Assorted UK New Wave;
PUBLIC IMAGE LTD;
The post Sex Pistols project of Johnny Lydon (nee Rotten) had little in common with the Pistols but would be effectively the first Post Punk band and would be a huge influence on the likes of Joy Division, Gang Of Four, Bauhaus, the Banshees, Killing Joke, Clock DVA and pretty much every other artsy dark and moody UK band ofthe 1980's by eschewing the thrashy power chords of punk for funky-dub bass lines and shards of angular guitar and Lydon's keening vocals. The classic albums were the first self titled debut and the second "Metal Box" with it's iconic film can packaging. PIL would carry with an ever fractious lineup. At the end of the eighties they suddenly took an unexpected turn to more conventional sounds for their last three albums. The Pistols would briefly reform in the nineties.
PUBLIC IMAGE LTD ~ "ALBATROSS";
For this video I used an early Gothic horror film from French director Maurice Tourneur "The Wax Figures" (1914)
SUBWAY SECT;
Subway Sect were part of the first wave of London punk bands but they were radically different than than the thrashing three
chord punks. Led by singer Vic Goddard the Sect filtered their slower Stooges chords through a low-fi artsier lens. They only
released a few singles (including a minor hit with "Ambition") while the album they recorded sat on the shelf unreleased to
this day after Goddard fired the rest of the band before completely restructuring them as a non-rock cabaret act for a
few years. Subway Sect's time in the limelight didn't last long but their crude, droning art-punk and drab black and grey
visual aesthetic would have an influence on the next generation of art punks like the Fall, Wire, Magazine, Joy Division and
the Psychedelic Furs. The Jesus & Mary Chain would go on to cover "Ambition" in their early days.
SUBWAY SECT ~ "CHAIN SMOKING";
For this vid I used some footage of a London Cabaret in the 1930's
SUBWAY SECT ~ "WE OPPOSE ALL ROCK & ROLL";
This vid uses footage from a 1930's newsreal of a rally by the British Blackshirts and leader Sir Oswald Mosley that turned into a riot.
MAGAZINE:
Magazine were formed by singer Howard DeVoto after leaving the Buzzcocks. They had several albums and a few hits from 1977 -
1981. After the band petered out guitarist John McGheogh went on to Visage (first album) and three highly regarded albums
with Siouxsie & The Banshees finally ending up with Public Image Ltd by the late eighties. He died in 2004.
This song was later covered by Bauhaus singer Peter Murphy on his first album and also by Trotsky Icepick.
MAGAZINE ~ "THE LIGHT POURS OUT OF ME";
This video uses some street scene footage from 1920's Wiemar Germany.
FINGERPRINTZ;
Fingerprintz were a Scottish group who put out three highly regarded but not very successful albums between 1979-1983. Each of
their albums were quite different with the first album being artsy guitar based, the second more power pop and the third
slick and dancable. In spite of getting great reviews nothing quite worked and they broke up with singer Jimmie O'Neil and
guitarist Cha Burns reforming as the Silencers who would face a similar fate.
FINGERPRITNZ ~ "SYNCH UNIT";
This early instrumental with a spaghetti western feel uses a clip of a silent western starring Jack Hoxie, (in the white hat of course).
THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS;
The Furs started out as an artsy post punk band with a droning cacophonous sound of the Subway Sect/Wire school. After
original producer Martin Hannett had to bow out in order to rescue New Order after the death of Ian Curtis the Furs went to
Steve Lillywhite who had previously produced the first albums by Siouxsie & The Banshees and Ultravox. (Note; Another
young band also being produced by Hannett also ended up with Lillywhite, that band was U2). Lillywhite would produce the Furs
first two albums.
THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS ~ "SO RUN DOWN";
This track from the first album uses a 1908 George Melies film.
THE PASSIONS;
The Passions were a band a female singer (Barbara Gogan), who put out three well reviewed albums between 1979 - 82 with two classic hits including "I'm In Love With A German Film Star" and "African Mine" before they broke up. Later guitarist Kevin Armstrong later went to play with David Bowie in Tin Machine, Iggy Pop, Morrissey and Sinead O'Connor. And that's about it.
THE PASSIONS ~ "I'M IN LOVE WITH A GERMAN FILM STAR";
I naturally used an Andy Warhol screen-test of Nico because of course I did.
THE CULT;
The Cult started out as a murky proto-Goth band as The Southern Death Cult who released a couple of singles and ep's before briefly shortening it to the Death Cult with another ep before finally settling on The Cult who finally settled on a cleaner big guitar and vocal sound with some psychedelic imagery on the "Dream Time" and "Love" albums which finally became, um, cult hits in the UK and Canada. By 1987 they evolved into a more 1970's hard rock sound with "Electric" and it's follow-up "Sonic Temple" which finally broke them into the U.S. market. It didn't really last though and the next few albums got diminishing results and cock-rock gave way to grunge. Eventually they broke up and singer Ian Astbury joined a reformed version of the Doors with Ray Manzerek.
THE CULT ~ "PHOENIX";
For the opening track off of "Love" I used an old film "A Trip To Mars".
THE CULT ~ "NIRVANA";
For this track from "Love" I used some early animation from German Dada film-maker Walter Ruttmann from the 1920's.
THE FIXX;
The Fixx were one of the last groups of the post-Joy Division Simple school of artsy, atmospheric, keyboard heavy, New
Wave with their first album coming out in 1982 although they had been kicking around for a few years. Unlike the likes of
Simple Minds, Ultravox and Japan however the Fixx surprised everyone, including probably themselves, by scoring a series of
hits on both sides of the Atlantic, helped no doubt by the rise of MTV. This track off of the first album uses a short art
film made for the Dadaist Fluxus Film collective circa 1967.
THE FIXX ~ "THE FOOL";
This track off of the first album uses a short art film made for the Dadaist Fluxus Film collective circa 1967.
THE FIXX ~ "THE SIGN OF FIRE";
This track uses an early film about a home invasion.
THE CHAMELEONS;
The Chameleons (sometimes called the Chameleons UK in the USA for legal reasons) were a band from Manchester with a loud echoey guitar sound and deep voiced vocals somewhat midway between early U2 and Sisters Of Mercy. They put out three albums between 1983 -86 before breaking up and reforming a couple times including a reunion tour this year. The first album was the best.
THE CHAMELEONS ~ "DON'T FALL";
This song of the first uses a clip from a Harry Houdini adventure movie from the 1920's.
THE CHAMELEONS ~ "SECOND SKIN";
Another song from the first album using an early French film about a stalker.
ERASURE;
One of the bigger synth-pop bands, Erasure were a spin-off from Depeche Mode starting in 1985 with a number of hits.
ERASURE ~ "SHIP OF FOOLS";
This vid uses an early colour film (1926) using dancers from Martha Graham's modern dance troop.
