Live at Max's Kansas City

Live at Max's Kansas City
Live album by The Velvet Underground
Released	May 30, 1972 (1972-05-30)
Recorded	August 23, 1970 (1970-08-23) at Max's Kansas City, New York City, New York, United States
Genre	Rock
Length	38:21
Language	English
Label	Cotillion
Producer	The Velvet Underground
Professional reviews
Allmusic link Blender 2004 Robert Christgau (B-) link Rolling Stone 1972
The Velvet Underground chronology
Loaded (1970) Live at Max's Kansas City (1972) Squeeze (1973)

Live at Max's Kansas City is a live album by The Velvet Underground. It was originally released on May 30, 1972 by Cotillion, a subsidiary label of Atlantic Records.

About the album

The Velvet Underground signed a two-album deal with Atlantic in late 1969 and released their fourth studio album, Loaded, in September 1970. By the time of its release, however, singer/guitarist/main songwriter Lou Reed had left. The band soldiered on with bassist Doug Yule moving to vocals and guitar and Walter Powers being drafted in to play bass guitar.

This line-up did a tour of the United States and Canada promoting Loaded. As the band still had a contract for another album, they wrote and played new songs eventually to be included on the new album. Atlantic, however, had lost faith in the band's commercial prospects and, wanting to cut their losses after the disappointing chart showings of Loaded, decided to release an archive live recording instead.

The tapes that would later become Live at Max's Kansas City were recorded on August 23, 1970, by Andy Warhol associate Brigid Polk on a portable cassette recorder. At the same time the band were recording Loaded, The Velvet Underground held a nine-week engagement (June 24 – August 28, 1970) 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. On August 3, 2004, Warner Music re-issue label Rhino Records released a two-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 more quiet bits of music.

Author Jim Carroll can be heard speaking on the album, ordering drinks and inquiring about drugs between songs. He was with Polk that night and so sat close to the mic.

Track listing

All tracks written by Lou Reed except as indicated.

Side one

1. "I'm Waiting for the Man" – 4:00
2. "Sweet Jane" – 4:52
3. "Lonesome Cowboy Bill" – 3:41
4. "Beginning to See the Light" – 5:00

Side two

5. "I'll Be Your Mirror" – 1:55
6. "Pale Blue Eyes" – 5:38
7. "Sunday Morning" (Reed, John Cale) – 2:43
8. "New Age" – 5:58
9. "Femme Fatale" – 2:29
10. "After Hours" – 2:05

2004 reissue edition

Disc one

1. "I'm Waiting for the Man" – 5:50
2. "White Light/White Heat" – 6:07
3. "I'm Set Free" – 5:33
4. "Sweet Jane" (Version 1) – 6:18
5. "Lonesome Cowboy Bill" (Version 1) – 4:41
6. "New Age" – 6:44
7. "Beginning to See the Light" – 5:40

Disc two

8. "Who Loves the Sun" – 2:17
9. "Sweet Jane" (Version 2) – 5:58
10. "I'll Be Your Mirror" – 3:02
11. "Pale Blue Eyes" – 7:10
12. "Candy Says" – 5:48
13. "Sunday Morning" (Reed, Cale) – 3:48
14. "After Hours" – 2:50
15. "Femme Fatale" – 4:07
16. "Some Kinda Love" – 11:22
17. "Lonesome Cowboy Bill" (Version 2) – 5:00
18. Atlantic release promo (hidden track) – 0:49

Personnel

• Sterling Morrison – lead, rhythm guitar
• Lou Reed – vocals, rhythm guitar
• Doug Yule – bass guitar, backing vocals, lead vocal on "I'm Set Free", "Lonesome Cowboy Bill", "Who Loves the Sun", "I'll Be Your Mirror", "Candy Says" and "New Age"
• Billy Yule – drums

External links

• The Velvet Underground Web Page
• Max's Kansas City's Official Website