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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello everyone,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to Too Much Information, the show that brings

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Speaker 1: you the secret histories and little known fascinating facts and

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Speaker 1: figures behind your favorite TV shows, movies, music, and more.

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Speaker 1: We are your two avant garde apocrypha vetters. You wrote these,

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Speaker 1: your pop art impresarios of pretty awesome facts. You're drug

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Speaker 1: dealers of dense details. That's a very good one. I'm

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Speaker 1: Jordan run Talk. I wrote these. We are your vetus

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Speaker 1: in furs of facts, your buddos of the Banana album.

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Speaker 1: We'll be your mirrors of Minutia here at the drone.

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Speaker 1: On and on about drones.

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Speaker 2: Hey baby, I love drones.

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Speaker 1: I'm still Jordan run Talk. Who are you? I'm Alex Heigel, Yes, Heigel.

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Speaker 1: What are we talking about today? Today?

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Speaker 2: We are talking about The Velvet Underground and Nico. Yes,

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Speaker 2: the album that dropped a grimy East Coast grenade and

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Speaker 2: all that summer of love bullshe it was happening in

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixty seven. They hated that, Oh they sure did,

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Speaker 2: and we're hated right back as we're go into. Not

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Speaker 2: only did it launch the career of all time rock

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Speaker 2: and roll icon Lou Reed, laconic Welsh genius John Kale,

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Speaker 2: and the rest.

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Speaker 1: Oh.

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Speaker 2: I know, I'm a huge Starling Morrison fan, but isn't

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Speaker 2: Mo Tucker like a weird maga person now.

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Speaker 1: At least tea party if not?

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Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah, tea party. Yeah. Anyway, the record push

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Speaker 2: the parameters of what could even be considered rock music,

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Speaker 2: mixing real building style pop with gritty lyrics about the

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Speaker 2: underside of mainstream society and avant garde experimental techniques from

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Speaker 2: the burgeoning minimalism movement. Jordan, what do you like about this? Stuff?

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Speaker 1: Gets down on his haunches like the guy still Water

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Speaker 1: and almost famous well to start with everything. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, rock and roll had been built by rebels,

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Speaker 1: but I feel like this is the first album that

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Speaker 1: really earns the distinction of alternative, with its subversive lyrics,

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Speaker 1: challenging sonic experimentation that basically risked veering fully into noise

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Speaker 1: at points.

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Speaker 2: Hell yeah I did.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, obviously, The Velvet Underground is strongly associated

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Speaker 1: with Andy Warhol, but I feel like the real crux

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Speaker 1: of the collaboration is between Lou Reed and his literary

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Speaker 1: lyricism and gift for melody. And John Cale's orchestral sensibilities

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Speaker 1: and daring, avant garde arrangements, and to me, that's kind

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Speaker 1: of what elevated them from being a you know, a

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Speaker 1: highly literate garage band, something like the Thugs another New

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Speaker 1: York group, to something greater. And I think that you

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Speaker 1: know as much. And we'll get into this in the episode.

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Speaker 1: As much as Andy Warhol was kind of more of

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Speaker 1: a an imprimature, is that the word is sort of

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Speaker 1: like co signed. I think that he did something really important,

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Speaker 1: which is keep everybody else away from.

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Speaker 2: The bands, gave him interference for them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so that their sound and there what i'll loosely

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Speaker 1: dub their message, even if that messages want Heroin emerging

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Speaker 1: into the mainstream with its rough edges intact, it wasn't

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Speaker 1: sanded down by corporate committee and years of just kind

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Speaker 1: of grind in a way at you know, at the

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Speaker 1: show biz hamster Wheel. And so you've got these songs

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Speaker 1: that I mean, I can't really think and you know

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Speaker 1: you probably would know better than I, but I can't

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Speaker 1: think of a precedent for these tales of drug deal

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Speaker 1: set a masochistic sex and you know, other snapshots of

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Speaker 1: the urban Underworld. I can't think of anything else from

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Speaker 1: around this period that got such a relatively wide Really

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Speaker 1: you didn't really sell that well famously. That's the bit

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Speaker 1: as we'll talk about.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it is interesting. They are only four

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Speaker 2: years out right from Bob Dylan Free Wheeland, which is

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Speaker 2: like I was always taught and still consider like the

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Speaker 2: ground zero of people writing their own lyrics. Really, you know,

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Speaker 2: everybody else was at this point so informed by Tin

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Speaker 2: Panali and the whole like get a songwriter, and then

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Speaker 2: you get a performer, and then you get into the

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Speaker 2: studio and record with session musicians. And that was all

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Speaker 2: being upended by you know, Dylan's writing first of all,

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Speaker 2: and then to a perhaps a lesser extent, the burgeoning

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Speaker 2: rock and roll movement of just people being like, oh no,

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Speaker 2: we also play and also sing and also.

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Speaker 1: Write, but we write as well as Tin Panale songwriters

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Speaker 1: was the promise as opposed to something.

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Speaker 2: But as far as lyricism, I mean I have to think, well,

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Speaker 2: you know, I don't know, it's interesting, man.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I.

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Speaker 2: Always take it back to like pre war blues and

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Speaker 2: as is my wont and there was some pretty racy

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Speaker 2: going on in those like not just about you know, porkin,

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Speaker 2: but like stuff about cocaine. Like there's literally a blue

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Speaker 2: standard just called cocaine blues.

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Speaker 1: I call Porter, right, Isn't that I get no kick

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Speaker 1: from cocaine? If I took even one sniff that that

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Speaker 1: bore me terrifically too. But I get a kick out

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Speaker 1: of you.

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Speaker 2: But I don't know that. But I mean I'm a

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Speaker 2: huge Cole Porter fan, other than the standards that have

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Speaker 2: been forced in playing at like brunch jazz, but yeah,

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Speaker 2: I mean definitely as far as just putting heroin in

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Speaker 2: your lyrics, I mean people forget that the sixties folks

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Speaker 2: stuff was coming a lot from like these Southern songs

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Speaker 2: which are all either about murder or porkin, and sometimes

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Speaker 2: about both, as the best ones often were. So I mean,

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Speaker 2: even though those edges were sanded off a lot by

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Speaker 2: like the Kingston Tria, I mean you still had, like,

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Speaker 2: you know, your Dave Van Ronks and your authenticity obsessed

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Speaker 2: people who were definitely putting out commercial records with songs

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Speaker 2: about like murder and you know, cocaine. But yeah, I

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Speaker 2: mean as far as especially like the sexuality stuff, I

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Speaker 2: think that's one thing that we can really credit them

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Speaker 2: with is just getting that side of things out there,

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Speaker 2: because otherwise that was such a taboo and in a

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Speaker 2: way completely informed by their upbringings. I mean, I don't

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Speaker 2: think the blues artists are people who were singing similarly

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Speaker 2: transgressive stuff had access to the idea of BDS or

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Speaker 2: like leather, Like a leather fetish in the South would

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Speaker 2: just be like your boots, not necessarily like you you're

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Speaker 2: going out attire or your sexual attire.

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Speaker 1: I like your boots.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I don't know. I might be talking

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Speaker 2: out of my ass there, but I frequently do and

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Speaker 2: people don't really counter me on it.

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Speaker 1: So that's a doctoral thesis. I like to read the

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Speaker 1: racial privilege of BDSM.

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Speaker 2: I mean it, you know, leather gear is expensive, dude,

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Speaker 2: I don't know.

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Speaker 1: Boots of leather.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And like, you know, even being able to find

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Speaker 2: a transgressive novel on the pavement to name your band

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Speaker 2: after is a truly urbane thing. You know, we're sure

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Speaker 2: weren't going to find that book in Mississippi.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's a beautiful setup to dive

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Speaker 1: right in. I think we've got more than enough to

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Speaker 1: talk about this episode. You got anything else now well,

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Speaker 1: from a young lou Reid's horrifying early mental health struggles

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Speaker 1: to Nico's horrifying entire life to the first hand look

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Speaker 1: inside Andy Warhol's factory that the band gave us to

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Speaker 1: that weird, weird cover art. Here's everything you didn't know

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Speaker 1: about the Velvet Underground and Nico lou Reid.

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Speaker 2: What do you say?

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Speaker 1: He was someone who from an early age felt suffocated

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Speaker 1: by social norms and the conformity of the post war.

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Speaker 2: Era, and also was a huge ass. I was writing

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Speaker 2: this whole thing about Nico, and really, you know, I

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Speaker 2: added this whole paragraph about Nico, and I was like, Man,

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Speaker 2: I'm really piling on her. Should we like address the

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Speaker 2: fact that Lou hit women and was like such an

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Speaker 2: unrepentant prick for entire decades of his life that like,

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Speaker 2: no one had a good word to say about him

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Speaker 2: other than he's good at songs sometimes.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes unless sometimes it is underlined.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: He was born in Brooklyn in nineteen forty two. His

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Speaker 1: dad was an accountant and his mom was a stenographer.

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Speaker 1: They moved out to the Long Island suburbs when lou

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Speaker 1: was a little boy, not far from the Levett Town

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Speaker 1: tracked house that housed the young Billy Joel. Could you

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Speaker 1: imagine young Billy Joel and young lou Reed meeting in

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Speaker 1: a playground. It's conceivable that it could have happened.

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Speaker 2: I have to think that Billy Joel would have bullied him.

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Speaker 1: Well, Billy Joel was so used to being bullied though,

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Speaker 1: I had like.

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Speaker 2: Those are the most dangerous ones. Uh, yeah, if you

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Speaker 2: find an even weaker target. Okay, it's hitting the fan,

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Speaker 2: that's very true.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, well, much like Billy Joel, Lou Reed

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Speaker 1: seemed miserable even as a child.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yes he did. Uh. In the nineteen ninety five

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Speaker 2: Wayne Wang Paul Oster film Blew in the Face, Do

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Speaker 2: you know anything about this? I stud on this just

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Speaker 2: for the lou Reid quotes Paul Ouster being more known

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Speaker 2: as aarus Yeah. Yeah, but uh and recently recently departed.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: But it's just like lou reda is like doing all

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Speaker 2: of his stuff over the counter of a cigar shop.

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Speaker 2: Just really amazing. One of the things he says to

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Speaker 2: that movie is I couldn't have been unhappier in the

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Speaker 2: eight years I spent growing up in Brooklyn. I say

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Speaker 2: that not having realized what it would be like living

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Speaker 2: on Long Island, which is infinitely worse. Yeah, and then

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Speaker 2: I just want to highlight his other quip, which is

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Speaker 2: leaving Brooklyn for Long Island was probably a childhood trauma

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Speaker 2: that I had other than the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn, which,

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Speaker 2: if you think about it, is a reason why some

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Speaker 2: of us are imbued with the cynicism that we never

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Speaker 2: recovered from. Obviously, you're not a Mets fan, and you

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Speaker 2: can't possibly be a Yankees fan, so Baseball's just eliminated

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Speaker 2: from your life. Hilarious.

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Speaker 1: Lou attended Hebrew School, which he'd later describe as quote

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Speaker 1: like being in a concentration camp.

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Speaker 2: Taco bell sound. I don't know what we're supposed to

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Speaker 2: do with that one, Luke.

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Speaker 1: Even at this early age, he felt removed from his peers.

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Speaker 1: One friend would later say that we most kids were

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Speaker 1: sneaking beers. Lou was smoking joints and reading French erotic

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Speaker 1: fiction like the story of Oh Hell Yeah Brother. At

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Speaker 1: the first sign that Lou might not be completely heterosexual,

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Speaker 1: his parents apparently took him to a psychiatrist in an

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Speaker 1: attempt to, in Lou's words, shock the gayness out of him,

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Speaker 1: the less successful follow up to Peter Gabriel's Shock the Monkey,

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Speaker 1: Good One, Good One. This is what Lou later claimed,

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Speaker 1: but in the Todd Haynes Felt Underground documentary from a

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Speaker 1: few years ago, his sister strenuously emotionally denies this.

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Speaker 2: So what does she know?

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Speaker 1: Who knows? There's there's a lot of unreliable narrators in

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Speaker 1: this story, as we'll find out. Yeah, that's true, but

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Speaker 1: this much we do know. Doctors apparently thought that he

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Speaker 1: might be schizophrenic and recommended that Lou undergo electroshock therapy.

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Speaker 1: He underwent. I saw the number sited as twenty four

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Speaker 1: ECT sessions, which is just an absolutely archaic, barbaric I

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Speaker 1: think is a safe term procedure that had a very

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Speaker 1: traumatic effect on Lou and permanently damaged to short term memory.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, if you're not up on your quasi

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Speaker 2: medieval medical practices from the mid century, they just put

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Speaker 2: electrodes on the side of your brain and zapia.

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Speaker 1: A piece of felt in your mouth or a piece

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Speaker 1: of rubber or something you bite.

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Speaker 2: Down on and then they just zapia.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean not to put you on the spot,

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Speaker 1: but just medically, what was that supposed to do? Like,

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Speaker 1: I don't understand the physiology behind it.

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Speaker 2: I did you know the brain is all electrical impulses,

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Speaker 2: so maybe they were just like, well, let's see what

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Speaker 2: happens if we'd short that out.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds like holding down the power button

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Speaker 1: until you have a hard resect. Yeah. I mean, do

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Speaker 1: we think that it's more or less targeted than an

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Speaker 1: ice pick lobotomy in terms of like I mean, in

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Speaker 1: theory less damaging, but well, less damaging, but in terms

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Speaker 1: of like, actually like having any idea what the hell

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Speaker 1: you're doing?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know enough about the history of it,

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Speaker 2: but it it is horrifying.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, very much so. So this's not only damaged a

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Speaker 1: short term memory, but it also poisoned his relationship with

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Speaker 1: both of his parents, if not the world as a whole.

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Speaker 1: Lou viewed the experience as an incredible betrayal from the

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Speaker 1: people who were supposed to protect him, and his relationship

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Speaker 1: with his family really never recovered. A friend once said

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Speaker 1: they only seen Lou afraid once when he unexpectedly bumped

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Speaker 1: into his parents on the street.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. For a more interesting view of his bile, check

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Speaker 2: out Kill Your Sons from nineteen seventy four, where aside

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Speaker 2: from his parents, he also takes potshots at his sister,

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Speaker 2: who he was supposed to be kind of close to.

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Speaker 2: Yeah so too, he saying's sister, she got married on

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Speaker 2: the island and her husband takes the train. He's big

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Speaker 2: and he's fat and he doesn't even have a brain.

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Speaker 2: Can I just say the quiet part? Illwed that Lurid's

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Speaker 2: lyrics kind of suck sometimes, like most of the time.

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Speaker 2: Definitely more misses than hits.

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Speaker 1: I do think I recall reading it might have been

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Speaker 1: in a book I recently read about Candy Darling, another

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Speaker 1: Warhol Factory superstar, that Lou's brother in law like got

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Speaker 1: a kick out of these lyrics and he thought it

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Speaker 1: was funny. So there might have been they might have

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Speaker 1: had an understanding.

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Speaker 2: I don't know, but yes, you're gonna engage with me

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Speaker 2: on the lyric claim.

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Speaker 1: No I can't. He's big and he's fat and he

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Speaker 1: doesn't even have a brain. I mean that that makes

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Speaker 1: Joey Ramone seem like, you know, yeah, bottle.

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Speaker 2: Rhyming trained with brain like, I don't know, man, there's

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Speaker 2: a blue Mask song I'm off.

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Speaker 1: The Blue Mask, which is probably maybe my favorite.

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Speaker 2: Lou Reid solo album. Yeah, you like that, And it's

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Speaker 2: called Underneath the Bottle, which is about recovery from alcoholism,

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Speaker 2: and you know, there's this one line. I always cite

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Speaker 2: this as the dichotomy of lou Reid. There's this one

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Speaker 2: line that's like fell down the stairs and woke up

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Speaker 2: underneath the bottle. And I was like, that's clever, that's

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Speaker 2: a nice little turn of phrase. And then the next

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Speaker 2: verse he starts with ooh, son of a bee, just like,

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Speaker 2: you dumb ass, This so stupid.