Showing posts with label Nico. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nico. Show all posts
Thursday, 12 December 2019
Tuesday, 26 January 2016
Heroes And Rebel Rebels
I'll not begrudge Bowie fans their moment, but I can't really share it. I like some of his stuff just fine. "Heroes" is always majestic. You can't not like "Suffragette City", "Rebel Rebel", "Gene Genie", "Cat People" or "Ziggy Stardust". You have to also give kudos to the videos for "Ashes To Ashes" and "Blue Jean". Not to mention "The Hunger" and "The Man Who Fell To Earth". Also he rescued Iggy from the gutter. Bowie was also one of the few rockstars who could pull off the difficult role of taking a political stand without looking like an insufferable prat, unlike Bono say. Witness his dignified performance of "Heroes" at the Liveaid Aids benefit concert or his oh-so-elegant grilling of an MTV VJ over MTV's lack of black music videos back in the 80's. Bowie was so inherently classy he could pull that off without looking like a strident grouch (like Bob Geldoff) or a pompous twat (hello Sting).
DAVID BOWIE ~ "SPACE ODDITY";
Bowie was a very big deal for people who came of age musically in the mid -1970's which I can understand. The early 70's were a pretty bleak time. Progrock and Jazz Fusion were actually considered cutting-edge. Otherwise you could choose between burned-out hippies, drippy singer-songwriters, endless Southern Rock Boogie jams, proudly vacuous Bubble Gum Pop and Disco, lots of Disco. And everybody dressed like slobs. There were no "underground" or "alternative" scenes as we understand them. No indie labels, no zines, few clubs, fewer cool indie record stores and no campus radio.
No wonder Glam seemed like a breath of multi-coloured fresh air. Bowie wasn't the first Glam rocker; by many counts Marc Bolan got there first and his hits were catchier and less cluttered then Bowie's, and Bolan was cuter. But Bowie was more media-savvy and disciplined than Bolan was, more populist than Roxy Music and more talented than the likes of Gary Glitter, Jobriath, Sweet or Slade. Not to mention smarter. There was a reason why he was a hero to many of the first generation of Punks.
DAVID BOWIE ~ "ASHES TO ASHES";
Bowie was an even bigger deal for the LGTB communities which I also get. I certainly can't deny them a figure who embraced a despised group before it was fashionable. He was also a hero to fashionistas which I acknowledge but couldn't care less about.
However I never fell into any of those groups. I came of age musically in the mid 1980's "Let's Dance" era when Bowie was not only totally mainstream but completely omnipresent. In 1980's Toronto there were only a limited number of radio choices; for AM Top 40 there was CHUM and CFTR. On FM there was mainstream CHUM FM, the Classic Rockist Q-107, New Wavish CFNY and campus radio CIUT and tiny CKLN. On TV there was Muchmusic and a few assorted shows like "The New Music", "The CHUM Countdown", "American Top 40", "Midnight Special", "Solid Gold" and that was literally it. There were also dance clubs like "Nuts & Bolts", "The Silver Crown", "Empire Club", "The Copa" and "RPM". There was no internet remember so if you wanted to listen to music aside from what you actually owned those were the only options. That may actually seem like a lot compared to a lot of other cities and it was but even for all that there was shockingly little variety. CFTR, Q-107 and the two CHUMs played pretty much the same stuff, albeit in slightly different amounts, and playlists were so predictable that certain groups were guaranteed to be played multiple times a day, usually playing the same few songs. Thus for most of the decade you could be sure of hearing The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Rush, Who, Doors, Teenage Head, Police, AC/DC, Dire Straits, Genesis, Clash and Bowie more than a few times every single day without fail. CFNY and campus radio had a mandate of "New Music" and so had more variety but there was still some overlap with certain artists who had some credibility with the New Wave/Post Punk such as Bowie, Police, Clash, Elvis Costello, Pretenders, Blondie, U2, Billy Idol, REM, OMD, Teenage Head, Rough Trade, Simple Minds, Tom Petty, The Cars, The Cult, Rush (no really) and Dire Straits. Bowie had possibly the greatest across the board reach and I can recall more than once actually hearing a Bowie song on one station, switching the dial to another station only to find yet another Bowie number. Possibly the same one.
DAVID BOWIE ~ "LIFE ON MARS";
To a Bowie fanatic I suppose this would be heaven, at least in theory, but I hated it. Especially in the aftermath of "Let's Dance". At first I rather liked it; "Cat People" was nicely slinky, the Stevie Ray Vaughan solo in "China Girl" was tasty and the rest was likable enough. But after a few months I had had enough. I especially began to actively resent "Modern Love" especially since I had originally enjoyed the opening with it's swirling guitar riff and staccato drums, but eventually I came to dread hearing it. You know the way you felt about a band you rather liked putting out competent but mediocre music and then being embraced by a hoard of incredibly uncool people? Imagine that a hundred times over. Imagine being confronted by this every time you turned on a radio, went to a dance club or opened a music mag. That was the fate of several post punk bands circa 1984 and for several years afterwards. The band most associated and despised for this cultural shift was U2 of course, along with the Police, but Bowie got there first. So I guess he was a pioneer in taking hip music to dreadfully unhip people like Conservatives, Yuppies, Preppies, Frat Boys, Corporate Weasels and Jock Assholes. Maybe that's a good thing in a way but it sure didn't feel like it at the time. This was OUR music scene! Why couldn't they go back to listening to Phil Collins or something equally shitty and leave us the fuck alone?
That said Bowie was never going to be one of my faves anyway. At the time I was heavily into punk bands like The Sex Pistols, Ramones, Stooges, Ruts, TSOL, Adolescents, Sham 69, X-Ray Specs and Agent Orange, and Post Punk bands like Joy Divison, Siouxsie, Bauhaus, Killing Joke, Jesus & Mary Chain, Pretenders, Wire, Virgin Prunes, the first two Psychedelic Furs and first five Simple Minds albums and early Cabaret Voltaire. I was also into rootsy punk like The Gun Club, Cramps, Deja Voodoo, Gruesomes, Jason & The Scorchers and X not to mention actual sixties nuggets like the Animals, Yardbirds, Jefferson Airplane and Velvet Underground. Compared to them I found much of Bowie's work to be stiff and overproduced, too many string sections, unfunky horns and shrill backing singers. I related much better with other proto-punk figures like the Velvets, Stooges, MC5, NY Dolls, Blue Cheer and various Nuggets and Pebbles Garage bands.
DAVID BOWIE ~ "HEROES";
More than that there was a fundamental difference between pre-punk glam figures like Bowie, Marc Bolan and Bryan Ferry and the best of the next generation of 1976 like the Pistols, Clash, Ramones or Joy Division, even taking into account the obvious influence of the former on the latter. Glam was all about affectation, artifice and striking a pose. There was little or no pretense to deeper meaning or emotional commitment. Bowie, Bolan and Ferry were posers and proud of it, and they could change that pose whenever they bored of it, as Bowie (and occasionally Ferry) so famously did.
