Velvet Underground Trainspotting Question

oh I meant Reed

The Lou s/t debut hmm, yeah, I only ever liked a few tracks on that, which seems to have been the case with just about everybody.
Would like to see a more inclusive, maybe multi-part approach, that didn't turn into The Lou Show, not altogether---Scorsese could do it; he really does his homework, and even got Pete Cosey into his blues series (even even found fascinating footage of JB Lenoir--sounding like a link between Skip James, Sam Cooke, and Bob Marley---talking and singing in his Chicago apartment, from a delving Swedish doc, shot on spec for and rejected by Swedish Public TV).

(Pete Cosey even on a new track recorded for that blues series.)

The Lou s/t debut hmm, yeah, I only ever liked a few tracks on that, which seems to have been the case with just about everybody.

Not me.

Not I.

I want to like most of it more than I do. The mix is bad, the lyrical changes he's made to the Velvet-era songs are bad, the back-up singers are bad. Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman are good.

Tylerw's Aquarium Drunkard intro to a posted AD comp of Pre-1980 Velvets covers, chosen by him, I hope, also mentions that xpost A Tribute To The Velvet Underground & Nico is a Hal Willner venture, so I'll check it after all (though first single is a Kurt Vile offering).

That Wilner tribute album is pretty disappointing, though it has a few moments. I really like Michael Stipe's take on "Sunday Morning" and the Iggy Pop/Matt Sweeney "European Son" is cool. Otherwise it all ranges from meh to fine, the Thurston Moore and Bobby Gillespie "Heroin" is not the tour de force you might have expected from their respective heydays.

I tuned in for the Fontaines' "Black Angel Death Song" which I thought would be a good pick, but disappointingly they don't change key at all during it.

Clock DVA did a cover of the song years ago. I think around the time of Thirst so should be interesting.
I remember the story from somewhere about a friend of the VU being amazed that the song had chords etc and i think Cale saying well sure it had chords, it's a song.

Aye, that's in "Uptight" I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGOBx681PTo

JUst looked taht up and its from 83 and the band with John Carruthers who was later in The Banshees and Nick Sanderson who was later in the Gun Club on.

You VU maniacs have probably heard it but I recently stumbled across Lou Reed acoustic demos from 1970.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hph-bX4_WE

yeah those are great

Includes an actual anti-Vietnam War protest song!

Maybe a silly question, but are any of those Spyglass/Keyhole Boston Tea Party boots worth picking up? I'm tempted, but seen a few mixed reviews.

VU bootlegs are not even close to the level of Dead bootlegs, which is a shame. :/

If only! That would be great.

disagree, I've never heard a live VU boot that wasn't worth multiple listens and the BTP ones are particularly great

yes it's all lo-fi as hell for the most part but YMMV

I mean the 1969-07-11 BTP has a 16-minute "Run Run Run", what's not to love?

yeah thats what i'm sayin i hear it and i just wished it sounded better. but i dig what you're saying

Yeah I'm glad they exist for sure, 7/11/69 was the one I was specifically eyeing.

lol I'm listening now and I swear you can hear Jonathan Richman yelling for "Sister Ray" before they do it as an encore

like, repeatedly

yes it's all lo-fi as hell for the most part but YMMV

I mean the 1969-07-11 BTP has a 16-minute "Run Run Run", what's not to love?

I found a copy of The Legendary Guitar Amp Tapes recently (from whence came that insane “Run” cubed), and was expecting little beyond a single mic on Lou’s amp. It’s actually far more (and I hate this word) listenable than its reputation suggests, better in some ways than the Quine tapes.

oh yeah that all-amp version of "Sister Ray" sounds like fucking Hawkwind, just tremendous

There's a film on Barbara Rubin on Sky Arts right now taht I only found out about half way through showing. & apparently Andy Warhol foun dout about the Velvets through her and she did the visuals for the EPI. Not sure what the story is on repeats for this.; I know a lot of teh material showing on Sky Arts gets repeated quite a bit.

