Velvet Underground Trainspotting Question

so much of this is meant to be cinema footage in the first place (Warhol, Anger, Deren)

I almost went over the the Film Forum to see it but couldn’t quite get it together.

Grabbed a neat shot of Moe playing bass from the clips used in the doc of Ron Nameth's film of their Poor Richard's shows in 66 (Lou in hospital, Angus on drums, Cale on vocals, Moe on bass):

https://i.ibb.co/j4NpvRB/vlcsnap-2021-10-24-10h06m32s756.png

Excellent!

thanks all. gonna try to get to the theater.

I don‘t recall seeing Geeta around here recently, but she isn‘t so keen:

A new piece by me: I reviewed the big new Velvet Underground documentary. Spoiler alert: I didn’t like the movie. (Love the band, though.) https://t.co/zheXsgZOnt

— Geeta Dayal (@geetadayal) October 29, 2021

Don't think she has been here for years so was just coming here to post that (planning to see this at the weekend).

I reviewed this too and was similarly slightly underwhelmed https://www.uncut.co.uk/reviews/dvd/the-velvet-underground-134504/

Interesting that you and others liked Richman so much in this. He was charming but for me was exactly what I’m tired of in rock documentaries- a talking head with exaggerated stories that are all variations of “and everyone’s jaws hit the floor; nobody ain’t seen nothing like this before”. Feels like most docs are just compilations of people telling stories like that and this one (otherwise) wasn’t that.

I have no idea how you could watch Jonathan Richman in this and think of him as a typical rock doc talking head. Seriously.

The Richman parts felt like a parody of rock documentaries, like he conveniently brought a guitar to the interview so he could show that they played like this and this, but when they played together they made sounds nobody heard before and magic happened.

It's a long way from Bono talking about Horslips or whatever, he actually had a direct relationship with the band for a start.

I said he was charming! I winced a bit at his stories though.

Ah well, mileage will vary after all.

I liked Richman. But then, I don’t watch a lot of music documentaries.

Richman is the real deal, he's really just like that

He has the benefit of having been there at the time -- everyone in the movie was there at the time whether they were music people or relatives. That's part of what made it interesting imo. Richman was their first superfan and went on to have his own career, the ur-superfan. I would say this is at most a cousin of standard rock doc talking heads rather than an example of it.

He is also very weird and potentially annoying, but that is just his personality and not a feature of the film

otm x 2

Yeah I'm not a huge Richman fan but he is obv a genuine and honest person. I thought he was charming and actually I thought he provided an interesting counter-point to some of the other people talking about them in sort of an abstract way or discussing their influence or influences he was talking the nitty-gritty of band-dynamics. It was an interesting reminder that a lot of times gets lost in the fog of myth-making that the VU, esp later in the Yule-era were a working band, playing shows, arguing, driving to gigs, dealing with weirdos in Boston who want to know what kind of amps they use, classic underground US rock band shit.

Also I realized that Mo wearing that Jets sweatshirt totally destroys the long-standing Stills beef that Jagger stole the idea from him, when in reality they both stole it from her

Look, he's great. But he's definitely playing that role here in arguably the most excusable way, as mentioned, someone with an actual unique first hand experience to share. It's just when I hear those sort of stories "Five seconds of silence... people were hypnotized!" in my mind I go "maybe they just weren't sure the song had ended?". I do get skeptical of "myth-making" dramatizations like that. I don't mean to sound so cynical though.

https://4columns.org/dayal-geeta/the-velvet-underground

Geeta D has some criticism of the doc too

Look, he's great. But he's definitely playing that role here in arguably the most excusable way, as mentioned, someone with an actual unique first hand experience to share. It's just when I hear those sort of stories "Five seconds of silence... people were hypnotized!" in my mind I go "maybe they just weren't sure the song had ended?". I do get skeptical of "myth-making" dramatizations like that. I don't mean to sound so cynical though.

I tend to hate that stuff too, though Richman's line is pretty innocuous compared to things like this:

https://i.ibb.co/ggr599k/Untitled.png

Who knew Jim Reeves had it in him?

The thing is, whether the audience weren't sure if the song had ended or not, Jonathan Richman undoubtedly believes they were hypnotized.

well yeah, that's true about any anecdote like that in any documentary

Richman was the best bit of a totally meh documentary.