Punk was another matter. Punk valued authenticity and emotion above all. Of course Johnny Rotten was a poser, but he was also genuine in his alienation and resentment. He meant it MAN!! Ditto for the Clash, Ramones, Joy Division, Black Flag, X-Ray Specs etc. Their music was an explosion of a rage shared by a generation of discarded, largely working class youth. A generation Bowie was not a part of. By the mid seventies he was a show biz veteran who had been scuffing around since the 1960's and had more in common with the likes of literate, artsy types like Ray Davies or Syd Barrett than with lowlifes like Sid Vicious, Johnny Thunders or Stiv Bators. Even figures who wore their Bowie influences on their sleeves like Bauhaus, Siouxsie, John Foxx or the Virgin Prunes did so with a sense of alienation that Bowie never could share even if he wanted to. He was always a rock star even when he wasn't one yet. Therein lay much of his appeal and the appeal of Glam and Glitter (and for that matter Disco) in the early seventies; everybody can be a star, or at least act like one. Perhaps after the political activism of the sixties a backlash of me-first hedonism was inevitable and Glam was it (along with Disco) but by the 1976 Summer Of Hate there was another backlash, this time not just of bored teenagers but bored and angry ones. Enter Punk.
Punk had plenty of artifice as well, it's not everybody who can pull off spikey pink hair a safety pin through the ear and a studded dog collar. But that artifice was meant to advertise the anger within, not mask it in lipstick and glitter. Punk was supposed to reject mainstream success and exist outside it, not overwhelm it with style and sheer excess. The world of Glam was always that of stadiums, flashy discos, high fashion runways. Not grungy clubs, indie labels, cut-and-paste zines and tiny campus radio stations. Glam rockstars toured in private jets and went to exclusive parties with starlets, super-models and lesser royalty, not crammed into the back of a broken down van eating ramen and drinking warm beer. It's impossible to picture Bowie or Ferry in the urine and graffiti stained backstage of CBGB's. Glam was larger than life or it was nothing. Punk rejected all this with a sneer of contempt and embraced it's outsider status. Even making it to a fetish it to an occasionally unhealthy degree. This past week many Bowie fans have related stories about how they identified with Bowie as outsiders. I'll not question their personal feelings but I never, ever, felt that way. To me Bowie was a rock star just like Mick Jagger or Rod Stewart, he had more intellectual heft certainly and more class but that was about it. I never identified with him the way others clearly did.
DAVID BOWIE ~ "BLUE JEAN";
One of the qualities Bowie fans often cite admiringly was his constant changing of personas, a quality Madonna fans constantly praise as well. This is often referred to style over substance but I think this misses the point; it's process over substance. To me as a fan of Punk and Post Punk this was a sign of a a basic opportunism. By contrast while the best Punk and Post Punk bands may have had equally carefully constructed personas those they seemed more real, and they rarely changed them. If they did they could face a backlash from fans who though they had sold out as would happen to U2, Simple Minds, Psychedelic Furs, Ultravox or The Knack among others. It was possible for some to cross the dividing line between the underground and the mainstream to some degree but it was tricky and none who crossed that line could ever be fully accepted again. Many bands struggled with this Catch-22. When Simple Minds or Psychedelic Furs finally scored hits with film themes after close to a decade on the fringes they seemed paralyzed and unsure of how to respond and essentially fell apart. Other bands like Bauhaus, Siouxsie, Killing Joke, Japan and Love & Rockets flirted with success by following near hits with obscure artsy singles that were sure to fail and did. Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello insisted on not making videos or taking years between albums. Others like Polly Styrene, Holly Beth Vincent, The Only Ones or Vapours simply disappeared. They were never able to reconcile the punk ideals of an underground scene they at least partly believed in with the demands of a mass audience they were never truly comfortable with. Bowie never had this conflict because he came out of an earlier era when being a Rockstar was the highest achievement.
This then was the context of Bowie for me, worthy of some respect but fundamentally not part of the scene (or scenes) I loved. Although it's fair to point out that unlike most of his pre-punk contemporaries Bowie did not reject the newer musical genres of Punk, Post Punk, New Wave, New Romanic or Industrial. It may have been his natural curiosity to both art and music as well as to freaks and outlaws or it may have been his keen eye for new trends to exploit but either way he was not threatened by new trends. He did not reject them so he was not rejected in turn. It's worth pointing out as well that Bowie's one of the few artists who can claim they put out something relevant in every decade since the 1960's. Certainly the Stones can't say that. Or Paul McCartney. Or Dylan. Or the Who. Oh I know they can still release albums that chart and sold out tours but does anybody actually care about anything they've done since, say, the eighties? I think not. There only a handful of other figures with that kind of reach. But Lou Reed was less prolific and Iggy less varied. In fact the only figure with as long (longer actually) and still relevant career is Neil Young, and his influence is strictly limited to certain musical genres, not film, fashion or larger social trends. Young's appeal is also mostly limited to the English speaking world of North America, Britain and Australia, he's not nearly well known in places like Asia or Eastern Europe where Bowie certainly is.
This led to some cool punk era covers, although notably far fewer than true proto-punks like Iggy Pop or The Velvet Underground. Especially Bauhaus with their version of "Ziggy Stardust". I liked Bowie's version well enough but I prefer the Bauhaus version, seriously if you're going to do a song about an over-the-top rockstar then you should really go all out.
BAUHAUS ~ "ZIGGY STARDUST";
Then there were the Polecat's Rockabilly cover of "John, I'm Only Dancing" which is clearly more dancable than the original. It also bears more than a passing resemblance to Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love".
THE POLECATS ~ "JOHN, I'M ONLY DANCING";
Bauhaus singer Peter Murphy would later fire off a version of "Funtime" as well which is strictly by-the-numbers but still well done.
PETER MURPHY ~ "FUNTIME";
There have been a number of good covers of "Heroes" by Nico, Blondie and King Crimson.
NICO ~ "HEROES";
An obscure Toronto band, Manix from the eighties, used to run through their own ramshakle version of "Ziggy Stardust".
MANIX ~ "ZIGGY STARDUST";
Later on there would be a few more like Toronto band The Knifings slapdash aggro version of "Queen Bitch".
THE KNIFINGS ~ "QUEEN BITCH";
Eventually Simple Minds, a post punk band with obvious Bowie/Roxy influences finally got around to a Bowie cover of their own with "The Man Who Stole The World". And then they fired off a fine acoustic version.
SIMPLE MINDS ~ "THE MAN WHO STOLE THE WORLD";
Finally The Coal Porters, founded by ex-Long Ryders singer Sid Griffen, did a nice Gram Parsons style Country Rock version of "Heroes".
