Velvet Underground Trainspotting Question

and of course it was released in the 70s but a lot of stuff from 70 feels 60s

The Live '69 "Sweet Jane" also the version the Cowboy Junkies covered.

^^A lot of us old youngers intro to the song.

There's a story about all their distortion effects getting stolen at JFK airport at a crucial time which lead to the cleaner sound. I think it is Sterling quoted as saying it in Uptight but I don't have a copy handy. Quite timely if so. Though Lou was writing possibly more melodic material, I guess the difference is that Cale had balanced that out with dissonance on earlier lps like within the same song. Do wonder what the results of them still having effects at hand would have been or if they would have veered away anyway.

I managed to get an original copy of "Soundsville" a year or so ago, it's not that expensive and it all sounds good.

There were more 'early Lou' tracks in the doc, a few I've not heard before. The credits showed four tracks by The Jades, but as I say I only though two got released...

(xp) Don't believe that story. Even if they did have their effects stolen it would have been easy enough for them to hire replacements. Also there's the little matter of the guitar solo on "What Goes On".

Oh man, Loaded was the first album I heard and it was bafflingly conventional. It was 83 or 84 and I was totally immersing myself in punk, and the blue Rolling Stone record guide said that the VU were the start of punk rock with their dark gritty stories and droning and Mo Tucker's primitive perfect drumming. So I went a searchin' and Loaded was the only record in print at that point. Sesame Street cover art. Okay. I knew the song Rock 'n Roll from the radio, but I associated it with jive talkin' white guy rock, like Spill the Wine. Songs about cowboys and trains. "New Age" reminded me of Madame George. "Oh Sweet Nuthin" sounded like Marshal Tucker's "Can't You See". I liked it all fine, but I listened to those drums and tried to figure out how the hell this was supposed to lead to Stiff Little Fingers.

^another booming post from bendy

Couldn’t find anything about Kennedy Airport Heist in Uptight nor am I inclined to buy into it.

TS Uptight vs. up-tight

The gear story is true, and has been told in most books/stories about the band. Iirc, Sterling said they used surplus ammo & heavy firearms cases, which may have made them more enticing to thieves.

As for replacing the equipment, the way I understood it was that some stuff was hard to replace custom gear, other things were manufacturer comps and/or stuff Warhol's connections provided them in '66/7, channels not opened to them at that later date. I think also by them Sesnick was managing them so pursestrings were (up)tight.

But, judging by "Stephanie Says" and "Temptation Inside Your Heart" from Cale's final session, there was already a pivot towards Pop-ier material in motion.

I had a similar experience but with the third album. My next-door neighbor's father was a guitar player, really into, I don't know, classic rock and Al DiMeola. I was into the Doors and Floyd and maybe getting into REM and college rock. Somehow the Velvets came up in conversation and he told me it was the most violent, decadent, dirty stuff out there. That stuck with me and a few years later I tossed the dice on the tape of the third album, expecting some crazy heavy drugged out violent shit. Imagine my surprise. I remember lying in bed with my walkman thinking "I do like this...but I have no idea what that guy was talking about". Then Murder Mystery came on and I was mesmerized and I remember thinking "I guess this was what he was talking about?" I don't think I got any of the other records for another 2 or 3 years.

Self-XP And it's not like they'd been allergic to Pop moves before: VU & Nico kicks off with perhaps the most blatant Top 40 attempt in their whole catalogue!

I bought the first album based on REM covering the Velvets and reading that they were Important. It was probably the first time I heard an album that wasn't produced very well and I was shocked that something like that would be released! It took me a few days to wrap my head around it and then I was off and running.

I distinctly remember when Peel Slowly and See came out. It was like a religious experience.

I was trying to formulate the impact of the albums the other day. The first one feels like it opened the floodgates for new subjects and sounds, which is to say the *idea* of the band. The second one was about the ragged in-the-red *feel* of the band. And the third one was about the *songs." Or something like that. It's been a while since I've heard a band described as VU-inspired, because practically every indie band is sort of VU inspired, but I always took comparisons to mean either "sounds ragged and avant garde minimal and full of feedback" (like, I dunno, Sonic Youth) or "sounds quiet and pretty like the third record" (Galaxie 500/Luna, Feelies). Though of course there are bands like Yo La Tengo that go both ways. Or a band like Spiritualized that crosses the themes of the first record with the approach of the second, but not much of the third (or fourth). I do sort of feel like the Cowboy Junkies cover was a pretty essential keystone.

Equipment story as told by Sterling can be found in Unterberger's White Light/White Heat but then Doug denies it.

Yes, was about to say that I saw an interview with Doug Yule where he says as much.

An aspect of the band that's always struck me is how they remain one of the few acts, let alone of its stature, to still have an air of mystery surrounding it. I remember when they reunited for those live gigs seeing a lot of people note they'd never had any idea who played what on what song before. Can't think of many bands like that. I dunno, New Order?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxaCZZcECE8

Or who sung what! The Matrix boxset helpfully has Lou's guitar in one speaker and Sterling's in another, for those for whom the guitar playing is an area of confusion.

(xp)

Wham-bam, who shot Sam?

Spot on about the air of mystery! This is probably why I don't much rate Lou's solo work, he ended up the most averse to mystery. Even Tucker's solo work emanates from this domestic indie hovel that's mysterious compared to Reed's street life. Nico is all mystery, and Cale tears himself in every direction.

