Velvet Underground Trainspotting Question

Is it seen as a 2nd instalment of the missing 3rd lp compi which I think I always still pronounce as 2 letters anyway. I think that's the chronology anyway.
I mean slight refraction in pronunciation like. Don't you wind up with voo if you try to read it as an acronym.
But yeah think I got it when I heard of its existence.

I’ve always considered Another View to be considerably inferior to VU (notwithstanding a few good tracks) – but I revisited both today, and VU wuz kinda stale while AV sounded just great!

I remember thinking the version of "I'm Gonna Move Right In" on "Another View" was literally the first boring Velvets track I'd heard.

remember this is the person who wrote "Isle of You", say that 5 times fast

Doesn't work with my accent.

that 80s mix of “can’t stand it” really threw me off, I was like “oh wow so the velvets invented martin hannett’s joy division sound too????”

― brimstead, Wednesday, April 7, 2021 9:39 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

That reminds me of when I was doing a mix and was playing "I can't stand it" off VU, and cued up "Love Vigilantes" New Order up next, and the timing was so on that it sounded like Mo had decided to carry on playing past the track end, with the New Order track!

Frightened me, at the time!

was lou involved in Another View? remember this is the person who wrote "Isle of You", say that 5 times fast

Personally I'm wondering if audio will ever turn up from the Velvets' performance at the Isle Of Lucy festivl

That reminds me of when I was doing a mix and was playing "I can't stand it" off VU, and cued up "Love Vigilantes" New Order up next, and the timing was so on that it sounded like Mo had decided to carry on playing past the track end, with the New Order track!

Frightened me, at the time!

LOL

That reminds me, I always wanted a box set tracing the direct influence on the Velvet Underground. Something like 100 tracks by 100 different bands, in chronological order beginning with the Modern Lovers' "Roadrunner," then the Stooges, etc. and it could be called 100/10,000 as sort of a play on Eno's famous quote, "The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band."

*direct influence of the Velvet Underground

Any idea why “Ride into the sun” is greyed out in US Spotify but all other tracks in Another View are available?

no, but did notice it

It's a die-hard Yes fan seeking to direct you to Lou's solo version, with Steve Howe's amazing guitar solo.

Greyed out there but can be found on deluxe edition of the third album

*direct influence of the Velvet Underground

I’d be even more interested in a set doing what you originally typed – tracing direct influence on VU.

I’d be even more interested in a set doing what you originally typed – tracing direct influence on VU.

Yeah that would be good too, but listening to those disparate elements sequenced together can feel pretty academic. It makes for a fascinating study, but a mix of stuff influenced by the band tends to have a better flow simply because there's more of a commonality in the music even when the bands are very different.

barring the cale tunes crowbarred into VU, it seems like the stuff cut at these sessions, "I Can't stand it" and "Foggy Notion" in particular, were intended as good time-y shit the band thought might stand them in good stead with audiences wishing to boogie… whereas Another View has by most lights at least two cuts that are way way way more daring…"hey mr Rain" I and II and "Guess I'm falling in Love," the drum sound on which made my jaw drop as a teenager, Mo turns into Bonzo…Bonzmo? I noticed that Lou liked to claim that the band had a no blues licks rule: but almost every song on VU dome runneth over with blues licks…

ha yeah ive always thought that the no blues licks rule, if it truly existed, seems like it was kinda toothlessly enforced

Really? I mean, they might use various bluesy scales but I don’t hear much in the way of blues licks. Same as The Modern Lovers.

It's not that bad a solo.

otm

As far as the solos go, Lou´s were more outside and Sterl´s were kind of fiddly without being bluesy. Guess Doug played the more traditional stuff on Loaded.

You don't look like Martha & The Vandellas.

Are the VU mixes used on that Velvet comp released in the late '80s that for many of us Columbia House subscribers served as intro? If so, great! "I Can't Stand It" leapt out of the speakers, deservedly

Someone at the record company might also have hoped that "I Can't Stand It" was going to get heavy airplay next to "We Built This City" and needed the sonics to match it.

This wasn't happening.

i'd say that both Lou and Sterling's playing is deeply bluesy (without falling into cliche) — they may have had a very specific definition of what a "blues lick" was.

A bit like Lou's "No street slang" rule, because Street slang dates a thing.

And yet....

Are the VU mixes used on that Velvet comp released in the late '80s that for many of us Columbia House subscribers served as intro?

Yep. These were the only mixes available until the 2014 3rd album box.

We talkin' this comp?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bf/VUBest89.jpg

If you like...

i'd say that both Lou and Sterling's playing is deeply bluesy (without falling into cliche) — they may have had a very specific definition of what a "blues lick" was.

― tylerw, Thursday, April 8, 2021 12:58 PM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'm reminded of what Dylan supposedly said to Mike Bloomfield: "Play whatever you want; just don't give me any of that B.B. King shit." That always confused me, and probably confused Bloomfield, who revered King.