THE COAL PORTERS ~ "HEROES";
One more Bowie note; Immediately after his death an account from a former groupie (self-described) in which she claims to have had sex with Bowie when she was under-aged. This has led to much online hand-wringing from some quarters describing Bowie as a "predator", "abuser" and "rapist". Inevitably comparisons to Bill Cosby and Jian Ghomeshi have been raised. I call bullshit. I read the actual account from the woman in question. She did not and does not consider Bowie a rapist or herself a victim. She was by her own admission a willing groupie who met Bowie after a gig at a club, retiring to a hotclub quite happily. There is no indication that Bowie knew she was under-age, she never told him and they were in a licensed club where he could reasonably expect everyone to be of age. That's it. There was no luring or drugging as with Cosby or sudden violence as with Ghomeshi. She has no recriminations or regrets. Demands from activists (who have not bothered to meet or talk to the woman themselves) that she be treated as and consider herself a victim to suit their own sexual politics do not impress me. By all means hound that smug, sleazy, asshole Cosby to his grave but I don't see any story here.
SIMPLE MINDS ~ "THE MAN WHO STOLE THE WORLD" (acoustic);
DAVID BOWIE ~ "SPACE ODDITY";
Bowie was a very big deal for people who came of age musically in the mid -1970's which I can understand. The early 70's were a pretty bleak time. Progrock and Jazz Fusion were actually considered cutting-edge. Otherwise you could choose between burned-out hippies, drippy singer-songwriters, endless Southern Rock Boogie jams, proudly vacuous Bubble Gum Pop and Disco, lots of Disco. And everybody dressed like slobs. There were no "underground" or "alternative" scenes as we understand them. No indie labels, no zines, few clubs, fewer cool indie record stores and no campus radio.
No wonder Glam seemed like a breath of multi-coloured fresh air. Bowie wasn't the first Glam rocker; by many counts Marc Bolan got there first and his hits were catchier and less cluttered then Bowie's, and Bolan was cuter. But Bowie was more media-savvy and disciplined than Bolan was, more populist than Roxy Music and more talented than the likes of Gary Glitter, Jobriath, Sweet or Slade. Not to mention smarter. There was a reason why he was a hero to many of the first generation of Punks.
DAVID BOWIE ~ "ASHES TO ASHES";
Bowie was an even bigger deal for the LGTB communities which I also get. I certainly can't deny them a figure who embraced a despised group before it was fashionable. He was also a hero to fashionistas which I acknowledge but couldn't care less about.
However I never fell into any of those groups. I came of age musically in the mid 1980's "Let's Dance" era when Bowie was not only totally mainstream but completely omnipresent. In 1980's Toronto there were only a limited number of radio choices; for AM Top 40 there was CHUM and CFTR. On FM there was mainstream CHUM FM, the Classic Rockist Q-107, New Wavish CFNY and campus radio CIUT and tiny CKLN. On TV there was Muchmusic and a few assorted shows like "The New Music", "The CHUM Countdown", "American Top 40", "Midnight Special", "Solid Gold" and that was literally it. There were also dance clubs like "Nuts & Bolts", "The Silver Crown", "Empire Club", "The Copa" and "RPM". There was no internet remember so if you wanted to listen to music aside from what you actually owned those were the only options. That may actually seem like a lot compared to a lot of other cities and it was but even for all that there was shockingly little variety. CFTR, Q-107 and the two CHUMs played pretty much the same stuff, albeit in slightly different amounts, and playlists were so predictable that certain groups were guaranteed to be played multiple times a day, usually playing the same few songs. Thus for most of the decade you could be sure of hearing The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Rush, Who, Doors, Teenage Head, Police, AC/DC, Dire Straits, Genesis, Clash and Bowie more than a few times every single day without fail. CFNY and campus radio had a mandate of "New Music" and so had more variety but there was still some overlap with certain artists who had some credibility with the New Wave/Post Punk such as Bowie, Police, Clash, Elvis Costello, Pretenders, Blondie, U2, Billy Idol, REM, OMD, Teenage Head, Rough Trade, Simple Minds, Tom Petty, The Cars, The Cult, Rush (no really) and Dire Straits. Bowie had possibly the greatest across the board reach and I can recall more than once actually hearing a Bowie song on one station, switching the dial to another station only to find yet another Bowie number. Possibly the same one.
DAVID BOWIE ~ "LIFE ON MARS";
To a Bowie fanatic I suppose this would be heaven, at least in theory, but I hated it. Especially in the aftermath of "Let's Dance". At first I rather liked it; "Cat People" was nicely slinky, the Stevie Ray Vaughan solo in "China Girl" was tasty and the rest was likable enough. But after a few months I had had enough. I especially began to actively resent "Modern Love" especially since I had originally enjoyed the opening with it's swirling guitar riff and staccato drums, but eventually I came to dread hearing it. You know the way you felt about a band you rather liked putting out competent but mediocre music and then being embraced by a hoard of incredibly uncool people? Imagine that a hundred times over. Imagine being confronted by this every time you turned on a radio, went to a dance club or opened a music mag. That was the fate of several post punk bands circa 1984 and for several years afterwards. The band most associated and despised for this cultural shift was U2 of course, along with the Police, but Bowie got there first. So I guess he was a pioneer in taking hip music to dreadfully unhip people like Conservatives, Yuppies, Preppies, Frat Boys, Corporate Weasels and Jock Assholes. Maybe that's a good thing in a way but it sure didn't feel like it at the time. This was OUR music scene! Why couldn't they go back to listening to Phil Collins or something equally shitty and leave us the fuck alone?
That said Bowie was never going to be one of my faves anyway. At the time I was heavily into punk bands like The Sex Pistols, Ramones, Stooges, Ruts, TSOL, Adolescents, Sham 69, X-Ray Specs and Agent Orange, and Post Punk bands like Joy Divison, Siouxsie, Bauhaus, Killing Joke, Jesus & Mary Chain, Pretenders, Wire, Virgin Prunes, the first two Psychedelic Furs and first five Simple Minds albums and early Cabaret Voltaire. I was also into rootsy punk like The Gun Club, Cramps, Deja Voodoo, Gruesomes, Jason & The Scorchers and X not to mention actual sixties nuggets like the Animals, Yardbirds, Jefferson Airplane and Velvet Underground. Compared to them I found much of Bowie's work to be stiff and overproduced, too many string sections, unfunky horns and shrill backing singers. I related much better with other proto-punk figures like the Velvets, Stooges, MC5, NY Dolls, Blue Cheer and various Nuggets and Pebbles Garage bands.
DAVID BOWIE ~ "HEROES";
More than that there was a fundamental difference between pre-punk glam figures like Bowie, Marc Bolan and Bryan Ferry and the best of the next generation of 1976 like the Pistols, Clash, Ramones or Joy Division, even taking into account the obvious influence of the former on the latter. Glam was all about affectation, artifice and striking a pose. There was little or no pretense to deeper meaning or emotional commitment. Bowie, Bolan and Ferry were posers and proud of it, and they could change that pose whenever they bored of it, as Bowie (and occasionally Ferry) so famously did.
