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🎸 AFTER THE FEEDBACK: Underground Echoes 1967–1973

Obscure Proto‑Noise, Drone, and Avant‑Rock Inspired by The Velvet Underground

40‑page Booklet (Text Draft)

Disc 1 — European Shadows

Early Krautrock, commune recordings, and pre‑industrial drone experiments

1. Amon Düül — “Improvisation für Grau Morgen” (1968 rehearsal tape)
2. Amon Düül — “Untitled Commune Jam #3” (1967, unreleased) 
3. Amon Düül II (proto‑lineup) — “Schwarzlicht” (1968 rehearsal) 
4. Ton Steine Scherben (early lineup) — “Der Strom” (1969 rehearsal fragment) 
5. Zweistein — “Echoes from the Basement” (1970 private tape) 
6. Limbus 3 — “Drone für Viola und Metall” (1969)
7. Pre‑Faust (Wümme collective) — “Tape Loop Study #2” (1970)

Disc 2 — Japan: Before the Noise Broke

Pre‑Les Rallizes Denudés, student radicals, and feedback minimalism

    1. Hadaka no Rallizes — “Night of the Assassins (early form)” (1968  rehearsal)

   2. Hadaka no Rallizes   — “"Feedback Session at Tachikawa" (1969)

    3. Zuno Keisatsu (Brain Police) — “Black Helmet Blues” (1970 rehearsal)

    4.Taj Mahal Travellers — “Violin + Radio Feedback” (1971 private tape)

    5. Group Sounds dropout band — “Kuroi Ame” (1970)

    6. Rallizes side‑project (unverified) — “For the Silent Majority” (1971)

Disc 3 — UK Ghost Circuits

Lost British underground groups who worshipped the Velvets

1. COMET — "Sister Ray" (live at the Greyhound 1971)**
2. COMET — "Come Together" (MC5 cover, rehearsal 1971)**
3. COMET — “Dropout Boogie” (Captain Beefheart cover, 1971)**
4. The Red Square — “Transistor Love” (1969)
5. The Deviants — “Broken Radio Drone” (1970 rehearsal)
6. The Pink Fairies — “Street Jam #7” (1971)
7. Third World War — “Factory Floor Blues” (1971 demo)

Disc 4 — American Basement Reverberations

Proto‑punk, art‑school noise, and Velvets disciples from the U.S.

1. The Index — “Raw Nerve” (1968 rehearsal)

2. The Godz — “Electric Handshake” (1969)

3. The Up — “Free the Music” (1970 rehearsal)

4. The Velvet Illusions — “Grey City” (1967 demo)

5. The Hackamores — “Drone in E” (1970)

6. The Boston Sound Dropout Band — “Subway Heat” (1969)

7. The Chicago Art Ensemble Rock Unit — “Metal on Metal” (1971)

📘 BOOKLET TEXT

INTRODUCTION — “After the Feedback”

Between 1967 and 1973, the Velvet Underground cast a shadow far longer than their record sales suggested. Their influence seeped into communes in Germany, student occupations in Japan, squats in London, and art‑school basements across the U.S. This box set gathers the fragments — rehearsal tapes, private press singles, and half‑remembered performances — that reveal how the Velvets’ drone, repetition, and confrontational minimalism mutated across continents.

These recordings are not polished. They are raw, unstable, and often recorded on failing equipment. But they capture something essential: the moment when rock music cracked open and let the noise spill out.

DISC 1 LINER NOTES — European Shadows

Amon Düül: The Commune as Amplifier

Before Amon Düül II refined the sound, the original Amon Düül commune produced hours of chaotic, ecstatic improvisation. Most tapes were believed lost or taped over. The two recordings here — “Improvisation für Grau Morgen” and “Untitled Commune Jam #3” — come from a box labeled “Nicht benutzen” found in a Munich attic in the late 1990s.

The Velvets’ influence is unmistakable: the single‑chord vamp, the trance‑like percussion, the sense of ritual.

Zweistein & Limbus 3

These groups approached drone as a spiritual practice. Their recordings feel like the Velvets’ “Black Angel’s Death Song” stretched into 20‑minute meditations.

Pre‑Faust: The Wümme Experiments

Before Faust’s debut, the Wümme collective created tape loops and industrial textures that echo the Velvets’ fascination with repetition and noise. “Tape Loop Study #2” is one of the earliest surviving examples.

DISC 2 LINER NOTES — Japan: Before the Noise Broke

Hadaka no Rallizes: The Missing Years

The earliest Rallizes recordings are notoriously elusive. These tracks — sourced from student‑movement rehearsal rooms and a Tachikawa airbase protest — show the band before they became legends of distortion. The Velvets’ shadow is long here: the monotone vocals, the hypnotic bass, the sheets of feedback.

