Velvet Underground Trainspotting Question

The Barbara Rubin documentary is excellent (couple of years old). She was right in the middle of a Warhol-Velvets-Dylan triangle.

Intriguing figure...Speaking of Sky Arts, have any of you seen The South Bank Show's 1986 VU doc? I think that's what I saw in '87 on the first incarnation of Bravo, but South Bank also did one on Warhol in '87, so may have been that---even so, VU content def made strongest impression, and Bravo was smart to start with him and/or them in my neck of the woods---here they are (several posts of it on the 'Tube):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkuBjik4O-g

imdb says also incl. Bockris, Xgau, some others you might not care to see/hear.

I remember Cale's Beethoven t-shirt, I had the same one at some point, wish i still had it!

Yeah had SBS on video so watched several times. Cale looking really heavy at the time did he give up the drink afterwards or something cos he lost weight again by Songs For Drella.

In his variously titled book on Nico, James Young takes about how when he first worked with John Cale he was drinking daily crates of ale but then later on he was playing squash and running up stairs.

When the Happy Mondays hired Cale to produce their debut, they were stoked to get the chance to party and do drugs with him, but ultimately were disappointed when confronted with a newly sober man who was constantly eating clementines.

The Barbara Rubin documentary is excellent (couple of years old). She was right in the middle of a Warhol-Velvets-Dylan triangle.

― clemenza, Friday, 5 November 2021 bookmarkflaglink

Yeah watched this on Friday and oddly enough an interesting counterpart to Haynes. Also features Taubin, who also talks about 'Kiss' by Warhol. This could just never succeed, they threw a rock shape along with other stuff that was repressed at the time. Rubin's last act in joining an orthodox Jewish group was almost like another taboo to her friends.

I saw this a while ago, was this on BBC4 first?

Todd Haynes did an amazing job on that movie. There was a lot of interesting film and imagery to tap for such a film but I thought it was really beautiful how it came together. I really think it might be the best music documentary I have ever seen and one I would have loved to saw on a big screen for the first time.

I pretty much watched it once and then went back and watched it again and probably will do so again. There is so much visual data in that thing with split screens and multiple screen sections, I think it will hold up to many viewings. Just killer.

I saw this a while ago, was this on BBC4 first?

― Des Weerelds Dool-om-berg ont-doold op Dool-in-bergh (Tom D.), Sunday, 7 November 2021 bookmarkflaglink

Saw it on Sky arts

they threw a rock shape What did you mean? I Have an idea given context of sentence, but don't want to project/presume.

Just finished it. Geeta OTM.

although this thread makes me want to reconsider

Maybe also compare it with that '86 VU doc linked upthread a little ways.

Been trying to remember that "Reprise recording artist, mister personality, Donnie Brooks with" Pinnie the poo" for some time. I mean, wtf?

they threw a rock shape What did you mean? I Have an idea given context of sentence, but don't want to project/presume.

― dow, Sunday, 7 November 2021 bookmarkflaglink

Just that rock n'roll was one part of the VU jigsaw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy7SvZQfeBM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjtD8A-MWBc

All of that sounds like stuff that's made money, which is (and I'm sorry to say) not allowed in the VU thread

Well--occurred to me this afternoon, while pondering the doc's connection between xpost Everly Brothers' version of "Love Hurts" and "Sweet Jane"---which I hear more in the VU's slower version w the bridge restored, on Live In 1969, for instance---that J. Geils Band seem to have lifted template of the Loaded "SJ" for "Love Stinks"--validating Reed's and Yule's faith in this album's commercial potential--but somehow I don't think Reed was gratified.
On a less stinky note, I mentioned the Barbara Rubin doc to a longtime penpal (linking the xpost VU '86 doc that Rubin talk reminded me of), and now Lucy says: My old neighbor Rosebud was Barbara Rubin's best friend, and was present when she introduced the VU to Warhol at the Café Bizarre on Macdougal Street in 1965.

*Some* of the template.

this movie would be better if it had animated sequences reenacting the band's stories while going through their catalog chronologically and podcast hosts weighed in on the albums.

I would like to see popular YouTubers reacting to the interviewees and footage in a side window

Lol at these last two

I loved Moe's crankiness. Also, hearing the live recordings in a focused setting I was reminded how great her drumming is

Prob my favourite thing in the entire doc was when they talked about going on tour and they show a picture of Nico driving the tour van and I thought "of course Nico was doing all the driving she was probably TM'ing as well"

Lou…was not a great driver, to say the least, unlike his unacknowledged hero Bob Dylan.

Doc should be NPR/Podcast style:

Voiceover: "What if I told you that this band only sold 10,000 records, but everyone who bought one started a band."

Spend five useless episodes trying to track down some doo wop lyrics Lou wrote in the early 60s.

What does "TM'ing" mean?

Is it something Mike Love and David Lynch do?

Love everything about the Velvet Underground doc, but extra love Peter Falk going to an Exploding Plastic Inevitable night. pic.twitter.com/0OiTwEN0pm

— Alex R. Johnson (@HaciendaFilms) November 10, 2021

So that's where he got that eye

Looks like Columbo, lookin' for Gena, "Hi how are ya, hi, oops, ah, excuse me ma'am, have you seen my wife?"

TM = tour managing? Although there's an interview where Jackson Browne calls Nico "a force of chaos. Nobody ever said, 'Oh, here comes Nico, now all our problems are going to be straightened out'".

She tried, though! The Ig said she taught him things, also cooked, but so highly seasoned, the Stooges couldn't eat it (she was living with them in that olde theater, the one w Stooges poo in the boxes, the ones up where the swells sat)(as Ig also recalled---good times)

She's really trying/ready to be interesting in La Dolce Vita, and what the hell, she made the cut.

Seem to have a strong recollection of one thing she taught Iggy, something Cybill Shepherd was unable to teach Elvis, hope that’s not TMI.

Is it something Mike Love and David Lynch do?

Haha I thought of transcendental meditation and Toastmasters but was guessing it wasn't either.

tbf she'd a be a terrific toastmaster, no wedding ceremony complete w/o "janitor of lunacy"

And "The End."

there's an interview where Jackson Browne calls Nico "a force of chaos. Nobody ever said, 'Oh, here comes Nico, now all our problems are going to be straightened out'".

...unless that problem is "this wedding is boring"

They all are; she knows that, so---

Nicozilla

I read Jennifer Bickerdike's Nico biography earlier this year, I'm unsure if it adds much more to what's already been written about her, but it's worth checking out if you haven't read anything. Apparently, among all of the folks Bickerdike interviewed for the book, the best impression of Nico's voice was done by Iggy. (like way better than anyone else)

"My old neighbor Rosebud was Barbara Rubin's best friend, and was present when she introduced the VU to Warhol at the Café Bizarre on Macdougal Street in 1965."

Potential ILM 'losing my edge' winner?

not sure i'd trust any single sentence of the james young nico the alan wise years biog, but as a sad-funny snapshot of a grifter-filled scene (like the absurd-squalid flipside of factory's relentless gleaming self-mythology lol) it probably delivers a not-bad guide to the feel of the times

in conclusion cath carroll was in the velvet underground for one week in 1980

Ah, but in the past we were all in the Velvet Underground for fifteen OW!!!

Nico Icon the doc, as seen on YouTube, is lovely spacey multi-lingual original and archival, flowing through the years, from early modeling career, and prob before: I haven't caught the v. beginning yet. Later for James Young's trash on the road etc.