For information about how to use this forum please check out forum help and policies.
Bands are so @#$%& weird. I always wonder, as a KISS fan, "how the hell do these guys say such terrible stuff about each other than stand on stage on the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame all nice and proper." Cause its not fake, they all really do love each other. But in that brotherly sort of way, they bicker but it never seems to sting. I have to just chalk that up to being in a band and its different to us than it is to them.Quote
Wry Cooter
Speaking of the Velvet Underground and cruel slights -- The freezing out of Doug Yule at the time of their reunion and especially for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is inexcusable to me. He contributed strongly to "The Velvet Underground" and "Loaded", not to mention their live LPs and some amazing tracks on "VU" and "Another View". Lou Reed at his mean spirited worst.
Yeah, it is odd that Cale is doing what he's doing. Its cool, but odd because he's usually so against being retrospective. Lou was the same but at least he played Sweet Jane almost every night. So its always weird when a guy like Cale does almost exactly what you'd want him to do. My assumption is because he's basically the surviving face of the VU he has no problem celebrating the anniversary and his birthday. I won't get upset with him being sentimental!Quote
frenki09
I am not sure why Cale wants to do VU stuff now. I agree that without Sterling and Reed it's a bit strange. Still I am glad he does what he does, because he is still VERY GOOD and focused!
Quote
stonehearted
Without John Cale, the Velvet Underground wouldn't have been all that "underground" -- just another three-chord rock n roll outfit, as their post-Cale output proved.
Before he met John Cale, Lou Reed was a staff writer for Pickwick Records: [www.youtube.com]
In fact, Lou Reed's first seven years of recording might suggest that he wouldn't have been out of place, musically, as a member of the Beach Boys -- he even covered Little Deuce Coup early on (at 25:16): [www.youtube.com]
On the other hand, John Cale performed as part of an 18-hour piano concert marathon along with, among others, John Cage. Here is Cale in a 1963 TV appearance on the game show I've Got A Secret: [www.youtube.com]
Before the Velvets, Cale was carving out his own avant-garde approach: [www.youtube.com]
So with Cale's contribution, after listening to Stainless Steel Gamelan, it's easy to see where that hypnotic quality inherent in the early Velvets music comes from.
Cale could make even a cover of Elvis sound dangerous and chaotic: [www.youtube.com]
So he can play whatever he wants, given that the Velvet Underground output he is highlighting in these shows would not have sounded nearly as compelling without his input.
Quote
Wry Cooter
Speaking of the Velvet Underground and cruel slights -- The freezing out of Doug Yule at the time of their reunion and especially for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is inexcusable to me. He contributed strongly to "The Velvet Underground" and "Loaded", not to mention their live LPs and some amazing tracks on "VU" and "Another View". Lou Reed at his mean spirited worst.
I need to make an effort to get to one of these shows! Maybe Groupon will have a deal .
Quote
tattersQuote
Wry Cooter
Speaking of the Velvet Underground and cruel slights -- The freezing out of Doug Yule at the time of their reunion and especially for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is inexcusable to me. He contributed strongly to "The Velvet Underground" and "Loaded", not to mention their live LPs and some amazing tracks on "VU" and "Another View". Lou Reed at his mean spirited worst.
I need to make an effort to get to one of these shows! Maybe Groupon will have a deal .
I wholeheartedly agree that Doug Yule should have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but as for being included in the 1993 reunion tour, I'm not sure how the logistics of that could have worked out. Would they have had to have played two sets? A set with Cale onstage, performing only material from the first and second albums while Yule waited his turn backstage, and then a second set of songs from the third and fourth albums, with Yule onstage and Cale cooling his heels back at the hotel?
Quote
tatters
One of my single greatest disappointments as a music fan was the crashing and burning of the Velvet Underground's 1993 reunion tour before anyone in the United States had an opportunity to see them. It's something I never really forgave Lou for, and I did not follow his post-VU reunion career with anything like the fervor with which I followed him before the reunion.
Well, we had to wait 24 years for it, but John Cale has finally given us our consolation prize, and it came in the form of a kind of an ersatz Velvet Underground concert in the city where it all began.
I bought my first Velvet Underground record, a now-obscure import compilation album of tracks from only the first three albums, when I was a 21-year-old college student in 1981. Even then, these tracks seemed like ancient artifacts from the long ago past. In a way, they seemed even more ancient then they do now, if that makes any sense, and if you'd told me then that I would one day in 2017 be getting up off of my 58-year-old ass and jumping around non-stop for 15 minutes while John Cale and 20 young VU acolytes tore through "Sister Ray" I would certainly have never believed you.
The review I shared from [www.rollingstone.com] sums it up pretty well, though it never mentions my favorite moment of the show, "Lady Godiva's Operation" in which Connan Mockasin sang the Lou Reed parts while dressed in a nurse's uniform, adding a touch of 1970s Alice Cooper/Rocky Horror theatricality to the proceedings. Other highlights included Babatunde Adebimpe's performance of "Heroin" which I felt deserved a standing ovation (I gave him one, but no one else did), Kurt Vile's "Run Run Run," the most "conventional" sounding rock and roll song in the set, sounding very much like the Brian Jones-era Rolling Stones, and of course, Caroline Polacheck's brilliant channeling of Nico on "Femme Fatale."
We saw something very special and historic these last couple of nights. A founding member of the Velvet Underground performing a concert consisting entirely of Velvet Underground music doesn't happen very often. Actually, it never happens, and as far as I know, Mr. Cale has no plans to ever make it happen again.
On a personal note, I grew up on Long Island, and lived and worked in Manhattan for 14 years. I even met Lou Reed once, when he came to a publishing company where I was working and tried to sell us a manuscript for a book he had supposedly written but wouldn't actually show us because he didn't want to "audition" for us. As I said, I never really forgave him for denying me the opportunity to attend a Velvet Underground reunion concert, but Friday night, after setting foot in New York City for the first time in 20 years, I witnessed the very last vapor trails of the band he formed, one of the greatest and most important bands that ever played. It was just a Perfect Day.