Loaded: best VU album, rite guys?

More lol:

We limped on with various personnel. Jake Riveria picked us up and Nick Lowe produced us- he was too poppy for what we were doing. By then, in late '78, we realized that no one was interested in us. So the deal was that we'd tour with Elvis Costello for two months, stay in England and Nick Lowe would produce an album for us. It was a grim tour. Costello was getting more and more popular, less punk. The audience had no interest in us- when we hit the stage, the applause would stop. We played in some dire villages that looked like they didn't even have electricity.

My introduction to the Velvets was the Joy Division version of Sister Ray on Still and that put me right off for the longest time.

― Valéry Giscard d'Staind (NickB), Friday, March 30, 2012 3:05 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Me too ... and sometimes I'd hear "Sweet Jane" on the radio and think "what is this shit, the Cowboy Junkies totally rescued this song".

just re: outtakes & all everyone has to get with this, whatever they think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmmSfru60MY

& scott is otm, loaded is so easy to like. i mean it's got rock & roll on it, it's such a good lou record, stuff like the above included.

As a result of this thread CCR totally clicked for me.

no slam, but genuine lols

ccr, by any means necessary

welcome aboard

my work here is done

three re Quine 1) on VU bass & drums: "deliberately cretinous"--well, Mo dug Bo, don't know Cale's agenda, but sure does seem like this combo loved to veer into strobe visions of Times Square topless go-go bar (foretelling classic headline "Headless Body Found In Topless Bar"). Also keeping mynd Seeds, Standells, Electric Prunes etc, who had the hits after all, but VU too cool to linger (although good for their club act, of course) 2) He may have been miserable on the UK tour, but a really good live legit CD very eventually emerged 3) forgot what I was going to write

How are The Quine Tapes? Xgau's review ends w mention of "new guitar"(?)

― dow, Friday, March 30, 2012 4:23 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

they are amazing, a total revelation, imo better than 1969 Live, etc.

Thanks! "a really good live legit CD": Richard Hell and the Voidoids' Time (longer and better sounding edition of the show on their ROIR live tape)

dow - we've got time for yr 3). Plese come back sometime.

In other developments I'm kinda regretting listening to ccr as I clicked on a HIGHLY OFFENSIVE Pavement cover of Sinister Purpose.

Minuteman must have done something w/one of their songs so I'll hunt that -- to clear the damage, you understand.

Minuteman must have done something w/one of their songs so I'll hunt that -- to clear the damage, you understand.

they did, more than once!

yes quine tapes are great -- dunno if i'd rank 'em above live 69 because the sound quality on that is superior. if the quine tapes were as hi-fi as live 69 it'd be the quine tapes on top for sure.

Isn't there a decent amount of overlap between the two?

nope, iirc just one ("rock n roll") is the exact same performance on both releases. they're both recorded around the same time, and both have tracks from the Matrix Club.

A little fixated, maybe, but now I'm wondering about the opening to Train Round The Bend in relation to Bowie's Speed of Life. Where does that idea of a distorted repeated note bouncing from speaker to speaker start...?

The problem w/all live tapes at the moment is that they're utterly destroyed by the samples from the Matrix tapes that still haven't come out, which is sort of crazy making.

crazy making indeed. those tapes would essentially render both the quine tapes and live 69 (great as both of those are) obsolete.

iirc, when The Quine Tapes were first released, Lou mentioned the Boston Tea Party (better known as "the guitar amp tapes" or something...?) as being the next installment. Then his bowels acted up, and he nixed all future Quine Tapes installments.

Ha at that description.

"deliberately cretinous"--well, Mo dug Bo

oh yeah, that's what got me thinking about Beefheart and the Magic Band etc xpost. And Moe didn't play so many straight-up Bo Diddley Burundi beats did she? Lou: "We just needed somebody to play the telephone book." Whatta guy.

god I love the Vulgar Boatmen and their predecessor Right To Left, thank you so much for bringing them up - and I think they do have a clear lineage from the Velvets in many ways. (xp)

The first Moe solo album is pretty damn amazing.

Moe is.

thread title otm

took me ten years to figure that one out

I don't think it's the best VU album, but I think the Fully Loaded edition might be the best reissue of all time. All those alternate takes and solo Lou sketches are essential.