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Speaker 1: And then then what's funny?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the gun is horrifying, but what's so funny is that,

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Speaker 2: like he uses son of a bee in more than

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Speaker 2: one song, Like he was just prefer as awful as

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Speaker 2: a human being as he was. He was like afraid

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Speaker 2: of saying bitch on record. It was like use son

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Speaker 2: of a bee, maybe just because it was easier to

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Speaker 2: rhyme with. But yeah, I don't know, man. I love

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Speaker 2: him to death, and I think he's a fascinating, fascinating artist,

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Speaker 2: but I do not think of him as the lyrical

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Speaker 2: genius that all of his hagiographists would would have him

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Speaker 2: as I.

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Speaker 1: Don't know though, I mean, Heroin, Venus in Furs, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Those are pretty incredible. Yeah yeah, he

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Speaker 1: had a lot of years to refine those, though, I guess,

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Speaker 1: yeah yeah.

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Speaker 2: And I mean, like, I don't really think of Heroin

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Speaker 2: as a particularly lyrics forward.

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Speaker 1: Song, really yeah, I mean, you know, oh I disagree, Okay,

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Speaker 1: go on.

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Speaker 2: I think it's more about the sonic side of it.

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Speaker 1: But to me, it's up there with Tomorrow Never Knows

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Speaker 1: in terms of being an incredibly evocative blend of the

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Speaker 1: music and arrangement and the lyrics, and the fact that

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Speaker 1: the lyrics are so eerily detached in almost like a

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Speaker 1: you know, Hammingway journalistic sense of describing kind of one

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Speaker 1: of the greater taboos out there. I know, Heroin. I mean,

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Speaker 1: even now I think has this whatever the opposite of

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Speaker 1: mystique is, go on, I don't think there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of romance in Heroin. I think that it is just

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Speaker 1: seen as kind of the last stop before going off

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Speaker 1: the edge of the cliff in culture. So I think

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Speaker 1: that there's a certain taboo around that particular drug, as

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Speaker 1: opposed to I don't know, opium, cocaine.

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Speaker 2: You're right, I would draw my claim back Heroin and

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Speaker 2: will instead draw your attention to the bulk of his

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Speaker 2: solo work.

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Speaker 1: Sure, I mean, I just because it makes me feel

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Speaker 1: like I'm a man when I put a spike into

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Speaker 1: my vein. Yeah, I'll tell you if things aren't quite

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Speaker 1: the same.

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Speaker 2: Don't read this whole song. Oh no, I'm not. I

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Speaker 2: read it very well, though you did a lot of gravitas.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I just think that there's something so an

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Speaker 1: economy of words that I don't possess. There's something so chilling,

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Speaker 1: something so simple, something so even though I've never done Heroin,

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Speaker 1: something that's so understandable about Oh okay, I get how

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Speaker 1: you arrived at that place, and I get what you

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Speaker 1: get out of this in three lines. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: Maybe that's just mean.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean he's his economy is definitely something,

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Speaker 2: especially in the age when everyone was even calling their

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Speaker 2: bands incredibly stupid long run on sentences, you know, like

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Speaker 2: Arthur Brown's Crazy World Book or whatever. All that nonsense

327
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Speaker 2: was day glow garbage, and like Dylan to like, you know,

328
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Speaker 2: trying to redefine like how many syllables you could cram

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Speaker 2: into a rock song. So I do admire him as

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Speaker 2: sort of the ernest Hemingway of sixties rock music for

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Speaker 2: as much as Yeah, I don't know, man, there's just

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Speaker 2: have you heard Possum Day? I haven't no off of

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Speaker 2: Magic and Loss. It's an eighteen minute song. Oh it's

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Speaker 2: off ecstasy. Pardon me, I picked the wrong late era

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Speaker 2: Lou read. Yeah, it's eighteen minutes. It opens up with

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Speaker 2: one of the coolest, like some of the best guitar

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Speaker 2: sound I've ever heard captured. This is from two thousand.

338
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Speaker 2: Oh yes, it's called like a Possum, not Possum Day.

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Speaker 2: I confused it because the opening line is good morning,

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Speaker 2: It's possum day. Feel like a possum in every way

341
00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:04,440
Speaker 2: posso whiskers, possum face, powsome breath, and to possum taste,

342
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Speaker 2: posso tails, possum eyes, posso bones, possum thighs. I mean, yeah, man,

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Speaker 2: that's that's not you know, Yates.

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Speaker 1: I have made the big decision. I'm going to try

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Speaker 1: to nullify my life because when the blood begins to flow,

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Speaker 1: when it shoots up the dropper's neck, when I'm closing

347
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Speaker 1: in on death, I mean okay, I mean, yeah, you

348
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Speaker 1: know what I think this suggests sometimes he tried.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes didn't. Yeah, exactly.

350
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Speaker 1: And you know what, who among us I was like.

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Speaker 2: More, I almost like more when he's just like free

352
00:18:41,680 --> 00:18:44,840
Speaker 2: associating like a Coney Island baby. When he's like I

353
00:18:44,920 --> 00:18:47,600
Speaker 2: was just wanting to play football for a coach too

354
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Speaker 2: small to play tackle or something. This one goes out

355
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Speaker 2: to Lou and Rachel and all the kids at p

356
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Speaker 2: s one two, which is where he went, I know, okay, okay, cool,

357
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Speaker 2: Well neither of us won.

358
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's a good I think we both

359
00:19:04,240 --> 00:19:05,240
Speaker 1: argued our point well.

360
00:19:06,720 --> 00:19:09,840
Speaker 2: And it is, after all, possum day, so in my

361
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Speaker 2: heart every day anyway. Getting back to ECT, one of

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Speaker 2: the most famous victims of it was Ernest Friggin Hemingway,

363
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Speaker 2: who was treated with ECT as many as fifteen times

364
00:19:18,160 --> 00:19:20,959
Speaker 2: in December nineteen sixty and he had a much shorter

365
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Speaker 2: run of it than lou Reid did in terms of surviving.

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Speaker 2: In January of the next year, he was released in ruins,

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Speaker 2: according to one biographer, Jeffrey Myers. Another biographer and his

368
00:19:30,960 --> 00:19:34,440
Speaker 2: close friend, Ae Hotchner, reported in his book Papa Hemingway

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Speaker 2: that Hemingway's loss of memory caused by the ect made

370
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Speaker 2: him even more depressed and hopeless, as Hemingway had stated, well,

371
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Speaker 2: what is the sense of ruining my head and erasing

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Speaker 2: my memory, which is my capital, and putting me out

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Speaker 2: of business? In July nineteen sixty one, shortly before his

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Speaker 2: sixty second birthday, and soon after Hemingway had been given

375
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Speaker 2: still yet another series of shock treatments, he committed suicide

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Speaker 2: with the shotgun.

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Speaker 1: That's murder.

378
00:20:00,520 --> 00:20:04,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm just going to

379
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Speaker 2: research this right now.

380
00:20:05,440 --> 00:20:07,480
Speaker 1: Do we think I mean, not to get totally off topic,

381
00:20:07,480 --> 00:20:10,280
Speaker 1: that with Hemingway, almost like with Howard Hughes when he

382
00:20:10,400 --> 00:20:14,000
Speaker 1: was testing out a lot of the planes he designed

383
00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:16,960
Speaker 1: and they kept crashing, He kept repeatedly hitting his head,

384
00:20:16,960 --> 00:20:21,159
Speaker 1: and they think that exacerbated latent mental health problems, but

385
00:20:21,280 --> 00:20:24,680
Speaker 1: basically gave him, you know, traumatic hand injuries that made

386
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Speaker 1: it infinitely worse. Do we think that with Hemingway, with

387
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Speaker 1: his incredible alcohol Well, oh, I was going to say,

388
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Speaker 1: just active life, during which time I think he was

389
00:20:35,240 --> 00:20:41,680
Speaker 1: severely injured by bulls and boats and barracudas and other

390
00:20:42,080 --> 00:20:48,720
Speaker 1: what else, other bees, son of a bees? Yeah, callback yeah,

391
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Speaker 1: I do wonder how much you know, I mean, and

392
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Speaker 1: as you said, the drinking as well.

393
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Speaker 2: Convulsive therapies, introduced nineteen thirty four by Hungarian neuropsychiatrist Ladislas J. Meduna,

394
00:21:02,680 --> 00:21:07,280
Speaker 2: who believing mistakenly that schizophrenia and epilepsy were antagonistic disorders,

395
00:21:07,800 --> 00:21:12,800
Speaker 2: induced seizures first with camphor and then metrasol. There's a

396
00:21:12,880 --> 00:21:16,280
Speaker 2: Talian guy Ugo Cerletti. Celetti had noted a shock to

397
00:21:16,320 --> 00:21:20,400
Speaker 2: the head produced convulsions in dogs. The idea to use

398
00:21:20,400 --> 00:21:23,160
Speaker 2: electroshock therapy on humans came to Cerletti when he saw

399
00:21:23,200 --> 00:21:25,960
Speaker 2: how pigs were given an electric shock before being butchered

400
00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:30,600
Speaker 2: to put them in an esthetized state. Just horrible from

401
00:21:30,640 --> 00:21:33,520
Speaker 2: the ground up, This practice, I mean, now, Jesus. I

402
00:21:33,560 --> 00:21:35,880
Speaker 2: also forgot its most famous portrayal in One Flew Over

403
00:21:35,880 --> 00:21:39,159
Speaker 2: the Cuckoo's Nest, where it destroys, you know, Jack Nicholson's character.

404
00:21:39,880 --> 00:21:42,560
Speaker 1: I thought that was lobotomy. I thought the very end,

405
00:21:42,600 --> 00:21:44,480
Speaker 1: they see these like scars up by.

406
00:21:44,359 --> 00:21:47,800
Speaker 2: His, yeah, his temples, because that's where they have to

407
00:21:47,800 --> 00:21:49,760
Speaker 2: put it, because that's where your skull is thinnest, and

408
00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:51,960
Speaker 2: they have to put like an incredible amount of vaults

409
00:21:52,040 --> 00:21:56,119
Speaker 2: through your brain and to even get across the skull barrier.

410
00:21:56,400 --> 00:21:58,920
Speaker 1: Ah, well, I knew that. I always think maybe.

411
00:21:58,720 --> 00:22:01,080
Speaker 2: They changed it for the movie, But it's in the novel.

412
00:22:01,119 --> 00:22:05,800
Speaker 1: The bottomized in the film at least. Yeah. Wow, that

413
00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:10,159
Speaker 1: is horrifine. So now let's get back to the happy

414
00:22:10,240 --> 00:22:12,920
Speaker 1: world of Lou Reid in the Velvet Underground show.

415
00:22:13,800 --> 00:22:15,440
Speaker 2: So much better than pigs being shocked.

416
00:22:15,640 --> 00:22:20,640
Speaker 1: Looks like Teletubbies compared to compared to this, Okay. Lou

417
00:22:20,680 --> 00:22:23,000
Speaker 1: Reid started performing music when he was a teenager in

418
00:22:23,040 --> 00:22:26,879
Speaker 1: the mid fifties with a group called The Shades. Racist No, no,

419
00:22:26,920 --> 00:22:32,080
Speaker 1: they were sunglasses. Oh okay, yeah, but probably also yes.

420
00:22:34,040 --> 00:22:34,800
Speaker 2: From Long Island.

421
00:22:35,080 --> 00:22:39,119
Speaker 1: Yeah we got we got some friendly complaints from some

422
00:22:39,160 --> 00:22:41,919
Speaker 1: Long Island nights for our portrayal of Long Island and

423
00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:44,439
Speaker 1: the Billy Joel episode, even though most of them were

424
00:22:44,520 --> 00:22:46,200
Speaker 1: quoted directly from Billy Joel himself.

425
00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:49,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, come on, man, your most favored son is saying that.

426
00:22:52,600 --> 00:22:55,320
Speaker 1: Notice how I didn't call the Shades a band. Lou

427
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:57,960
Speaker 1: later said in an interview that The Shades wasn't a band.

428
00:22:58,280 --> 00:23:01,800
Speaker 1: It was just one guitar and two other singing. They

429
00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:03,960
Speaker 1: would play basically anywhere that would have them out on

430
00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:06,520
Speaker 1: Long Island. They first played at a local talent show,

431
00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:10,399
Speaker 1: then shopping malls, and then some really divy bars. And

432
00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:12,880
Speaker 1: there are some great pictures of them in the fifties

433
00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:17,000
Speaker 1: with shoestring cowboy bow ties and blazers singing Little Richard's songs.

434
00:23:17,040 --> 00:23:19,240
Speaker 2: It's really referring to bolo ties.

435
00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:22,639
Speaker 1: No, I thought bolo ties had like a like the

436
00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:25,159
Speaker 1: two strings, but didn't have like a bow.

437
00:23:25,359 --> 00:23:28,240
Speaker 2: Oh that's an interesting point if you were another difference

438
00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:30,080
Speaker 2: between a string.

439
00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:32,520
Speaker 1: Bow, a shoestring bow tie.

440
00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:34,520
Speaker 2: A bolow just get in touch.

441
00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:37,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, But like I said, because they were the Shades,

442
00:23:37,720 --> 00:23:42,840
Speaker 1: they wore sunglasses all the time and Lou basically never stopped.

443
00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:46,560
Speaker 1: They then changed their name to the Jades because I

444
00:23:46,560 --> 00:23:48,960
Speaker 1: guess there was another band around called the Shades, And

445
00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:51,879
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty eight they made their recording debut with

446
00:23:51,920 --> 00:23:55,440
Speaker 1: a song called So Blue in the B side leave

447
00:23:55,480 --> 00:23:59,440
Speaker 1: Her for Me and It's straight doop with Lou Reid

448
00:23:59,520 --> 00:24:04,400
Speaker 1: on backing vocals and King Curtis on sacks. That way legendary. Yeah,

449
00:24:04,560 --> 00:24:05,440
Speaker 1: Oh my god.

450
00:24:05,520 --> 00:24:07,400
Speaker 2: I wonder if it was in his like, No, this

451
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:09,639
Speaker 2: was in fifty eight. He probably he still had a

452
00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:11,960
Speaker 2: career at that point. Yeah, he's playing with the coasters

453
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:15,159
Speaker 2: and stuff. Probably just flew into like do a solo

454
00:24:15,240 --> 00:24:21,040
Speaker 2: and left. Yeah, man lose do wop affectations are so hilarious.

455
00:24:21,080 --> 00:24:24,040
Speaker 2: There's like, you know, take of No. I would never

456
00:24:24,080 --> 00:24:26,880
Speaker 2: listen to them, but I have no interest in them,

457
00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:33,399
Speaker 2: respectfully because on the one loaded box set there's like

458
00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:36,160
Speaker 2: an alternate version of rock and roll where he tries

459
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:38,760
Speaker 2: to put like do a douop intro into it and

460
00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:44,680
Speaker 2: he's like, ooh, this is awful, but it's so hilarious.

461
00:24:44,840 --> 00:24:49,720
Speaker 1: I think that's my favorite non John Cale centric Velvet

462
00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:53,000
Speaker 1: Underground song rock and roll, Like Heroin and Vitus and

463
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:56,359
Speaker 1: Furs are like, I think my two favorite overall. But yeah, dude,

464
00:24:56,359 --> 00:25:00,000
Speaker 1: people unloaded because it's like ghost Velvet Underground.

465
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:04,040
Speaker 2: But those people are wrong. There's so many amazing songs

466
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:06,560
Speaker 2: on there. Lonesome Cowboy Bill come on.

467
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:10,040
Speaker 1: Yeah. So this early low Redoop band got picked up

468
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:13,720
Speaker 1: by a major label, Dot Records, and the release became

469
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:16,320
Speaker 1: a regional hit, and Lout later said that he made

470
00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:19,680
Speaker 1: three dollars and fifty cents in royalties, and as he

471
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:21,560
Speaker 1: later observed, that was a hell of a lot more

472
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:23,240
Speaker 1: than I made in the Velvet Underground.