Someone at the record company might also have hoped that "I Can't Stand It" was going to get heavy airplay next to "We Built This City" and needed the sonics to match it.

Wasn't completely crazy, and they probably were trying to get it slotted next to REM, Smithereens, Cars and the other VU'ish rock of the time. The songs weren't that old yet, sorta like remastering the Knife's "Silent Shout" to get played next to Weeknd or something.

We talkin' this comp?

Yes!

And y'all are crazy if you think it sounds like, I dunno, Tears For Fears.

OK, but the drum sound could be off of Mellencamp's Scarecrow, for instance.

i'd say that both Lou and Sterling's playing is deeply bluesy (without falling into cliche) — they may have had a very specific definition of what a "blues lick" was.

Lou played whatever he could manage to play. Sterl definitely could pull out a blues lick if required.

Lou's chaka-chaka rhythm parts on Live 1969 are some of my favorites by anyone.

David Fricke: There is that little guitar quote from Marvin Gaye’s “Hitch Hike” in “There She Goes Again,” on ‘The Velvet Underground and Nico.’

Lou' A nice little introductory thing, right? The thing is, we actually had a rule in the band for a while. If anybody played a blues lick, they would be fined. Of course, we didn’t have any money to fine anybody with. But that was because there were so many of these blues bands around, all copping on that. And while I really liked the stuff for singing, I can’t sing that. I had to find my own way. So all the arranging and stuff, those R&B kind of parts might be in the back of the mind, but it came out white.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/lou-reed-the-rolling-stone-interview-2-174015/

How widespread is "fining" among bands? I know James Brown and Prince used to fine people for musical mistakes. Prince would sneak the money back into the person's pocket somehow after they learned their lesson. I want to say James Brown did too, but I can't recall where I would have read that, and furthermore I can see him just keeping the money given how his entire band quit on him.

Apparently, the fines went towards paying for the end-of-tour party.

Basically most rock music is going to be bluesy in some fashion, lots of flat sevenths, for one thing. Blues cliches is more like what Freddie "Boom Boom" Washington would play on airbass on Welcome Back, Kotter.

Electricity comes from other planets!

I think Lou wanted to also incorporate more hidden or overt doo wop influences- there is some quote in Uptight or somewhere about "We musn't forget people like The Spaniels," as well as trying to avoid a "Can Lou Men Sing the Whites" situation.

Think the VU-like Vulgar Boatmen did a similar thing. Hey, VUlgar Boatmen!

https://www.furious.com/perfect/vulgarboatmen.html

Commenting on why the band's love of early, rhythmic rock 'n' roll - particularly rhythm and blues - is not always recognized in the band's music, Ray (who attributes his love of R&B to a childhood spent in Memphis) suggests, "Neither Dale nor I (nor anyone currently on the planet) can sing like Otis Redding... I listen to Bo Diddley (especially "Hey! Bo Diddley") every single week, and I own, and regularly play, every Impressions album." Lawrence says: "Whether it's subtlety on our part or the fact that that era's music tends not to be taken as seriously as it deserves to be, I'm not sure." It's certainly not unusual for a given set of musicians to draw on musical influences that are not always directly evident in what fans are familiar with or have even heard.

“We actually had a rule in the band,” Reed explained. “If anybody
played a blues lick, they would be fined. Everyone was going crazy over
old blues people, but they forgot about all those groups, like the Spaniels,
people like that. Records like ‘Smoke From Your Cigarette,’ and ‘I Need
a Sunday Kind of Love,’ the ‘Wind’ by the Chesters, ‘Later for You, Baby’
by the Solitaires. All those really ferocious records that no one seemed to
listen to anymore were underneath everything we were playing. No one
really knew that.”

Although isn't "The Wind" by Nolan Strong and The Diablos? Also a Jonathan Richman favorite iir.

That quote can be found here, with The Chesters slightly more correctly written as The Jesters, close but no cigar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillian_Leach

The men don't know but Frank Zappa understands.

Nolan Strong did it first but there were other versions of The Wind in circulation

its always been kind of adorable to me how for a band so famous for frank and transgressive lyrical content, lous actual word choices (during the velvets years anyway) so often tended towards 50s doo wop jive. like how in their murder-orgy-freakout song he's talking about his "dingdong".

It was Lou's hated Jefferson Airplane who first put "motherfucker" on a major-label record.

Oh yeah, The Jesters did cover it and have some kind of minor hit with it.

Zappa was another big fan of The Spaniels, it's true.

a Welshman who tried to mail himself home in a box in 1965, I wonder if Cale read about it at the time
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/08/thinking-inside-the-box-the-welsh-teen-who-tried-to-post-himself-home-from-australia