Loaded: best VU album, rite guys?

Idk if it is or isn't but I thought it was an allusion to a pervasive 'urban legend' I heard about in high school about a drug dealing teenager who fell into a swimming pool with a hundred hits of acid in his pocket and lived his life thinking he was an orange

Loaded is such an easy album to like. How can you not like it? It's so warm and genial.

not a big fan of Yule's vocals throughout the LP, but once that screaming guitar comes in on "Train Comin' Round The Bend" all is forgiven. still their weakest imo.

just as long as you realize that their "weakest" is better than most people will ever make. their weak beats your career.

Scott, have you ever heard American Flyer's LP? Only one, as far as I know--with Doug Yule, Eric Justin Kaz, and others, was kind of intended as, not a supergroup, but pros of proven ability nobody know what else to do with--Like KGB, or Triumvirate, In this case, kind of refined singer-songwriter-country-rock hoping for a hit ballad, I think; haven't heard it. James, have not yet read the Nelson bio. Did you? What did you think? What did it say about his working on the Velvets live stuff?

I have a copy but I haven't really looked at it yet. Seems like Tyler has read it

not a whole lot about the velvets, really. worth a read. depressing, though, dude was a pretty sad sack.
american flyer album is....not very good. i wanted to like it! produced by george martin even.

So not as good as any of those h____ albums he produced for America?

Yeah, American Flyer is seriously bland. IIRC, they did two albums.

just as long as you realize that their "weakest" is better than most people will ever make. their weak beats your career.

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2012 00:54 (1 hour ago)

oh yeah this is a given

yeah, i couldn't get into american flyer at all

I listen to Loaded the most if I listen to VU, but I'll take the Dead over the first three VU records, now those bootleg Sister Ray 20 minute jams might be better than any of their records.

ANd Nico sounds half dead most of the time, main reason I haven't listened to their first record since I was 20.

she totally works on those songs. i've always thought. the half dead thing totally works. i mean astrud gilberto was really big back then.

But Astrud makes it sounds sexy!

i dunno i'm a fan of hammer horror vampire living desd girls.

"dead" girls. living dead girl one of my alltime fave movies.

plus, i just love the delivery. damn, if YOU'RE my mirror, i'm fucked!

Lol

"dead" girls. living dead girl one of my alltime fave movies.

oh hell yeah, me too. has there been much jean rollin discussion on ilx?

their weak beats your career.

Ha! Loaded reignited my VU love a couple of years ago following a long stretch where I stopped listening to them (though I was delving into the solo careers a fair bit). I'd rank it below the 1st and 3rd albums but yeah all four are such great records. I've had that a lot recently, getting back into things I thought I'd completely played out, it's great.

My VU 'in obtain order' was:

Double LP "Andy Warhol's VU featuring Nico" http://eil.com/images/gallery_50x50/361886.jpg"

Which has all the first album apart from "I'll be your mirror", and all the second apart from "Lady Godiva's op", about half of the third album, and none of "Loaded" onwards.

I got a cheap http://991.com/images/thumbnails/455201b.jpg after that.

Left the third for a while, knew I'd like it more, so saved it..

"Ramble Tamble" is their "What Goes On."

"Keep On Chooglin'" is their "The Gift"!

Could imagine 'Heard It On The Grapevine' done in the style of 'Sister Ray'.

Talking of introductions to the VU, my sister had a live tape and some demos of a punk band she knew and when the punk band's own stuff finished the tape went into "Sister Ray", about halfway through, that sort of weird mellow bit with almost raga guitar from Lou - and for about a year I had no clue what it was and I'd never heard anything like it before! This is despite the fact that my sister had the 1st album and I knew it like the back of my hand.

Definitely associate CCR with post-Cale VU, sort of stripped down rock with a minimum of flashiness

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.

yeah, similar.

