Black Cat Bone

Posted: **12 Jul 2006, 10:24**

The Slider wrote:By the way, I don't know if it is just me that never noticed it, but playing the first album on my iPod yesterday, fuck me if I didn't notice Nico IS actually in there on Sunday Morning - wordless "ahhhs" deep in the mix in the last minute or so.

She does some "la-la-la-la" too. Unless that's the thing you mean.

Posted: **12 Jul 2006, 10:38**

Matt Wilson wrote:But, but you guys are all really big Ted Nugent fans too, right?

Errr. No. Why would I like a scum-sucking NRA-lovin' Republican asshole when I have the Velvets?

Posted: **12 Jul 2006, 15:34**

Hey Pep! wrote:Question: where do they stand today? where would you rank them?

OK, I realise that to some, the question may seem pointless - they're a great band and we should all dig them and why pit them against others?....but it really interests me.

They're great, right? The meaning of the word is debased through overuse. They're great like the Stones or the Beatles. Really very very good.

In 1980 everybody namechecked 'em. These days nobody does. Certainly not up-and-coming bands. Why?

I love the Fall more than any other band, but I'd say the Velvet Underground are the greatest band of all time.

The last bit's wrong, but the rest is right. They're in the top ten.
It's difficult to judge really, because there's the personal top ten, and mine would include the likes of Galaxie 500, and not the Velvets, and there's what you think is the objective ten most important/greatest bands (are the two the same?). The Velvets are the best American band of the '60s and certainly one of the top ten greatest, and top ten most important, bands ever.
True, no one namechecks them these days, but how many bands namecheck the Beatles or the Pistols?

Posted: **12 Jul 2006, 15:42**

The Penk wrote:
Hey Pep! wrote:Question: where do they stand today? where would you rank them?

OK, I realise that to some, the question may seem pointless - they're a great band and we should all dig them and why pit them against others?....but it really interests me.

They're great, right? The meaning of the word is debased through overuse. They're great like the Stones or the Beatles. Really very very good.

In 1980 everybody namechecked 'em. These days nobody does. Certainly not up-and-coming bands. Why?

I love the Fall more than any other band, but I'd say the Velvet Underground are the greatest band of all time.

The last bit's wrong, but the rest is right. They're in the top ten.
It's difficult to judge really, because there's the personal top ten, and mine would include the likes of Galaxie 500, and not the Velvets, and there's what you think is the objective ten most important/greatest bands (are the two the same?). The Velvets are the best American band of the '60s and certainly one of the top ten greatest, and top ten most important, bands ever.
True, no one namechecks them these days, but how many bands namecheck the Beatles or the Pistols?

Does namechecking really make a difference...one recent band did namecheck them btw, the strokes....

I honestly believe that it's not what their music lead to, but their music...

it's just great when sometimes bands just click and then magic....

Greatest band from America in the sixties? I don't know maybe, possibly...

Greatest band of all time- well one of....

the reason why the two answers probably arent the same is that they weren't that popular in the sixties so to compare them to some of the successful and good acts of the time would be pointless.

FWIW as a sixties band I probably think in America if you asked them then, a lot of aficionados (or not) might have said the mothers or jefferson airplane...

Posted: **12 Jul 2006, 16:20**

Maxwell's Golden Pickaxe wrote:If it wasn't for The Murder Mystery, the Velvet Underground would be 100% perfect.

And Lonesome Cowboy Bill. That one's pretty lame, really.

Posted: **12 Jul 2006, 16:30**

Snarfyguy wrote:
Maxwell's Golden Pickaxe wrote:If it wasn't for The Murder Mystery, the Velvet Underground would be 100% perfect.

And Lonesome Cowboy Bill. That one's pretty lame, really.

Murder Mystery, fair enough.

But I really like Lonesome Cowboy Bill.

Posted: **12 Jul 2006, 16:32**

Xeopac wrote:
Snarfyguy wrote:
Maxwell's Golden Pickaxe wrote:If it wasn't for The Murder Mystery, the Velvet Underground would be 100% perfect.