I saw Sterling sing the line "People going into the stratoshphere"..

I was like "whoa, was that him on the record?"

(Should have asked. Didn't.. Oh well.)

first time hearing velvets was through a friend who had heard they were good. they bought Live MCMXCIII, so we listened to that.

i don't remember being impressed at all, but i didn't understand that it was a reunion for a 60s band, and i'm not sure i knew what those roman numerals added up to either

ah, just before the internet. good times

lou was right to keep the band from writing new material for the reunion phase. that likely would have been awful, and to the extent that the four of them played on the first albums, they were perfect

WOO BABY JANE SHE IS A CLEERK

first time hearing velvets was through a friend who had heard they were good. they bought Live MCMXCIII, so we listened to that.

I remember reading Ira Kaplan's endearingly giddy writeup in Spin of one of the early shows on that tour, and really looking forward to the live record. It's weird how well some songs worked ("All Tomorrow's Parties") and how definitely-not-well others did ("I Heard Her Call My Name"). The highlights for me were "Hey Mr. Rain" (for me, if they'd done nothing else, this alone would've justified the reunion) and the audience cheering leading up to the climax of "The Gift." But yeesh, Lou's delivery is just horrible throughout.

I just listened to the first two tracks and couldn’t continue, sorry.

Sterl's solo for "Rock and Roll" was the best moment.

I bought one as a souvenir. I enjoyed the gig but not the album afterward.

Actually, tell a lie it was the dvd I bought.

The best discovery story is Alan Sparhawk saying he heard both the VU *and* Joy Division for the first time on the same night in (iirc) college. Explains a lot.

"Coyote" was another seemingly new reunion song, but "Last Night, I Said Goodbye To My Friend" is the one I remember, not from the xpost R&RHOF induction ceremony, but documentary footage, somewhere else on TV: think they were sitting--in somewhere like a hospital waiting room?!--looking at each other and singing, Reed playing guitar----maybe intended for a doc in the making to go w reunion tour and album----looked kinda Pennebaker, and when I met him in the 90s, when he was traveling with The War Room, about the first Clinton Presidential campaign, he told me about several things he'd been filming (also some completed/cut from complete works, like Don't Look Back) that never did come out, far as I can tell---might be some VU footage still in the legacy vaults---

Oh yeah: some amazing Warhol etc excerpts recently on Books on the Velvets, Edie Sedgwick, Factory, Andy Warhol etc??? Incl. Lou's going-away present to Nico, which suggests to me that he could be a dick even when maybe trying to be nice.

Which I relate to.

I have to a deep dive into Pennebaker's filmography once (released and unreleased/unfinished films as well). I don't recall any VU-related films though. (Ziggy Stardust has a VU cover, if anyone wants to count that.) I know they did a Victoria Williams film, but I only saw part of it - I don't think Lou Reed was in it, but at the time he was supportive of her, they were pretty good friends. (Williams was at Lincoln Center's Reed tribute after he died.)

*I have done a deep dive

Maybe somebody influenced by him (incl. me, memory-wise)

Got it. FWIW, I know countless projects have been pitched to Pennebaker over the years, but unless there's a log of all them available to the public (and there may be - I know he was looking for a buyer to take his archives some years ago) it's impossible to keep track. It's crazy, there's like a jaw-dropping Who's Who of greats (at least in music) who have been in talks or trying to do something with him, and for any number of reasons (money, the artist in question flaking out or losing interest, etc.) they never really got off the ground. Such is the business, the same can be said for other high profile documentary filmmakers like Albert Maysles and probably Alex Gibney. Like it's hilarious Maysles had all this amazing, vintage Marlon Brando footage sitting on a shelf until R.E.M. came along and asked "want to do a music video?" Nowadays, everyone wants a doc made on them, but when the reality of it sinks in (who's got control, who's funding it until you get a buyer (and most indie docs don't get buyers until they're done!), where else can we get funding from), it's a whole other matter.

So! A fine and often moving documentary, and I stress the "document." For about an hour Todd Haynes's split screens create a tantalizing, dialectical experience: what these people say now versus what they looked like then, complemented by that fabulous music. Then it gets straighter -- in every sense.

I enjoyed it, but yes, there's a noticeable shift as it moves into the Doug Yule years. It feels like Haynes ran out of things to say, which is a shame because those later albums are also great and deserve more attention than they got.

I agree about the Yule years -- I felt like the film just ran out of time. You can only make a documentary that is x-long before someone says TOO LONG. idk why but i was expecting to see more live performance footage but i can't say why i thought i would see that aside from very wishful thinking. i wanted to SEE the band playing throughout the years.

Regardless, I enjoyed watching this movie A LOT.

also, not that Haynes is this type of filmmaker, but it was very nice to watch a movie about a classic band without needing to see, idk, Flea or whomever say they were great.

a pity Justin Timberlake didn't pop up to explain how he learned chording from Sterling Morrison's work on "Foggy Notion."

LL otm. Lol at Flea mention.

It was a lot different from the Sparks doc that's for sure

Haven't seen that one yet.

Well hopefully at least a Billie Eilish or equivalent shows up to let the viewers know that young people still listen to them