Velvet Underground Trainspotting Question

i love those ludlow street demos — though it was a weird choice to combine all the takes onto single tracks, which made listening a little bit of a chore. a pretty amazing / unique glimpse of the band.

geeta and the richman haters are so off-the-money on this one. like profoundly so.

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

― tylerw, Friday, October 29, 2021 1:47 PM (one hour ago)
booming post, agree
got no problem with them actuallying their hearts out elsewhere, but not in this particular film imo

Actually, La Monte, he was a pole vaulter.

No film/article can satisfy everyone.

yeah I mean LMY is well aware of the traditions that inform him, he worked with Pandit Pran Nath. I think what he was saying was "we were the first Western people to do this" which is arguably true

and Richman was absolutely one of the best parts imho

i guess "unreliable narrators" felt like a given with this particular milieu — what is cool is that they were all a bunch of complete weirdos. mythmakers, egomaniacs, bullshitters, but also a fair amount of actual genius.

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

I don’t think Geeta was suggesting that a critic should’ve been part of the film, or even part of that segment of the film. But when a prominent figure claims he’s the first one to do a thing that he wasn’t the first one to do, it shouldn’t just slide by unchallenged.

(I get that LMY may have been the first to use Western written notation for an approach that had already been around for thousands of years, but that strikes me as a minor distinction at best.)

Plenty of droning going on in traditional Western music btw.

Wondering if there is anything interesting to be found in here: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/s/sclead/umich-scl-bockris?view=text

The end of "Coney Island Steeplechase" sounds kind of like "The Ostrich."

<i>But when a prominent figure claims he’s the first one to do a thing that he wasn’t the first one to do, it shouldn’t just slide by unchallenged.</i>

why who cares? it makes the movie cooler.

Ya think?

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.

otm, also something date-obsessed sticklers often miss re:mechanically-reproduced art is that although those films were decades old, people there in that scene were screening & watching them there & then. those films were a part of the actual milieu, they didnt just get shown the year they were made & then shelved, only to be read about in art history texts forevermore.

this is also a very silly criticism: To me, these works are individual pieces meant to be experienced in full, and some did not contain sound in their original design.

yes, very blinkered of haynes not to show each film in full, silently.

i get that those films obviously are important to her but that whole section is just the possessiveness of a pedantic fan

I take it that there had to be a lot more intentionality about actually showing a film in a private s-pace at taht point than there would be now. Like finding the film itself and finding something that one could play it on. Even finding a space to actually project it on taht people could see properly.
& having to be in one space at one time to have it physically shown and fun things like that.

No youtube to stick it on or Netflix to ditto.
So much easier to find so many media right now.

Regarding this from Geeta's review

The Velvets’ inspirations included jazz by Black musicians—Reed loved jazz—

As I posted upthread, it was frustrating to see Jonas Mekas mention every artistic movement in NYC at that time EXCEPT for Black music. And it's not like there wasn't any collaboration or socializing, as Bill Dixon illustrated in this quote from the film Imagine the Sound (I believe he's talking about 1960-61 or thereabouts):

“At that time you had all of this music. I was living next door to George [Russell]. George lived at 121 Bank Street, I lived at 119 Bank Street. In my building on the second floor was La Monte Young. La Monte Young had just come from the coast on a Fulbright. Ornette knew La Monte, and Eric Dolphy knew La Monte because all of them had been in a large band on the west coast. And they would be in [La Monte’s apartment], and then they’d be up to my house, George would be rehearsing, ... there was individuality then. And there were better feelings, too, among musicians. There wasn’t a competitive spirit in a certain kind of way. No one had made the magazines. ... We were all friends, all went to parties together, we had open house, it was different.”

Good quote. Reminds that I went to see an old friend of George Russell's perform this past Monday.

tbh there's a piece to be written abt how the promiscuously overlapping nyc micro-scenes of 1960 began to separate (re-segregate even?) after c.1966

i once asked tony conrad a naive version of this and his answer was p much "well they tended to cluster round drug of choice and dealer of convenience!" -- which is at least the basis of a theory! a theory no one can easily follow up (no narrators more unreliable and besides all the wenches witnesses are dead)

Also, that prev mentioned proximity of living spaces, like sometimes all in the same tenements, right? Charlie Haden once said he used to come home and always had to decide which jam to join, which apartment door to knock on.
xxxpostTo me, these works are individual pieces meant to be experienced in full, and some did not contain sound in their original design. Is that about the screen tests? There was a tour in 2009---excerpt from an iberkshires.com preview:

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. - Between 1964 and 1966 Andy Warhol captured approximately 500 intimate film portraits of celebrities and nobodies alike. Warhol's Screen Tests with their iconic imagery have become emblematic of Warhol's portraiture, as well as his transition from the medium of paint to film.