And Lonesome Cowboy Bill. That one's pretty lame, really.

Murder Mystery, fair enough.

But I really like Lonesome Cowboy Bill.

Seconded.
And don't tell me Yule sings that one too.

Posted: **12 Jul 2006, 16:40**

I find the Doug Yule thing a bit weird. The guy was a mean bass player (probably not much cop on the viola though I grant you), and a passable singer especially on New Age, Oh Sweet Nuthin' and a couple of others. His main crime was to try and make a living as a musician. After all the Velvets couldn't get arrested most of the time he was in the band and Lou was too wasted to care what happened. Lay off Doug i say.

Ask yourself what would you have done in his place?

Anyway,

Album: Loaded
Song Rock n roll or What Goes On or Foggy Notion.

Posted: **12 Jul 2006, 16:49**

I like 'The Murder Mystery' and think that Doug Yule's a pretty singer.

I'll take a bow as the worst Velvet Underground fan ever.

Posted: **12 Jul 2006, 17:00**

Leg of lamb wrote:I like 'The Murder Mystery' and think that Doug Yule's a pretty singer.

I'll take a bow as the worst Velvet Underground fan ever.

Second point - yes. For years and years I listened to Loaded without noticing any discernable difference in the vocals on various tracks.

And now I find out that Doug sings Candy Says too? News to me...

Posted: **12 Jul 2006, 17:13**

Xeopac wrote:
Snarfyguy wrote:
Maxwell's Golden Pickaxe wrote:If it wasn't for The Murder Mystery, the Velvet Underground would be 100% perfect.

And Lonesome Cowboy Bill. That one's pretty lame, really.

Murder Mystery, fair enough.

But I really like Lonesome Cowboy Bill.

'Lonesome Cowboy Bill' is their worst song.

'Murder Mystery's wilful and joyless artiness is a little difficult to take, but it's the only moment on the third album where they pushed the sonic envelope. When I first heard it as a teen, I loved it. It's interesting. And it's better than 'The Gift', by any standards.

Posted: **12 Jul 2006, 17:17**

I like 'The Gift' too!!

Actually, I'm just listening to the VU & Nico for the first time in ages and it's enough to make me shit myself with wonder. I'd forgotten what a thrill this is.

Posted: **12 Jul 2006, 17:18**

Leg of lamb wrote:I like 'The Gift' too!!

Actually, I'm just listening to the VU & Nico for the first time in ages and it's enough to make me shit myself with wonder. I'd forgotten what a thrill this is.

Oh! I love posts like that!

Yes!

I'm putting it on....

Posted: **12 Jul 2006, 18:07**

Hey Pep! wrote:'Murder Mystery's wilful and joyless artiness is a little difficult to take, but it's the only moment on the third album where they pushed the sonic envelope. When I first heard it as a teen, I loved it. It's interesting. And it's better than 'The Gift', by any standards.

No!

At least with 'The Gift' you can turn down one channel (provided your setup will comply) and have a totally excellent Velvets instrumental. Much better than 'The Murder Mystery'.

Posted: **12 Jul 2006, 20:29**

Deebank wrote:Lay off Doug i say.

Ask yourself what would you have done in his place?

The Slider wrote:If Lou had come up to me and asked me to play bass and sing with the VU I would have fucking leapt at the chance. Even though I am even shitter than Doug Yule at singing and playing the bass.

I don't blame Doug, I just think he is fucking rubbish.

Posted: **12 Jul 2006, 21:29**

What could possibly connect The Velvet Underground and Simon & Garfunkel?

geoffcowgill wrote:New York group operating from roughly 1965-1970. Just like Simon & Garfunkel, today's other entry. To what extent do these two mirror each other? They seem on the surface to be complete opposites, but what brilliant doppelganger thesis can be created?