Some of the stuff on VU (my intro to them) would not sound the least bit out of place on a CCR record ("I Can't Stand It," "Foggy Notion").

xp

I was in 9th grade I think; had just got the big orange book SPIN's Alternative Record Guide and was kind of obsessed with the list of albums in the back. VU & Nico was #3; I had heard of the Velvets before but was never that interested, but soon after I started reading that book I got my dad to buy me that album and fell in love w/ it instantly

my intro to VU was 1969: VU live, which i bought used when i was about 17. took me a while to get the hang of it. at the time, the only VU/reed songs i knew were the 70s rock radio staples and new sensations, which i'd heard the year before. the live album didn't sound anything like that stuff. a close friend picked up VU the next year and loved it to death, especially "stephanie says" and "foggy notion". that's really what spurred me to track down the proper studio LPs.

make that "and i loved it to death", tho she did too

Sweet Sister Ray is a good jam boot, haven't heard The Lord's Prayer. Peel Slowly And See collected several good jams, like "Melody Laughter." Forget which of their posthumous has "Booker T," but that's real good too; it's also the background music for "The Gift." Was always fascinated by the downhome roots, bluesy infections, "the devil's "third" etc w avant-associated dissonance, ditto Mo Diddly's minimalism. Especially in versions of "What Goes On and "It's Just Too Much" on the Live 69 double LP, w the latter bringing out the Chuck Berry suggestions (or lifts) and Long Guy Land Lou, exclaining, "Take me back down/Where Ah bee-long/Evah-thing Ah DOO is wrowng!" So I was ready for Gun Club and the original Flesh Eaters, w members of X and the Blasters. Was a long thing by them on YouTube for a while, maybe too long, but good enough. Of course, once I thought about it, was a theme at least as far back as the 60s: Mingus, Beefheart, Paul Butterfield Blues Band finding their way into "East West", Henry Threadgill's Air playing Jellyroll Morton, Trane's blues elements, Archie Shepp, some of Ornette Coleman's Prime Time tracks, Sonny Sharrock ("All Blues" got him into guitar, "Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground" got him into slide) Tom Waits from Swordfishtrombones on, etc. etc.

"Peel Slowly" also has Booker T.

I actually hear VU as a proper studio LP. It seems selected and sequenced as such, and never sounded to me like an odds-and-sods compilation, like Another View does.

xxp

you can hear the vu combine european son & suzy q here. this is 1966 tho, so it's not a CCR reference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx2Tj7S5xlw

Always liked Cale's li'l Tex-Mex organ bit in "Sister Ray" too--hola Augie Meyer!

^otm

The organ-guitar duels generally!

someone told me that back in the day the live album was the only velvets album that stayed in print, so it was the one that people would usually hear first.

Yes, that's exactly the case. 1969 Live was the first one I bought...finally found a copy of Banana at the Vinyl Solution in Tuscaloosa in 1982, then 2 and 3 were rereleased in 1985, the ones with the Kurt Loder liner notes.

I think I found Loaded in late 84 or early 84.

Some of Cale's Sun Blindness Music discs have some duel-icious guitar-organ dueling, only it's with Sterling instead of Lou.

I bet this woulda been fun:
http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_krdkn9t3mi1qa5w86o1_500.jpg

(although it wasn't, according to Sterling)

the ones with the Kurt Loder liner notes

lol forgot about these. Loder wrote a lot of reissue liner notes.

bong loder

I generally wouldn't give Loder the time of day, but "withering guitar flipout" was a great phrase that has stuck in my head ever since. (re "I Heard Her Call My Name")

The Velvets rehabilitation in the 80s was rapid and stunning. In 1984, I'd read about them, but go to the shops, and all I'd ever see was the double live record tossed in the generic V section. It looked so slapdash, like a Historia De La Música Rock import, didn't want to sink my money into it. Then I finally found Loaded at the Harvard Coop. But by 1987, I'd see VU& Nico pretty often among the dozen CDs owned by the kids who owned CD players, nestled between Avalon, Staring at the Sea and Brothers in Arms.

Loaded and 1969 Live were always in print. For the other albums I had to take the R train to 8th street and wait for the cool record store dudes to stroll in around noon to sell me the imports.

The Velvets rehabilitation in the 80s was rapid and stunning.

I think a lot/most/all of it can be put down to the 1985 reissue program coinciding with R.E.M. and U2 mentioning the Velvets a lot in interviews.