Punk was another matter. Punk valued authenticity and emotion above all. Of course Johnny Rotten was a poser, but he was also genuine in his alienation and resentment. He meant it MAN!! Ditto for the Clash, Ramones, Joy Division, Black Flag, X-Ray Specs etc. Their music was an explosion of a rage shared by a generation of discarded, largely working class youth. A generation Bowie was not a part of. By the mid seventies he was a show biz veteran who had been scuffing around since the 1960's and had more in common with the likes of literate, artsy types like Ray Davies or Syd Barrett than with lowlifes like Sid Vicious, Johnny Thunders or Stiv Bators. Even figures who wore their Bowie influences on their sleeves like Bauhaus, Siouxsie, John Foxx or the Virgin Prunes did so with a sense of alienation that Bowie never could share even if he wanted to. He was always a rock star even when he wasn't one yet. Therein lay much of his appeal and the appeal of Glam and Glitter (and for that matter Disco) in the early seventies; everybody can be a star, or at least act like one. Perhaps after the political activism of the sixties a backlash of me-first hedonism was inevitable and Glam was it (along with Disco) but by the 1976 Summer Of Hate there was another backlash, this time not just of bored teenagers but bored and angry ones. Enter Punk.
Punk had plenty of artifice as well, it's not everybody who can pull off spikey pink hair a safety pin through the ear and a studded dog collar. But that artifice was meant to advertise the anger within, not mask it in lipstick and glitter. Punk was supposed to reject mainstream success and exist outside it, not overwhelm it with style and sheer excess. The world of Glam was always that of stadiums, flashy discos, high fashion runways. Not grungy clubs, indie labels, cut-and-paste zines and tiny campus radio stations. Glam rockstars toured in private jets and went to exclusive parties with starlets, super-models and lesser royalty, not crammed into the back of a broken down van eating ramen and drinking warm beer. It's impossible to picture Bowie or Ferry in the urine and graffiti stained backstage of CBGB's. Glam was larger than life or it was nothing. Punk rejected all this with a sneer of contempt and embraced it's outsider status. Even making it to a fetish it to an occasionally unhealthy degree. This past week many Bowie fans have related stories about how they identified with Bowie as outsiders. I'll not question their personal feelings but I never, ever, felt that way. To me Bowie was a rock star just like Mick Jagger or Rod Stewart, he had more intellectual heft certainly and more class but that was about it. I never identified with him the way others clearly did.
DAVID BOWIE ~ "BLUE JEAN";
One of the qualities Bowie fans often cite admiringly was his constant changing of personas, a quality Madonna fans constantly praise as well. This is often referred to style over substance but I think this misses the point; it's process over substance. To me as a fan of Punk and Post Punk this was a sign of a a basic opportunism. By contrast while the best Punk and Post Punk bands may have had equally carefully constructed personas those they seemed more real, and they rarely changed them. If they did they could face a backlash from fans who though they had sold out as would happen to U2, Simple Minds, Psychedelic Furs, Ultravox or The Knack among others. It was possible for some to cross the dividing line between the underground and the mainstream to some degree but it was tricky and none who crossed that line could ever be fully accepted again. Many bands struggled with this Catch-22. When Simple Minds or Psychedelic Furs finally scored hits with film themes after close to a decade on the fringes they seemed paralyzed and unsure of how to respond and essentially fell apart. Other bands like Bauhaus, Siouxsie, Killing Joke, Japan and Love & Rockets flirted with success by following near hits with obscure artsy singles that were sure to fail and did. Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello insisted on not making videos or taking years between albums. Others like Polly Styrene, Holly Beth Vincent, The Only Ones or Vapours simply disappeared. They were never able to reconcile the punk ideals of an underground scene they at least partly believed in with the demands of a mass audience they were never truly comfortable with. Bowie never had this conflict because he came out of an earlier era when being a Rockstar was the highest achievement.
This then was the context of Bowie for me, worthy of some respect but fundamentally not part of the scene (or scenes) I loved. Although it's fair to point out that unlike most of his pre-punk contemporaries Bowie did not reject the newer musical genres of Punk, Post Punk, New Wave, New Romanic or Industrial. It may have been his natural curiosity to both art and music as well as to freaks and outlaws or it may have been his keen eye for new trends to exploit but either way he was not threatened by new trends. He did not reject them so he was not rejected in turn. It's worth pointing out as well that Bowie's one of the few artists who can claim they put out something relevant in every decade since the 1960's. Certainly the Stones can't say that. Or Paul McCartney. Or Dylan. Or the Who. Oh I know they can still release albums that chart and sold out tours but does anybody actually care about anything they've done since, say, the eighties? I think not. There only a handful of other figures with that kind of reach. But Lou Reed was less prolific and Iggy less varied. In fact the only figure with as long (longer actually) and still relevant career is Neil Young, and his influence is strictly limited to certain musical genres, not film, fashion or larger social trends. Young's appeal is also mostly limited to the English speaking world of North America, Britain and Australia, he's not nearly well known in places like Asia or Eastern Europe where Bowie certainly is.
This led to some cool punk era covers, although notably far fewer than true proto-punks like Iggy Pop or The Velvet Underground. Especially Bauhaus with their version of "Ziggy Stardust". I liked Bowie's version well enough but I prefer the Bauhaus version, seriously if you're going to do a song about an over-the-top rockstar then you should really go all out.
BAUHAUS ~ "ZIGGY STARDUST";
Then there were the Polecat's Rockabilly cover of "John, I'm Only Dancing" which is clearly more dancable than the original. It also bears more than a passing resemblance to Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love".
THE POLECATS ~ "JOHN, I'M ONLY DANCING";
Bauhaus singer Peter Murphy would later fire off a version of "Funtime" as well which is strictly by-the-numbers but still well done.
PETER MURPHY ~ "FUNTIME";
There have been a number of good covers of "Heroes" by Nico, Blondie and King Crimson.
NICO ~ "HEROES";
An obscure Toronto band, Manix from the eighties, used to run through their own ramshakle version of "Ziggy Stardust".
MANIX ~ "ZIGGY STARDUST";
Later on there would be a few more like Toronto band The Knifings slapdash aggro version of "Queen Bitch".
THE KNIFINGS ~ "QUEEN BITCH";
Eventually Simple Minds, a post punk band with obvious Bowie/Roxy influences finally got around to a Bowie cover of their own with "The Man Who Stole The World". And then they fired off a fine acoustic version.
SIMPLE MINDS ~ "THE MAN WHO STOLE THE WORLD";
Finally The Coal Porters, founded by ex-Long Ryders singer Sid Griffen, did a nice Gram Parsons style Country Rock version of "Heroes".