I wouldn't call them opposites--that almost gives S&G too much credit, if that reasoning makes any sense to you--but they are very different, which is an almost obvious statement except we can find one equally obvious remark to make about these two bands and also Bob Dylan, who also belongs to the same time period and place (if not mileau...well, maybe I take that back. Dylan did do a screen test for Warhol in the mid-60s.) First, through, a more general comment about something that Chomsky said in the documentary Manufacturing Consent in which he talked about growing up in Philadelphia and NY in the 1930s. One of the things that he pointed out is that there were many different varieties of the Jewish experience in America during the Depression. You had the ultra-orthodox and then you also had totally secular, left-wing, highly politicized groups as well.

It's called the Diaspora for geographical reaons, but I think the term also fits because the variety of experience is more heterogeneous than for any other ethnic group I can think of. (In fact, I challenge anyone to come up with another ethnic group of similar size that has the same variety of positions and experiences.)

It should be obvious by now how this segues into The Velvet Underground (Lou Reed), and S&G (Simon, Garfunkel) and Bob Dylan. It's sort of silly to lump them together by virtue of the fact that all three were fronted by Jewish Americans, but the very fact that we think this is silly is significant. There is no consensus opinion on what Jewish-American rock and roll is, which, lest this seem sort of too obvious a statement, isn't something we could say about Italian-Americans or Irish-Americans. There are archetypes of what we would think is Italian-American rock and roll (Dion). These archetypes don't exist for Jewish-Americans. The types of music made by Jewish-Americans is so different as to make the label sort of ridiculous.

On one hand, you have Simon and Garfunkel. As I get older and older, I like their music less and less and less, but I do like the idea of them. I like the idea that they gave Albert Grossman an apopleptic fit because they trumped him on the idea of Peter, Paul, and Mary. I mean the way one could use acoustic music to corner the folk-rock market. If there ever was a manufactured group, a group made to tap into a specific market, it was Peter, Paul, and Mary, down to getting Noel Stookey to change his name to Peter (or was it Paul?)--this goes beyond the Monkees--Michael Nesmith didn't have to change his name to Dookie or Ezekial. And yet they were beaten by Simon and Garfunkel who were more pop, more slick and--most importantly, important for Grossman, that is--who made vastly more money.

And the other hand, you had The Velvet Underground, which were also a band set up to tap into a demographic market, which I suppose at the beginning was the inhabitants of The Factory, but which we can see with hindsight, was a vastly larger audience with totally unspecified geographic boundaries. It's difficult to say really what The Velvet Underground's influence is or how large it might be at some point in the future. It's entirely possible that Andy Warhol might become a footnote to The Velvet Underground and that the only times he is mentioned 100 years from now is "oh, that's the guy who did the cover for The Velvet Underground and Nico."

Posted: **12 Jul 2006, 21:57**

pig bodine wrote:Of Course neither compare to the genius that is Ted.

Welcome back!

Posted: **13 Jul 2006, 10:57**

Hey Pep! wrote:
Xeopac wrote:
Snarfyguy wrote:
Maxwell's Golden Pickaxe wrote:If it wasn't for The Murder Mystery, the Velvet Underground would be 100% perfect.

And Lonesome Cowboy Bill. That one's pretty lame, really.

Murder Mystery, fair enough.

But I really like Lonesome Cowboy Bill.

'Lonesome Cowboy Bill' is their worst song.

Aww, no! It's fun and has a really nice link from the intro to the verse with that piano part.

Hey Pep! wrote:'Murder Mystery's wilful and joyless artiness is a little difficult to take, but it's the only moment on the third album where they pushed the sonic envelope. When I first heard it as a teen, I loved it. It's interesting. And it's better than 'The Gift', by any standards.

I find I can listen to The Murder Mystery about one in four times when I put The Velvet Underground on. It's okay, just a lot to take, rather surprisingly unlike The Gift. I seem to be able to listen to that again and again. Perhaps becuase it's so different to White Light/White Heat.

Posted: **09 Aug 2006, 10:30**

ALBUM: White Light White Heat

SONG: Sister Ray

Posted: **09 Aug 2006, 18:14**

Good thread, eh? apart from Mr. Wilson's irrelevant attempts at humour...

Black Cat Bone

BCB 100 - The Velvet Underground

Re: BCB 100 - The Velvet Underground