473
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 2: Was that like fifty to seventy five dollars and money

474
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:27,200
Speaker 2: back then?

475
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:33,080
Speaker 1: Though? Yeah, I mean I know in the Spotify era

476
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:34,159
Speaker 1: that seems normal.

477
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:36,800
Speaker 2: But I was gonna say that sounds like my royalty

478
00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:38,520
Speaker 2: payouts for my entire career.

479
00:25:39,240 --> 00:25:40,600
Speaker 1: Oh, you have a new album a out? Tell the

480
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:41,600
Speaker 1: folks about your new album.

481
00:25:41,680 --> 00:25:44,720
Speaker 2: Oh, I do have a new album out. Yeah, it's

482
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:48,320
Speaker 2: it's called The Good of the Scorpion, which, yes, is

483
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:52,840
Speaker 2: a It's always Sonny in Philadelphia reference. Jordan has Lighter Up.

484
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:56,920
Speaker 2: It's mostly instrumental guitar. There's a few vocal samples in there.

485
00:25:56,920 --> 00:25:58,760
Speaker 2: There's some sinse on there. I played all of it.

486
00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 2: Check it out on band camp or if you want

487
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:03,639
Speaker 2: it for free on the streamers.

488
00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:07,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, you should do like a Dark Side of the Moon?

489
00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:08,720
Speaker 1: Was itard of all kind of thing? And like have

490
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 1: the instrumentals playing as you want to a podcast, No,

491
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:15,080
Speaker 1: as you listen to our podcast. It's like a nice soundtrack.

492
00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:20,080
Speaker 2: The album is not long enough for that. I have

493
00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:25,959
Speaker 2: to listener like four times. Thank you, Jordan, that's very sweet.

494
00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:29,840
Speaker 1: You should really check out some of Lou's do up stuff.

495
00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:32,880
Speaker 1: He actually continued a few years later, in nineteen sixty two,

496
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:37,160
Speaker 1: he had some solo songs they released under Lewis Reed,

497
00:26:37,600 --> 00:26:40,760
Speaker 1: which is hilarious. Is one called Your Love and my

498
00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:44,399
Speaker 1: favorite called Mary Go Round. And these went unreleased for

499
00:26:44,520 --> 00:26:49,200
Speaker 1: decades until the great Brooklyn based reissue labeled Norton put Out.

500
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:50,880
Speaker 1: I think it was an EP or something a few

501
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:53,600
Speaker 1: years ago, and it's great. The cover of it has

502
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:56,000
Speaker 1: this picture of young Lou Reed looking like I wanna

503
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:58,560
Speaker 1: be Ricky Nelson with his hair and a pompadoor. It

504
00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:01,760
Speaker 1: is just tremendous. Uh wait, I'm gonna send this to you.

505
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:05,760
Speaker 1: It's like a good song. So this is Mary Ground

506
00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:08,840
Speaker 1: on the EP is called All Tomorrow's Dance Parties, which

507
00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 1: is pretty funny.

508
00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 3: I want your homie, But do you treat me like

509
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:21,399
Speaker 3: I was go around?

510
00:27:22,280 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 1: Whoa? You got me? That?

511
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:36,600
Speaker 2: It sucks? Oh come on, really, I don't, I don't.

512
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:37,680
Speaker 2: I don't like this.

513
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 1: Blue likes it.

514
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:45,119
Speaker 2: This is such a miss. I'm sorry. His voice is

515
00:27:45,160 --> 00:27:47,800
Speaker 2: so like nasal and grating. Even though on that, like

516
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:51,440
Speaker 2: I mean, he was very young, but even on this, No, no,

517
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:53,200
Speaker 2: I don't, I don't. I don't deal with I don't

518
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:55,520
Speaker 2: vibe with this rock and roll didn't get interesting until

519
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:57,119
Speaker 2: we started stealing from black people.

520
00:27:57,760 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 1: I love how in the sort of like nebulous band

521
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 1: that he had in college, nobody ever went in the back,

522
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 1: so they just changed their name over and over again

523
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:08,160
Speaker 1: because that was the only way they could get repeat bookings.

524
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:10,919
Speaker 1: It's it's like the oldest trick in the book. But

525
00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:16,439
Speaker 1: speaking of college, Lou Reed bad college roommate or the

526
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:18,000
Speaker 1: worst college roommate discuss.

527
00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:23,280
Speaker 2: I mean, surely there are Charlie Whitman. We've that one

528
00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:25,000
Speaker 2: for you, folks that pick up on the way home.

529
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:29,440
Speaker 1: Lou Reed did a semester and a half at NYU

530
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:33,639
Speaker 1: before opting the transfer to Syracuse, which maybe you know

531
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 1: as a movement doesn't seem to make much sense to

532
00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 1: me considering his urbane pretensions.

533
00:28:39,040 --> 00:28:41,480
Speaker 2: Go far up into the into the glaciers.

534
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:43,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't really. I thought he would have loved

535
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:45,880
Speaker 1: hanging out in Greenwich Village in like the late fifties

536
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:50,920
Speaker 1: early sixties, considering the budding beat that he sort of was.

537
00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:54,160
Speaker 1: But yeah, but ended up working out for him because

538
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:56,760
Speaker 1: Syracuse is where he first became interested in a serious

539
00:28:56,800 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 1: way in writing. He initially thought he was going to

540
00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 1: be a journalist, which is hilarious considering how much he

541
00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:06,880
Speaker 1: would come to hate journalists. Uh. Probably his most connection

542
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:09,719
Speaker 1: during this period at Syracuse is with the poet, author,

543
00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 1: and professor Delmore Schwartz. Schwartz became a mentor figure to

544
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:17,920
Speaker 1: Lou and helped him home as penchant for literature and cynicism,

545
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 1: though not necessarily in that order. Reid told writer Bruce

546
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:26,440
Speaker 1: Pollock in nineteen seventy three, Delmore Schwartz was the unhappiest

547
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 1: man I ever met in my life. I'm the smartest

548
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:32,840
Speaker 1: until I met Andy Warhol. Once drunken a Syracuse bar,

549
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:35,760
Speaker 1: he said, if you sell out, Lou, I'm gonna get you.

550
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:39,600
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about doing anything, let alone selling out,

551
00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 1: and rock and roll counted as selling out in Schwartz's

552
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:48,959
Speaker 1: minds because he hated the genre, particularly the lyrics, and

553
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 1: despite this, Low would salute his mentor by dedicating the

554
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 1: Velvet Song European Son to Schwartz, simply because it was

555
00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: the track that both least resembled anything in the rock

556
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:02,440
Speaker 1: canon and also a scant ten lines contains the least

557
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 1: amount of his hated lyrics. Sadly, Delmore Schwartz almost certainly

558
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 1: never heard the song. Crippled by alcoholism and mental illness,

559
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 1: he spent his final days as a recluse at the

560
00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:16,600
Speaker 1: Chelsea Hotel, and he died there of a heart attack

561
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:19,960
Speaker 1: on July eleventh, nineteen sixty six, just three months after

562
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:23,480
Speaker 1: The Velvet Underground recorded European Son and nearly half a

563
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:26,880
Speaker 1: year before it was released. He had so isolated himself

564
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:30,200
Speaker 1: by this point in his life that Delmore Schwartz's body

565
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:30,640
Speaker 1: was in the.

566
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 2: Morgue for two days before it was identified. But there's

567
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 2: a happy ending to this story.

568
00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 1: I was there.

569
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:40,720
Speaker 2: Yes, lou Reid believed that Delmore Schwartz later came back

570
00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:44,360
Speaker 2: to haunt him or visit a house that he shared

571
00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:46,640
Speaker 2: with one of his I'm not sure if they were

572
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:53,480
Speaker 2: common law or truly married. Sylvia Silvia. I think that's

573
00:30:53,800 --> 00:31:01,320
Speaker 2: Women off Blue Mask another just tremendous, silva awful stuff.

574
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:04,960
Speaker 2: No it's not, it's just there, ah man. That album

575
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 2: just sounds so good as I'm of Robert Quine playing guitar,

576
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:10,040
Speaker 2: and he and loum make such a natural pairing. And

577
00:31:10,080 --> 00:31:14,240
Speaker 2: then lou comes in just like trumpeting his this bullshit

578
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 2: anyway on My House off the Blue mask. He professes

579
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 2: that he believes his current home is haunted by Schwartz's

580
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:26,320
Speaker 2: ghost singing. Sylvia got out ourwigi bor to dial a

581
00:31:26,400 --> 00:31:29,800
Speaker 2: spirit across the room. It's sword. We were happy and

582
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:33,000
Speaker 2: amazed at what we saw. Blazing stood the proud and

583
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:41,720
Speaker 2: regal name del Moore. Just dog, just bad writing. Also,

584
00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 2: it's one of his ones where he abandons any traditional

585
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:47,520
Speaker 2: notation of meter to like sound like I guess Billy

586
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:50,160
Speaker 2: Holiday when he's singing it, so he's like. The way

587
00:31:50,160 --> 00:31:52,600
Speaker 2: he actually delivers it is something like blazing stood the

588
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:58,000
Speaker 2: proud and regal name del Moore, Like it's just such this. Ah,

589
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 2: what a fascinating guy was.

590
00:32:03,120 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 1: But we're getting far ahead of ourselves. Writing avant garde

591
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 1: soundscapes like European Son was far off for Good Old

592
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:13,320
Speaker 1: Lou during his early sixties Syracuse days. This was a

593
00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 1: period when Bob Dylan was coming to the fore and

594
00:32:15,840 --> 00:32:20,240
Speaker 1: Lou started playing acoustic guitar and writing early songs, supposedly

595
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:23,719
Speaker 1: because electroshock therapy made it difficult for him to concentrate

596
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:27,920
Speaker 1: on straight prose writing, so he kept it short with

597
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 1: melodies to jog his memory. That's so sad. Yeah, he

598
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:35,720
Speaker 1: wanted to blend his beloved street music, do wop and

599
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 1: rock with the gritty literature grit lit set a term

600
00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 1: that he was reasing. Now it is grit lit. That's great,

601
00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:45,160
Speaker 1: tweeted us, hashtag grit litt.

602
00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:47,320
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I wonder if the speed, if all

603
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:50,080
Speaker 2: the beats, because I don't know that he's has he

604
00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 2: talked about being influenced by any beat writers.

605
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 1: Well, he really was into Hebert Selby's Last Exit to Brooklyn.

606
00:32:55,920 --> 00:33:02,080
Speaker 1: And you know Burrows Naked Lunch. Bizarrely, we've had it

607
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:06,760
Speaker 1: requested from multiple people to do a naked Lunch episode. Okay, yeah,

608
00:33:07,280 --> 00:33:09,040
Speaker 1: we've had some real as. We had a really sweet

609
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:13,239
Speaker 1: request on one of the Apple review comments, want us

610
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:16,200
Speaker 1: through Fried Green Tomatoes. Somebody else requested con Air. We

611
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:18,920
Speaker 1: see your request. We thank you, very very very very much.

612
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:21,440
Speaker 1: We're trying to get to them. We really appreciate it

613
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:22,080
Speaker 1: means a lot.

614
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:23,360
Speaker 2: Especially to see conn Air.

615
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 1: I do you want to do conn Air? Well to Connor. Yeah,

616
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:30,720
Speaker 1: So basically, Lou wanted to write adult rock and roll,

617
00:33:30,920 --> 00:33:33,360
Speaker 1: which is a term I genuinely forget if I made

618
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 1: up or if I took from him. I think it's

619
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 1: actually a quote from him. Venus and Furs, for example,

620
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 1: is taken from the title of a book by Leopold

621
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:44,240
Speaker 1: von Sacher Massik, from whom we get the term masochism,

622
00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:47,000
Speaker 1: and who also happens to be the great great uncle

623
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:49,760
Speaker 1: of mary Anne Faithful. Did you know that? Huh, the

624
00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:53,840
Speaker 1: guy invented the term masochism is related to Marianne Faithful.

625
00:33:54,400 --> 00:33:56,120
Speaker 2: Wonder if he was listening to her music at the time.

626
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 1: Broken English is a great out. Do you know that album?

627
00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:03,600
Speaker 1: I didn't. It was like after she'd been she spent

628
00:34:03,680 --> 00:34:06,880
Speaker 1: much of the seventies. I think she was living on

629
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:11,520
Speaker 1: the streets quite literally after she and Mick Jagger broke

630
00:34:11,640 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 1: up and she really struggled with heroin addictions. She made

631
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 1: this album at the end of the seventies called Broken English.

632
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:21,080
Speaker 1: And like her voice, which you know in the mid

633
00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 1: sixties was this very like crystalline. Is at the term

634
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:27,640
Speaker 1: like very I mean she was literally just came from

635
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:30,480
Speaker 1: a convent and she sounds it now. Her voice is

636
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:33,440
Speaker 1: like grimy and it almost sounds like Nico in a

637
00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:36,320
Speaker 1: lot of ways. It's very fascinating. I mean, she clearly

638
00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:39,560
Speaker 1: hit the whiskey and cigarettes very hard. It's interesting it's

639
00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:40,080
Speaker 1: a good album.

640
00:34:40,320 --> 00:34:42,240
Speaker 2: Well, I do love a sad story behind a record.

641
00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:47,880
Speaker 2: BDSM loomed large on Loo's mind.

642
00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:50,919
Speaker 1: Thanks for reading that. That's a hard thing to say.

643
00:34:51,080 --> 00:34:55,160
Speaker 1: BDSM loomed large on lose mind. That's like Seashell's Seashells level.

644
00:34:56,840 --> 00:35:00,000
Speaker 1: When a friend started reading Lou's early lyrics, he eventually said,

645
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:03,719
Speaker 1: what's the deal with all this degradation? And Lou's indignant

646
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:06,480
Speaker 1: reply was, if it's not dark and not degrading, then

647
00:35:06,520 --> 00:35:09,160
Speaker 1: it's not sex. And you don't understand that because you're

648
00:35:09,160 --> 00:35:13,759
Speaker 1: becoming a Republican. That's from the Todd Haynes movie of

649
00:35:13,760 --> 00:35:16,960
Speaker 1: one of his old friends. I forget his name. Incredible

650
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:22,440
Speaker 1: lous a quote machine. He really is inconsistent lyricist, quote machine.

651
00:35:22,719 --> 00:35:22,919
Speaker 2: God.

652
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 1: He would have had an amazing podcast. Was he like

653
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:26,840
Speaker 1: very active on Twitter?

654
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 2: No, I don't think so. I don't think he was

655
00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:31,239
Speaker 2: active doing anything until I mean he was putting out

656
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:33,759
Speaker 2: like his tai chi meditations. He was just really into

657
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:36,720
Speaker 2: tai chi and like Laurie Anderson.

658
00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:41,280
Speaker 1: Wait no, no, Lulu No. The last thing he tweeted

659
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:45,480
Speaker 1: before he died was like a meme of Twilight Sparkle

660
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:50,240
Speaker 1: versus Metal machine music. Yes, yes, forgoning.

661
00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:52,879
Speaker 2: I forgot if that was on Twitter or Facebook. Good

662
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:55,880
Speaker 2: for him. Read also hosted a radio program while at Syracuse,

663
00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:59,240
Speaker 2: which was recounted at the twenty nineteen Syracuse Area Music

664
00:35:59,320 --> 00:36:04,840
Speaker 2: Awards or SAMMA called Excursions on a Wobbly Rail. Reid's

665
00:36:04,840 --> 00:36:08,880
Speaker 2: show and Reid were quote quickly fired for his esoteric

666
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:14,799
Speaker 2: playlist and on air arguments with listeners. I wish those

667
00:36:14,800 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 2: tapes existed.

668
00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know.

