Velvet Underground Trainspotting Question

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)

... or the X-Files one?

That, I don't know.

Possibly the Chris Carter from Dramarama now Sirius DJ?

Yah the dramarama breakfast with the beatles dude. He's a huge fan boy.

I really liked this though I think my main qualifier is that it tried to be a documentary about the Velvet Underground as a rock group which somewhat clashed with what Haynes was as interested in (if not more so), which are the queer subcultures thr group came from, and the wider developments in experimental film and commercial art via Warhol, his filmmaking and projects. And I say this as someone who lovs WL/WH as much as ther debut.* Anyway, Haynes sorta drops out - the last three records get about half hour, and in the last two the colours are in, its a bit boring and thin tbh. Doug Yule made the right decision not to appear.

I think the way he treats Nico bears this out. Unlike what Geeta writes in her review Haynes seems to me to be at pains to point out she is a musician and/or became a musician and is not just a beautiful face. Tucker, Cale and Browne are pretty complimentary of what she bought as a singer, you know that Nico made her solo records at the end. But what Haynes doesn't explore was how she was able to wander in, hold her own. There is a remark that Cale in particular was responsible for making it work in the group, from "not being able to hold a pitch". Its kinda fascinating but Haynes isn't into that. It took Richman and Cale to bring in some remarks about what they were like as a musical group, their interest in improv, their hypnotic effect on the audience, but there was no exploration of their lack of sales or their interaction with wider rock n'roll (compare it to someone like Beefhart who was just as big a weirdo and how record companies were trying to sell his music and mistreated him (vice-versa), Ry Cooder's involvement, Zappa as producer, attempts to appear at festivals). There was some, but Warhol seemed to coccon them in the gallery - the miracle is that this prospered beyond, way after the fact.

I agree Haynes loses control (I won't say "interest") in the last third and was also struck by how uncondescending Browne was to Nico.

You could think of the four albums as progressing from a band with three visionaries, to two visionaries, to one visionary to fascinatingly rudderless.

I gave my take on Loaded way upthread, but also I think of it as something like a culmination: again, there are the rockers and ballads, distinctive as subsets and individually, as on the debut, rockers less latent (waiting for Live in 1969-type gigs) than on the third album, no WLWHjams or "Lady Godiva"-type Weirdo tales, the weirdness is now how pop it is, in-your-face w "Lonesome Cowboy Bill," and "I Found A Reason," until Lou beats Zappa w the recitation---but also "Who Loves The Sun" right off--but plenty of storytelling, settings, situations, as on all three previous albums---and the results (though I could do without a few tracks all hang together in this album's way, also as previously---now a little popological counterworld vs. the crispy cusp of 1970 ( often a fairly hideous year overall, and not just in Cambodia).

But I came here to ask about mentions of the Everly Brothers in this doc, because a friend who's seen it mentioned the mentions in passing---what do interviewees say about them?

John Cale talks about it in reference to the drone, I think.

Them. It being the sound of the interval between their voices.

Those open fourths and fifths.

Oh yeah, come to think of it, I saw a Cale quote circulating on Twitter, didn't know where it was from.
Also, my friend just now said that this is mentioned in the doc---I think that's why she sent it, anyway it fits w VU influences:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFE2SnliiV0

my email response:
Never heard that before! Oh yeah, the lyrics' imagery and theme combined with that rhythm guitar, those voices---so matter of fact it's disarming, "undersold," compared to Gram & Emmylou's momentum--- also reminds me that, when he was producing the Everlys, Chet Atkins bragged that he was luring the Pat Boone fans toward Bo Diddley, with Everlys' wholesome voices and choppy guitar (also some of the plot lines, "Wake Up Little Suzie" having all of the above, incl. They slept together! Not like that, but still!)

My friend's email response to that:
Also it's "Sweet Jane."

The Cale quote I saw on Twitter goes w what James said:
Cale: "When we formed The Dream Syndicate, l needed to
have a strong sound. I decided to try using guitar strings on
my viola, and l got a drone that sounded like a jet-engine!
Playing the viola in the just intonation system was so
exciting. The thing that really amazed me about it was that
we played similarly to the way The Everly Brothers used to
sing. There was this one song which they sang, in which they
started with two voices holding one chord. They sang it so
perfectly in tune that you could actually hear each voice.
They probably didn't know they were singing just intonation,
but they sang the right intervals. And when those intervals
were in tune, as they were in The Everly Brothers and our
group, it is extremely forceful."
Cool, but whether or not the Bros had the term "just intonation," in some sense they knew what to do, or they couldn't have been as consistent in their EB Sound as they were. Nevertheless, a striking connection!

They slept together! Not like that, but still!)

Absolutely “like that”! The platonic plea is a nice story for the folks back home, but I don’t believe for a second that the narrator and Suzie didn’t get their bone on before passing out.

You could think of the four albums as progressing from a band with three visionaries, to two visionaries, to one visionary to fascinatingly rudderless.

Who’s the third visionary on the debut? Not Warhol, surely.

I would think so. I thought that was a great formulation for the first three albums...but Reed's more in charge than ever for #4, no?

Doug ends up singing a good bit of Loaded, and Sesnick was positioning him as Lou's heir apparent.

xp Nico was the third, forcing her personality into those songs.