Simply watched the Todd Haynes documentary on The Velvet Underground, and it certain leaves a mark. I’m undecided how a lot I would like so as to add to the mythology of the VU however, merely put, white in style music may be break up into two eras, earlier than the Velvets and the whole lot after. Earlier than them, white in style music was at all times secure, someway each too naive and too calculated. The songwriting could be melodic sufficient, however there was by no means sufficient grit. Pay attention an excessive amount of and one would possibly get a little bit sick – Haynes makes use of “Monday, Monday” by the Mamas & the Papas as a punching bag a number of occasions to show this level. (The few exceptions to this rule tended to be white musicians making an attempt their finest with black music, such because the Rolling Stones lastly placing the Diddley again into “Not Fade Away” after Buddy Holly couldn’t fairly get the job carried out.) After the Velvets, there was an explosion that ripped in style music in a large number of instructions; every of the 4 core albums created total genres.
Nonetheless, as a result of every of the unique albums was so distinctive, not everybody’s Velvet Underground is similar. Todd Haynes makes his personal model clear from the beginning – the primary phrases we learn are a Baudelaire quote, the primary face we see is John Cale, and the primary sound we hear is Cale’s droning viola lifted out of the Lou Reed’s masterpiece, “Heroin.” Cale is an excellent musician however, with the Velvets, he was additionally a real modernist at an progressive peak, with all that entails. Thus, Haynes’s Velvets are the Velvets of Andy Warhol and his Manufacturing unit, of experimental musicians like La Monte Younger, Tony Conrad, and their Dream Syndicate, and – maybe most related to the director Haynes himself – of the numerous avant-garde filmmakers of Nineteen Sixties New York whose works he makes use of to position the Velvets within the context of the up to date artwork scene. It’s all very effectively put collectively, but it surely’s in service of a model of the band that I like however don’t love.
The primary two Velvet albums have elegant moments – “Heroin,” in fact, and the piano vamp of “All Tomorrow’s Events” which exhibits how Cale’s fearlessness might repay. Nonetheless, they’re tough albums to take heed to end-to-end. “European Son” begins off effectively however then descends into time-filling noise. “The Black Angel’s Dying Track” now betrays what it at all times was, Reed aping and even perhaps satirizing Dylan. A lot of White Gentle/White Warmth sounds just like the jokey backing monitor to a long-forgotten experimental artwork movie. Certain, “Sister Ray” nonetheless squeezes out the sparks, however it might probably’t match its sequel “Roadrunner” by Velvets superfan Jonathan Richman (who claims within the movie, adoringly and adorably, to have seen them 60-70 occasions and apparently opened for them as a youngster).
If the Velvets broke up when Reed pushed Cale out of the band, then I doubt I’d care about them far more than I care about, say, Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart – attention-grabbing music behind my assortment that I nonetheless often skip when it comes up on shuffle. Within the movie, drummer Maureen Tucker makes it clear that Reed removed Cale so the band might “be extra regular” – which is kind of a press release to make about Lou Reed! Extremely, after Reed changed Cale with bassist and singer Doug Yuletide, the Velvets someway started making music which was each wild, unhinged, AND listenable. John Cage had magically reworked into John Adams. The songs simply outshone the whole lot being made at the moment: “I Can’t Stand It,” “Pale Blue Eyes,” “What Goes On,” “After Hours“, “Lisa Says,” “Candy Jane“, “Who Loves the Solar“, “Head Held Excessive“, “Rock & Roll“, and the compulsive “Foggy Notion” (which, amazingly, was not launched till 15 years after the band dissolved as a result of that’s simply how it’s with the Velvets).
The distinction was really fairly easy. Rock and roll is in the beginning dance music. Even when folks aren’t really dancing, the music is supposed to transfer you, to make you are feeling joyful to be alive. Joe Strummer as soon as described rock as the sensation of, after coming throughout a can on the road, kicking that may as a result of it’s proof that you’re alive, and it merely feels good to be alive. Return and take heed to Yuletide’s superb bass line in “Foggy Notion” – it’s six minutes and forty-seven seconds of life, that a lot time with out ache. Reed was now writing songs that may very well be danced to however that also had a perverse edge, a wild buzz, with the mysterious additional tones that Richman describes within the movie. The guts of what made the Velvet Underground nice was the hopped-up go-go band that also remembered sock-hops. (Think about how Velvet successor Pere Ubu’s finest monitor is basically a rave.)
Unusually, Haynes appears to pay attention to this important a part of the band’s legacy even whether it is at all times handled as subtext within the movie. He cuts twice to Bo Diddley, as soon as to “Highway Runner” when Cale discusses the primary time Tony Conrad added amplification to his musical experimentation and once more when he describes the repetitive beats he loves in rock and roll. (Apart from the apparent musical connections with the Velvets, Diddley was additionally one of many few early rock musicians with a key feminine instrumentalist.) I needed to cease the movie simply to get better when Maureen Tucker described her expertise when she first heard The Rolling Stone’s “Not Fade Away” whereas drive residence from college – the sound hit her so exhausting that “I pulled off the street as a result of it was too thrilling to maintain driving.” That’s the second I acknowledged MY Velvet Underground within the movie; I felt the very same means, the very same meansthat she did after I first heard the avalanche of rhythm in that music. I acknowledged my Velvet Underground once more when Haynes cuts on to “Foggy Notion” – the band’s biggest music – to introduce Yuletide becoming a member of the group, a pitch-perfect second.