THE COAL PORTERS ~ "HEROES";
One more Bowie note; Immediately after his death an account from a former groupie (self-described) in which she claims to have had sex with Bowie when she was under-aged. This has led to much online hand-wringing from some quarters describing Bowie as a "predator", "abuser" and "rapist". Inevitably comparisons to Bill Cosby and Jian Ghomeshi have been raised. I call bullshit. I read the actual account from the woman in question. She did not and does not consider Bowie a rapist or herself a victim. She was by her own admission a willing groupie who met Bowie after a gig at a club, retiring to a hotclub quite happily. There is no indication that Bowie knew she was under-age, she never told him and they were in a licensed club where he could reasonably expect everyone to be of age. That's it. There was no luring or drugging as with Cosby or sudden violence as with Ghomeshi. She has no recriminations or regrets. Demands from activists (who have not bothered to meet or talk to the woman themselves) that she be treated as and consider herself a victim to suit their own sexual politics do not impress me. By all means hound that smug, sleazy, asshole Cosby to his grave but I don't see any story here.
SIMPLE MINDS ~ "THE MAN WHO STOLE THE WORLD" (acoustic);
Thursday, 14 November 2013
Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground (1942 - 2013)
Everyone knows the quote about the Velvet Underground; "They didn't sell a lot of records but everyone who bought one started a band." That's not entirely true of course. A lot of those fans became writers and college radio DJ's instead. And therein lies part of the enduring appeal of the Velvets. They attracted the kind of fans who could and would become promoters, Hell proselytizers, for the Underground church. And so it remains.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND ~ "SUNDAY MORNING";
It's easy to forget in these post punk years that back when the Velvet Underground's first album came out in 1967 there was no real underground as we know it. Bands were either successful or they were not, if they were not they did not get played on the radio, let alone TV, and they got very few gigs. Touring was out of the question. The nation wide network of small alternative clubs and promoters simply did not exist. These are all the unruly spawn of the punk and post-punk revolution of the late 1970's as it urged a thousand flowers to bloom Mao-like across North America, Europe and Australia. As are the cadre of fly-by-night zines and more co-incidentally the network of ground breaking college radio stations which sprang up in the same era. This ad-hoc network would make it possible for a willfully uncommercial band like the Velvets to actually thrive in spite of getting absolutely no attention from the mainstream music press. There are no shortage of such bands today in a variety of genres to choose from. But back in 1967 such a musical world was not even a dream. Bands like the Velvet Underground, The MC5, The Stooges, Shaggs, Silver Apples, Runaways, Red Krayola, Love, Brinsley Schwartz, Holy Modal Rounders, Gram Parsons, Hasil Adkins, Syd Barrett, Nick Drake, Van Dyke Parks, Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Albert Ayler and The Flaming Groovies, slaved away, sometimes for years, with only small devoted cults of lonely followers and a few stubborn music writers to keep them warm. Even combined they all probably sold fewer records than Monkees. Now they are recognized as icons of the late sixties underground counter-culture. And the Velvets are their godfathers, even for those who sound nothing like them.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND ~ "VENUS IN FURS";
They didn't plan it that way, nobody did in those days. Lou Reed, the son of a conservative accountant, started off with a thoroughly conventional background scuffing around in teenage garage bands and later as a staff songwriter for a bargain-basement Tin Pan Alley song mill when he stumbled on the far more Bohemian art students John Cale and Angus MacLise and along with fellow garage band guitarist Sterling Morrison, decided to form a band. Cale was a classically trained cellist, pianist and bassist who had been an active part of New York's avant garde music seen with the likes of John Cage and Lamonte Young. As for their first drummer Angus Maclise, he was part of the beatnik art and poetry scene. He named the band before quitting to be replaced by rock's first female drummer Maureen Tucker. Reed had studied modern literature with his rock & roll and like Bob Dylan saw no reason not to blend them. Unlike Dylan he and Cale also brought the avant garde to their music as well.
JOHN CALE ON A TV GAME SHOW "I'VE GOT A SECRET" IN 1963;
The first album had the legend "produced" by Andy Warhol boldly emblazoned on it's cover but other than helping them get a record deal and designing a cover he had nothing to do with the recording. There was his one and only musical brainstorm of course, forcing the band to adopt Nico, an icy glowering Germanic chanteuse, to the mix. The resulting album was a disorienting mix of reasonably straight forward, even beautiful, if off centre ballads like "Sunday Morning", "Femme Fatale", "I'll Be Your Mirror" with jaw-dropping wall of sound epics like "Venus In Furs", "Heroin", "European Son", "Waiting For My Man", "Run Run Run" and "All Tomorrow's Parties" which pushed the boundaries of what was considered rock & roll farther than anyone had ever considered, as well as wallowing in the dark side of the Summer of Love. People were not amused. The second album went even father, discarding the bitter sweet ballads for the full-on feedback overdrive of "Sister Ray", "I Heard Her Call My Name" and the Edgar Allen Poe mini rock opera "The Gift". People were even less amused. The first album limped onto the very bottom of Billboard's top 200 for a week an then crept away, as if embarrassed. The second album sank without a trace.
While everybody else was saying "All You Need Is Love" the Velvets said that the whole happy peace and love facade was not only a mask but a scab over a festering sore of sex and rugs. They turned out have a valid point about much of that of course but nobody likes a spoilsport, especially if he might be right. In their one journey out of New York and down to the centre of the action at the time, California, the Velvets were shunned as disturbing interlopers into the laid back hippy scene. While every other band was singing tributes to pot, acid and LSD, usually in cryptic or playful ways, the Velvets were wallowing in tales of heroin and speed in coldly matter- of-fact tones. They didn't even look the part, while everybody else was in a riot of flowing colours the Velvets dressed in severe black, dark shades and dour glares. Now their look is essential to any band with artsy rebel pretensions, but at the time they were an affront to all that was utopian about the sixties. After the failure of the first two albums Cale left and Reed carried on for two more albums that tried to forge a somewhat more conventional sound, sort of like a New York version of the Byrds. Both still had some classic (and surprisingly upbeat) songs in "Sweet Jane", "Rock And Roll" "We're Gonna Have A Real Good Time", and "What Goes On" but they were no more successful than the first two and Reed gave up in frustration as the band fell apart.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND ~ "ROCK AND ROLL";
Lou Reed's post Velvet's career would have many ground breaking moments like "Berlin", "Transformer" (which scored a fluke hit in "Walk On The Wild Side" which probably surprised even him) and "Metal Machine Music" which unsurprisingly scored no hits. In between were attempts at the mainstream like "Rock And Roll Animal", "Busload Of Faith" and the surprisingly upbeat "I Love You Suzanne" which had an even more surprising video in which Lou Reed proved that he could not only smile but dance. Plenty of smart people swear by these later songs and I won't quarrel but I've always been a Velvets fan first and foremost.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO ~ "I'LL BE YOUR MIRROR";
Someone once said that most people who bragged about listening to the Velvets (or The MC5, or The Stooges) were full of shit. Most reasonably hip people who grew up in the eighties listened to The Smiths, Cure, Clash, Siouxsie, Sex Pistols, Simple Minds, and Psychedelic Furs at best. Maybe Teenage Head if you lived in Canada. But I was actually the only person in my high school who could honestly say I really did listen to the Velvets. In 1985 it so happened that the Velvet Underground's long out of print albums were re-released along with the "VU" album of out-takes and demos. Coincidentally the very same month a different record label (Rhino of course) also re-released the classic Nuggets collection of sixties Garage Punk. This allowed music mags like Spin to run full page articles saying in essence "Hey Punk. Yeah You. You think you're so cool? Well here's were all this Punk and New Wave started. So buy these records". Naturally I ran out and did so. Keep in mind that this was before the internet so you couldn't just go on Youtube and check out a band you didn't know, you had to actually go downtown and spend you money and take your chances. Of course the fact that you went out and searched for off-the-beaten track music in small dusty record stores and had to do some reading and research helped form an unshakable bond with band like this for the few who ventured out to the outlying districts of music. That is an era that that will never quite return in the internet age. I'm not sure that instant gratification and convenience is a fair trade.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND ~ "I'M WAITING FOR MY MAN";
When Lou Reed died this past month he was a much revered and still active elder statesman whose cool, monosyllabic persona was as beloved as a crusty uncle. He leaves John Cale as the only surviving member of the Velvet Underground since Maureen Tucker wasn't the original drummer. Sterling Morrison died in 1995 of cancer aged 53 and Angus MacLise of complications from tuberculosis, malnutrition and dehydration in Kathmandu in 1979 aged 41. Nico died after having a heart attack while riding her bike in Ibiza and striking her head in 1988, she was 49. Cale's replacement Doug Yule is still around, as is Mo Tucker.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND ~ "PALE BLUE EYES";
One of the indicators of a band's importance is the number and variety of cover songs they inspire and the Velvets have a progeny that ranks with The Beatles. A few faves are;
Cabaret Voltaire; One of the founders of Industrial Music named the Velvets as one of the few bands they would admit to as an influence, their droning, feedback drenched version of "Here She Come's Now" brought the Velvet's nascent noise-rock experiments to perfect fruition.
