Premier Rock Forum

Charlie D wrote: Tue Aug 29, 2023 4:51 pm I don"t remember S/T, I remember thinking WLWH sounded like shit, Loaded has "Rock & Roll" (which slaps), but I have to go with & Nico.

I think the messed up sound on WL/WH adds to its appeal. The guitars sound real small on the debut album. "Sister Ray" just sounds large/compelling. And when Cale gets going on the organ...man...

White Light. "The Gift," "Lady Godiva's Operation," and the whole second side are pretty much my favorite VU. "Here She Comes Now" is a pleasantly low-key mantra. Oddly enough, I think the title song is the weakest thing on there. I wish they'd gone even further over the edge after this instead of dumping Cale and trying to write pop songs.

The first album is a close second, but it's just a hair too hip and stylish, and Nico did far better things later on. And the rest is either a little too twee or a sort of prelude to Lou's solo career.

The first one. Then the second one. After that, the third one. Last but not least, the fourth one.

White Light/White Heat for the title track alone.

first record changed my life forever. i remember the instant i put it on for the first time

eephus wrote: Thu Sep 14, 2023 11:40 pm first record changed my life forever. i remember the instant i put it on for the first time

Have we talked about this? I vividly remember the first time I heard it and it was truly life changing as well.

elisha wiesner wrote: Fri Sep 15, 2023 8:53 pm

eephus wrote: Thu Sep 14, 2023 11:40 pm first record changed my life forever. i remember the instant i put it on for the first time

Have we talked about this? I vividly remember the first time I heard it and it was truly life changing as well.

Maybe? I must've typed about it at least.

I borrowed it from Rockin' Rudy's in Missoula, where i worked. It came in used. This was a little while before the albums got reissued in the 80s--it was an old sticker-peel one. I knew about them because I loved the Psychedelic Furs and Richard Butler would talk about them in interviews and stuff.

Anyway, i took it home and put it on and it immediately completely wrecked me. I played it all night, many times in a row, on this little Harman Kardon integrated we had. My dad was a little nonplussed by it, but kindly stayed out of the room.

It was so mysterious and uncategorizable and wonderfully strange, yet immediately relatable, somehow, even though I was a child and not at all worldly. It was like all the great parts of anything I'd ever liked about music with all these other enticing, alluring sounds I'd never heard before, weaving through it, inviting and taunting me.

I went back to the store the next day, though I never did return the record. These guys were hanging out there, all relatively knowledgeable about music. "How you doing," one of them asked. "I'm great, I just heard the Velvet Underground for the first time." "Oh yeah. Lou Reed." That was it, no other reaction. I remember thinking...oh wow. That's where that's at.

There's this boot I got recently, Melody Laughter, that sums up that version of the band--how completely, effortlessly they drew together Appalachian and European folk music, Delta and electric blues, R&B, free music, Eastern drone and beyond, field songs, the entirety of rock and roll and modern experimental music before and of that time and into the future, probably yet to come. Into this thing that can never be duplicated. Everything else is great, excellent, but people can sorta "do" WLWH or TVU or Loaded. You can't "do" the first record. Truly cosmic.

eephus wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 10:02 am
There's this boot I got recently, Melody Laughter, that sums up that version of the band--how completely, effortlessly they drew together Appalachian and European folk music, Delta and electric blues, R&B, free music, Eastern drone and beyond, field songs, the entirety of rock and roll and modern experimental music before and of that time and into the future, probably yet to come. Into this thing that can never be duplicated. Everything else is great, excellent, but people can sorta "do" WLWH or TVU or Loaded. You can't "do" the first record. Truly cosmic.

"Melody Laughter" has Nico wordlessly singing and, near the end, they're taking turns singing "yeah yeah" right? And the bootleg version is like a half-hour, not the 10 minute edit that was released on the 5 disc "Peel Slowly and See" box set?

I got that some time after the Quine Tapes were released, and I was telling friends that I wished there were a hundred hours of tapes of that band. I still wish there were.