Not the famously lost “Sweet Sister Ray” (which exists only in a 1968 Lester Bangs review of a San Diego VU show) but a song no one even knew was lost: “I’m Not A Young Man Anymore,” which you can listen to below and download in many places.

These are from an April 1967 set at a place in NYC called the Gymnasium, and until now only two songs had surfaced. One was “I Think I’m Falling In Love,” found on the excellent …and so on LP, sequel to the equally excellent etc. LP and together two of my favorite VU boots. And the other was “Booker T,” the instrumental popularly heard as the backing track to “The Gift.” These were very intriguing because they were the only known 1967 recordings of the Velvet Underground as well the last live tapes with John Cale. And there was always supposed to be more.

The excellent VU site Electricity Comes From Other Planets explains the story of this tape:

April 14-16, 21-23 & 28-30, 1967
The Gymnasium, New York City, New York
The Exploding Plastic Inevitable

The Gymnasium soundboard tape(s)::

First track to surface from the Gymnasium tape(s) was Guess I’m Falling In Love (supposedly listed as Fever In My Pocket on the original tape box), broadcasted on WPIX FM by John Cale on June 3, 1979. After playing this version he clearly states that it is from a tape he stumbled across. He definitely says “Gymnasium, April 1967″. Cale also said in some interviews he owns the tape of the entire Gymnasium show, including Walk It As You Talk It with a really good guitar sound.

1. Guess I’m Falling In Love [version 1] (4:09)

Two others tracks surfaced in the 90s - Booker T. orginally appeared on the John Cale Paris S’Eveille CDEP in 1991 and was reissued (unfortunately with 8 seconds amputed at the beginning) on the Peel Slowly And See box set, along with an alternate version of Guess I’m Falling In Love. This version sounds clearly different as compared with the WPIX version and has some lyrics differences (the box set version begins with “I got fever…” while the ‘old’ version begins with “I got MY fever…”).

1. Guess I’m Falling In Love [version 2] (4:10)
2. Booker T. (6:38)

More material from the Gymnasium recordings is finally issued in February 2008 on the bootleg LP Live At The Gymnasium. The original tape may have an additional instrumental version of The Gift after Sister Ray.

1. I’m Not A Young Man Anymore
2. Guess I’m Falling In Love [same as version 2]
3. I’m Waiting For The Man
4. Run Run Run
5. Sister Ray

Source: Live At The Gymnasium LP (1-5).

The entire album is all over the internet for download if you like it. I like it. If you are in a live mood, I also recommend the Boston Tea Party / “Guitar Amp Tape” and the Sister Ray box set where every side of the LP is just “Sister Ray.”

UPDATE: If that MP3 isn’t working I’ll put a working link tomorrow.

UPDATE: I did put up a working link!

Tags: 1967, bootleg, gymnasium, i'm not a young man anymore, live, mp3, velvet underground