Dave Marsh thought it was their best, and Mitch Ryder dug it:

Six months later, I’m sitting at a table at the Waldorf, some room where Mitch is doing a debut party for his Detroit [album], and they hit “Rock’n'Roll,” which they’d worked up about a day after first hearing it. We were sitting right up front, and Lou leans over from across the table next to us and says, “That’s what that song was supposed to sound like.”

"And then Lou put his hands around my neck and tried to strangle me."

and i dunno, loaded is one of the best albums ever, but an album w/o moe on it can't be the best VU album.

It's their only "very good" album. I have problems with Yule singing more than one song per album.

i think he works on "who loves the sun" and "oh sweet nuthin" but he does not deliver on "new age" -- the live 69 version is farrrrrr superior, vocally and lyrically.

Agreed except about his vocals working on "Oh! Sweet Nuthin"

"And then Lou put his hands around my neck and tried to strangle me."

hahaha

Interestingly, for all of Marsh's criticisms of Lou, they apparently got along great -- Marsh recently mentioned seeing Lou earlier this year, and said he seemed to be in great health/spirits.

But then, as Marsh notes, he never tried to interview Lou.

xp have you heard the versions w/ lou singing? there's one on the reissue and a bootleg version -- i'm not sure he would've been a better fit.

Only Yule vocal I think is iffy is "Lonesome Cowboy Bill." It's way too fast for a sweet vocal. He nails everything else, though.

As bassist he's far more interesting than Cale, or maybe the songs Reed was writing took advantage of Yule's particular talents. "Foggy Notion" is all-time.

cale is a pretty interesting bassist! but yeah, i love yule's playing -- i pretty much learned to play bass listening to live 69 as a teenager. what's weird is that yule claims he never played bass before he joined the velvets -- he had played baritone horn and tuba in his school band.

Cale is a brilliant bass player, but crazy, I love the bass on "The Gift"

He nails everything else, though.

He does.

So he had an idea of the parts to play, just had to transfer from breath power to finger power. Interesting.

yeah obviously he understood what the low end was supposed to do in music, but hadn't actually played bass w/ a rock band before (i guess he was playing guitar in previous bands). it's funny, he describes learning the repertoire as no big thing: "It was like, first chorus, play a solo for an hour and a half and we're out."

well the material's not terribly complicated

but hadn't actually played bass w/ a rock band before (i guess he was playing guitar in previous bands)

Bit like Noel Redding then

yeah, not complicated in terms of musicianship, though i can see how some players just wouldn't be able to go for it in the way that Yule did.

but anyway, otm about the fully loaded edition being essential, so much great stuff on there. though i still sort of have a quibble with the "heavenly wine and roses" "sweet jane" being put on there in the original album's sequencing. i love that part, but the performance there is kind of lamentable. the drummer (billy?) pretty much blows it. maybe i'm just used to the original CD I bought in the early 90s.

i still sort of have a quibble with the "heavenly wine and roses" "sweet jane" being put on there in the original album's sequencing. i love that part, but the performance there is kind of lamentable.

Sounds like it's from a runthrough, I've never believed Lou when he said it was edited out, I doubt it was ever seriously recorded for inclusion in the track

well, i don't know about that -- they play it at Lou's last show at Max's don't they? and i think in early solo versions from 72 or thereabouts, Lou plays it. I believe it was supposed to be part of the song, but once Lou left the band, they may have been unable to get a decent edit of that in there.

Cale does that great bass run at the end of the verse in "I'm Waiting for the Man."

And "European Son!"

"I Heard Her Call My Name" - wish I could hear him a little better on that. Sometimes I think Cale might actually be my all-time favorite bass player.

Sorry I'm always arguing with you Alfred!

As bassist he's far more interesting than Cale, or maybe the songs Reed was writing took advantage of Yule's particular talents. "Foggy Notion" is all-time.

― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, November 8, 2013 9:45 AM (1 hour ago)

While Lou's and Sterling's guitar tracks are both incredible, the bass playing on Foggy Notion is pretty basic/monotonous with a couple runs/turnarounds that aren't very difficult or original unless you are a novice. Great song, but the bass playing never stood out to me as anything more than serviceable.

Loaded is pretty overrated, seems like almost all of these songs were almost always improved when done live or when the album was reissued with better versions. I'll take "VU" over Loaded any day of the week.

Oh I'm not praising Yule's skillz so much as THAT basic hook. Easy to play, taken for granted.