CABARET VOLTAIRE ~ "HERE SHE COMES NOW";
The Cowboy Junkies; At the other end of the spectrum it took the Cowboy Junkies to realize the gentle beauty that was the flipside to the Velvet's menace. Lou Reed himself said that it was even better than the original.
THE COWBOY JUNKIES ~ "SWEET JANE";
Eater; This band from the first wave of 1976 London punk bands was known mostly for their extreme youth (average age of 15) and their barely competent but energetic three chord thrash. Their version of "Waiting For My Man" is too slap-dash to approach the original's hypnotic drone of course, and it totally misses the monotony of heroin by romping through the song like it's a drunken rave-up, but damned if it isn't still catchy. Their ham-fisted version of "Sweet Jane" is pushing it too far though.
EATER ~ "I'M WAITING FOR MY MAN";
Joy Division on the other hand were perfect for the Velvet's brooding dark side and this was their only cover song, as a live track on the "Still" album. Done with a very English droll wit, especially the closing brush-off; "You should hear our version of "Louie Louie", Whoa..."
The Runaways; The Runaways were the same age as Eater but they were more musically savvy and their changing of "Rock & Roll" to a stadium rocker manages to outdo Reed's attempts to do the same thing on his bombastic "Rock & Roll Animal" album. Check out how Joan Jett brings the boogie to the original guitar riff. Oh, and Sandy West brings the cowbell. Natch.
THE RUNAWAYS ~ "ROCK AND ROLL";
The Scenics; This artsy first wave punk band from Toronto were obvious Velvets fanatics and they proved it by releasing an entire album of Velvet's covers including a suitably cacophonous trek through "Waiting For My Man".
THE SCENICS ~ "I'M WAITING FOR MY MAN";
R.E.M.; Known in their early years for their variety of covers including a soulful version of "Pale Blue Eyes"
R.E.M. ~ "PALE BLUE EYES";
Simple Minds; It's actually from Lou's solo album "Berlin" rather than a Velvet's track but the Scottish artsy New Wavers did a lovely version of "Street Hassle" on their "Sparkle In The Rain" album. Much later they did a more perfunctory version of "All Tomorrow's Parties".
SIMPLE MINDS ~ "STREET HASSLE"
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO LIVE 1967;
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND ~ "SUNDAY MORNING";
It's easy to forget in these post punk years that back when the Velvet Underground's first album came out in 1967 there was no real underground as we know it. Bands were either successful or they were not, if they were not they did not get played on the radio, let alone TV, and they got very few gigs. Touring was out of the question. The nation wide network of small alternative clubs and promoters simply did not exist. These are all the unruly spawn of the punk and post-punk revolution of the late 1970's as it urged a thousand flowers to bloom Mao-like across North America, Europe and Australia. As are the cadre of fly-by-night zines and more co-incidentally the network of ground breaking college radio stations which sprang up in the same era. This ad-hoc network would make it possible for a willfully uncommercial band like the Velvets to actually thrive in spite of getting absolutely no attention from the mainstream music press. There are no shortage of such bands today in a variety of genres to choose from. But back in 1967 such a musical world was not even a dream. Bands like the Velvet Underground, The MC5, The Stooges, Shaggs, Silver Apples, Runaways, Red Krayola, Love, Brinsley Schwartz, Holy Modal Rounders, Gram Parsons, Hasil Adkins, Syd Barrett, Nick Drake, Van Dyke Parks, Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Albert Ayler and The Flaming Groovies, slaved away, sometimes for years, with only small devoted cults of lonely followers and a few stubborn music writers to keep them warm. Even combined they all probably sold fewer records than Monkees. Now they are recognized as icons of the late sixties underground counter-culture. And the Velvets are their godfathers, even for those who sound nothing like them.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND ~ "VENUS IN FURS";
They didn't plan it that way, nobody did in those days. Lou Reed, the son of a conservative accountant, started off with a thoroughly conventional background scuffing around in teenage garage bands and later as a staff songwriter for a bargain-basement Tin Pan Alley song mill when he stumbled on the far more Bohemian art students John Cale and Angus MacLise and along with fellow garage band guitarist Sterling Morrison, decided to form a band. Cale was a classically trained cellist, pianist and bassist who had been an active part of New York's avant garde music seen with the likes of John Cage and Lamonte Young. As for their first drummer Angus Maclise, he was part of the beatnik art and poetry scene. He named the band before quitting to be replaced by rock's first female drummer Maureen Tucker. Reed had studied modern literature with his rock & roll and like Bob Dylan saw no reason not to blend them. Unlike Dylan he and Cale also brought the avant garde to their music as well.
JOHN CALE ON A TV GAME SHOW "I'VE GOT A SECRET" IN 1963;
The first album had the legend "produced" by Andy Warhol boldly emblazoned on it's cover but other than helping them get a record deal and designing a cover he had nothing to do with the recording. There was his one and only musical brainstorm of course, forcing the band to adopt Nico, an icy glowering Germanic chanteuse, to the mix. The resulting album was a disorienting mix of reasonably straight forward, even beautiful, if off centre ballads like "Sunday Morning", "Femme Fatale", "I'll Be Your Mirror" with jaw-dropping wall of sound epics like "Venus In Furs", "Heroin", "European Son", "Waiting For My Man", "Run Run Run" and "All Tomorrow's Parties" which pushed the boundaries of what was considered rock & roll farther than anyone had ever considered, as well as wallowing in the dark side of the Summer of Love. People were not amused. The second album went even father, discarding the bitter sweet ballads for the full-on feedback overdrive of "Sister Ray", "I Heard Her Call My Name" and the Edgar Allen Poe mini rock opera "The Gift". People were even less amused. The first album limped onto the very bottom of Billboard's top 200 for a week an then crept away, as if embarrassed. The second album sank without a trace.
