Velvet Underground Trainspotting Question

A lot of people don’t know I deliberately chose my screenname initials to match Jonathan Richman.

Tanya already paid tribute to at least one artist on that graph, why not another.

no I am not talking about Tanya Haden’s a cappella rendition of Metal Machine Music.

read this as Tonya Harding

XPS but everyone who did ended up contributing to the 'rejected jbr screennames' thread.

Lol.

Let me check.

Perhaps you are referring to this run: rejected JBR screen names
2
Warning: does not work in Zing.

Yeah, and I seem to recall at least one member of Ornette’s band recording with Lou.

One more iteration:
Put Cherry on your shoulder

I have this bootleg on vinyl pretty fun

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/unauth/lou-reed/at-the-roxy-with-don-cherry/

the inclusion of Jackson Browne in this doc threw me for a loop at first. Had no idea he was playing w Nico etc.

the inclusion of Jackson Browne in this doc threw me for a loop at first. Had no idea he was playing w Nico etc.

Yeah, IIRC they had a fling - but after hearing her cover of "These Days" (beautiful cover too) it was less of a surprise when I read about it.

Yeah limiting it to people who were actually involved with/playing with the group was key. We were spared Dave Grohl etc.

The one exception, of course, should be Cher, regardless of whether she's changed her mind or not.

yeah he plays on Chelsea Girl! and wrote a song on it iirc

xxp

one hour until showtime!

He also wrote Fairest of the Seasons

Browne even get a short entry in Lillian Roxon's encyclopedia (1969), largely because of his Nico connection (also mentions songs of his on a Steve Noonan album, who I now want to hear).

yeah he plays on Chelsea Girl! and wrote a song on it iirc

xxp

(xxp) Berlin was more successful than Transformer in the UK, in terms of chart positions (it reached 7, Transformer got to 13). Transformer probably sold more though. You can thank David Bowie for both, I'd say.

thanks david bowie for both of them!

Love the story of Ian Hunter being disgusted by Lou’s microphone technique when Bowie brought him in to sing “Sweet Jane.” Probably read that in Trouser Press, who knows what issue./pvmic

thanks david bowie for both of them!

I love how Haynes finally got to work with Bowie in this film. Briefly and, on the latter's part, unsuspectedly.

Multixp Transformer had legs in the UK and was certified platinum in 2913, poor old Berlin stuck at silver.

2013 that is.

was gonna say, legs indeed!

McNeil?

This discussion has me increasingly interested in seeing the doc, despite familiarity w subject and the director's previous tendency toward gimmickry---speaking of Browne and Noonan, (from Jackson Browne - C or D?
(according to something long ago in Goldmine---an epic trek into the early daze of BOC and Soft White Underbelly etc---Meltzer and classmates, one of whom was from Cali. seized control or some of it of the campus concert committee, so first East Coast shows of several Frisco bands and the Orange County Three, Buckley, Browne, and Steve Noonan---and Browne stayed around and hung out with Meltzer, Pearlman, and so on, eventually meeting Nico (I think that was it).

― dow, Saturday, February 6, 2021 6:23 PM (eight months ago) bookmarkflaglink

(They may have been advertised as the Orange County Three, but sep sets on the same bill, I believe.)

― dow, Saturday, February 6, 2021 6:25 PM (eight months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Oh yeah, here's the 1968 Cheetah Magazine consideration of thee so-called Orange County Three:
http://galacticramble.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-orange-county-three.html

― dow, Saturday, February 6, 2021 6:30 PM (eight months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Cover model Michael J. Pollard!

― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, February 6, 2021 6:47 PM (eight months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Second two-page spread of that piece eerily foreshadows Yacht Rock

― baelien (Ye Mad Puffin), Saturday, February 6, 2021 6:56 PM (eight months ago) bookmarkflaglink

birdistheword, I do find that attribute (that I might call plain-spokenness) in some of Browne's work, like The Only Child on The Pretender.

I've wanted to read the Paul Nelson compilation/biography, but haven't encountered it yet.

― Halfway there but for you, Saturday, February 6, 2021 7:23 PM (eight months ago) bookmarkflaglink

XP ...and the final paragraphs provide a harbinger of Browne's asshole friends.