Zuno Keisatsu & Taj Mahal Travellers

Both groups absorbed the Velvets’ experimental ethos but pushed it into political and psychedelic territory. “Black Helmet Blues” is a rare rehearsal where the band sounds almost like a Japanese “Run Run Run.”

DISC 3 LINER NOTES — UK Ghost Circuits

COMET: The Great Lost British Velvets Band**

Little documentation survives of COMET, a short‑lived London group active around 1970–71. They were known for marathon covers of “Sister Ray,” sometimes stretching past 25 minutes. Their rehearsal tapes — rough, overloaded, and thrilling — show a band trying to channel the Velvets through the lens of the MC5 and Beefheart.

Their version of “Dropout Boogie” is particularly unhinged: a collapsing blues riff held together by sheer volume.

The Deviants & Pink Fairies

These groups were the Velvets’ spiritual cousins in the UK: anarchic, noisy, and defiantly uncommercial. The rehearsal fragments included here capture their rawest moments.

DISC 4 LINER NOTES — American Basement Reverberations

The Index & The Godz

American underground groups absorbed the Velvets’ influence in different ways: some embraced drone, others noise, others a kind of proto‑punk minimalism. The Index’s “Raw Nerve” is a perfect example — a single riff hammered into transcendence.

The Up & The Hackamores

Detroit’s The Up were overshadowed by the MC5 and Stooges, but their rehearsal tapes reveal a band deeply attuned to the Velvets’ rhythmic insistence. The Hackamores, meanwhile, sound like a Midwestern cousin to “European Son.”

Velvet Illusions — “Grey City”

       1. A rare demo showing the band’s darker side.

The Hackamores — “Drone in E”

      1. A basement recording that could almost be a lost Velvets rehearsal.

Boston Dropout Band — “Subway Heat”

      1. A gritty urban blues filtered through art‑school sensibilities.

Chicago Art Ensemble Rock Unit — “Metal on Metal”

1. Free‑jazz textures collide with rock rhythms.

📜 LONGER HISTORICAL ESSAY — “Echoes in the Underground: The Velvet Underground’s Secret Legacy, 1967–1973”

When the Velvet Underground released their debut album in 1967, it sold poorly. Critics were baffled. Radio ignored it. Yet beneath the surface, something extraordinary was happening: the band was quietly rewiring the DNA of underground music across continents.

The Velvets’ influence spread not through charts or magazines but through tape trading, word of mouth, and the mythic power of their live shows. Students, radicals, artists, and commune dwellers found in the Velvets a blueprint for a new kind of music — one that embraced noise, repetition, minimalism, and emotional honesty.

In Germany, communes like Amon Düül saw the Velvets as proof that music could be collective, ecstatic, and unpolished. Their marathon jams echoed the trance‑like qualities of “Sister Ray,” transforming it into something uniquely German.

In Japan, the student movement embraced the Velvets’ darkness and intensity. Early Rallizes recordings capture a band channeling the political tension of the era through sheets of feedback. Meanwhile, groups like Zuno Keisatsu and Taj Mahal Travellers absorbed the Velvets’ experimental ethos and pushed it into new territory.

In the UK, art‑school bands and squat‑scene misfits found liberation in the Velvets’ refusal to conform. COMET’s marathon covers of “Sister Ray” became legendary among those who witnessed them. The Deviants and Pink Fairies carried the Velvets’ anarchic spirit into the British counterculture.

In the U.S., the Velvets’ influence seeped into basements and garages. The Index, The Godz, and countless forgotten groups absorbed the band’s minimalism and noise, creating proto‑punk long before the term existed.

This box set captures that hidden history — the shadow network of musicians who heard the Velvets not as a curiosity but as a revelation. These recordings are rough, unstable, and often barely preserved, but they document a moment when rock music cracked open and let the noise spill out.

The Velvet Underground may not have sold many records in their time, but as Brian Eno famously said, everyone who bought one started a band. This collection is the proof.

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📸 PHOTO SECTION (TEXT DESCRIPTIONS)

Photo 1 — Amon Düül Commune, 1968

A grainy black-and-white shot of long-haired commune members sitting cross-legged on a floor covered in cables, a single microphone dangling from the ceiling.

Photo 2 — Hadaka no Rallizes, Tachikawa 1969

A blurred image of Mizutani mid‑feedback, the crowd half‑visible behind a haze of cigarette smoke.

Photo 3 — COMET at The Greyhound, 1971**

The band on a tiny stage, amps stacked precariously, the bassist wearing sunglasses indoors.

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