xpostA little bit of googling leads me to this site http://olivier.landemaine.free.fr/vu/andsoon/lostsongs/lostsongs.html
which says there's a tape of VU doing Men Of Good Fortune in 1966
― Zelda Zonk, Tuesday, 14 April 2009 09:54 (fifteen years ago) link
Love the least-to-most-colourful arrangement of those shirts!
― Myonga Vön Bontee, Tuesday, 14 April 2009 09:55 (fifteen years ago) link
Okay, I'll give you "Real Good Time Together", but where is the Velvets version of Sad Songs, for starters? Don't leave me out of this. Ah fook, here were are with this Spotify thing, though. I can't get Spotify. Jeez, way to kill the joy.
― Take The Gothheads Bowling (Bimble), Tuesday, 14 April 2009 10:00 (fifteen years ago) link
I'll get it my own way, never mind.
Version of "Sad Song" on the expanded edition of "Loaded" with Lou going on about castles and kilts!
― Sacco, Vanzetti, Passantino... (Tom D.), Tuesday, 14 April 2009 10:01 (fifteen years ago) link
I imagine in those days it was one of Lou's embarrassing Dylanesque protest songs
― Sacco, Vanzetti, Passantino... (Tom D.), Tuesday, 14 April 2009 10:02 (fifteen years ago) link
Sad Song actually sounds pretty good as a VU song. You could imagine it on the third album or something.
― Zelda Zonk, Tuesday, 14 April 2009 10:06 (fifteen years ago) link
Yeah I had a problem because I couldn't find my copy of Loaded for awhile there. Totally panicked before I finally figured out where it was. Sorry that I don't remember this or understand why it's not on my iPod. Gonna fix this right away.
― Take The Gothheads Bowling (Bimble), Tuesday, 14 April 2009 10:17 (fifteen years ago) link
downloading all the Lou material from that site!
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 14 April 2009 10:24 (fifteen years ago) link
OK, not all of it.
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 14 April 2009 10:27 (fifteen years ago) link
Alright, listening to this Velvets version of Sad Song now and yeah I remember this, but without all the strings and grandeur, it really ain't much.
― Take The Gothheads Bowling (Bimble), Tuesday, 14 April 2009 11:07 (fifteen years ago) link
"Love Makes You Feel Ten Feet Tall" on the other hand...yikes.
<3 <3 <3 <3 Lou
― Take The Gothheads Bowling (Bimble), Tuesday, 14 April 2009 11:08 (fifteen years ago) link
I think that version of "Sad Song" is great!
― Sacco, Vanzetti, Passantino... (Tom D.), Tuesday, 14 April 2009 11:09 (fifteen years ago) link
Yeah, I kind of like the stripped-down Sad Song, it's got a similar vibe to the stuff on the 69 live album.
Anyway, my point was that in the few years of the Velvet Underground, he must have been bulimically writing songs at an amazing rate but come the seventies, his muse seems to have left him somewhat (drugs age etc I guess), and he has to resort to pulling out all the stuff he wrote years before but at the time didn't deem good enough or something. And he's still doing it late into the seventies
― Zelda Zonk, Tuesday, 14 April 2009 11:15 (fifteen years ago) link
That was always one of my all time faves on this CD, that song "Love Makes You Feel Ten Feet Tall". I love it when the bridge comes in (I guess you can't really call it a proper guitar solo), it sounds so Scottish right there, or like an Irish jig or something. You want to sortof cross your feet and dance to that shit. Fucking kills me.
― Take The Gothheads Bowling (Bimble), Tuesday, 14 April 2009 11:15 (fifteen years ago) link
yeah but Zelda, I mean it's not like he didn't...develop. I think it's kindof unfair to criticize him for that.
― Take The Gothheads Bowling (Bimble), Tuesday, 14 April 2009 11:16 (fifteen years ago) link
Oh I'm not really criticising him, I like those seventies albums, it just hadn't occurred to me before how he'd really squeezed VU for every last bit of juice. I mean, Berlin is immense but I'm a bit bowled over now that I realise out of the nine tracks only four were original to the album! Obviously Berlin is all about the production anyway, love it or loathe it.
Is there a parallel with Bowie? Starts madly doing songs he cowrote with Iggy when his creative juices run dry - to considerably less good effect of course!
― Zelda Zonk, Tuesday, 14 April 2009 11:24 (fifteen years ago) link
Remember reading a rather sneery interview with Sterling Morrison where he pointed out how many of Lou's solo albums were reliant on Velvets' retreads
― Sacco, Vanzetti, Passantino... (Tom D.), Tuesday, 14 April 2009 11:28 (fifteen years ago) link
yeah, it's true -- I think even "Kill Your Sons" from Sally Can't Dance even stretches back to the Velvets days. Still, those were Lou's songs -- no harm in reworking them. Some people just have really strong bursts of creativity, and 1965-70 was Lou's. I loooooove that VU "Sad Song" ... Same with "Satellite of Love." Always thought it was surprising the songs Lou didn't return to in the 70s -- "Foggy Notion," in particular.
― tylerw, Tuesday, 14 April 2009 14:43 (fifteen years ago) link
"Over You"!
― Sacco, Vanzetti, Passantino... (Tom D.), Tuesday, 14 April 2009 14:44 (fifteen years ago) link
yeah! was just listening to that on Live 69. beautiful song! always liked "move right in" too -- the bootleg versions have lyrics. just a cool groove. though that may have been why he didn't go back to it - it may have just been a cool groove to him.
