Loaded: best VU album, rite guys?

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.

yeah, that was what did it. Didn't work out quite as well for Flipper when Cobain came along a few years later.

I think a lot of it had to do with they are amazing records

otm. Love what Robert Quine said about them in this interview: http://www.furious.com/perfect/quine.html

The albums were being mentioned by punks and critics circa 78 and 79 too. I remember as a college freshman in fall '79 being scolded at my university radio station by the program director (who wanted a job in commercial radio and thought even college radio should just be about imitating commercial radio) for playing "Heroin," during my 3 to 6 am dj slot. I had found the VU albums back in the station's record library.

Those '85 reissues showed up in my nowheretown reoord store at EXACTLY the right time for me, a year after reading Lester Bangs' (and Fricke's and everybody's) various Velvets-raves, and a year before going off to lol college

I don't know about REM and U2, but I think that bands like the Jesus & Mary Chain were probably quite important in raising the profile of the Velvets in the mid-80s, at least in the UK press anyway. Lloyd Cole too maybe.

i'd say live 1969 > 3rd > loaded > vu & nico. weird as vu & nico is one of the best albums of all times.

"jangle" as a thing was often framed as the legacy of the VU by the US music press, esp in ref to stuff like REM & the feelies

I always forget the jangle thing was CA; VU worship was more about the drone

forget = thought

"what goes on" = proto jangle

On their 1985 Rockline (nationally syndicated US radio call-in show) R.E.M. mentioned the Velvets, Big Star, Pere Ubu, and Mission of Burma as some of their influences. When asked about the jangle thing, Stipe said, "I hate the Byrds."

lol stipe. covers aside, r.e.m. really doesn't sound like any of those bands.

rem definitely does not sound like pere ubu. but the byrds, big star & vu can definitely be heard in their music.

MOB too

dunno, not really convinced. what rem songs sound like those bands?

(byrds i can hear, the other ones mentioned less so. not saying they weren't *influenced* by those bands, just that it's not readily apparent. to me.)

I totally hear Pere Ubu in REM come on now

really? what songs?

the whole mechanical dance-rhythms plus jingle-jangle plus inscrutable yelping

like say Ubu Dance Party

and then there's the surrealism-by-way-of-Americana angle, I dunno I see lots of parallels

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

is not far from Chronic Town/Murmur tracks to my ears. I mean obviously Dave Thompson's vocal style is pretty different but there's some similar elements

Most "9-9/Wind Out"s from pre-'86 shows have distinctly Ubu-esque moments.

Radio Free Europe is a little bit reminiscent of Non Alignment Pact, that bassline especially sounds Ubu-ish, it's got that wobbly urgency.

Too bad Stipe sounds more like James Taylor than Crocus Behemoth, although on Murmur he at least sounds like JT sliding into his methadone escalator, cool. There was some re-contextualized jangle in "Lady Godiva's Operation"(as LG gets her own re-context on, or off). Otherwise, the jangliest thing I can think of is "Who Loves The Sun," released in 1970, one of the least jingle-jangle morning years evsh, even for those of us who weren't in Cambodia at the time-time. Music was going into the heavy arena boogie, or getting back to its roots--a bit of jangle in nascent country rock, come to think of it, but not getting the kind of radio play VU may have been hoping for. ("Pack up your tent McGuinn, you ain't goin', nooowhere.")

Sunday Morning and Femme Fatale or total jingle jangle

yeah, I guess, but if so, that was the jangly folk-rock moment, so why not--while 1970 was so not, so fucking why??

although I never had any prob with it--first hearing it in '73, q much sunnier year

wow that quine interview is great.

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

lol yeah I dunno. I love Who Loves the Sun but it's definitely not of-it's-time

Femme Fatale def has some jangle. I'm Set Free too. What Goes On sounds like an epic outtake from Love's first album (except for the vocals)

Sunday Morning has xylophone which is totally diff't

yes it has xylophone, but it also has Sterling's rhythm guitar part

Maybe they were trying to cheer us up! Yeah, maybe would have worked if I'd heard it in '70. Pretty sweet funny sly sometimes badass album overall. Speaking of Quine, I just remembered this email I sent out a couple years ago, the main link still works, haven't checked the hound's blog lately:
Hey came across this, new to me anyway, linked from the MySpace page of The Black Keys, whose Dan Auerbach turns out to be a member of Bob Quine's family, and what a family, wish I knew them, here's their hearty brainy Midwesten site, with much about Bob & other goodness: http://rubbercityreview.com/tag/Robert-Quine
The Quine site link to houndblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/quine.htmlis worth checking too, though the Hound's account of RQ's last days is pretty harrowing Tons of links to music and vids on both sites, though I haven't had time to check nearly all of them.

xpost nitpick: xylophone is made up of wood bars and has a lower register. i think that's a glockenspiel (sic?) or something like that

Oh my bad

I love Who Loves the Sun but it's definitely not of-it's-time

A lot of bubblegum rock on the radio in those years.

To answer the question posed in the subject line of this thread: yes.

sunday morning has celeste on it.

anyhoo, re: REM maybe it's just that stipe is such a singular vocalist that it's hard for me to hear those other bands in their overall sound.

Whoever mentioned Train Round The Bend upthread is OTM, Man I love that song, maybe the most.

*plays 'I Heard Her Call My Name' on the loop while reading thread*

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

Great Quine interview:

The deliberate cretinism of the drums and the bass. The way that the bass walks at the end. In the middle of the song, he says 'work it now' and there's no guitar solo. That's beyond cool.

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