Velvet Underground Trainspotting Question

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.

Wow intro to the Everly bros. sounds like VU

Loaded feels like Lou offloading to Yule in his frustration to be more contemporary - putting aside his vision to pursue is other expectations, and Moe isn't there to pull it all together.

I've gotta add Warhol too. I think the band says as much in the film.

Reed's more in charge than ever for #4, no?

No.

I guess Lou wrote the songs but Doug sang.a bunch and... arranged, msybe? And played many of the instruments? We know Moe was away, but is Sterling even on Loaded?

Don't know about arranging but Doug played a lot, including keyboards, drums and a lot of lead guitar. Sterling's on it but not much.

Lou was definitely heavily involved - though he implied he wasn't later - but I certainly don't think he was 'more in charge' than he had been on earlier albums.

One of the best Sterling bits was left off--his Leslie-d slide on the 1970 "Ocean".

OCTOBER Lou Reed might be lying low in Long Island, but he’s not taking everything lying down. At some point this month he copyrights all of the Loaded songs in his own name, although the album already credits them to Reed, Doug Yule, and Sterling Morrison. Four days later, Yule responds by copyrighting his arrangements of “Head Held High,” “Rock & Roll,” and “Sweet Jane” to Virpi Music, the group’s joint publishing company.

Unterberger, Richie; Unterberger, Richie. White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day-By-Day (Revised & Expanded Ebook Edition) (p. 892).

brb copyrighting all loaded's songs to their true writer-arranger = frank zappa

I thought the take on Andy was that his clout created enough space for the band to self produce.

lol mark

Since I finally got around to looking at the track lists for Fully Loaded and Re:Loaded today, I now think that Reed, as writer and/or copyright taker, also left his mark by not incl. some superior material.
If he, and/or whoever else had a lot of say, were really serious about some kind of commercial appeal, some conceivably significant amount of AM Top 40 play---and/or (more plausibly "or") 1970 FM (in most states, mostly Collegetown) stoner art-pop appeal, like the Grateful Dead's American Beauty, and CSN's s/t debut, more than Beach Boys' often worthy but not big-selling recent ventures in this vein---he/they would have left out "Lonesome Cowboy Bill," "I Found A Reason" (funny but once you've heard the joek it starts to lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight), and even "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'," at least at this length--nah, take it out altogether--and work up finished product of some of them demos (ones he may have already been thinking of as solo material):
"I'm Sticking With You" (just as sweet, not cloying, def. not nuthin) "Satellite of Love," "Love Makes You Feel Ten Feet Tall," "Ocean," if there's room, for that *late night stoner* '70 FM appeal. I wouldn't miss "Who Loves The Sun," but can see how it's effective opening, incl. shock of This is the VU? and conceivably AM Top 40 sweetening for "Sweet Jane."
At some point I'll buy a bunch of these and make my own Loaded Baked Potato playlist, unless, hopefully, the Wizard of Albums That Never Were beats me to it (maybe has).

I I meant to emphasize *late night* (stoner a given here), because it's always been slow and murky for the most part, although the Loaded take on Peel Slowly... worked, I thought, unlike the one on Live in 1969 and the s/t solo debut (where I also had no use for "I Love You," "Walk and Talk It," and puked all over "Ride Into The Sun.")

this has always been the version of Ride Into the Sun for me, Lou with Doug (?) harmonizing on the chorus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfQMsIPX4yk

not included in the Loaded 45th set, only shows up on the What Goes On? box (and a boot single I have).

Looking good there, Moe!
xxpost "Reed also left his mark" as sab-auteur (by omitting superior material, maybe saving it for his solo ventures)

Interesting theory.

Just now wondering if “Foggy Notion” is Sterling’s best soloing.

HI DERE

Just came across an explanation of why Hy Weiss has a songwriting credit on that one.

Interesting theory.

Just now wondering if “Foggy Notion” is Sterling’s best soloing.

― Fine, Fine, Superfine Career Opportunities (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, November 1, 2021 10:02 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

HI DERE

― Exploding Plastic Bertrand (James Redd and the Blecchs

wonder no more

Because it is?

This thread is pretty interesting: Pre-1980 Velvet Underground covers + hommages + rip-offs

is that Tribute To The Velvet Underground and Nico any good? Can't even bring myself to read the review, at this point. But still I wonder, little bit.

xp
Certainly his most Quine-like playing, what with the deranged Early Rock stylings.

Wish I could find the Vulgar Boatmen “Foggy Notion/Roadrunner” mentioned on that other thread.

At least one ILX0R seems to agree

Can’t quite keep track of all the versions of “Ocean” that went unreleased for so long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6psa1ptpGTc

Interesting theory.
No theory, it's a fact! That's what they all say, but yes it is a fact that the album wasn't as good as it could have been---judging by commercial aspirations, standards, and possibilities for cuspy art-pop aromatics--- judging most of all by what he/they left in the can, man. Whether or not he was thinking of saving it for his own album---maybe he had a foggy notion.

But in my personal history it is still a milestoned.

A Foggy Day (In Uptown)

I don't have Apple TV so I haven't seen the doc but I wonder does it get into modern times at all or is it a total snapshot?

Mainly I wonder if the doc gets into how Moe Tucker lost her mind as of late, or if that's not the point at all.

It goes nowhere near that

Here the VB doing Foggy Notion and a few others (but not Roadrunner).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOJ1lDHhv84

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).

― dow, Monday, 1 November 2021 bookmarkflaglink

This "culmination" got five mins in the doc. I also don't think it's very good pop either. What made out of the gallery was the banana album!

i'm not sure how effectively this is achieved by the documentary -- since ppl are reading their sense of disappointment in its later stages as a flaw -- but it does strike me that its visually contructed as the closing of a trap, from lou's very eary announcment he wants to be a big famous rockstar back in the days when listening to rock still functioned as a potential art-quirk like watching a guy feed his piano hay or whatever, to he (and to a lesser extent cale) actually becoming rockstars

so that the early visual setting is broad and rich -- a little chaotic and historically unstructured if you want to glean an useable sense of all the interracting new york artspaces in like 1960, the paintings, the films, the happenings, and yes it omits some of the strands (ornette shd also be in there if cardew is), but this is what the world they came up in was -- but by the end its just a regimented seauence of album covers everyone has seen a million times: lou got his wish and it was a much more limited world!

against this you have a very specific reading of a throughline, which is cale's commitment to the drone: he is a beguiling figure to encounter telling his own story but no more trustworthy or self-denying as a judge of the true underlying energies than anyone else (i mean i'm not going to argue he's *less* trustworthy in telling the tale than lol lamonte, but in the great young-conrad battle abt rights and legacy he is at best diplomatic in the end) (not that tony conrad wasn't invested: it was a battle!)

the thing is, the cale throughline kinds of fizzles out: JC steps back from it bcz he became involved the fashioning of himself as a project within rock (where is HIS metal machine music?)

i mean most of the throughlines fizzle out bcz nearly everyone dies so young

i mean this seems an extremely very haynes-ish trajectory-framework:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSfjqiOEin0

(also applies to lamonte young and marian zazeela tbh, except for her very good hat)