The Complete Matrix Tapes

The Complete Matrix Tapes is a live album by the New York City-based experimental rock band the Velvet Underground, released on November 20, 2015. It features unexpurgated recordings of the band's two-night stint on November 26 and 27, 1969, at San Francisco club The Matrix, owned and operated by Jefferson Airplane's Marty Balin. The band's appearance represents one of the rare occasions on which the Velvet Underground was professionally recorded in a live setting, and while several of the performances in this set have been released in various fashions and configurations before (in particular, on the album 1969: The Velvet Underground Live and the 45th anniversary reissue of The Velvet Underground, as well as via much lower-quality audience recordings in Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes), it is the first time all of them have been collected together. Additionally, this represents the first time much of this material has been presented in a CD version sourced directly from the original tapes, which had been considered lost for decades, and nine tracks from this collection had previously been completely unreleased in any configuration. The resulting product has been widely praised both for its sound quality and for the power of its performances.

Contents

• The velvet underground white light white heat version 1 the complete matrix tapes
• Sweet jane version 1 live at the matrix san francisco audio
• Track listing
• Personnel
• Songs
• References

Several of the songs on this set, such as "Over You", "Sweet Bonnie Brown", and "We're Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together", still have not been released as studio recordings by the band, and it is not known whether the band ever recorded them in the studio. Others, such as "Lisa Says", "New Age", and "I'm Waiting for the Man", feature significantly different or expanded lyrics from their studio counterparts, and many of them are substantially longer than their studio counterparts (in particular, "Sister Ray" is very nearly twenty minutes longer than its studio version, while "Ocean", "I'm Waiting for the Man", and "White Light/White Heat" are also presented in significantly expanded performances).