669
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:20,360
Speaker 2: He also launched an underground campus literary magazine called Lonely

670
00:36:20,400 --> 00:36:24,880
Speaker 2: Women's Quarterly, named after the Ornette Coleman composition, a huge

671
00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:29,000
Speaker 2: influence on him. He's really obsessed with Ornett and also

672
00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:31,400
Speaker 2: some have claimed that Reid was dealing heroin while in

673
00:36:31,440 --> 00:36:35,040
Speaker 2: college and even employed his first serious girlfriend, Shelley Albin,

674
00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 2: to whom Pale Blue Eyes is dedicated, to make deliveries

675
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:43,520
Speaker 2: around campus. Lou has this history of getting women to

676
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:45,839
Speaker 2: work for him. I think one of his wives later

677
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:49,840
Speaker 2: took over as manager. It's kind of weird.

678
00:36:50,239 --> 00:36:52,040
Speaker 1: Was he married to Lori Anderson or were they like

679
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:53,240
Speaker 1: common law or whatever.

680
00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:56,719
Speaker 2: She was the only one that he was like respected.

681
00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 2: Oh man, Well, I retract everything nice, I just about

682
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:05,359
Speaker 2: her said, Laurie Anderson's recent body of work involves writing

683
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:08,640
Speaker 2: collaboratively with an AI generator stocked with the words of

684
00:37:08,680 --> 00:37:17,239
Speaker 2: lou Reed. Wow, moving on, you know, I mean if

685
00:37:17,239 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 2: she wasn't who she was to him, I would it

686
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:22,720
Speaker 2: would be gross her, it would be grosser.

687
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:27,239
Speaker 1: Yes, there's a whole agency that is doing this thing

688
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:31,640
Speaker 1: where when somebody dies, their family members are invited to

689
00:37:31,680 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 1: like feed I think you give them the late person's

690
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:39,640
Speaker 1: phone and any kind of information that like you have

691
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 1: on them, and it supposedly generates, like effectively a hologram

692
00:37:45,120 --> 00:37:49,640
Speaker 1: that address exact plot of a Black Mirror episode. Oh

693
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:54,120
Speaker 1: is it really well? He addresses everybody at their funeral,

694
00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:57,839
Speaker 1: and it's I think it's more for the people left

695
00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:00,920
Speaker 1: behind as a way to like, you know, help process

696
00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:03,359
Speaker 1: and get to say goodbye and have the person there

697
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:05,920
Speaker 1: to say goodbye. Maybe, you know, I don't know. So

698
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:08,760
Speaker 1: it makes me wonder what she's doing that for. Maybe

699
00:38:08,760 --> 00:38:10,640
Speaker 1: she's not doing it for, you know, any kind of

700
00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:14,200
Speaker 1: exploitive reason, but maybe it's something that's therapeutic for her

701
00:38:14,239 --> 00:38:17,640
Speaker 1: in a way to still continue to work with him.

702
00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:18,239
Speaker 1: I don't know.

703
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:25,200
Speaker 2: It's fine as you meditate on that We'll be right

704
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:38,000
Speaker 2: back with more too much information after these messages.

705
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:42,200
Speaker 1: Well, Luke came out of college with a degree, a

706
00:38:42,280 --> 00:38:47,120
Speaker 1: heroin habit and hepatitis. Two of those things are helpful

707
00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:51,320
Speaker 1: for a career in the music industry. For all of

708
00:38:51,360 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 1: his insecurities, Lou seemed to have tremendous belief in his music.

709
00:38:55,200 --> 00:38:57,640
Speaker 1: As an unknown, he visited a music publisher who asked

710
00:38:57,719 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 1: him the standard question, you know, what do you see

711
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:02,759
Speaker 1: for yourself? His answer, I want to be rich and

712
00:39:02,800 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 1: i want to be a rock star, and I'm going

713
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:05,960
Speaker 1: to be rich and I'm going to be a rock

714
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:08,520
Speaker 1: star regardless of whether we handle my music or not.

715
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:12,080
Speaker 1: This is according to a friend who accompanied him to

716
00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:14,800
Speaker 1: that meeting. No word on whether or not the publisher

717
00:39:14,840 --> 00:39:18,759
Speaker 1: signed him in any event. Lou's professional songwriting career began

718
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:21,120
Speaker 1: in the wake of the Beatles boom in nineteen sixty four,

719
00:39:21,160 --> 00:39:24,200
Speaker 1: when he was hired as a staff songwriter at Pickwick Records.

720
00:39:25,120 --> 00:39:28,280
Speaker 1: Pickwick was a New York based budget label which specialized

721
00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:31,400
Speaker 1: in basically writing sound alike versions of whatever was on

722
00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:34,360
Speaker 1: the hit parade. While living at home with his parents,

723
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 1: Lou earned the princely sum of twenty five dollars a

724
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:41,000
Speaker 1: week aping chart toppers. He remembered, in nineteen seventy two,

725
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:44,520
Speaker 1: we just churned out songs. That's all. Never a hit song.

726
00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 1: What we were doing was churning out these ripoff albums.

727
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:50,440
Speaker 1: Songs of that period like The Monkey and the Frug

728
00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:54,120
Speaker 1: were pretty asinine, so it stands to reason that ripoff

729
00:39:54,239 --> 00:39:58,560
Speaker 1: versions of those songs were even more asinine. For example,

730
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:01,360
Speaker 1: when tasked with writing a car copy of The Twist,

731
00:40:01,840 --> 00:40:04,720
Speaker 1: Luke cast his mind to the latest ladies fashion trend,

732
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:08,960
Speaker 1: Ostrich Feathers, and thus he wrote the infectious dance track

733
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:13,839
Speaker 1: the Ostrich, featuring the absolutely unforgettable opening line, put your

734
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 1: head on the floor and have somebody step on it,

735
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:19,040
Speaker 1: and you say he's a bad lyric.

736
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:22,480
Speaker 2: I mean, it's funny. Actually, what came to mind when

737
00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:25,040
Speaker 2: you're describing this process, I was like, he was basically

738
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:31,080
Speaker 2: an AI bot generating, Yeah, both to flood the market

739
00:40:31,120 --> 00:40:35,279
Speaker 2: and confuse people, just like what's happening on streamers everywhere now.

740
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:39,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean also, I mean saying the quiet

741
00:40:39,160 --> 00:40:44,080
Speaker 1: part extremely loud. It taught him, Oh yeah, the fundamentals

742
00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:45,920
Speaker 1: of a I mean, was that sorry about Hunter S

743
00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:48,840
Speaker 1: Thompson before he was writing novels when he was in

744
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:51,279
Speaker 1: like high school in early college. He would sit at

745
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:55,520
Speaker 1: a typewriter and write out the Great Gatsby and Faulkner

746
00:40:55,600 --> 00:40:58,400
Speaker 1: or something, just to feel what it felt like to

747
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:00,920
Speaker 1: type those words in that org and get the rhythm

748
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:04,520
Speaker 1: of that. I mean, as an act, that's pretty ridiculous,

749
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 1: but in a way I can imagine that you do

750
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:09,000
Speaker 1: glean something from that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean

751
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:11,200
Speaker 1: you're humoring me a lot in this episode.

752
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:14,080
Speaker 2: No, I mean, I'm not compared. I mean, I am

753
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:16,200
Speaker 2: comparing lou Reed to Ai, but it is just a

754
00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 2: hilarious like mercenary practice that was very real back then,

755
00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:21,719
Speaker 2: and that he's the more famous people that came out

756
00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:22,920
Speaker 2: of it that we got, you know.

757
00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 1: But the song the Ostridge had some moments of subversive

758
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:30,160
Speaker 1: brilliance in there. To compose the song, he tuned all

759
00:41:30,160 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 1: of his strings on his guitar to the same note,

760
00:41:32,600 --> 00:41:35,720
Speaker 1: which basically created a drone effect. In a two thousand

761
00:41:35,760 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 1: and four Louder Sound interview, he explained, I did that

762
00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:41,640
Speaker 1: because I saw this guy called Jerry Vance, a Pickwick staffer.

763
00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:44,680
Speaker 1: Do that not an advanced avant garde guy. He was

764
00:41:44,719 --> 00:41:47,200
Speaker 1: just screwing around and he didn't realize what he had,

765
00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:49,279
Speaker 1: but I did, and I took that and made it

766
00:41:49,320 --> 00:42:20,200
Speaker 1: into the ostriche You're Ready in. Reid recorded the song

767
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:23,040
Speaker 1: with some studio musicians, and the marketing minds at Pickwick

768
00:42:23,160 --> 00:42:26,800
Speaker 1: actually deemed it worthy of release. The single hit Shelves

769
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:29,640
Speaker 1: under the name of a fictitious band called the Primitives,

770
00:42:30,040 --> 00:42:32,480
Speaker 1: and sold well enough that the label actually pressured Lou

771
00:42:32,560 --> 00:42:34,799
Speaker 1: to put an actual band together and go out and

772
00:42:34,840 --> 00:42:37,839
Speaker 1: promote the song at live gigs. And it was well

773
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 1: searching for band notes for this Primitives project that Reid

774
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:43,920
Speaker 1: first grew close to John Cale. They met at a

775
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:47,080
Speaker 1: Lower east Side house party, where Cale's beatle haircut called

776
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:50,320
Speaker 1: Reed's eye, and so did his Welsh accent, which sounded

777
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:53,239
Speaker 1: close enough to the Beatles Liver Puddley and lilt to

778
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 1: make him think, oh, this guy's probably a rock star.

779
00:42:56,800 --> 00:42:59,040
Speaker 1: He was very, very, very.

780
00:42:58,840 --> 00:43:03,160
Speaker 2: Mistaken funny he confused a Welsh and liverpoodleyan accent.

781
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:04,719
Speaker 1: Yeah.

782
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:08,759
Speaker 2: Shouts to John kil as a style icon. Not only

783
00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:12,960
Speaker 2: is consistently the weirdest looking guy in any VU promo,

784
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:15,960
Speaker 2: like he was a Cape at one I believe.

785
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:18,279
Speaker 1: Cape is Prince Valiant hair that like, even at a

786
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:22,360
Speaker 1: time when Prince Valiant haircuts were semi common, still looks

787
00:43:22,440 --> 00:43:25,880
Speaker 1: super weird on him. And his soul patch these days

788
00:43:26,480 --> 00:43:29,080
Speaker 1: is so strange. It's really strange. Man.

789
00:43:29,520 --> 00:43:31,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yes, love him, love him so much.

790
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:35,200
Speaker 1: Yes. John kle In nineteen sixty four was not a

791
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:37,839
Speaker 1: rising rock star. He was a rising star of the

792
00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:41,520
Speaker 1: classical and avant garde world. And he was new in town.

793
00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:45,239
Speaker 1: The Welsh native came to America on a Leonard Bernsteins

794
00:43:45,239 --> 00:43:49,160
Speaker 1: scholarship for musical composition, a position he earned after interviewing

795
00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:52,520
Speaker 1: with Aaron Copeland. So he was a serious dude.

796
00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:55,040
Speaker 2: The funniest part about his entire musical upbringing is that

797
00:43:55,120 --> 00:43:57,960
Speaker 2: he learned to play viola solely because every other instrument

798
00:43:58,040 --> 00:44:00,680
Speaker 2: had been taken at his little school.

799
00:44:00,840 --> 00:44:05,040
Speaker 1: Oh, I didn't know that. All his upbringing is so sad.

800
00:44:05,280 --> 00:44:09,560
Speaker 1: Like his dad moved in with his mother's family once

801
00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:12,880
Speaker 1: they got married, I think, and they were all Welsh

802
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 1: and his dad was English, so they forbade English being

803
00:44:16,239 --> 00:44:20,040
Speaker 1: spoken in their households. And tell yah, Cale couldn't speak

804
00:44:20,080 --> 00:44:21,880
Speaker 1: with his father because he didn't know English until he

805
00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:23,960
Speaker 1: learned it in school as a seven year old, So

806
00:44:24,120 --> 00:44:27,680
Speaker 1: until he was seven he couldn't communicate with his own dad. Yeah,

807
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:31,960
Speaker 1: and all said, yeah, and yet he's still better adjusted

808
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:32,520
Speaker 1: than lou Reed.

809
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:34,120
Speaker 2: Yeah right.

810
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:36,880
Speaker 1: John Calee moved to New York in late nineteen sixty

811
00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:39,560
Speaker 1: three to pursue his musical studies and play viola with

812
00:44:39,600 --> 00:44:43,600
Speaker 1: the avant garde composer Lamont Young's Theater of La monte Us.

813
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:46,560
Speaker 1: Oh was LaMonte Oh my god? I never knew that

814
00:44:47,320 --> 00:44:51,200
Speaker 1: LaMonte Young's Theater of Eternal Music. He also knew the

815
00:44:51,520 --> 00:44:54,920
Speaker 1: slightly more famous John Cage, and was even photographed on

816
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:57,360
Speaker 1: stage with him around this period in the early sixties,

817
00:44:57,360 --> 00:45:00,200
Speaker 1: which would help earn him some notoriety. John Cage the

818
00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 1: uh ultra minimalist composer, to the point that he has

819
00:45:06,040 --> 00:45:09,080
Speaker 1: a famous piece call four minutes thirty three seconds, which

820
00:45:09,120 --> 00:45:12,399
Speaker 1: just consists of silence. That is correct. Doesn't get more

821
00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:14,359
Speaker 1: minimalist than that, Yeah, I.

822
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:18,200
Speaker 2: Mean it's Cage is a fascinating guy. He was extremely racist.

823
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:22,160
Speaker 2: I was obsessed with the I ching uh and was

824
00:45:22,239 --> 00:45:24,960
Speaker 2: like a big, big step in, a big guy in

825
00:45:25,080 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 2: not just minimalism, but developing chance compositions. Because a lot

826
00:45:29,680 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 2: of his later on he would just throw coins from

827
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 2: the I ching and like E ching. I don't know,

828
00:45:35,360 --> 00:45:38,080
Speaker 2: let let them determine, like the shape of his compositions.

829
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:43,520
Speaker 2: But yes, he's most famous for four three three Yeah, sorry,

830
00:45:43,880 --> 00:45:45,120
Speaker 2: raging into my territory.

831
00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:46,759
Speaker 1: Now it's coming up. I gotta go.

832
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 2: I was watching you, watching you talk that and with

833
00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:49,960
Speaker 2: baited breath.

834
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:55,160
Speaker 1: Read was very intrigued by John Kle's background and asked

835
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:58,920
Speaker 1: him to join this ad hoc band to plug his

836
00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:03,760
Speaker 1: crappy sound like song, Hey wow, you've gotten co signed

837
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:08,320
Speaker 1: by Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copeland or this virtuoso Do

838
00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:10,439
Speaker 1: you want to play my crappy fake rock song.

839
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:13,680
Speaker 2: It's funny because I think he meant Kale. I mean

840
00:46:13,719 --> 00:46:15,959
Speaker 2: he meant him at a party, but he probably knew

841
00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:21,759
Speaker 2: him through Tony Conrad, who was another incredibly unoverlooked and

842
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:24,239
Speaker 2: groundbreaking I mean, the guy was a musician, he was

843
00:46:24,239 --> 00:46:27,800
Speaker 2: a mathematician, He made experimental films. He picketed outside the

844
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:30,600
Speaker 2: Lincoln Center for decades, like he was a really wild guy.

845
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:34,920
Speaker 2: And he was actually played on the Primitives, He played

846
00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:36,800
Speaker 2: on the Ostrich that's him on violin.

847
00:46:36,920 --> 00:46:40,080
Speaker 1: Oh. I didn't realize that, but Kal he said yes,

848
00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:41,839
Speaker 1: basically because he thought it would be fun and an

849
00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:44,120
Speaker 1: easy way to earn some money. But once he started

850
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:47,720
Speaker 1: rehearsing and Lou taught him about this sort of tuning

851
00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:50,040
Speaker 1: technique on his guitar while all the strings were tuned

852
00:46:50,040 --> 00:46:52,680
Speaker 1: to the same note, he kind of was like a

853
00:46:52,719 --> 00:46:54,560
Speaker 1: real light bulb moment for Kale because that was not

854
00:46:54,719 --> 00:46:57,279
Speaker 1: that dissimilar to all the drone work that he was

855
00:46:57,280 --> 00:47:00,879
Speaker 1: doing with Lamonty Young. So this was kind of taken

856
00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:03,239
Speaker 1: us a sign that they were on the same musical wavelength,

857
00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:06,120
Speaker 1: and they started to become very tight, with Lou moving

858
00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:09,040
Speaker 1: into John's twenty five dollars a month apartment at fifty

859
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 1: six Ludlow Street, one of the great crap holes of

860
00:47:12,600 --> 00:47:15,640
Speaker 1: rock history, which I believe, according to a recent or

861
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:18,720
Speaker 1: at least ten year old Wall Street Journal article, still

862
00:47:18,719 --> 00:47:22,040
Speaker 1: houses artists to this day. Wow. I think Lady Gaga

863
00:47:22,040 --> 00:47:22,919
Speaker 1: lived near there too.