― "what are you DOING to fleetwood mac??" (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, February 6, 2021 7:26 PM (eight months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ah, okay, here's Noonan, and some stuff about the "Three"'s origins, in Unterberger's liner notes for reissue of s/t debut: he and their high school buddy Greg Copeland wrote "Buy For Me The Rain," Top 40 Nitty Gritty Dirt Band hit. also, Noonan, very extensively quoted here, says that he and Browne wrote things first recorded by Tom Rush etc., attributed to JB only, and he mentions "The Fairest of the Seasons," which I know is on the Nico LP and I think is the one w typo, "Browne-Copland,"confusing me until I heard of Greg Copeland: with all them strings and the melodee, it had me wondering if based on something by Aaron C. Noonan mentions seeing boy Browne as accompanist for Nico and El Cohen (singing together, I hope): http://www.richieunterberger.com/noonan.html

― dow, Saturday, February 6, 2021 Noonan makes it clear that he fought w producer of first album, was not pleased w results (although claims that it has a following: which, why not, every album has some kind of following, as Internets remind us---might be good; some of the producer's ideas seem kind of promising)

I reckon Berlin was like Scott 3, people bought it on the strength of the last album(s) and were like, "Jesus, this a bit depressing, I don't think I'll bother with his next one".

.. in the UK, that is, I assume nobody bought it in the US.

haha…the National Review movie critic is not impressed

Liberals hold to a fantasy of bold oppositional attitudes, so Haynes celebrates VU’s dubious revolution. The Velvet Underground indicates that what Bob Dole later called “the culture of depravity” has won. When Warhol actress Mary Woronov talks of “where the artist comes in, because he’s not with society, he’s different,” she recalls a different world from today. Yet Haynes ignores the fact that, 50 years on, and many pop evolutions after VU infected the culture, Millennial pop today tends toward compliance, conformity, and elitism. All those negatives that now accrue to VU’s legacy describe why Haynes’ tribute fails.

National Review movie critic = Armond White

To make Berlin, Lou subsequently had to deliver two 'Commercial' albums to RCA, which is how Sally Can't Dance and R'n'R Animal (and by accident, Lou Reed Live) happened.

Is Lou Reed Live just some more of the same stuff recorded for RnRA?

National Review movie critic = Armond White

I have cracked “The Murder Mystery”! It was the Libtards , in the New York Public Library, with the Lewis Allan Reed Collection.

XP Yes, it's most of the rest of the show, and is most recently available under the title "Extended Versions". A couple more tracks were added to the R'n'R Animal reissue.

Thanks. If I have never warmed up to RnRA would I like this one? I kind of prefer that album with, what are they called, The Tots.

Probably not? There's a grooved-out "Oh Jim" jam that hits 10 minutes, plus a few Transformer numbers and a brief "Waiting For The Man".

I ended up watching that PBS Glam thing on YT last night, there's a cool live clip of Glam Lou doing "Vicious" in it.

thoughts after seeing in cinema:

1. Mary Woronov steals the show, she is fantastic and I love her

2. the ambience is superb, total immersion in NYC 60's culture

3. I can't believe they actually got Young & Zazeela to interview!!

4. Nico is well served here, which was nice

5. Mo and John are both great, very human and touching

6. "not recommended for photo-sensitive audience members" lol

7. some very cool snippets I was unfamiliar with, early versions of "Waiting" and "Heroin" among other stuff

*audio* snippets, to be clear

8. Jonathan Richman is such an adorable dork

9. Mary and Mo both essentially saying "we fucking HATED hippies" within 30 seconds of each other in the (superb) edit flow

as jbr pointed out on faceplace, the Velvets were posing as much as the hippies were, acting like what they were doing in NY w sunglasses & heroin was that far removed from San Francisco’s flowers & …heroin.

hmm idk at least they were honest abt their nihilism rather than cloaking it in feel-good rhetoric?

like the saying, "punks are nice people pretending to be mean, hippies are mean people pretending to be nice"

is is def true that heroin was a common denominator tho. I like that the film specifically mentioned that there was an audience that was into both the VU and the Dead (who actually played together at least once)

idk the nihilism was as much of a pose as loving everybody

either way they were both just pretexts for dudes to convince their girlfriends to have threesomes

I have usually adhered to the party line as represented here by Moe and Mary, but over the years I have grown to like the Airplane and their unfined blues licks for one thing, so I appreciated JBRs take on facepalm.

How can Mary tell me what to do
When she and Paul are Eating Raoul?
And Moe she don’t know
Unless it pertains to Babatunde O

xxp lol yes this also got touched on with the ex-gf from Syracuse who was also very good as an interview subject

Shelley Albin!

But if Shelley she would just come back, it’s be all right.

Apparently Mary Woronov would get really mad at Paul Bartel when he would say that the two of them were married in interviews, or at least assent to it when asked.

LOLing at James’s Supremes rewrite

I've long known *some* nice punks and hippies, long-term committed to living on the edge of the grid, urban and country, also committed to good causes (punks more about animal rescue, hippies more about solar, wind power, community gardens etc)

And yeah there were always some people (eventually incl. me) who liked the Dead and VU, also Television.