Velvet Underground Trainspotting Question

The Plastic People of the Universe covered the Velvet Underground all the time, and that was behind the Iron Curtain, there's a YouTube of them playing "Run Run Run" in 1971.

It's not like they were completely obscure.

Anyone know where/when that clip of them doing "Heroin" at the very end is from?

― TO BE A JAZZ SINGER YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO SCAT (Jazzbo), Thursday, October 21, 2021 10:55 AM (thirty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think that’s Le Bataclan 72?

― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Thursday, October 21, 2021 11:06 AM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This was another minor disappointment for me about the film. That's a fine version of the song, but I felt that a 1993 "Hey Mr. Rain" -- duelling Cale & Reed, with Moe and Sterl driving -- was not just a better performance, but would've been more effective as an ending.

I forgot that the VU more or less reunited for one more performance following Sterling's death at the R&R HOF. (It took them three nominations to get an induction, and Sterling would've been there had it taken one or two tries.) IIRC, they composed a tribute to Sterling (and maybe to Nico and Warhol too?) in the form of a poem or a spoken word piece with musical backing. So if you really wanted to include the reunion and end the film with a less sour ending, that would give you one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-50pwpfmJfA

They look shattered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na6-GZxfABg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXI3bFTgtSc

^^Right before

Got my ticket for Saturday.

They look shattered.
Schmatte schmatte etc.

that HoF performance was very moving

it's funny how much moe really is VU. cage and reed have done so much music but when she's on drums it becomes velvet underground.

I love when Cale misses his cue and Reed, in an uncharacteristically generous gesture, shoots him a look like, "All good, bro, I got you."

The Fresh Air review, now posted was pretty good at explaining VU to the 0 FA listeners who didn't know, and hitting marks for us jades, also incl. apt choices of dovetailing Cale and Reed interview excerpts---although the reviewer feels the absence of Cale, and even says that Loaded was "a good rock album, but not transcendent." Also thinks this might be why the doc loses something while covering the later years. Glad that he shared his own take, not just chanting a nice neutral-ish overview, as can happen on NPR, but I certainly don't agree about Loaded---and Lou said, somewhere, "It's a lot of people's favorite, and I'm not even on it!" Sure you are, I think? Anyway, reminds me:
from Rolling Stone, David F's "Fricke's Picks" column, 2010:
On the third and fourth Velvet Underground albums, 1969's The Velvet Underground and 1970's Loaded, bassist Doug Yule was the gripping boyish voice in Lou Reed's dramas "Candy Says" and "New Age." Yule now lives in Seattle and plays the fiddle (he builds them, too). But he still sings real-life songs in RedDog, a Seattle old-timey-folk trio with mandolinist Cary Lung and guitarist/banjo player Tom Collicott. Their fine debut, Hard Times (OldDog), is all public-domain tunes, antique blues and backwoods fables flecked with a purist's grit. Yule's voice has aged a bit, but the high yearning I know so well in "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" is still there.

wiki sez:
His lead vocals can be heard on the band's fourth album, Loaded (1970), Yule's role became even more prominent, singing the lead vocals on several songs on the LP ("Who Loves the Sun", "New Age", "Lonesome Cowboy Bill", and "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'"), and playing six instruments (including keyboard and drums).[citation needed]

Yule's brother Billy also joined in on the sessions as a drummer, as regular drummer Maureen Tucker was pregnant and therefore absent for most of the recording. His lead vocals can also be heard on the song "Ride Into the Sun", which was featured on the Fully Loaded CD reissue of Loaded that was released in 1997.[citation needed]

it's funny how much moe really is VU. cage and reed have done so much music but when she's on drums it becomes velvet underground. I love her solo album "Waiting For My Man": the voice, still (as with Ella Fitzgerald and Sheila Jordan) sounding young, not just "ageless," startles here, with a vulnerable persistence---she will stay here waiting, even creeping around to look out there for him at times.

*version of*, not album.

Check out the backdrop in the HOF induction - a wall of lava lamps! It's like walking into a cheap souvenir shop, but I guess lava lamps were more exotic/unique in the '90s?

Love Cale's speech "this event makes an astonishing point to all the young musicians in the world - that sales are not the be-all end-all of rock 'n' roll..." The current chair really chucked THAT concept into the trash.

And Lou even smiles at the end of the tribute to Sterling, which was actually a song, and all three pitched in all vocals! So yeah, for those who wish the reunion was in the film, just mentally use that as the happy ending.

still bullshit Doug Yule isn't there

yeah that was shitty, on par with fleetwood mac icing out bob welch

I hadn't seen that HOF clip before, and yeah, that performance would've been a far superior way to end the film. Nothing at all wrong with the Bataclan thing, but there's no context given for it: when did this take place? Why is only half the band playing? What's the significance of this performance? Why is this the end to the film?

In the grand scheme of the last 50 years of rock and roll, the Velvets weren't really that obscure in their own time, just in relation to the expectations set by the British Invasion and California bands, right? I get the sense that their profile in the sixties was like, say, Joanna Newsom or Dirty Projectors in the aughts - loved or hated by those in the know, and spreading by journalism and word-of-mouth rather than airplay. Operating in a world were Hendrix was the highest paid act going, I'm sure they wondered why *their* noise never got them there. But they weren't Index.

yeah, again, Mick Jagger and Dylan knew (of) them.

