Rendezvous at The Russian Tea Rooms

Over the past decade, The Velvet Underground’s live archive has been raided with increasing frequency. First we got the official release of a long-bootlegged 1966 Columbus, Ohio gig as a part of the “super-deluxe” edition of The Velvet Underground & Nico. And in 2013, the 1967 Gymnasium gig (which had only circulated amongst collectors for a few years), showed up on the similarly super deluxe White Light/White Heat box set. At this point, there’s very little live material left from the John Cale-era of the group, at least that anyone knows about. But one of the strangest, most fascinating treasures of Cale’s time with the Velvets still remains in the hands of bootleggers: “Sweet Sister Ray.”