Commissioned by the Andy Warhol Museum and Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, Dean & Britta (a.k.a. Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips, formerly of the storied band Luna) have composed music to accompany Warhol's short silent film portraits. In an event titled 13 Most Beautiful...Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests, Dean & Britta will perform their haunting, seductive scores and show a selection of the short films at MASS MoCA on Saturday March 28 at 8pm in the Hunter Center

Speaking of previews, here's an excerpt from one I wrote when Glen Campbell's farewell (I think?) tour came to Columbus OH; his new Meet Glen Campbell reserved a place for the Velvets:
It’s worth checking, especially when orchestrations, recalling Campbell’s (non-rock) ‘60s hits, meet the Replacements’ moodily compatible “Sadly Beautiful,” and the Velvet Underground’s ‘60s non-hit, “Jesus.” The Velvets, better known for the earlier “Heroin”, sounded spooked/intrigued by their newly apparent need. Long-time born-again/rehab vet Campbell unblinkingly seconds that mixed emotion.

"well they tended to cluster round drug of choice and dealer of convenience!"

lol, truth bomb

Actually, La Monte, he was a pole vaulter.

The new Dune and the VU doc both underplay the consumption of drugs

Weeks after the fact, but I finally watched this. A friend passed on a downloaded file that, for some reason, kept freezing on my TV and starting over after a minute. I resisted, but with no opening here in sight, I relented and watched it on my desktop.

It's fine, but making a documentary on the Velvet Underground is like making a grilled cheese sandwich--you'd have to go some to really mess it up. I suppose some people do. I didn't have any issue with how the music was incorporated, or which songs were included and which were omitted; Haynes stuck to the obvious, for the most part, but then there really aren't many obscurities on the four studio albums, and I'd rather hear "Sweet Jane" for the millionth time than a lesser song from Loaded. It felt like something was missing, and maybe it was more in the way of context--the story unfolds in a bit of a vacuum. For me, it wasn't monumental like the four-hour Warhol American Masters.

My favourite bit was Reed's sister doing the Ostrich; best interviewee, Jonathan Richman. As I'm sure someone else here has probably mentioned, Mary Woronov's smugness towards the West Coast seemed 40 years out of date, at least, and quite self-serving. There's no shortage of brilliant "hippie" music; if most of it isn't as brilliant as "Heroin," that's because a) hardly any pop music ever is, but b) not because there wasn't mystery and weirdness and fatalism to come out of California, too.

When was that final performance of "Heroin" shot? I found it disorienting--clearly later than the band's first incarnation, but it looked too early for one of those later reunion shows (and wasn't Nico dead by then anyway?).

Was that the 1971 Batavian reunion of Reed, Cale and Nico?

Bataclan obv

That would make sense, looked like early-'70s Reed--never knew such a reunion took place.

Yeah, I had a boot cassette yonks back, I think it was a tv broadcast show.

yep that was the Bataclan '72 footage

Yeah, Reed, Cale, Nico, Le Bataclan '72: bought it as a set of 7" double EPs, maybe legit(-at-the-time) import, like a lot of those things from Italy back in the day, though this might have been French, I think? French vinyl had a bad rep re sound quality back then-deserved or not, I couldn't say---but sound quality may have been in part why it disappointed me: just sounded like this very sad, thin, insular, hospital waiting encounter---not just sad, but desolate, more so than "Last Night," because here they seemed in mourning for their own lives, maybe especially as the Velvets core (and Nico---who apologized for--well, everything, seemed like).
I didn't listen much. Maybe I should give it another shot, but---not right now.
Here 'tis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agUSgRf3qXA

the Bataclan show has some good moments, but every Velvets fan needs to hear Cale's funny, touching song-tribute to them "The Biggest Loudest Hairiest Group Of All", which is on that set and imo as essential as any other amazing Velvets obscurity like "Follow The Leader" or "Sweet Sister Ray" or "Chic Mystique" or "I'm Not A Young Man Anymore" or whatever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTGTlPFDKP0

Well, you know

Without Moe and Sterling…

xxpost This posted version has some titles I don't recall---maybe it's better!

the Bataclan show has some good moments, but every Velvets fan needs to hear Cale's funny, touching song-tribute to them "The Biggest Loudest Hairiest Group Of All", which is on that set and imo as essential as any other amazing Velvets obscurity like "Follow The Leader" or "Sweet Sister Ray" or "Chic Mystique" or "I'm Not A Young Man Anymore" or whatever

Well, it's a John Cale obscurity, not a Velvet Underground obscurity. I don't think anyone was pretending the Bataclan show was by the Velvet Underground, they were probably playing in a ski lodge somewhere at the time.