While everybody else was saying "All You Need Is Love" the Velvets said that the whole happy peace and love facade was not only a mask but a scab over a festering sore of sex and rugs. They turned out have a valid point about much of that of course but nobody likes a spoilsport, especially if he might be right. In their one journey out of New York and down to the centre of the action at the time, California, the Velvets were shunned as disturbing interlopers into the laid back hippy scene. While every other band was singing tributes to pot, acid and LSD, usually in cryptic or playful ways, the Velvets were wallowing in tales of heroin and speed in coldly matter- of-fact tones. They didn't even look the part, while everybody else was in a riot of flowing colours the Velvets dressed in severe black, dark shades and dour glares. Now their look is essential to any band with artsy rebel pretensions, but at the time they were an affront to all that was utopian about the sixties. After the failure of the first two albums Cale left and Reed carried on for two more albums that tried to forge a somewhat more conventional sound, sort of like a New York version of the Byrds. Both still had some classic (and surprisingly upbeat) songs in "Sweet Jane", "Rock And Roll" "We're Gonna Have A Real Good Time", and "What Goes On" but they were no more successful than the first two and Reed gave up in frustration as the band fell apart.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND ~ "ROCK AND ROLL";
Lou Reed's post Velvet's career would have many ground breaking moments like "Berlin", "Transformer" (which scored a fluke hit in "Walk On The Wild Side" which probably surprised even him) and "Metal Machine Music" which unsurprisingly scored no hits. In between were attempts at the mainstream like "Rock And Roll Animal", "Busload Of Faith" and the surprisingly upbeat "I Love You Suzanne" which had an even more surprising video in which Lou Reed proved that he could not only smile but dance. Plenty of smart people swear by these later songs and I won't quarrel but I've always been a Velvets fan first and foremost.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO ~ "I'LL BE YOUR MIRROR";
Someone once said that most people who bragged about listening to the Velvets (or The MC5, or The Stooges) were full of shit. Most reasonably hip people who grew up in the eighties listened to The Smiths, Cure, Clash, Siouxsie, Sex Pistols, Simple Minds, and Psychedelic Furs at best. Maybe Teenage Head if you lived in Canada. But I was actually the only person in my high school who could honestly say I really did listen to the Velvets. In 1985 it so happened that the Velvet Underground's long out of print albums were re-released along with the "VU" album of out-takes and demos. Coincidentally the very same month a different record label (Rhino of course) also re-released the classic Nuggets collection of sixties Garage Punk. This allowed music mags like Spin to run full page articles saying in essence "Hey Punk. Yeah You. You think you're so cool? Well here's were all this Punk and New Wave started. So buy these records". Naturally I ran out and did so. Keep in mind that this was before the internet so you couldn't just go on Youtube and check out a band you didn't know, you had to actually go downtown and spend you money and take your chances. Of course the fact that you went out and searched for off-the-beaten track music in small dusty record stores and had to do some reading and research helped form an unshakable bond with band like this for the few who ventured out to the outlying districts of music. That is an era that that will never quite return in the internet age. I'm not sure that instant gratification and convenience is a fair trade.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND ~ "I'M WAITING FOR MY MAN";
When Lou Reed died this past month he was a much revered and still active elder statesman whose cool, monosyllabic persona was as beloved as a crusty uncle. He leaves John Cale as the only surviving member of the Velvet Underground since Maureen Tucker wasn't the original drummer. Sterling Morrison died in 1995 of cancer aged 53 and Angus MacLise of complications from tuberculosis, malnutrition and dehydration in Kathmandu in 1979 aged 41. Nico died after having a heart attack while riding her bike in Ibiza and striking her head in 1988, she was 49. Cale's replacement Doug Yule is still around, as is Mo Tucker.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND ~ "PALE BLUE EYES";
One of the indicators of a band's importance is the number and variety of cover songs they inspire and the Velvets have a progeny that ranks with The Beatles. A few faves are;
Cabaret Voltaire; One of the founders of Industrial Music named the Velvets as one of the few bands they would admit to as an influence, their droning, feedback drenched version of "Here She Come's Now" brought the Velvet's nascent noise-rock experiments to perfect fruition.
CABARET VOLTAIRE ~ "HERE SHE COMES NOW";
The Cowboy Junkies; At the other end of the spectrum it took the Cowboy Junkies to realize the gentle beauty that was the flipside to the Velvet's menace. Lou Reed himself said that it was even better than the original.
THE COWBOY JUNKIES ~ "SWEET JANE";
Eater; This band from the first wave of 1976 London punk bands was known mostly for their extreme youth (average age of 15) and their barely competent but energetic three chord thrash. Their version of "Waiting For My Man" is too slap-dash to approach the original's hypnotic drone of course, and it totally misses the monotony of heroin by romping through the song like it's a drunken rave-up, but damned if it isn't still catchy. Their ham-fisted version of "Sweet Jane" is pushing it too far though.
EATER ~ "I'M WAITING FOR MY MAN";
Joy Division on the other hand were perfect for the Velvet's brooding dark side and this was their only cover song, as a live track on the "Still" album. Done with a very English droll wit, especially the closing brush-off; "You should hear our version of "Louie Louie", Whoa..."
The Runaways; The Runaways were the same age as Eater but they were more musically savvy and their changing of "Rock & Roll" to a stadium rocker manages to outdo Reed's attempts to do the same thing on his bombastic "Rock & Roll Animal" album. Check out how Joan Jett brings the boogie to the original guitar riff. Oh, and Sandy West brings the cowbell. Natch.
THE RUNAWAYS ~ "ROCK AND ROLL";
The Scenics; This artsy first wave punk band from Toronto were obvious Velvets fanatics and they proved it by releasing an entire album of Velvet's covers including a suitably cacophonous trek through "Waiting For My Man".
THE SCENICS ~ "I'M WAITING FOR MY MAN";
R.E.M.; Known in their early years for their variety of covers including a soulful version of "Pale Blue Eyes"
R.E.M. ~ "PALE BLUE EYES";
Simple Minds; It's actually from Lou's solo album "Berlin" rather than a Velvet's track but the Scottish artsy New Wavers did a lovely version of "Street Hassle" on their "Sparkle In The Rain" album. Much later they did a more perfunctory version of "All Tomorrow's Parties".
SIMPLE MINDS ~ "STREET HASSLE"
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO LIVE 1967;
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