lyrics that sound fresher today than they did in 1967 and the Andy Warhol artwork that still captures the imagination. This is a sexy, moody, brilliant and occasionally violent work that would be impossible to reproduce today, in the age of political correctness gone amok. Most importantly, THE MUSIC . This is the only album that will make you a honorary resident of New York City, without you ever having to set foot in it. From the opening track Sunday Morning , to the last one European son , Lou Reed, John Cale, Nico and the rest of the crew take you through the kaleidoscope of emotions, settings, ambients, situations, moods and rhythms, not all of which are for the faint of heart. The album includes some of the most beautiful, poetic imagery ever committed to a disc I ll be your mirror Famme Fatale Venus in Furs . Whether you are into singers-songwriters, pre-punk, beatnik poetry, or 60 s rock, this is a must-have.
The guiding light behind the album s artistic vision, and the proverbial red thread that runs through it, it is the depiction of human nature in all its aspects: the good, the bad and the ugly mostly the latter . The narrative is in the first or the third person, often situational as in I m waiting for my man , focusing on anxiety, addiction, loneliness, pain, perversion, sex, death, urban cacophony no, folks, this is NOT your typical flower-power record , and are interspersed with quieter and shorter , introspective songs and moody, lyrical passages. There is no moralizing involved, no judgmental posturing or sermonizing. Like all great writers of the past, Lou Reed leaves that role to the listener.
The secret behind the album s highly successful and influential formula appears to rest not so much in musicianship or in crafty songwriting, as in its tricky, creative, almost seductive track sequencing. The tracks flow and segue from each other naturally and organically, although paradoxically - in some unpredictable and schizophrenic fashion, like a bunch of seemingly unrelated, disconnected vignettes. The sudden changes in song textures and moods, and unexpected tempo shifts, create a schizo-like, stop-and-go pattern, a tension-and-release adrenaline rush that never ends. The listener is constantly being kick-started into a new mindset, a new vignette, a new emotional context.
Oddly enough, despite all the focusing on negative sides of the human psyche, the album is never pessimistic or depressive. The contrasting moments of quiet beauty, joy and exuberance, as in I ll be your mirror , Femme Fatale or Sunday Morning which could easily be confused for a Peter, Paul and Mary tune, perhaps as an unintentional parody are more than enough to compensate for its overwhelming darkness. This is one perfect example of consonance and dissonance resting side-by-side, feeding off of each other and thriving on each other in a perfect yin-and-yang unison.
We can only speculate that the album very accurately and in graphic detail reflects the life of a typical New York counterculture artist at the dawn of the psychedelic era, circa 1966. It is nothing short of amazing how relevant and alive this music still is. Nothing seems to have change since 1966, except the world climate and presidential candidates.
ABOUT THE COVER:
This is the legendary - and much coveted - first version of the Velvet Underground s Banana Cover album, WITH AN UNCENSORED UN-AIRBRUSHED image of the actor Eric Emerson s torso hanging upside-down, above the band performing on stage there would be five versions altogether, with various combinations of back and front panels . Because Emerson objected to being included on the cover without his permission and, more importantly, without adequate financial compensation , he filed a lawsuit against Verve possibly even Warhol himself , who then decided to rather than reach an out-of-court settlement with Emerson either airbrush Emerson s torso, or camouflage it by pasting a large black song titles sticker over the questionable torso.
While all this legal wrangling was going on, the album was held in marketing limbo, without any covers available, and with no copies in stock to be shipped to the market. An already slow chart action had slowed down to a crawl, never to regain its momentum again. Needless to say, these first versions of the cover Torso cover are many times perhaps tens of times rarer and harder to find than the subsequent stickered or airbrushed covers.
Then, the
