Simply watched the Todd Haynes documentary on The Velvet Underground, and it positive leaves a mark. I’m unsure how a lot I would like so as to add to the mythology of the VU however, merely put, white in style music will be cut up into two eras, earlier than the Velvets and every part after. Earlier than them, white in style music was at all times protected, by some means each too naive and too calculated. The songwriting may be melodic sufficient, however there was by no means sufficient grit. Pay attention an excessive amount of and one may get slightly 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 greatest 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 finished.) 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.
Nevertheless, 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 a superb musician however, with the Velvets, he was additionally a real modernist at an revolutionary peak, with all that entails. Thus, Haynes’s Velvets are the Velvets of Andy Warhol and his Manufacturing facility, 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 modern artwork scene. It’s all very nicely put collectively, however it’s in service of a model of the band that I love 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 may repay. Nevertheless, they’re troublesome albums to take heed to end-to-end. “European Son” begins off nicely however then descends into time-filling noise. “The Black Angel’s Dying Music” now betrays what it at all times was, Reed aping and maybe even satirizing Dylan. A lot of White Mild/White Warmth sounds just like the jokey backing observe to a long-forgotten experimental artwork movie. Positive, “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 young person).
If the Velvets broke up when Reed pushed Cale out of the band, then I doubt I’d care about them rather more than I care about, say, Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart – fascinating 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 may “be extra regular” – which is sort of a press release to make about Lou Reed! Extremely, after Reed changed Cale with bassist and singer Doug Xmas, the Velvets by some means started making music which was each wild, unhinged, AND listenable. John Cage had magically reworked into John Adams. The songs simply outshone every part 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 at first dance music. Even when folks aren’t really dancing, the music is supposed to transfer you, to make you are feeling glad 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 Xmas’s wonderful 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 center of what made the Velvet Underground nice was the hopped-up go-go band that also remembered sock-hops. (Contemplate how Velvet successor Pere Ubu’s greatest observe is actually a rave.)
Unusually, Haynes appears to concentrate on 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. (Moreover the plain 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 well when Maureen Tucker described her expertise when she first heard The Rolling Stone’s “Not Fade Away” whereas drive dwelling from faculty – the sound hit her so exhausting that “I pulled off the highway 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 approach, the very same approach, that she did once I first heard the avalanche of rhythm in that tune. I acknowledged my Velvet Underground once more when Haynes cuts on to “Foggy Notion” – the band’s biggest tune – to introduce Xmas becoming a member of the group, a pitch-perfect second.
Whereas Haynes does acknowledge Xmas’s contributions, additionally it is unclear if he tried to interview him for the movie. Certainly, Doug Xmas has at all times occupied an odd place within the Velvet’s orbit. He’s usually seen as essentially the most light-weight member of the band – a journeyman drafted to interchange the irreplaceable Cale – however I can’t assist feeling that, with out his arrival at simply the appropriate time, the Velvets would have by no means hit their peak, by no means turn out to be the band that I like. Cale makes a surprising admission within the movie – that he has by no means met Doug Xmas. Though unique guitarist Sterling Morrison lobbied for his inclusion, Reed and Cale didn’t embody Xmas of their 1992 reunion, underlining that he was by some means not part of the “actual” Velvets. Effectively, Doug, should you ever by some means learn this, you might be completely a part of my Velvet Underground.
I first heard of the Velvets as a young person when thumbing by way of the elegant third version of the Rolling Stone Album Information, which described them as “essentially 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, definitely didn’t inventory them, and even journeys to close by Olympia didn’t produce something. They definitely weren’t performed on our native radio stations, which was mockingly 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 just a few years away and never one thing I may even think about on the time.
Unusually, the primary time I heard the band was on the soundtrack to Oliver Stone’s The Doorways, which I had borrowed so I may dub Carmina Burana onto one of many camcorder films my associates 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 observe instantly earlier than that one was “Heroin” which to a sheltered teenager rising up in rural Washington state sounded prefer it may as nicely have come from the moon. I barely knew who the Speaking Heads or the Conflict have been, and I definitely 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 identical time. How may 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 corresponding to Horses, London Calling, Marquee Moon, and Extra Songs about Buildings and Meals. I observed that certainly one of my Columbia Home catalogs lastly had one – ONE! – Velvet Underground album, the compilation The Better of the Velvet Underground, which 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, appeared like nothing else I had ever heard.
In fact, I wanted to get my palms on their precise albums, and should you grew up within the age of both iTunes or Spotify, it is going to be exhausting to explain to you simply how troublesome that was again then. Loaded, for instance, was really out-of-print within the US and solely accessible through import. In different phrases, People 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 transportable CD participant and mini-speaker I had full of me from dwelling. It was all price it.
Years later, one of many perks of main the design of Civilization IV was that I received to pick the music for the sport’s soundtrack, from the medieval Giovanni Palestrina by way 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 collection, I knew precisely which band I needed. I requested Take-Two, slightly sheepishly, if we may 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 contemplate 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 may get “Rock & Roll” for $5K, which appeared like a discount to me.
The tune selection itself was maybe slightly too on-the-nose; I in all probability thought having the tune share its title with the Surprise would assist distract my superiors from noticing that I used to be licensing a tune from the individuals who had introduced us the very family-friendly “Heroin.” Subsequent time, I’ll simply ask for “Foggy Notion” as an alternative as a result of it could be the easiest way to introduce a young person residing in rural Washington to the Velvet Underground.