Repeats on Tuesday Morning at about 3am on the schedule I'm getting in Ireland anyway. Assume that's actually a UK timetable.
Film by Chuck Smith with Lee Ranaldo as musical director according to the credits

The Barbara Rubin documentary is excellent (couple of years old). She was right in the middle of a Warhol-Velvets-Dylan triangle.

Intriguing figure...Speaking of Sky Arts, have any of you seen The South Bank Show's 1986 VU doc? I think that's what I saw in '87 on the first incarnation of Bravo, but South Bank also did one on Warhol in '87, so may have been that---even so, VU content def made strongest impression, and Bravo was smart to start with him and/or them in my neck of the woods---here they are (several posts of it on the 'Tube):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkuBjik4O-g

imdb says also incl. Bockris, Xgau, some others you might not care to see/hear.

I remember Cale's Beethoven t-shirt, I had the same one at some point, wish i still had it!

Yeah had SBS on video so watched several times. Cale looking really heavy at the time did he give up the drink afterwards or something cos he lost weight again by Songs For Drella.

In his variously titled book on Nico, James Young takes about how when he first worked with John Cale he was drinking daily crates of ale but then later on he was playing squash and running up stairs.

When the Happy Mondays hired Cale to produce their debut, they were stoked to get the chance to party and do drugs with him, but ultimately were disappointed when confronted with a newly sober man who was constantly eating clementines.

The Barbara Rubin documentary is excellent (couple of years old). She was right in the middle of a Warhol-Velvets-Dylan triangle.

― clemenza, Friday, 5 November 2021 bookmarkflaglink

Yeah watched this on Friday and oddly enough an interesting counterpart to Haynes. Also features Taubin, who also talks about 'Kiss' by Warhol. This could just never succeed, they threw a rock shape along with other stuff that was repressed at the time. Rubin's last act in joining an orthodox Jewish group was almost like another taboo to her friends.

I saw this a while ago, was this on BBC4 first?

Todd Haynes did an amazing job on that movie. There was a lot of interesting film and imagery to tap for such a film but I thought it was really beautiful how it came together. I really think it might be the best music documentary I have ever seen and one I would have loved to saw on a big screen for the first time.

I pretty much watched it once and then went back and watched it again and probably will do so again. There is so much visual data in that thing with split screens and multiple screen sections, I think it will hold up to many viewings. Just killer.

I saw this a while ago, was this on BBC4 first?

― Des Weerelds Dool-om-berg ont-doold op Dool-in-bergh (Tom D.), Sunday, 7 November 2021 bookmarkflaglink

Saw it on Sky arts

they threw a rock shape What did you mean? I Have an idea given context of sentence, but don't want to project/presume.

Just finished it. Geeta OTM.

although this thread makes me want to reconsider

Maybe also compare it with that '86 VU doc linked upthread a little ways.

Been trying to remember that "Reprise recording artist, mister personality, Donnie Brooks with" Pinnie the poo" for some time. I mean, wtf?

they threw a rock shape What did you mean? I Have an idea given context of sentence, but don't want to project/presume.

― dow, Sunday, 7 November 2021 bookmarkflaglink

Just that rock n'roll was one part of the VU jigsaw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy7SvZQfeBM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjtD8A-MWBc

All of that sounds like stuff that's made money, which is (and I'm sorry to say) not allowed in the VU thread

Well--occurred to me this afternoon, while pondering the doc's connection between xpost Everly Brothers' version of "Love Hurts" and "Sweet Jane"---which I hear more in the VU's slower version w the bridge restored, on Live In 1969, for instance---that J. Geils Band seem to have lifted template of the Loaded "SJ" for "Love Stinks"--validating Reed's and Yule's faith in this album's commercial potential--but somehow I don't think Reed was gratified.
On a less stinky note, I mentioned the Barbara Rubin doc to a longtime penpal (linking the xpost VU '86 doc that Rubin talk reminded me of), and now Lucy says: My old neighbor Rosebud was Barbara Rubin's best friend, and was present when she introduced the VU to Warhol at the Café Bizarre on Macdougal Street in 1965.