Whereas Haynes does acknowledge Yuletide’s contributions, it’s also unclear if he tried to interview him for the movie. Certainly, Doug Yuletide has at all times occupied an odd place within the Velvet’s orbit. He’s usually considered as probably the most light-weight member of the band – a journeyman drafted to exchange the irreplaceable Cale – however I can’t assist feeling that, with out his arrival at simply the best time, the Velvets would have by no means hit their peak, by no means turn into the band that I really like. Cale makes a surprising admission within the movie – that he has by no means met Doug Yuletide. Though unique guitarist Sterling Morrison lobbied for his inclusion, Reed and Cale didn’t embrace Yuletide of their 1992 reunion, underlining that he was someway not part of the “actual” Velvets. Effectively, Doug, if you happen to ever someway learn this, you might be completely a part of my Velvet Underground.
I first heard of the Velvets as a youngster when thumbing by means of the elegant third version of the Rolling Stone Album Informationwhich described them as “probably the most influential rock & roll band of the final 20 years – no contest.” That was an intriguing assertion, however how would I even hear their music? The few music shops of my hometown of Centralia, WA, actually didn’t inventory them, and even journeys to close by Olympia didn’t produce something. They actually weren’t performed on our native radio stations, which was sarcastically within the full throes of early 90s various music on the time, a direct descendant of the Velvets. MP3s shared over the Web have been nonetheless a couple of years away and never one thing I might even think about on the time.
Unusually, the primary time I heard the band was on the soundtrack to Oliver Stone’s The Doorwayswhich I had borrowed so I might dub Carmina Burana onto one of many camcorder motion pictures my buddies and I produced throughout highschool. (We used Carmina Burana as a musical punchline as a result of, even then, it was a cliché for overwrought route.) The monitor instantly earlier than that one was “Heroin” which to a sheltered teenager rising up in rural Washington state sounded prefer it would possibly as effectively have come from the moon. I barely knew who the Speaking Heads or the Conflict have been, and I actually had no thought who Tv or Gang of 4 have been. I had by no means heard something so audacious, one thing so propulsive and unnerving on the similar time. How might one thing this disturbing additionally sound so good?
Nonetheless, it took years and years for me to listen to extra Velvets. I caught up shortly on music earlier than them, falling exhausting for Little Richard and Bo Diddley, whereas additionally lastly getting ahold of their progeny similar to Horses, London Calling, Marquee Moonand Extra Songs about Buildings and Meals. I seen that one in all my Columbia Home catalogs lastly had one – ONE! – Velvet Underground album, the compilation The Better of the Velvet Undergroundwhich was a revelation when it lastly arrived within the mail. For the primary time, I heard “Candy Jane” and “I Can’t Stand It” – songs which, once more, seemed like nothing else I had ever heard.
After all, I wanted to get my fingers on their precise albums, and if you happen to grew up within the age of both iTunes or Spotify, it will likely be exhausting to explain to you simply how tough that was again then. Loadedfor instance, was really out-of-print within the US and solely obtainable through import. In different phrases, Individuals needed to pay foreigners to fabricate albums from one of many biggest American bands after which ship them on boats to us as a result of, apparently, we had dangerous style in music or one thing. I lastly discovered my very own copy of Loaded in a London CD store within the spring of 1997 whereas spending 1 / 4 at Oxford, costing me 20 kilos of my meals stipend. Thus, I lastly heard “Who Loves the Solar” whereas sharing a room with Christopher Tin on the moveable CD participant and mini-speaker I had filled with me from residence. It was all price it.
Years later, one of many perks of main the design of Civilization IV was that I received to pick out the music for the sport’s soundtrack, from the medieval Giovanni Palestrina by means of the trendy John Adams. When it got here time to select music for the video of the Rock & Roll Surprise, a brand new addition for the sequence, I knew precisely which band I wished. I requested Take-Two, a little bit sheepishly, if we might get ahold of The Velvet Underground or, not less than, their label. I actually had no thought what to anticipate, whether or not they would even think about it or how a lot it may cost a little. To Take-Two’s credit score, they humored me and contacted Common to search out out. Seems, we might get “Rock & Roll” for $5K, which seemed like a discount to me.
The music selection itself was maybe a little bit too on-the-nose; I in all probability thought having the music share its identify with the Surprise would assist distract my superiors from noticing that I used to be licensing a music from the individuals who had introduced us the very family-friendly “Heroin.” Subsequent time, I’ll simply ask for “Foggy Notion” as a substitute as a result of it might be the easiest way to introduce a youngster residing in rural Washington to the Velvet Underground.