864
00:47:23,360 --> 00:47:27,440
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah yeah. So I mean, now, is this segue

865
00:47:27,480 --> 00:47:29,880
Speaker 2: to get into the Lamonty Young and his influence on

866
00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:32,200
Speaker 2: the Velvet un Ground, especially the first two records, because

867
00:47:32,200 --> 00:47:36,680
Speaker 2: he was so directly important to Kale. Lamonty is considered

868
00:47:36,719 --> 00:47:39,799
Speaker 2: the father of minimalist music, but his work was more

869
00:47:39,880 --> 00:47:44,120
Speaker 2: characterized by sustained drones rather than what we think of

870
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:46,840
Speaker 2: when we think about Philip Glass, Steve Wright or Terry

871
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:52,080
Speaker 2: Riley of like these repeating rhythmic figures or phasing experiments

872
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:55,959
Speaker 2: or small melodic cells that are being mix and match

873
00:47:56,000 --> 00:48:03,160
Speaker 2: and overlapping. Monty was super into just extremely sustained tones

874
00:48:04,200 --> 00:48:07,400
Speaker 2: and the theater of eternal music or the dream Syndicate

875
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:12,319
Speaker 2: known by both was a truly you had to be

876
00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:15,839
Speaker 2: their thing that all of these different Downtown New York

877
00:48:15,920 --> 00:48:20,319
Speaker 2: artists talk about as being basically an incubator for all

878
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:22,759
Speaker 2: of the minimalist composers that would come out of that

879
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:26,759
Speaker 2: and help define that movement. And it was him his

880
00:48:27,520 --> 00:48:33,960
Speaker 2: wife Marian's Azila who designed the lighting for I believe

881
00:48:34,280 --> 00:48:38,479
Speaker 2: the still in Operation dream House. Yeah, I went there, yeah,

882
00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:42,040
Speaker 2: And is it in Soho or Tribeca Tribecca Yeah, and

883
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:46,000
Speaker 2: their vocal guru whose name is Pandit pran Nath and

884
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:51,000
Speaker 2: the feature Vu drummer Anglis maclice Kale was involved in that,

885
00:48:51,120 --> 00:48:54,920
Speaker 2: and this guy Tony Conrad, and so they would basically

886
00:48:55,000 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 2: just use they used like signal generators from the from

887
00:48:58,120 --> 00:49:01,120
Speaker 2: like old military equipment, old radio equipment to create sine

888
00:49:01,160 --> 00:49:05,400
Speaker 2: waves and then they would just sing like incredibly in tune,

889
00:49:05,680 --> 00:49:11,839
Speaker 2: precisely tuned notes or and then have the have guitarists

890
00:49:12,160 --> 00:49:15,440
Speaker 2: or I think Tony Conrad at one point was boeing

891
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:18,200
Speaker 2: a guitar. But like John Cale and Tony Conrad both

892
00:49:18,239 --> 00:49:22,120
Speaker 2: amplified their instruments to compete with the sound of amplified voices,

893
00:49:22,920 --> 00:49:25,960
Speaker 2: and they focused on they were intensely focused on pitch.

894
00:49:26,520 --> 00:49:29,480
Speaker 2: LaMonte Young was really interested and it still is. He's

895
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:33,440
Speaker 2: still alive in this thing called just intonation, where in

896
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:40,000
Speaker 2: the Western tempered scale, we basically crunched the overtone series

897
00:49:40,040 --> 00:49:43,760
Speaker 2: that occurs naturally when you hit a fundamental note into

898
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:46,840
Speaker 2: make make it fit into the twelve tone series that

899
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:49,359
Speaker 2: Western music is based off of. And what that did

900
00:49:49,440 --> 00:49:53,600
Speaker 2: was force the ratios of those overtone series out of

901
00:49:53,680 --> 00:49:56,799
Speaker 2: sync with each other, creating uneven ratios. And this goes

902
00:49:56,840 --> 00:49:59,160
Speaker 2: back to Pythagorean tuning and all this stuff where there

903
00:49:59,200 --> 00:50:02,239
Speaker 2: are three two or two to three and different at

904
00:50:02,239 --> 00:50:06,680
Speaker 2: different points in the scale. And what just intonation does

905
00:50:06,800 --> 00:50:10,560
Speaker 2: is it retunes any instrument. You have to retune an

906
00:50:10,719 --> 00:50:15,000
Speaker 2: entire piano to this to a system in which the

907
00:50:15,040 --> 00:50:19,080
Speaker 2: relationships between those overtones are back to being completely even

908
00:50:19,120 --> 00:50:21,960
Speaker 2: with one another. And you can also do it on

909
00:50:22,000 --> 00:50:26,600
Speaker 2: fretless instruments, because even though you can play Western tempered

910
00:50:26,640 --> 00:50:29,279
Speaker 2: scale in tune on a fretless instrument, you can also

911
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:33,759
Speaker 2: play in just intonation and it sounds weird. I would

912
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:36,840
Speaker 2: recommend everyone check out LaMonte Jung's The Well Tuned Piano,

913
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:39,600
Speaker 2: which is apparently a still being refined six and a

914
00:50:39,640 --> 00:50:44,520
Speaker 2: half hour piece where he just plays this enormous concert Bosendorff,

915
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:47,920
Speaker 2: which is like a German piano that has like a

916
00:50:47,960 --> 00:50:52,000
Speaker 2: full extra octave range at its bottom, and he just

917
00:50:52,080 --> 00:50:55,600
Speaker 2: kind of noodles around in this just intonation and it

918
00:50:55,719 --> 00:50:59,799
Speaker 2: sounds like Martian music. It's really incredible. And Tony Conrad's

919
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:02,360
Speaker 2: part in that has actually been really overlooked. Because he

920
00:51:02,440 --> 00:51:05,480
Speaker 2: was a mathematician, he was able to really define the

921
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:08,279
Speaker 2: frequency side of this in a way that Lemonty either

922
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:10,920
Speaker 2: didn't let on that he was able to or didn't

923
00:51:10,960 --> 00:51:13,040
Speaker 2: know as much about as Conrad. And that's something John

924
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:15,759
Speaker 2: Kaal has said where he's like Tony because of his

925
00:51:15,800 --> 00:51:18,400
Speaker 2: philosophical differences with LEMONTI was kind of written out of

926
00:51:18,400 --> 00:51:21,120
Speaker 2: this narrative but the idea of figuring out all this

927
00:51:21,239 --> 00:51:24,160
Speaker 2: math stuff was largely because of Tony Conrad, and they

928
00:51:24,200 --> 00:51:27,319
Speaker 2: would do these happenings or whatever the Theater of Eternal Music,

929
00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:30,800
Speaker 2: where they would just for hours just sit and focus

930
00:51:30,840 --> 00:51:35,560
Speaker 2: on extremely in tune singing pitches and bode tones and

931
00:51:35,600 --> 00:51:39,320
Speaker 2: these creating these drones, trying to tune their ears precisely

932
00:51:39,400 --> 00:51:42,040
Speaker 2: to be able to stop what they call difference tones,

933
00:51:42,080 --> 00:51:44,879
Speaker 2: like the oscillations that happen when two notes aren't quite

934
00:51:44,920 --> 00:51:46,640
Speaker 2: exactly in tune with each other. They were trying to

935
00:51:46,640 --> 00:51:50,600
Speaker 2: eliminate all of that, and they would go for hours

936
00:51:50,640 --> 00:51:54,040
Speaker 2: on this. They drank hash milkshakes, which was a specialty

937
00:51:54,040 --> 00:51:56,560
Speaker 2: of Lamonti's, and people would just come and go and

938
00:51:56,640 --> 00:52:00,000
Speaker 2: just listen to this and it sounds. Lamonti was also

939
00:52:00,040 --> 00:52:03,239
Speaker 2: a very accomplished saxophone player, which is interesting because you

940
00:52:03,239 --> 00:52:06,480
Speaker 2: think about him being this father of these sustained static drones.

941
00:52:06,520 --> 00:52:09,200
Speaker 2: But he was like, when you listen to Dream Syndicate stuff,

942
00:52:09,280 --> 00:52:12,000
Speaker 2: or at least or sorry theaterre Eternal Music, there's a

943
00:52:12,000 --> 00:52:14,279
Speaker 2: different band called dream Syndicate at least some of the

944
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:17,360
Speaker 2: stuff that's been bootlegged and released. He's playing these wild

945
00:52:17,560 --> 00:52:21,400
Speaker 2: like Coltrane esque scales, like all up and down over

946
00:52:21,440 --> 00:52:24,239
Speaker 2: these drones, and you can actually hear that influence on

947
00:52:24,360 --> 00:52:28,719
Speaker 2: Terry Riley, like stuff like rainbow and curved air. All

948
00:52:28,760 --> 00:52:33,160
Speaker 2: the little keyboard flourishes that Terry Riley bases his stuff

949
00:52:33,200 --> 00:52:35,320
Speaker 2: on are very reminiscent of what LaMonte was playing in

950
00:52:35,360 --> 00:52:39,160
Speaker 2: these settings. And the craziest part about it is that,

951
00:52:39,480 --> 00:52:41,960
Speaker 2: aside from the fact that they played ungodly loud, lou

952
00:52:42,000 --> 00:52:45,160
Speaker 2: Reid would later quip when people said that Metal Machine Music,

953
00:52:45,160 --> 00:52:48,759
Speaker 2: which is his guitar drone record based mostly on feedback,

954
00:52:49,120 --> 00:52:50,960
Speaker 2: when people said that was hard to listen to or

955
00:52:50,960 --> 00:52:53,080
Speaker 2: too loud, Reid would say, you should have heard the

956
00:52:53,120 --> 00:52:56,280
Speaker 2: Dream Syndicate. And it's wild that none of this stuff

957
00:52:56,320 --> 00:53:00,600
Speaker 2: is in wide release. Part of the big difference that Lamonti,

958
00:53:00,680 --> 00:53:03,600
Speaker 2: the big beef that he has between him John Klee

959
00:53:03,640 --> 00:53:07,720
Speaker 2: and Tony Conrad Tony Conrad passed recently, is that Lamonti

960
00:53:07,800 --> 00:53:10,960
Speaker 2: recorded all of this stuff, but he believes that it's

961
00:53:11,000 --> 00:53:13,960
Speaker 2: his property, that he holds the right to the compositions,

962
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:17,200
Speaker 2: And Tony Conrad's whole thing was like, no, these were improvisations.

963
00:53:17,640 --> 00:53:20,080
Speaker 2: You developed this tuning system and the whole point of this,

964
00:53:20,160 --> 00:53:23,399
Speaker 2: based on my input, these should not be considered your

965
00:53:23,440 --> 00:53:26,960
Speaker 2: copyrighted works, and so Lamonti won't officially release any of

966
00:53:27,000 --> 00:53:30,080
Speaker 2: it while he's still alive because he's demanding that. Kale

967
00:53:30,560 --> 00:53:33,279
Speaker 2: and I guess Conrad's a state or whoever relinquished their

968
00:53:33,280 --> 00:53:35,440
Speaker 2: claims to these compositions. So you can only hear it

969
00:53:35,520 --> 00:53:38,640
Speaker 2: in like the Todd Haynes documentary and some of these bootlegs,

970
00:53:38,920 --> 00:53:41,359
Speaker 2: but it is really fascinating music and pretet.

971
00:53:41,120 --> 00:53:44,200
Speaker 1: Dream house what's that? And then dream House.

972
00:53:44,200 --> 00:53:46,479
Speaker 2: So you can hear it in the dream House. Yeah.

973
00:53:46,600 --> 00:53:48,800
Speaker 2: So if you're ever in Tribeca, check that thing out.

974
00:53:49,000 --> 00:53:50,520
Speaker 2: It's like one of those things where people talk about

975
00:53:50,560 --> 00:53:52,400
Speaker 2: going into and being like huh, this is weird, and

976
00:53:52,440 --> 00:53:55,120
Speaker 2: then like coming to four hours later and being like.

977
00:53:55,120 --> 00:53:58,399
Speaker 1: My god, yeah, it was exactly my experience. So, I mean,

978
00:53:59,120 --> 00:54:01,839
Speaker 1: just as some who kind of only dips his toe

979
00:54:01,880 --> 00:54:03,680
Speaker 1: into this world, I feel like I can speak to

980
00:54:03,719 --> 00:54:07,560
Speaker 1: people who are, you know, not super familiar sure from

981
00:54:07,600 --> 00:54:10,759
Speaker 1: a I mean, it's basically this little walk up in

982
00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:13,600
Speaker 1: Tribeca and you go, you know, up a couple of

983
00:54:13,640 --> 00:54:16,000
Speaker 1: floors and it's like you're entering somebody's apartment and you

984
00:54:16,040 --> 00:54:19,360
Speaker 1: walk in and it's just completely empty except for this

985
00:54:19,480 --> 00:54:24,799
Speaker 1: very strange, almost purply vu light vu. The windows are

986
00:54:24,800 --> 00:54:29,520
Speaker 1: all covered up and there's this very almost eerie ethereal light,

987
00:54:29,640 --> 00:54:33,760
Speaker 1: and then there's this tone, and otherwise the room's completely empty.

988
00:54:33,800 --> 00:54:35,760
Speaker 1: I think it's just like white carpet and white walls.

989
00:54:36,239 --> 00:54:40,160
Speaker 1: And what I was able to take from it was

990
00:54:40,680 --> 00:54:44,920
Speaker 1: it's just this tone playing constantly. But after a while,

991
00:54:45,880 --> 00:54:49,719
Speaker 1: you really do start to pick out different frequencies in

992
00:54:49,880 --> 00:54:52,719
Speaker 1: the tone after you're there long enough. It's almost like

993
00:54:52,760 --> 00:54:57,600
Speaker 1: the oral equivalent of a sensory deprivation chamber. You've ever

994
00:54:57,680 --> 00:55:00,759
Speaker 1: done a float tank, for example, first your board and

995
00:55:00,800 --> 00:55:02,960
Speaker 1: you're like, okay, I get it, and then you do

996
00:55:03,080 --> 00:55:04,879
Speaker 1: sort of go away. And I don't know how much

997
00:55:04,920 --> 00:55:09,439
Speaker 1: of it it is based on beta waves, theta waves, whatever,

998
00:55:09,480 --> 00:55:13,279
Speaker 1: those those sonic sound waves are where that a certain

999
00:55:13,400 --> 00:55:15,799
Speaker 1: vibration it's supposed to calm you or I don't know

1000
00:55:15,800 --> 00:55:17,839
Speaker 1: how much of it is that at play, or how

1001
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:20,279
Speaker 1: much of it is your mind, you know, looking for

1002
00:55:20,360 --> 00:55:23,040
Speaker 1: shapes and clouds in the sonic sense, like how much

1003
00:55:23,040 --> 00:55:25,800
Speaker 1: you're just looking for other things. A lot of it's interesting.

1004
00:55:25,840 --> 00:55:28,600
Speaker 1: It was very interesting. I spent a lot longer there

1005
00:55:28,640 --> 00:55:30,120
Speaker 1: than I ever thought I would. I feel like we

1006
00:55:30,120 --> 00:55:31,520
Speaker 1: were in there for like an hour and a half

1007
00:55:31,520 --> 00:55:32,080
Speaker 1: two hours.

