As he once said, “I was playing with La Monte Young in the Dream Syndicate, and the concept of the group was to sustain notes for two hours at a time.” But the way Lou Reed latched onto it interested Cale much more than his lame dance single or the sketchy Pickwick operation. This type of alternate tuning was well-known among the anti-art Fluxus crowd that Cale ran with.
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“The Ostrich” did not impress John Cale much, but the fact that Reed had tuned every string of his guitar to A-sharp did. To capitalize on the success, Lou pulled a band together that included Welsh expat John Cale, normally an avant-garde violist, who showed up to the rehearsal for a laugh and the vague possibility of payment. One of these, called “ The Ostrich,” caught fire locally. In 1964, 22-year-old Brooklyn-born pharmacological omnivore Lou Reed was a staff songwriter for Pickwick Records, churning out B-rate singles in an attempt to take advantage of the latest dance craze.
The velvet underground 1969 series#
The Velvet Underground were a series of improbables. The album made a beautiful tombstone for the band’s career, at a time when all the members were alive to see it. As a result, VU benefitted from much improved audio technology and was released to a world not only better prepared for the Velvet Underground, but one that had largely absorbed its lessons. They stayed in the MGM vaults, mostly unmixed, until discovered during the process of reissuing the band’s catalog in the early 80s. Recorded primarily in 1969, after the ouster of multi-instrumentalist John Cale, and later cannibalized by principal songwriter Lou Reed for his solo career, the recordings that make up VU were shelved for 16 years. The irony is that VU wasn’t released until more than a dozen years after the Velvet Underground disbanded. In its 10 tracks, it contains refined versions of what the band did well during the four years they lasted. VU has the dark majesty of The Velvet Underground & Nico, the neurotic strut (if not the head-wrecking dissonance) of White Light/White Heat, the tenderness and emotional insight of The Velvet Underground, and the pure pop sensibility of Loaded. The Velvet Underground album VU is the binding agent in a career of releases that differ so dramatically one from another as to be almost artistic reversals. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support via our Patreon page.Tom Maxwell | Longreads | September 2018 | 18 minutes (3,669 words) Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. | t wilcoxĭownload: Move Right In: The Velvet Underground At The Boston Tea Party, 1968-1969ġ.
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You’ve got killer versions of “Foggy Notion,” “Waiting For The Man,” “Run Run Run,” “I Can’t Stand It,” and, of course, an utterly demonic “Sister Ray,” along with lesser-played tracks like “Ferryboat Bill,” and “I’m Gonna Move Right In.” The exception to the loud/fast vibe here is the morphine-drip “Pale Blue Eyes,” which features a truly remarkable Lou Reed vocal and an equally perfect Sterling Morrison guitar solo.
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And the music here more than makes up for the 50+ year old tape hiss.įor the most part, the 80 minutes worth of tunes on Move Right In showcase the raucous, guitar-heavy side of the Doug Yule-era Velvets. These so-called “Professor Tapes” have circulated for years, but the master reels were made available a while back, and – though they’re still far from an audiophile experience – they’re much more listenable now. Dig into a homemade comp of choice Velvet Underground performances at the Boston Tea Party, the club that served as the band’s home away from home in the late 1960s.