Lou Reed John Cale New York 29 Nov 1989 audience recording

"Songs For Drella"

29 November 1989

Brooklyn Academy Of Music

Brooklyn, New York

track 01: Small Town 2.29
track 02: Open House 4.35
track 03: Style It Takes 3.16
track 04: Work 3.21
track 05: The Trouble With Classicists 4.08
track 06: Starlight 4.10
track 07: Faces And Names 4.54
track 08: Images 4.04
track 09: Slip Away 4.05
track 10: It Wasn't Me 3.52
track 11: I Believe 3.32
track 12: Nobody But You 4.01
track 13: A Dream 6.40
track 14: Forever Changed 5.04
track 15: Hello It's Me 3.24

track 16: Pale Blue Eyes (encore, recorded 03 Dec 1989)

Lou Reed: guitar, vocals
John Cale: keyboards, bowed instruments, vocals
Moe Tucker: vocals (track 16)

lineage: 1st generation trade cassettes - WAV - CDR - (EAC) - WAV - FLAC (level 8) - you
original transfer to wav by DS
uploaded to dime by lurid_uk January 2008
EAC log included

This was the first of the 4 "formal" Songs For Drella performances at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music. (The 2 shows at St Ann's Church in January 1989 were officially termed "works in progress"). The piece had been commissioned as part of the BAM's "No Wave" Festival, and was performed on 29th and 30th November and then again on the 2nd and 3rd December 1989. I was fortunate enough to see the latter 2 shows: Lou and John played the pieces absolutely deadpan, in front of a very stark backdrop onto which was projected various still images. (I seem to remember that for some obscure commercial reason these images were not directly connected with Andy!). Each of the shows was identical in format and content until the final show, when Moe Tucker joined Lou and John onstage for a nice rendition of "Pale Blue Eyes". An additional performance, possible on 4th or 5th December (without audience) was filmed for the commercial video release.

After these 4 performances, the piece was partly reprised at the VU "reunion" at the Cartier Foundation, Paris, 15 June 1990 and was presented again in it's entirety in Japan in August 1990.

Sound quality is pretty good - the audience are occasionally audible but not at all intrusive.

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