1008
00:55:32,560 --> 00:55:35,040
Speaker 2: That's what I find so interesting about minimalist music, and

1009
00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:38,200
Speaker 2: especially this this Velvet Underground record, which, as I mentioned,

1010
00:55:38,400 --> 00:55:41,160
Speaker 2: maybe it's not my favorite Velvet Undground record, but I

1011
00:55:41,160 --> 00:55:45,560
Speaker 2: think it's the most fascinating mix of Kale's avant garde

1012
00:55:45,600 --> 00:55:49,239
Speaker 2: stuff and Lou the do wop songwriter for Higher Guy.

1013
00:55:50,719 --> 00:55:53,880
Speaker 2: But yeah, man, it's all about like trying to interrogate

1014
00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:56,600
Speaker 2: your relationship with sound. Really, it's like if you distill

1015
00:55:56,680 --> 00:56:00,520
Speaker 2: things down to a single note or two or whatever

1016
00:56:00,600 --> 00:56:02,440
Speaker 2: and just hold it for as long as possible, Like

1017
00:56:02,480 --> 00:56:06,320
Speaker 2: it's almost psychoacoustic, like what is your ear gonna find

1018
00:56:06,360 --> 00:56:08,920
Speaker 2: in there? Because you know, you reach a point. It

1019
00:56:09,000 --> 00:56:11,640
Speaker 2: might have been John Cage who said something like if

1020
00:56:11,640 --> 00:56:13,919
Speaker 2: you do something and it's boring, try doing it again

1021
00:56:14,000 --> 00:56:17,600
Speaker 2: for ninety minutes, because like it really does affect the

1022
00:56:17,640 --> 00:56:20,879
Speaker 2: way that you are perceiving these sounds. It's just really

1023
00:56:20,880 --> 00:56:21,920
Speaker 2: fascinating stuff to me.

1024
00:56:22,239 --> 00:56:25,040
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's a slightly more drawn out version

1025
00:56:25,120 --> 00:56:26,879
Speaker 1: of like saying the same word over and over again

1026
00:56:26,920 --> 00:56:29,239
Speaker 1: until to sound weird and just kind of decompose.

1027
00:56:29,960 --> 00:56:32,160
Speaker 2: Man, have you ever heard I am sitting in a room?

1028
00:56:32,680 --> 00:56:34,600
Speaker 1: Wait, why do I know that? Why do I know that?

1029
00:56:34,680 --> 00:56:36,319
Speaker 1: Is that Steve Reich? It sounds for me.

1030
00:56:36,360 --> 00:56:38,799
Speaker 2: I know it's Alvin Lucier, but it is a piece

1031
00:56:38,840 --> 00:56:40,560
Speaker 2: of sound art from around the same era. It's in

1032
00:56:40,640 --> 00:56:43,920
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine, and he just is narrating a text

1033
00:56:44,480 --> 00:56:47,880
Speaker 2: in an empty room and re recording it over and

1034
00:56:47,960 --> 00:56:50,360
Speaker 2: over again. And because of the size of the room

1035
00:56:51,160 --> 00:56:55,400
Speaker 2: and its structure, the resonant frequencies end up changing with

1036
00:56:55,560 --> 00:56:59,840
Speaker 2: each subsequent overdub. Really fascinating stuff.

1037
00:57:00,320 --> 00:57:02,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there would be I mean speaking of you

1038
00:57:02,920 --> 00:57:05,200
Speaker 1: know you just said John Cage just quote about you know,

1039
00:57:05,320 --> 00:57:07,160
Speaker 1: you think something is boring, try doing it over and

1040
00:57:07,160 --> 00:57:11,719
Speaker 1: over and over again. There is a piece that John

1041
00:57:11,800 --> 00:57:14,560
Speaker 1: Cale played, I think it was John Cages where it

1042
00:57:14,640 --> 00:57:18,760
Speaker 1: was a fairly simple piano fragment that was to be played.

1043
00:57:18,840 --> 00:57:22,000
Speaker 1: It was written in the notation just repeated some phenomenal

1044
00:57:22,040 --> 00:57:25,160
Speaker 1: number of times until you're playing it for eighteen hours.

1045
00:57:25,480 --> 00:57:29,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm thinking of There's also La Monte composition that

1046
00:57:29,880 --> 00:57:32,800
Speaker 2: he would He made these sort of dotaist compositions where

1047
00:57:32,840 --> 00:57:35,840
Speaker 2: one is just like composition number six, like go draw

1048
00:57:35,880 --> 00:57:38,520
Speaker 2: a straight line and follow it. But like one of

1049
00:57:38,520 --> 00:57:41,240
Speaker 2: them is just a perfect fit. It's a be in

1050
00:57:41,280 --> 00:57:44,400
Speaker 2: an F sharp and it just says to be held

1051
00:57:44,440 --> 00:57:46,760
Speaker 2: for a long time. So people have taken that and

1052
00:57:46,840 --> 00:57:49,040
Speaker 2: run with it. I do it with guitars. I've done

1053
00:57:49,040 --> 00:57:52,240
Speaker 2: performances of it with guitars. People put like, we'll do

1054
00:57:52,280 --> 00:57:56,200
Speaker 2: it on piano, with trying to prolong the sound for

1055
00:57:56,240 --> 00:57:58,280
Speaker 2: as long as possible. It's just, I mean, it's just

1056
00:57:58,680 --> 00:58:00,440
Speaker 2: people ask me why. I Like, people are like, oh,

1057
00:58:00,480 --> 00:58:02,040
Speaker 2: this is boring, or like why you spend so much

1058
00:58:02,040 --> 00:58:03,840
Speaker 2: time listening to like one note or whatever, And I

1059
00:58:03,880 --> 00:58:06,640
Speaker 2: just think it's such a fascinating way to rewire your

1060
00:58:06,720 --> 00:58:09,600
Speaker 2: relationship with sound and then ultimately music.

1061
00:58:09,880 --> 00:58:12,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's you know, in a way, it's

1062
00:58:12,360 --> 00:58:14,320
Speaker 1: there's two ways of looking at it, I think. And

1063
00:58:14,360 --> 00:58:17,040
Speaker 1: I haven't given any forethought into this. This is straight

1064
00:58:17,080 --> 00:58:20,520
Speaker 1: off off the top of my head that there's either

1065
00:58:21,040 --> 00:58:23,680
Speaker 1: you'd be amazed what you can find in that one note,

1066
00:58:23,680 --> 00:58:25,800
Speaker 1: which is my experience going at dream House and just

1067
00:58:25,880 --> 00:58:29,479
Speaker 1: hearing this tone, or it's like an oral fast where

1068
00:58:29,800 --> 00:58:33,400
Speaker 1: once it's over and you go back and you you

1069
00:58:33,440 --> 00:58:37,560
Speaker 1: reintegrate into the world and the tone system that we

1070
00:58:37,680 --> 00:58:40,560
Speaker 1: know and the music that we're more accustomed to, it

1071
00:58:40,680 --> 00:58:43,640
Speaker 1: suddenly takes on a whole new flavor. You hear people

1072
00:58:43,640 --> 00:58:47,000
Speaker 1: who undergo fasts and it changes their relationship food and

1073
00:58:47,040 --> 00:58:49,360
Speaker 1: their taste buds change. So, I mean, I guess there's

1074
00:58:49,360 --> 00:58:51,000
Speaker 1: two ways of looking at it. I haven't really been

1075
00:58:51,040 --> 00:58:53,600
Speaker 1: involved with it enough to, you know, feel as though

1076
00:58:53,600 --> 00:58:56,160
Speaker 1: it changed my relationship to sound that much, but I'm

1077
00:58:56,200 --> 00:58:58,680
Speaker 1: sure that if I did it enough times, it might.

1078
00:58:59,200 --> 00:59:04,880
Speaker 1: That's how it works. By first, one's free. Well, this

1079
00:59:04,920 --> 00:59:07,200
Speaker 1: is very fascinate. Thank you. I always I like when,

1080
00:59:07,240 --> 00:59:09,560
Speaker 1: oh yeah, of course, when you teach me about the

1081
00:59:09,760 --> 00:59:11,680
Speaker 1: I mean, one of my favorite aspects of this show

1082
00:59:11,720 --> 00:59:13,480
Speaker 1: is when you teach me about things that you're really

1083
00:59:13,520 --> 00:59:15,680
Speaker 1: passionate about that I really know very little about. Because

1084
00:59:15,680 --> 00:59:20,600
Speaker 1: there's nothing more that I love than hearing somebody's passionate

1085
00:59:20,640 --> 00:59:23,200
Speaker 1: about something that I know nothing about, because I love

1086
00:59:23,280 --> 00:59:24,880
Speaker 1: that to hear. I mean, that's kind of the ethos

1087
00:59:24,920 --> 00:59:28,919
Speaker 1: of this show. Like, you know, I love to hear

1088
00:59:29,000 --> 00:59:32,440
Speaker 1: what people are into and why, because I feel like

1089
00:59:32,760 --> 00:59:35,479
Speaker 1: you know everything you could possibly think of. There's somebody

1090
00:59:35,520 --> 00:59:36,360
Speaker 1: who's obsessed with it.

1091
00:59:36,440 --> 00:59:38,960
Speaker 2: I think that's really cool. I love the frequency side

1092
00:59:38,960 --> 00:59:40,280
Speaker 2: of things. I'm not good enough, I mean, thank you.

1093
00:59:40,320 --> 00:59:42,800
Speaker 2: I'm not good enough at math to like understand that

1094
00:59:42,960 --> 00:59:45,040
Speaker 2: much of it other than the reader's digest version I

1095
00:59:45,120 --> 00:59:50,000
Speaker 2: just gave. But like Glenn Bronca Harrisburg, Pennsylvania native, like myself,

1096
00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:54,560
Speaker 2: was this no wave composer and minimalist guy, sort of

1097
00:59:54,640 --> 00:59:58,760
Speaker 2: minim minimalist because of course they drilled down into post

1098
00:59:58,880 --> 01:00:04,240
Speaker 2: minimalism afterwards. But he was doing this crazy with guitars

1099
01:00:04,880 --> 01:00:08,240
Speaker 2: where he was like basically mutilating them and creating these

1100
01:00:08,360 --> 01:00:13,160
Speaker 2: giant like double necked instruments or just kpoing them incorrectly

1101
01:00:13,240 --> 01:00:17,280
Speaker 2: at different harmonic points and then getting like twelve people

1102
01:00:17,320 --> 01:00:20,600
Speaker 2: to play them at once, just like these aggressive single

1103
01:00:20,640 --> 01:00:23,840
Speaker 2: note strums. That stuff's really wild. And then I mean,

1104
01:00:24,000 --> 01:00:26,520
Speaker 2: what got me into this stuff is actually a kid

1105
01:00:26,560 --> 01:00:30,800
Speaker 2: in college who shared with me. Risk Chatham's a Crimson Grail,

1106
01:00:31,800 --> 01:00:34,680
Speaker 2: which is not I don't maybe maybe on streamers, but

1107
01:00:35,680 --> 01:00:38,760
Speaker 2: the most famous recording of it is with like I

1108
01:00:38,800 --> 01:00:41,520
Speaker 2: want to say four hundred guitars, but it might actually

1109
01:00:41,520 --> 01:00:43,960
Speaker 2: it might be one one. He has staged performances of

1110
01:00:43,960 --> 01:00:47,080
Speaker 2: this piece with one to four hundred guitars electric guitars.

1111
01:00:47,520 --> 01:00:50,080
Speaker 2: And the thing I love about drum music, and particularly

1112
01:00:50,560 --> 01:00:53,560
Speaker 2: amplified drum music is that even if you are this

1113
01:00:53,600 --> 01:00:56,120
Speaker 2: goes into the thing about like hearing what's not there

1114
01:00:56,200 --> 01:00:58,960
Speaker 2: or like your ear finding stuff, is that when you

1115
01:00:59,000 --> 01:01:02,800
Speaker 2: start stacking up these overtones with intense volume, that is

1116
01:01:02,840 --> 01:01:05,640
Speaker 2: really when you start to hear like angels singing, and

1117
01:01:06,720 --> 01:01:09,280
Speaker 2: just being like, what am I actually hearing coming from

1118
01:01:09,320 --> 01:01:13,960
Speaker 2: these relatively simple sound sources. It's just I don't know,

1119
01:01:14,120 --> 01:01:16,160
Speaker 2: I'm getting chills talking about it because I just remember

1120
01:01:16,320 --> 01:01:18,240
Speaker 2: listening to that album for the first time, really stoned

1121
01:01:18,280 --> 01:01:18,840
Speaker 2: and being like.

1122
01:01:18,960 --> 01:02:03,560
Speaker 1: What is going on? This is the divine music. It's

1123
01:02:03,600 --> 01:02:06,360
Speaker 1: like musical magic eye. I mean it really all of

1124
01:02:06,400 --> 01:02:09,280
Speaker 1: a sudden exactly's out. Yeah, but then if you think

1125
01:02:09,280 --> 01:02:10,880
Speaker 1: about it too much, you lose it and you kind

1126
01:02:10,880 --> 01:02:13,120
Speaker 1: of have to like let it go. Yeah, No, I

1127
01:02:13,160 --> 01:02:16,240
Speaker 1: get it. I just I'm not. It's not something that

1128
01:02:16,440 --> 01:02:19,880
Speaker 1: I do with any level of frequency, but I yeah, no,

1129
01:02:19,960 --> 01:02:22,000
Speaker 1: I understand it anyway.

1130
01:02:22,080 --> 01:02:26,720
Speaker 2: Good luck editing around all that. Lou Reading John Klee's

1131
01:02:26,720 --> 01:02:28,560
Speaker 2: friendship Go Adorable.

1132
01:02:29,120 --> 01:02:31,600
Speaker 1: Cale would say that lou Read was his first real

1133
01:02:31,680 --> 01:02:34,560
Speaker 1: friend in America, teaching him about literature and how to

1134
01:02:34,600 --> 01:02:38,720
Speaker 1: survive in New York A tall order. In nineteen sixty four,

1135
01:02:39,680 --> 01:02:42,400
Speaker 1: John Cale repaid the favor by offering a crash course

1136
01:02:42,440 --> 01:02:46,080
Speaker 1: on avant garde music and more importantly, encouragement It's Like

1137
01:02:46,120 --> 01:02:50,840
Speaker 1: You and Me. Cale later said that Lou was low

1138
01:02:51,000 --> 01:02:53,200
Speaker 1: energy at the time he first got to know him.

1139
01:02:53,240 --> 01:02:57,240
Speaker 1: That's his quote. Because Lou was struggling with depression. Cale

1140
01:02:57,440 --> 01:03:00,240
Speaker 1: was somebody that Lou respected. It meant the world that

1141
01:03:00,320 --> 01:03:03,800
Speaker 1: Cale liked his work. Lew had started to play Kale

1142
01:03:03,800 --> 01:03:06,720
Speaker 1: some of the songs he was writing, and specifically ones

1143
01:03:06,720 --> 01:03:10,240
Speaker 1: that Pickwick executives had no interest in, and the first

1144
01:03:10,280 --> 01:03:14,040
Speaker 1: of these that he played Kale was Heroin, and though

1145
01:03:14,120 --> 01:03:17,400
Speaker 1: Kale wasn't particularly interested in the acoustic, folky vibe of

1146
01:03:17,440 --> 01:03:21,600
Speaker 1: the song's early incarnation, he was drawn to lose highly literary,

1147
01:03:21,680 --> 01:03:26,000
Speaker 1: almost novelistic lyrics. They injected a dose of street realism

1148
01:03:26,040 --> 01:03:28,560
Speaker 1: into a music scene that was at that time infatuated

1149
01:03:28,600 --> 01:03:30,080
Speaker 1: with the British invasion.

1150
01:03:29,880 --> 01:03:33,480
Speaker 2: And the California coast and the Greenwich Village folk scene.