I liked the different colours behind the interviewees. And the music.

my only complaint would be that i would have enjoyed more/different richman tbh, he had a very unique & interesting relationship with that band which provided him with a perspective that few others were privy to. i would have loved some more stories about that from him, maybe replacing stuff like Mary Woronov bagging on hippies for being addicted to less-cool drugs than NYers, etc. but thats asking it to be a different doc, this is definitely more of a tribute/celebration than an informative historical thing

Feel Richman is necessary in the context of the Velvets story as told of a band against the grain, that mystified audiences and didn't sell records. He got them, very much, and went out and started a band (a la Eno's dictum).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4mG8T754YU

Lol Tom, I thought for a second that meant Jim Osterberg but that would have been too obvious.

Disagree with Geeta's conclusion though she raises some great points throughout and her writing is, as always, really strong. Also, she mentions at one point that Lou Reed love jazz, which was news to me. I'm no Velvets scholar but I don't recall ever hearing or reading anything that would suggest Lou loved jazz

http://www.loureed.com/guilty/

. Also, she mentions at one point that Lou Reed love jazz, which was news to me. I'm no Velvets scholar but I don't recall ever hearing or reading anything that would suggest Lou loved jazz

Really? He mentioned Coleman and Cherry all the time.

His solo in "I Heard Her Call My Name" was his approximation of a Coleman solo.

He got Don Cherry to appear on The Bells.

Yes to both of those things.

Looking at the Morbsies film poll at the same time as this thread it strikes me that Jojo and Morbs have some similaritiy, they didn't seem to every be saying anything just to please somebody.

I liked the film more than Geeta, but she wrote a pretty good piece. I disagree with her points on the film clips. The best thing about this documentary is how it presents everything in a full context. It's tough making any new discoveries about the VU when they've been written about so thoroughly, but the best thing a film like this can do is show the breadth and diversity of the culture that gave birth to them. Not to sound unkind, but I don't she really understands the connection between what's on screen and what the story's about. Furthermore, the fact that a Maya Deren film is decades old is irrelevant - the underground culture and art world of the '60s wasn't a big bang that happened in a vacuum and the older films are crucial in seeing where the work was coming from. On that note, she makes an excellent point about the absence of jazz - it was already mentioned upthread, but I'm not sure I can recall any reference to the avant-garde jazz musicians that influenced them, and they were literally next door during their formative years. (And yes, Lou loved jazz. He collaborated and toured with John Zorn frequently, and he's performed on-stage with Ornette Coleman. As mentioned, Don Cherry was involved with The Bells.) That's an important part of that world, and it really deserved a bigger mention since so much of the film was dedicated to depicting the rest of the NY scene at the time.

Student DJ Lou used to host a Jazz show on the Syracuse college station.

... which was called Excursions On A Wobbly Rail.

i think one of the best things about the doc is that it *didn't* include viewpoints from critics, which Daytal seemed to want. There's enough of that, isn't there?

yes, lou was a dedicated jazz lover from early on ... he named his college literary journal "Lonely Woman Quarterly"

Like, i don't want La Monte Young to say something and then have a critic come in with an "actually" ...

Yes, exactly!

It was like something I just read on the Morbsies thread, the film critic who interviewed the stars of Imitation of Life and kept interjecting his own opinions and asking them brainteasers instead of letting them tell their own story. #OneThread

Cherry's on some Bells-era live stuff in the Between Thought and Expression[ Lou box I mentioned. Coleman's on The Raven, and some more of his playing in those sessions was posted by Reed on his own site. Lou and Laurie used to make music w Zorn on a regular basis, I've read.) I'll wait to read Geeta etc. 'til I've finally seen the damnéd thing (to use Ambrose Bierce's phrase; Happy Halloween, Ambrose).

Not sure if there are any anecdotes about Lou's reaction at a Douglas Sirk screening, but there should be.

Maybe Apple TV+ should invest an a big bucks alternate universe miniseries in which Sterling didn't fire John and the original VU kept going.

Sorry to repeat some things already posted while I was typing---yeah corrections and critiques would have been good before rise of the Googlenet. but hardly nec now, esp w such a deeply and widely covered subject.

i have this boot on vinyl it's fun, a little rough sounding but some cool stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW9HNjW0iW0