― tylerw, Tuesday, 14 April 2009 14:46 (fifteen years ago) link
honestly I prefer most of VU's original versions to Lou's solo ones (with a few exceptions - the Transformer stuff is all improved, and She's My Best Friend on Coney Island Baby is about on par with the original)
― This Board is a Prison on Planet Bullshit (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 14 April 2009 16:01 (fifteen years ago) link
listening to a bootleg now from 1976 -- what a funny band, must've been on the Rock n Roll Heart tour. So little guitar, mostly sax and keyboards. Really cheesy synths!
― tylerw, Tuesday, 14 April 2009 16:16 (fifteen years ago) link
http://dummidumbwit.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/lou_reed_hat_std.jpg
― larry craig memorial gloryhole (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 30 December 2009 17:16 (fourteen years ago) link
I didn't think I had any interest in solo Lou but I heard Street Hassle and Take No Prisoners for the first time this year and they absolutely knocked me out.
― Trip Maker, Wednesday, 30 December 2009 17:26 (fourteen years ago) link
doesn't Lou call X'gau some name on TNP? still vouching for Ecstasy as one of Lou's best solo records; and one of the best records of this decade.
― pobrecito (outdoor_miner), Wednesday, 30 December 2009 17:30 (fourteen years ago) link
think he calls xgau a "toefucker"i'll have to listen to Ecstasy again -- I really like parts of it, but am not nuts about others ...
― tylerw, Wednesday, 30 December 2009 17:41 (fourteen years ago) link
some of the actual music on TNP is atrocious (some of it is great) but oh man it is Lou at his comedy finest
― larry craig memorial gloryhole (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 30 December 2009 17:45 (fourteen years ago) link
let's talk about the Bells
― Moshy Star (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 16:00 (thirteen years ago) link
weird that anyone would characterize anything on here as "jazz" (Don Cherry's presence notwithstanding) - was kinda surprised at how dense and harsh the wall o' synths is on here. Disco Mystic is amazing, almost Spector-esque.
― Moshy Star (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 16:01 (thirteen years ago) link
also gotta say when Lou tries to lay on his "I am SINGING, with VIBRATO" schtick it sounds terrible. he's good at singing gently and at doing his speak-singing thing, but when he tries to over-emote it's just urgggh dude you don't have the pipes for this, you can barely stay in tune...
― Moshy Star (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 16:03 (thirteen years ago) link
DISCO. DISCO MYSTIC.
― balls and adieu (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 16:09 (thirteen years ago) link
it's not even really disco...? the tempo is way too slow
I Want to Boogie With You is similarly ironically titled - kinda impossible to boogie to anything so sluggish. but it's a great song, wonderful combination of doo wop, typical Lou Reed venom, and a dense sludge of synths and horns
― Moshy Star (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 16:13 (thirteen years ago) link
"With You" is kinda fun – doesn't he use "capricious"?
― balls and adieu (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 16:16 (thirteen years ago) link
rhymes with "death wish"!
― Moshy Star (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 16:27 (thirteen years ago) link
Lou must've been pissed the first time he saw the album cover of The Stranger, knowing he could've done that.
― gato busca pleitos (Eazy), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 16:44 (thirteen years ago) link
I don't see the connection
― Moshy Star (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 16:54 (thirteen years ago) link
need to hear the bells again, but i think sally can't dance is my fave studio Lou from the 1970's. it may be considered a throwaway but it seems more consistent to me than CIB and St. Hassle
― fried ice cream is a reality (outdoor_miner), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 16:55 (thirteen years ago) link
"Ennui"!
― balls and adieu (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 16:56 (thirteen years ago) link
I'd have to go back to it but I think I deleted like 2/3rds of Sally Can't Dance... the tracks that are good on it are REALLY good though. "Billy" (rhyming "foliage" with "college"!), the line about alimony in "Ennui", the title track
xp
― Moshy Star (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 16:59 (thirteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXZ2C5Uil-0
All of the things that your old lover saidLook at them, they jump out of windowsAnd now they're just deadIt's the truth, don't you realizeFaded without any talent or funRunning out in the streets, balling everyoneIt's the truth, It's the truthPick up the pieces that make up your lifeMaybe some day you'll have a wife and them alimonyOh, can't you see
― Moshy Star (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 17:00 (thirteen years ago) link
Lou was great at writing songs that capture that morning hangover feeling
― Moshy Star (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 17:01 (thirteen years ago) link
Good Taste is the other good one on Sally Can't Dance. I think what bugged me about the rest of the album was the sorta nonsensical/inappropriate arrangements, backing band didn't work well with Lou in general imho
― Moshy Star (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 17:31 (thirteen years ago) link
miss ya Bimble:(
― Moshy Star (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 18:03 (thirteen years ago) link
"Billy" holds up better in the memory. When I reheard it last month the inapposite guitar strums and clumsy rhymes bothered me this time.
― balls and adieu (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 18:14 (thirteen years ago) link
"Animal Language" is kinda fun.
*"Serenade" rather.
― balls and adieu (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 18:15 (thirteen years ago) link
I thought Ecstasy was the best thing Lou had done in a long time. Like, a LONG time (since Songs For Drella at least, probably since New York). I also enjoyed The Stone: Issue 3, the free improv blow-out on Tzadik w/ Laurie Anderson & John Zorn. Those two stand up to anything Mr. Reed has done, IMHO.
― ImprovSpirit, Tuesday, 27 July 2010 21:49 (thirteen years ago) link
he Stone: Issue 3, the free improv blow-out on Tzadik w/ Laurie Anderson & John Zorn.
curious what Lou contributed to this, exactly
― Moshy Star (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 21:50 (thirteen years ago) link