1151
01:03:34,280 --> 01:03:38,080
Speaker 1: Lou's words had to do with stark, everyday reality in

1152
01:03:38,160 --> 01:03:41,640
Speaker 1: Cale's recollection Lou's lyrics rejected the notion of Bob Dylan

1153
01:03:41,680 --> 01:03:45,040
Speaker 1: and Joan Biaz's songs, which in his eyes had more

1154
01:03:45,080 --> 01:03:48,800
Speaker 1: to do with asking questions. Better to make a statement,

1155
01:03:48,920 --> 01:03:51,680
Speaker 1: Cale would say, Lou told Cale that Pickwick wouldn't let

1156
01:03:51,720 --> 01:03:55,720
Speaker 1: him record these songs like Heroin for obvious reasons, and

1157
01:03:55,800 --> 01:03:58,320
Speaker 1: Cale thought this was a tremendous shame. He would say,

1158
01:03:58,360 --> 01:04:00,760
Speaker 1: it kind of pissed me off. Said let's just do

1159
01:04:00,800 --> 01:04:03,120
Speaker 1: it ourselves. Let's put a band together and go out

1160
01:04:03,160 --> 01:04:06,920
Speaker 1: there and play them. And that's where an underground started.

1161
01:04:08,200 --> 01:04:10,120
Speaker 1: So they hold up in the Filthy apartment on the

1162
01:04:10,120 --> 01:04:12,240
Speaker 1: Lower east Side, which at that time was a neighborhood

1163
01:04:12,280 --> 01:04:14,960
Speaker 1: so rough that the landlord collected rent with a gun.

1164
01:04:17,160 --> 01:04:21,040
Speaker 1: The pair literally had no money, and they survived by

1165
01:04:21,080 --> 01:04:24,560
Speaker 1: finding wood in the street to burn for heat and

1166
01:04:24,600 --> 01:04:27,480
Speaker 1: throwing all the food they found into a communal bowl

1167
01:04:27,680 --> 01:04:30,840
Speaker 1: in the kitchen. That that fat breaks my heart.

1168
01:04:33,400 --> 01:04:35,840
Speaker 2: Is gross, Well, yeah, but it's kind.

1169
01:04:35,680 --> 01:04:41,400
Speaker 1: Of Tokensie and John Kle felt safe with Lou, who

1170
01:04:41,440 --> 01:04:44,760
Speaker 1: was a local and more importantly, a survivor. They spent

1171
01:04:44,800 --> 01:04:47,880
Speaker 1: a year rehearsing and developing their material, with Kle serving

1172
01:04:47,880 --> 01:04:51,320
Speaker 1: as an arranger, adding an experimental touch to lose more

1173
01:04:51,720 --> 01:04:58,120
Speaker 1: pop centric or at least melodic songs. Well sure, both

1174
01:04:58,200 --> 01:05:01,240
Speaker 1: Lou and John Kle had a s gifts for improvisation

1175
01:05:01,480 --> 01:05:04,439
Speaker 1: and jams that their shared apartment would go on all

1176
01:05:04,520 --> 01:05:07,880
Speaker 1: the time. Surprisingly, they had a lot of success as

1177
01:05:07,960 --> 01:05:12,720
Speaker 1: buskers performing louse songs in Harlem, but otherwise they made

1178
01:05:12,720 --> 01:05:16,160
Speaker 1: money by checks notes selling drugs.

1179
01:05:16,440 --> 01:05:19,920
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, time honored tradition. Also, they were on welfare.

1180
01:05:19,960 --> 01:05:21,760
Speaker 2: It's important to note that most of your favorite mid

1181
01:05:21,800 --> 01:05:24,360
Speaker 2: century art was made while all of these people were

1182
01:05:24,400 --> 01:05:30,280
Speaker 2: benefiting from a robust public endowment that was systematically gutted

1183
01:05:30,560 --> 01:05:33,160
Speaker 2: after they were able to do all this. And what

1184
01:05:33,240 --> 01:05:33,919
Speaker 2: was the rent again?

1185
01:05:34,200 --> 01:05:37,680
Speaker 1: Twenty five dollars a month, which was what Lou made

1186
01:05:37,680 --> 01:05:38,920
Speaker 1: a week at Pickwick.

1187
01:05:39,120 --> 01:05:45,600
Speaker 2: So yeah, sitting pretty well sixty was nineteen sixty six

1188
01:05:45,760 --> 01:05:46,440
Speaker 2: sixty seven.

1189
01:05:46,520 --> 01:05:51,439
Speaker 1: This was sixty five four or five dollar infliction second

1190
01:05:51,440 --> 01:05:54,080
Speaker 1: three hundred dollars two hundred and forty five dollars and

1191
01:05:54,120 --> 01:05:55,400
Speaker 1: seventy nine cents.

1192
01:05:55,880 --> 01:05:57,840
Speaker 2: You might be lucky to pay that much for a

1193
01:05:57,920 --> 01:06:00,520
Speaker 2: toilet in New York that you could use all by

1194
01:06:00,600 --> 01:06:01,240
Speaker 2: your lonesome.

1195
01:06:01,400 --> 01:06:03,240
Speaker 1: That's like half a parking spot.

1196
01:06:03,680 --> 01:06:07,480
Speaker 2: That's true, that is yeah, yeah, good lord.

1197
01:06:07,680 --> 01:06:10,800
Speaker 1: Anyway, moving on, John Cale and Lou Reid brought guitarist

1198
01:06:10,840 --> 01:06:13,600
Speaker 1: Sterling Morrison into the mix after a chance meeting on

1199
01:06:13,680 --> 01:06:18,120
Speaker 1: the subway. Morrison and Reid had been classmates together at Syracuse,

1200
01:06:18,480 --> 01:06:21,240
Speaker 1: and after reconnecting on the public transit system, they decided

1201
01:06:21,240 --> 01:06:24,760
Speaker 1: to get together and jam. The trio rehearsed and recorded

1202
01:06:24,800 --> 01:06:28,640
Speaker 1: demos in the famous Ludlow Street apartment throughout the summer

1203
01:06:28,680 --> 01:06:31,479
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty five. And the name for this loose

1204
01:06:31,480 --> 01:06:34,040
Speaker 1: collective morphed from the Primitives, which is the band put

1205
01:06:34,080 --> 01:06:37,640
Speaker 1: together to promote the Ostrich single, to the Warlocks, which

1206
01:06:37,680 --> 01:06:40,320
Speaker 1: was also The Grateful Dead's early name, and then the

1207
01:06:40,360 --> 01:06:44,240
Speaker 1: following Spikes, which kind of rules and I have to

1208
01:06:44,280 --> 01:06:47,000
Speaker 1: assume as a heroin euphemism. Oh yeah, yeah, it's gotta

1209
01:06:47,040 --> 01:06:50,000
Speaker 1: be okay. Until they finally took their soon to be

1210
01:06:50,240 --> 01:06:54,280
Speaker 1: iconic moniker from a paperback expose. And you have a

1211
01:06:54,320 --> 01:06:55,600
Speaker 1: fact about that that I didn't know.

1212
01:06:55,920 --> 01:06:59,920
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Supposedly this was written by journalist named Michael Lay.

1213
01:07:00,000 --> 01:07:02,840
Speaker 2: I didn't look into the rest of his work, but

1214
01:07:03,760 --> 01:07:06,840
Speaker 2: as I mentioned, we alluded to earlier in another rant

1215
01:07:06,840 --> 01:07:10,840
Speaker 2: that Jordan will have extreme difficulty editing around. Tony Conrad

1216
01:07:10,880 --> 01:07:12,520
Speaker 2: had just found a copy of this book lying on

1217
01:07:12,560 --> 01:07:17,400
Speaker 2: the sidewalk, and it was this drummer, Angus McLeese, who

1218
01:07:17,480 --> 01:07:19,720
Speaker 2: is in the Theater of Eternal Music and would become

1219
01:07:19,760 --> 01:07:23,160
Speaker 2: The Velvet's actual first drummer, suggested that they go with

1220
01:07:23,160 --> 01:07:25,720
Speaker 2: the name Good. Then it's good, It's good.

1221
01:07:26,680 --> 01:07:30,520
Speaker 1: Well, this Angus mclea's guy. Once he helped them choose

1222
01:07:30,520 --> 01:07:32,080
Speaker 1: the name for the band, it was kind of a

1223
01:07:32,160 --> 01:07:35,000
Speaker 1: last good call he had. He departed the scene very

1224
01:07:35,080 --> 01:07:37,000
Speaker 1: quickly once the group got their first gig at a

1225
01:07:37,000 --> 01:07:41,880
Speaker 1: New Jersey high school, because he was very uh we'll say, bohemian,

1226
01:07:42,000 --> 01:07:44,200
Speaker 1: and he resented at having to show up at a

1227
01:07:44,200 --> 01:07:47,520
Speaker 1: specific time and place to play, and when he discovered

1228
01:07:47,520 --> 01:07:50,240
Speaker 1: that they be receiving money for their performance, he apparently

1229
01:07:50,320 --> 01:07:53,880
Speaker 1: quit on the spot, grumbling that the band had sold out.

1230
01:07:54,440 --> 01:07:56,720
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, it is really hilarious how people were

1231
01:07:56,720 --> 01:07:59,600
Speaker 2: so hardline about that stuff back then. If only they

1232
01:07:59,640 --> 01:08:00,720
Speaker 2: knew yes.

1233
01:08:01,840 --> 01:08:05,640
Speaker 1: So now, the proto Velvet Underground had no drummer and

1234
01:08:05,640 --> 01:08:07,720
Speaker 1: they were desperate to fill the spot because they had

1235
01:08:07,720 --> 01:08:10,680
Speaker 1: a gig on the horizon. So Sterling Morrison asked his

1236
01:08:10,760 --> 01:08:14,240
Speaker 1: friend Jim Tucker if his sister Maureen known to the

1237
01:08:14,240 --> 01:08:18,320
Speaker 1: world as Mo was available. She was, and thus the

1238
01:08:18,400 --> 01:08:20,920
Speaker 1: classic Velvet Underground lineup was in place.

1239
01:08:21,240 --> 01:08:26,559
Speaker 2: Yeah, Moe Tucker's fascinating drummer. She played all of her

1240
01:08:26,640 --> 01:08:30,000
Speaker 2: drums just on their sides. She taught herself how to drum.

1241
01:08:30,040 --> 01:08:34,240
Speaker 2: Apparently she was really like many drummers, Like many drummers

1242
01:08:34,600 --> 01:08:38,320
Speaker 2: by Babatunde Olatunji's Drums of Passion, which comes up all

1243
01:08:38,360 --> 01:08:41,439
Speaker 2: the game time if you ever read anything about drummers

1244
01:08:41,439 --> 01:08:45,000
Speaker 2: from the sixties. She didn't use a high hat, she

1245
01:08:45,040 --> 01:08:47,920
Speaker 2: didn't use symbols. She used a mallet and a stick

1246
01:08:48,080 --> 01:08:53,160
Speaker 2: and just sort of rolled over these upturned drums. She

1247
01:08:53,240 --> 01:08:58,080
Speaker 2: was apparently inspired as well by Bo Diddley, and in

1248
01:08:58,080 --> 01:09:02,599
Speaker 2: particularly the Bo Diddley beat Damp Dam d dun, which

1249
01:09:02,640 --> 01:09:05,400
Speaker 2: you can kind of hear that darning pattern in her

1250
01:09:05,400 --> 01:09:06,479
Speaker 2: work with the velvets.

1251
01:09:06,680 --> 01:09:09,360
Speaker 1: Her lack of symbols or high hats, how much of

1252
01:09:09,400 --> 01:09:11,680
Speaker 1: that was just like an economic necessity? Was that a

1253
01:09:11,800 --> 01:09:14,160
Speaker 1: choice or was it? Like? Yeah, I mean, I gotta

1254
01:09:14,200 --> 01:09:14,680
Speaker 1: say it was.

1255
01:09:15,160 --> 01:09:17,200
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know anything about her early life,

1256
01:09:17,280 --> 01:09:19,519
Speaker 2: but like you know, most kids, if they start playing

1257
01:09:19,560 --> 01:09:23,000
Speaker 2: in band, they start like just learning fundamentals on like

1258
01:09:23,320 --> 01:09:26,680
Speaker 2: snare or auxiliary percussion before they graduated to a full kit.

1259
01:09:26,720 --> 01:09:29,080
Speaker 2: And she maybe just assembled an ad hoc kit and

1260
01:09:29,160 --> 01:09:31,080
Speaker 2: just always played it the way that she wanted.

1261
01:09:31,680 --> 01:09:36,160
Speaker 1: It's cool, it is. Meanwhile, things did not go well

1262
01:09:36,240 --> 01:09:40,360
Speaker 1: for the Velvets first drummer, Angus mcleae. Per his Wikipedia page,

1263
01:09:40,760 --> 01:09:43,240
Speaker 1: a heavy drug user who was never particularly mindful of

1264
01:09:43,320 --> 01:09:48,040
Speaker 1: his physical health, McLeese died of hypoglycemia and pulmonary tuberculosis

1265
01:09:48,439 --> 01:09:52,320
Speaker 1: at the Shanta Baton Hospital and kafman Do on June

1266
01:09:52,400 --> 01:09:56,479
Speaker 1: twenty first, nineteen seventy nine, aged forty one. The cause

1267
01:09:56,479 --> 01:09:59,440
Speaker 1: of death has been attributed to malnutrition. He was cremated

1268
01:09:59,479 --> 01:10:02,439
Speaker 1: to the tradition of the Tibetan Buddhists in a funeral pyre.

1269
01:10:03,760 --> 01:10:07,880
Speaker 1: Sounds like a lot of easily avoidable things. Yeah, it does,

1270
01:10:08,000 --> 01:10:12,280
Speaker 1: doesn't it. It sure does. That's what happens when you

1271
01:10:12,360 --> 01:10:13,759
Speaker 1: refuse to accept money.

1272
01:10:15,720 --> 01:10:19,400
Speaker 2: Deviation from the norm will be punished unless it is exploitable.

1273
01:10:19,520 --> 01:10:20,800
Speaker 1: Well, we tried to get out of it. He went

1274
01:10:20,840 --> 01:10:23,960
Speaker 1: all over to kathman Do, But you can't escape the West,

1275
01:10:24,439 --> 01:10:24,760
Speaker 1: Thank You.

1276
01:10:27,680 --> 01:10:32,760
Speaker 2: Velvets performed soundtracks for screenings of experimental films. Yeah, they

1277
01:10:32,800 --> 01:10:36,760
Speaker 2: would perform live soundtracks for stuff by Piero Helixer and

1278
01:10:36,920 --> 01:10:41,200
Speaker 2: Barbara Rubin, and they in fact appear in Helixer's nineteen

1279
01:10:41,240 --> 01:10:45,880
Speaker 2: sixty five short film Venus in Furs. Rubin, most known

1280
01:10:45,960 --> 01:10:48,920
Speaker 2: for her nineteen sixty three underground film Christmas on Earth,

1281
01:10:49,120 --> 01:10:51,519
Speaker 2: became a devoted fan of the band through this connection

1282
01:10:51,680 --> 01:10:55,680
Speaker 2: and introduced them to their first manager, music critic Al Aronowitz,

1283
01:10:55,840 --> 01:10:58,519
Speaker 2: most famous for being the person who introduced Bob Dylan

1284
01:10:58,560 --> 01:10:59,160
Speaker 2: to the Beatles.

1285
01:10:59,200 --> 01:11:02,960
Speaker 1: The year prior that was the famous occasion, according to

1286
01:11:02,960 --> 01:11:05,479
Speaker 1: the legend, at least that Bob Dillan introduced the Beatles

1287
01:11:05,520 --> 01:11:09,680
Speaker 1: to pot which has been disputed, but it's still famous.

1288
01:11:09,400 --> 01:11:13,800
Speaker 2: Occurrence indeed, and the rest. Aronowitz was a New York

1289
01:11:13,840 --> 01:11:16,120
Speaker 2: Post columnist by day and a manager at night, and

1290
01:11:16,280 --> 01:11:18,640
Speaker 2: he agreed to manage the Velvets. He paired them with

1291
01:11:18,640 --> 01:11:21,360
Speaker 2: the New Jersey garage rock band Middle Class with a Y,

1292
01:11:21,560 --> 01:11:24,080
Speaker 2: whom he also managed, for a gig at Summit High

1293
01:11:24,080 --> 01:11:27,800
Speaker 2: School in Summit, New Jersey on December eleventh, nineteen sixty five.

