Wednesday, February 5, 2025

The Velvet Underground : Norman Dolph : Scepter Studios Acetate 1966





I DON'T KNOW

JUST WHERE I'M GOING

BUT I'M GONNA TRY

FOR THE KINGDOM 

IF I CAN..



 The Rare 

April 1966

 “Scepter Studios” 

recordings

 captured on

 acetate disc 

featuring early, 

alternate versions

 of 

songs 

later issued

 on

 The Velvet underground & Nico.


Norman Dolph's 
original 
acetate recording
 of the
 “Scepter Studios” 
material
 contains 
several recordings
 that would make it 
onto the final album, 
though many are 
different mixes
 of those recordings 
and three are
 different takes entirely. 
The acetate was
 cut on 
April 25, 1966, 
shortly after 
the recording sessions.

The bulk of the songs
 that would become 
The Velvet Underground & Nico 
were recorded in 
mid-April, 1966, 
during a 
four-day stint at 
“Scepter Studios”, 
a recording studio
 in New York City. 
This recording session 
was financed by
 Warhol 
and 
Columbia Records' 
sales executive 
Norman Dolph, 
who also acted as
 an engineer 
with
 John Licata. 
Though exact
 total cost 
of the project
 is unknown, 
estimates 
vary from
 $1,500 to $3,000.

Soon after recording, 
Dolph sent an
 acetate disc 
of the 
recordings to
Columbia in an
 attempt to
 interest them
 in distributing
 the album, 
but they declined, 
as did
 Atlantic Records 
and 
Elektra Records.
 Eventually,
 the MGM 
Records-owned
 Verve Records 
accepted the recordings 
with the help of
 Verve staff producer
 Tom Wilson, 
who had 
recently moved
 from a job at 
Columbia.
With the affirmation 
of a label,
 three of the songs, 
"I'm Waiting for the Man",
 "Venus in Furs" 
and
 "Heroin", 
were re-recorded
 in two days at
 T.T.G. Studios 
during a stay
 in Hollywood
 later in 1966. 
When the record's
 release date 
was postponed, 
Wilson brought 
the band into a 
New York studio 
in November 1966
 to add a final song
 to the track listing:
 the single
 "Sunday Morning".
Although ten songs
 were recorded 
during this session, 
only nine appear 
on the acetate cut. 
Norman Dolph recalls
 "There She Goes Again" 
being the missing song 
and, indeed,
 the version of 
"There She Goes Again"
that appears on
 the final LP
 is attributed to the
 Scepter Studios session.

This only
 acetate disc 
would resurface 
decades later 
when it was bought by a 
collector of 
Montreal, Canada
 in 2002 
at a flea market
 in the 
Chelsea neighborhood 
of New York City 
for a few coins.
 It was then
 sold on
 E-Bay 
from that collector 
for over
 $25,200
 (€18.322).

TRACK LIST


European Son
(Alternate Version)

Black Angel's Death Song
(Alternate Mix)

All Tomorrow's Parties
(Alternate Version)

I'll Be Your Mirror
(Alternate Version)

Heroin
(Alternate Version)

Femme Fatale
(Alternate Mix)

Venus In Furs
(Alternate Version)


I'm Waiting For The Man
(Alternate Version)

Run Run Run
(Alternate Mix)

BONUS

I'm Waiting For My Man
 (Vocal Mix) [*]

Heroin
 (Vocal Mix) [*]

I'll Be Your Mirror 
(Vocal Mix) [*]

Venus In Furs 
(Vocal Mix) [*]



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