Live At Max’s Kansas City

The tapes that would later become the Velvet Underground’s live album “Live At Max’s Kansas City” were recorded on August 23rd 1970 by Andy Warhol associate Brigid Polk on a portable cassette recorder. While they were recording the album “Loaded”, the Velvet Underground held a nine-week engagement at New York nightclub Max’s Kansas City, playing two sets a night. Polk recorded almost everything happening around her at the time, and this happened to include her attendance of the last concert that Lou Reed played with the Velvet Underground. She recorded both the early and the late set. Later that year, Atlantic A&R employee Danny Fields heard the tapes and submitted them to his superiors, who accepted the recordings and in 1972 decided to make an album out of them.

Originally, “Live At Max’s Kansas City” was a single album distillation of both sets re-sequenced and edited by Lou Reed and Atlantic staff producer Geoff Haslam to reflect the band’s loud and quiet sides, respectively. In 2004, Warner Music re-issue label Rhino Records released this double CD deluxe edition that contains both sets in their entirety in their original running order. The songs were recorded on a mono recorder using a simple ferro musicassette in a small venue, resulting in tape hiss and an audience often drowning out the quieter bits of music. Author Jim Carroll can be heard speaking on the album, ordering drinks and inquiring about drugs between songs as he was the one holding the microphone.

Used item in good shape!