Learning how much Reed loved Morrison has sort of touched me!! I remember the obit he wrote in 1996 or 1997 recalling how he visited him in the hospital and holding his hand. Seems like Sterl and Moe are among the few people he loved unconditionally.

still bullshit Doug Yule isn't there

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, October 21, 2021 3:01 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

OTM. He played a far larger part in the Velvets than many fleeting-member inductees did in their respective bands.

Was it the HOF or Lou that said Doug shouldn't get in? (My money's on Lou, but I know the HOF pulls stupid shit like that all the time, e.g., "If you wanna be inducted, you can't include ____.")

"What Goes On" is my favorite Velvets song and Yule's an essential part of it.

The third album's my favorite and Yule's an essential part of it.

It's delicious that Cale and Eno ended up collaborating; their respective former bands went on to fruitful transformations after their departures.

still bullshit Doug Yule isn't there

I double-checked the HOF site and they don't even include Nico (who did less, but the rest of the band seems to frequently treat her as a former member elsewhere).

Even though Yule wasn't in the reunion (despite at least Sterling and Cale wanting him to join in), this is probably the HOF committee's doing. It was suggested elsewhere that initially the HOF committee was really firm on deciding who gets in and not letting the inductee(s) have any input. It wasn't until the Grateful Dead that they got some firm pushback (the Dead wanted EVERYONE in their history to be inducted, otherwise they weren't going to show up), and though the HOF caved, they were still pretty strict about deciding who gets in for years.

Feel like I read an interesting thing about Steve Miller and his dealings with the HoF, but don't feel like trying to find it right now.

I think Doug wasn't fussed about the HOF, but I guess he'd have gone if he'd been asked.

Would have been interesting if he'd chosen to inform the documentary, maybe not going into the ski-lodge gig era, but giving a better sense of how Reed started sharing vocals and such.

yeah, again, Mick Jagger and Dylan knew (of) them.

I bet Mick has listened to Newsom and Dirty Projectors

it's highly likely it was a Hall of Fame decision, they are famous for arbitrarily cutting out certain members, Pearl Jam and Red Hot Chili Peppers had similar things happen:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pearl-jam-invite-all-five-drummers-to-rock-hall-induction-ceremony-126591/

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/489094/ex-chili-peppers-guitarist-feels-dishonored-by-rock-hall-snub#:~:text=The%20Hall%20recognized%20only%20three,Hall%20of%20Fame%20Foundation%2C%20told

The origin of the shared vocals thing is kind of interesting. I understand that one reason for it on Loaded was that Lou blew out his voice singing night after night at Max's, maybe there was some similar incident right before recording the third album as well.

I believe Lou thought Doug's voice would sound good on "Candy Says" so he asked him to try singing it.

Was it the HOF or Lou that said Doug shouldn't get in? (My money's on Lou, but I know the HOF pulls stupid shit like that all the time, e.g., "If you wanna be inducted, you can't include ____.")

The obvious thing is to assume Lou was responsible but who knows? Lou, Doug and Mo did some kind live onstage interview thing in 2009, which you can watch below, but I'm sure I read that Lou wasn't exactly friendly to Doug on the night.

https://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/velvet-underground-lou-reed-maureen-%E2%80%98moe%E2%80%99-tucker-doug-yule-david-fricke

Worth noting that with Doug in the band, the Velvets became entirely a Long Island combo.

Just the other day I learned that Moe was born in my neighborhood.

About two years ago I had the local “classic rock” station on while driving home from work. They were announcing upcoming shows, mostly tribute bands at sports bars, and in the middle of it was, “On Saturday Doug Yule will be playing at…” I almost drove off the road. Doug Yule playing at a local bar! What a perfectly under-the-radar thing for him to do!

Come to find out it was someone named Doug Ewell.

Awwwwww

Was Llew Riadh on the next night?

Was that John Cale’s childhood friend?

This was fine.

It got, like the band, steadily more conventional.

Was Llew Riadh on the next night?

Yep, accompanied by Meaux Tuquer.

...and Jean Kale

With Knee Coe?

OK, maybe not...

Let's hear it one more time for Bruce "Bruised Knee" Coe, David Allen's Cherokee-eyed son!

This was fine.
It got, like the band, steadily more conventional.
Music docs will do that, a lotta times, but how would you say the band got more conventional?

oh c'mon man

VU & Nico > WL/WH > 3rd > VU > Loaded is a progression that gets steadily more conventional in every way (I love them all but c'mon)

Loaded is pretty straight-on 1970 Rock Album (a little rootsy, a little jammy)

So be it. Maybe I'd agree if I'd first heard them in the late 80s or 90s, after hearing a lot of bands who'd listened to them. But---I started listening in the 60s, maaan--more in the early 70s, and they never sounded conventional for the times---some familiar elements, but turned around, which continued with the versions on Live in 1969, VU, Another View, several bootlegs, and some excavations on Peel Slowly and See.