Lol

lol ok that's hairsplitting but sure, it's the "Free As A Bird" of the Velvets if u will, a footnote

enjoyed this. john cale has a nice voice; reminds me of my favorite uncle

as someone who has lived in nyc for 15 years and done nothing useful, i alternated between feeling like a) wow at these amazing people doing Art, and b) wow at these astonishing poseurs gadding about thinking they're important

i mean mary woronov was funny and cool but also totally full of shit

anyway the music continues to be great, lou continues to be a dick, and now i want to shoot heroin more than ever

A friend just reminded me of something I did love: the inclusion of Nolan Strong's "The Wind." Also, having seen so many rock documentaries where guys look ridiculous trying to look like they did 40 years ago (most recent example: Earl Slick in the Fanny documentary), I have to say that Cale looks both as cool and as distinguished as anybody could possibly look at his age.

The Bataclan bootleg/grey market release that has been around for awhile runs slow. The tape speed was messed up and it's pretty noticeable once someone points it out. Apparently there has since been a remixed version with the speed corrected and two bonus tracks from the rehearsals: Pale Blue Eyes & Candy Says. I haven't heard the corrected version but I like the performance a lot. Instead of a REUNION, it feels more like hanging around the living room while Lou, John, and Nico trade off on old songs and reminisce.

Much better than the VU reunion concert album. Although "Mr. Rain" on that one is magnificent. I heard that before I got around to buying Another View. The studio versions felt dinky compared to the live performance.

Ah, maybe that's why my copy was such a drag; will look for the corrected (maybe that's the YouTube post I linked).
Anybody here familiar with the Velvet Underground Appreciation Society? They don't seem to have a site now, though Wiki has an article, discogs and others list their output: issues of fanzine What Goes On, and releases, like Moe EPs, on 50 Skadillion Watts, which I think was funded by Penn Gillette. They had ads in several issues of Creem, but I was a mail order wimp back then (before subscribing to Goldmine and flipping to opposite extreme).

yes, I own the Mo issue of What Goes On, it came with a super lo-fi flexi of the Warhol event performance (1991?)

they also put out the essential back-in-the-day bootlegs Etc and And So On, at least I remember them being involved somehow.

The Velvet Underground Companion book was edited by the VUAS team, and predicably was mostly reprinted material originating from What Goes On or was first published stateside in their pages.

Everything I’ve read by the named editor of that book, Albin J. Zak III, has been great. Heck, his first name is even the last name of Lou’s Syracuse muse.

Thanks! Soundtrack for the doc looks good; think I might get downloads of the tracks I don't have: xpost Nolan Strong, Bo Diddley, Theater of Eternal Music at least:
https://www.amazon.com/Velvet-Underground-Documentary-Picture-Soundtrack/dp/B09DTN7VJG/ref=tmm_msc_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Yeah, I had a subscription to “What goes on” the VUAS mag. They stopped offering subscriptions just after that,as it was taking three years plus between issues. So, I’d get the mag as a nice surprise, particularly as it took much much longer. And they probably owe me one issue still.

Anyway, I was recently going through the junk in my garage, and found the last issue they did, along with the full and complete “After Hours” tape listing (I have two), not even Discogs has that! I don’t think “etc” and “and so on” was them directly, but yes to everything else.

I have two tapes, is what I mean.

When was that last issue from? I had the feeling that with the book coming out (which was around when the Peel Slowly... box and the 'Fully Loaded' Loaded were presented as kind of a final word on the catalogue), that was them admitting that was as far as they could go.

Well, it had two fronts, reversed if you know what I mean, and one side had lots of reviews of the Velvets reunion tour in excruciating detail (“I tried to get backstage, the first time blah blah, the second time I shouted “hi Sterling it’s me” but he pretended he’d never met me, the third time AAAARGH” ) .. one of them was by Chris Carter, but not that one (TG, I mean)