1294
01:11:28,160 --> 01:11:30,719
Speaker 2: It won't come to anyone surprise that suburban high school auditoriums,

1295
01:11:30,760 --> 01:11:33,000
Speaker 2: particularly in Jersey, were less than ideal venue for a

1296
01:11:33,040 --> 01:11:36,000
Speaker 2: band with song titles like Heroin. As John Klee says

1297
01:11:36,000 --> 01:11:38,800
Speaker 2: in the American Master's documentary, we were so loud and

1298
01:11:38,840 --> 01:11:42,760
Speaker 2: horrifying to the high school audience that the majority of them, teachers, students,

1299
01:11:42,760 --> 01:11:48,120
Speaker 2: and parents fled screaming. Eventually, the Velvets wrangled a residency

1300
01:11:48,160 --> 01:11:52,280
Speaker 2: at Greenwich Village cub called the Cafe Bizarre. Its name

1301
01:11:52,360 --> 01:11:55,520
Speaker 2: was somewhat optimistic, considering neither the owners nor the patrons

1302
01:11:55,600 --> 01:11:59,000
Speaker 2: enjoyed the sounds of the house band. Kel would say.

1303
01:11:59,080 --> 01:12:01,040
Speaker 2: The joke was, we knew how good we were by

1304
01:12:01,040 --> 01:12:04,320
Speaker 2: how many people we drove out. Velvnondgund attempted to compromise

1305
01:12:04,360 --> 01:12:07,000
Speaker 2: by adding some standard issue rock covers to the repertoire.

1306
01:12:07,360 --> 01:12:11,160
Speaker 2: As guitarist Sturley Morrison, who whips described in a nineteen

1307
01:12:11,240 --> 01:12:13,800
Speaker 2: ninety interview, we got six nights a week at the

1308
01:12:13,840 --> 01:12:17,240
Speaker 2: Cafe bizaar some ungodly number of sets, forty minutes on,

1309
01:12:17,560 --> 01:12:20,680
Speaker 2: twenty minutes off. We played some covers like Little Queenie,

1310
01:12:20,880 --> 01:12:23,200
Speaker 2: Big Bright Lights, Big City, the Black R and B

1311
01:12:23,320 --> 01:12:25,320
Speaker 2: songs Lou and I liked and as many of our

1312
01:12:25,360 --> 01:12:28,639
Speaker 2: own songs as we had. Sterling Morrison is just again

1313
01:12:28,720 --> 01:12:30,559
Speaker 2: lightning in a bottle with this lineup, you know, because

1314
01:12:30,560 --> 01:12:33,280
Speaker 2: he was obsessed with like Steve Cropper and Stacks R

1315
01:12:33,280 --> 01:12:35,679
Speaker 2: and B volt and you hear that in his soloing

1316
01:12:35,720 --> 01:12:38,840
Speaker 2: and his playing. There's one moment there's like a bend

1317
01:12:38,920 --> 01:12:41,720
Speaker 2: he does in Pale Blue Eyes that just like never

1318
01:12:41,760 --> 01:12:44,320
Speaker 2: fails to give me goosebumps. Yeah, man, And it's just

1319
01:12:44,400 --> 01:12:47,000
Speaker 2: he adds just that another wow factor to the band

1320
01:12:47,000 --> 01:12:50,400
Speaker 2: of this like sixties R and B stuff. So anyway,

1321
01:12:50,439 --> 01:12:54,400
Speaker 2: after a few weeks they could not stand this grueling

1322
01:12:54,439 --> 01:12:59,320
Speaker 2: set schedule, and Morrison later told Slugo Magazine one night

1323
01:12:59,360 --> 01:13:01,960
Speaker 2: we played the Black Angel's Death song and the owner

1324
01:13:02,000 --> 01:13:04,400
Speaker 2: came up and said, if you play that song one

1325
01:13:04,400 --> 01:13:07,840
Speaker 2: more time, you're fired. So they opened their next set

1326
01:13:07,840 --> 01:13:11,519
Speaker 2: with it. You've also heard that it was maybe a

1327
01:13:11,520 --> 01:13:15,920
Speaker 2: prolonged version of Sister Ray, which equally disquieting. Your mileage

1328
01:13:15,920 --> 01:13:18,799
Speaker 2: may vary. Whatever the case was. The band were relieved

1329
01:13:18,880 --> 01:13:22,040
Speaker 2: of their post, but not before catching the attention of

1330
01:13:22,160 --> 01:13:24,080
Speaker 2: one Andy Warhol.

1331
01:13:24,680 --> 01:13:26,759
Speaker 1: Yes, the pride of Pittsburgh, PA.

1332
01:13:27,200 --> 01:13:27,559
Speaker 2: Baby.

1333
01:13:27,840 --> 01:13:30,200
Speaker 1: He was never referred to as that. You know, his

1334
01:13:30,320 --> 01:13:33,559
Speaker 1: name was actually Andy Warhola. And when his name was

1335
01:13:33,600 --> 01:13:35,880
Speaker 1: printed once early in his career, they just dropped the A.

1336
01:13:36,000 --> 01:13:37,679
Speaker 1: I think it was like a printing error, and he's

1337
01:13:37,800 --> 01:13:40,800
Speaker 1: liked it. Do you know that, No, I didn't Warhola.

1338
01:13:41,640 --> 01:13:42,440
Speaker 2: Is that Polish?

1339
01:13:42,520 --> 01:13:43,080
Speaker 1: I think it is.

1340
01:13:43,160 --> 01:13:50,439
Speaker 2: Yeah. What did they say when Ted Kaczynski died the

1341
01:13:50,479 --> 01:13:52,880
Speaker 2: Polish lost their last literary icon.

1342
01:13:55,560 --> 01:13:59,360
Speaker 1: I've never heard that. Yeah, who's they? You?

1343
01:13:59,360 --> 01:14:02,240
Speaker 2: No? No, something I saw equipping Twitter quip.

1344
01:14:04,640 --> 01:14:08,439
Speaker 1: Already a prolific painters, sculptor, and filmmaker by nineteen sixty five,

1345
01:14:08,479 --> 01:14:12,000
Speaker 1: Andy Warhol sought to expand his famous factory empire into

1346
01:14:12,080 --> 01:14:16,120
Speaker 1: rock and roll on the advice of factory confidante Paul Morrissey,

1347
01:14:16,520 --> 01:14:19,200
Speaker 1: the thirty seven year old star of the art world.

1348
01:14:19,240 --> 01:14:21,959
Speaker 1: He is one year older than us. When he discovered

1349
01:14:21,960 --> 01:14:24,760
Speaker 1: the Velvet Underground, that's okay, moving on.

1350
01:14:24,840 --> 01:14:29,320
Speaker 2: Things were easier back then. There were fewer people, fewer people,

1351
01:14:30,800 --> 01:14:31,559
Speaker 2: there were.

1352
01:14:33,240 --> 01:14:37,240
Speaker 1: More money, fewer people. Yes, he decided to drop into

1353
01:14:37,280 --> 01:14:40,479
Speaker 1: the Cafe Bazaar and catch the Velvet Underground set, and

1354
01:14:40,560 --> 01:14:42,240
Speaker 1: he was so taken by what he heard that he

1355
01:14:42,280 --> 01:14:45,600
Speaker 1: impulsively extended an offer to act as the band's manager,

1356
01:14:46,040 --> 01:14:51,120
Speaker 1: imagined being the Velvet Undercraft Andy Warhol, But what would

1357
01:14:51,120 --> 01:14:52,040
Speaker 1: the equivalent now be.

1358
01:14:52,120 --> 01:14:52,919
Speaker 2: I mean Big.

1359
01:14:52,760 --> 01:14:57,599
Speaker 1: Banksy dropping in in like a hoodie and a screen

1360
01:14:57,680 --> 01:14:59,800
Speaker 1: mask or something and being like, hey, you're really good.

1361
01:15:00,080 --> 01:15:02,640
Speaker 2: He comes to the gutter at eleven thirty on a

1362
01:15:02,640 --> 01:15:05,240
Speaker 2: Wednesday and he's like, you guys are all right. I'll

1363
01:15:05,280 --> 01:15:09,240
Speaker 2: give you some money and amps and a place to work, and.

1364
01:15:09,240 --> 01:15:11,920
Speaker 1: I'll co sign you whenever you want to do. Yeah,

1365
01:15:12,280 --> 01:15:13,080
Speaker 1: we need to bring.

1366
01:15:12,960 --> 01:15:14,599
Speaker 2: Back patrons to the arts.

1367
01:15:14,600 --> 01:15:14,760
Speaker 1: Man.

1368
01:15:14,840 --> 01:15:17,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's such a it's such a lost leader. Like,

1369
01:15:17,880 --> 01:15:21,000
Speaker 2: right off, everything you could give to a band. Seriously,

1370
01:15:21,120 --> 01:15:25,360
Speaker 2: just fund a band for like two years, complete tax

1371
01:15:25,439 --> 01:15:27,920
Speaker 2: right off. You'll never make your money back from it.

1372
01:15:28,479 --> 01:15:31,360
Speaker 2: Lounder your money that way, starting with me and then

1373
01:15:31,520 --> 01:15:35,720
Speaker 2: a lot of other people. If anyone in the in

1374
01:15:35,760 --> 01:15:39,880
Speaker 2: the SF Bay area knows any you know, cryptodorcs or

1375
01:15:39,920 --> 01:15:42,439
Speaker 2: any of these losers, I will kiss their ass if

1376
01:15:42,439 --> 01:15:44,720
Speaker 2: they give me money, only to turn on them.

1377
01:15:44,520 --> 01:15:51,200
Speaker 1: Immediately, Sayandy Warhol agreed to be The Veiled Underground's manager,

1378
01:15:51,240 --> 01:15:54,479
Speaker 1: but this title would have rather loose connotations. He was

1379
01:15:54,479 --> 01:15:58,160
Speaker 1: basically their executive producer, financing their recordings and giving them

1380
01:15:58,160 --> 01:16:01,880
Speaker 1: spots that is, exploding plastic and inevitable multimedia art shows,

1381
01:16:01,880 --> 01:16:04,320
Speaker 1: which will touch more on later, and using his clout

1382
01:16:04,360 --> 01:16:07,160
Speaker 1: to get them deals. As far as shaping the Velvet

1383
01:16:07,240 --> 01:16:10,200
Speaker 1: Underground sound. However, the most he'd do was hector Low

1384
01:16:10,280 --> 01:16:13,920
Speaker 1: to write more, tossing dozens of potential song titles at

1385
01:16:14,000 --> 01:16:17,240
Speaker 1: him as bait I love this. Lou would later say,

1386
01:16:17,600 --> 01:16:19,840
Speaker 1: I'd come into the factory and Andy would ask me

1387
01:16:19,880 --> 01:16:22,920
Speaker 1: how many songs I'd written. I'd say I've written ten songs.

1388
01:16:23,400 --> 01:16:26,000
Speaker 1: He'd say, that's one of my favorite things is all

1389
01:16:26,040 --> 01:16:28,280
Speaker 1: the interviews of the people in the Velvet Underground would

1390
01:16:28,320 --> 01:16:33,000
Speaker 1: do these withering impressions of Andy Warhol. Oh yeah, every scout,

1391
01:16:33,520 --> 01:16:36,000
Speaker 1: he'd say, it's like Lauren Michael's talking to all like Sam.

1392
01:16:37,479 --> 01:16:39,400
Speaker 1: I'd come in and say I'd written ten songs, and

1393
01:16:39,400 --> 01:16:43,120
Speaker 1: Andy would say, oh, You're so lazy. Why didn't you

1394
01:16:43,120 --> 01:16:46,800
Speaker 1: write fifteen? Clothes? I could work on that.

1395
01:16:46,960 --> 01:16:50,759
Speaker 2: Do you like Crispin Glover in the Oliver Stone Doors

1396
01:16:50,840 --> 01:16:54,559
Speaker 2: movie or do you like Bowie Bowie Warhol in the

1397
01:16:54,600 --> 01:16:55,679
Speaker 2: bask Yacht movie.

1398
01:16:56,040 --> 01:16:58,200
Speaker 1: I mean, there's this guy that I went to college

1399
01:16:58,200 --> 01:17:01,840
Speaker 1: with who basically sounded like a mix of like if

1400
01:17:01,840 --> 01:17:05,040
Speaker 1: you crossed Andy Warhol with Chris from Family Guy, and

1401
01:17:05,120 --> 01:17:08,080
Speaker 1: so he's who I'm He's who I'm doing. Now you're

1402
01:17:08,200 --> 01:17:13,759
Speaker 1: so weird. It's all so weird. You're so weird. Everything

1403
01:17:13,800 --> 01:17:15,960
Speaker 1: was always so weird to him. So that's that's like,

1404
01:17:16,040 --> 01:17:20,080
Speaker 1: who I hear? Now that's pretty good. I can't do it.

1405
01:17:20,960 --> 01:17:22,439
Speaker 2: I'll think it's more effeminine than that.

1406
01:17:22,960 --> 01:17:27,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Andy Warhol did make one significant alteration to

1407
01:17:27,640 --> 01:17:30,839
Speaker 1: the band's sound, fearing that the Velvets lack the requisite

1408
01:17:30,880 --> 01:17:34,640
Speaker 1: glamour to become stars. Glamour was obviously very important to Warhol.

1409
01:17:35,080 --> 01:17:38,439
Speaker 1: He suggested the addition of a striking German model known

1410
01:17:38,479 --> 01:17:42,000
Speaker 1: as Nico, perhaps most famous.

1411
01:17:43,520 --> 01:17:47,080
Speaker 2: I love I mean, yeah, okay, sorry, I don't.

1412
01:17:47,600 --> 01:17:48,639
Speaker 1: I don't much care for her.

1413
01:17:49,280 --> 01:17:51,600
Speaker 2: Oh really, I think she's incredible. Have you listened to

1414
01:17:51,640 --> 01:17:56,200
Speaker 2: her solo stuff? Not Chelsea Girls, but like the goth Ones. Yeah, yeah,

1415
01:17:55,800 --> 01:18:00,479
Speaker 2: they're so dark incredible that just yeah, I mean imagine her,

1416
01:18:00,600 --> 01:18:04,120
Speaker 2: Imagine that woman striding into a room. Sure, she's like

1417
01:18:04,240 --> 01:18:07,280
Speaker 2: six foot tall. The New Yorker once described her quote

1418
01:18:07,479 --> 01:18:13,000
Speaker 2: improbable bone structure, and then she just LEDs out with

1419
01:18:13,040 --> 01:18:18,639
Speaker 2: that voice, Like, what an incredible presence that must have been.

1420
01:18:19,000 --> 01:18:21,880
Speaker 1: Yes, do you have it? You have an interpretation of

1421
01:18:21,960 --> 01:18:28,360
Speaker 1: her voice for me the day. Nika around this time

1422
01:18:28,439 --> 01:18:30,640
Speaker 1: was probably most famous for having a small role in

1423
01:18:30,680 --> 01:18:33,960
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty Fellini film La Dulce Vita, and she

1424
01:18:34,080 --> 01:18:36,600
Speaker 1: was also did you know this I did until researching this.

1425
01:18:36,680 --> 01:18:39,160
Speaker 1: She was the cover model on the nineteen sixty two

1426
01:18:39,240 --> 01:18:41,240
Speaker 1: Bill Evans album Moonbeams.

1427
01:18:41,680 --> 01:18:45,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the first album right after his musical soulmate

1428
01:18:45,320 --> 01:18:48,559
Speaker 2: Scot LaFaro died. And so Chuck Israel's is playing on

1429
01:18:48,600 --> 01:18:52,719
Speaker 2: that Who is actually the guy who tutored Paul Simon

1430
01:18:52,960 --> 01:18:55,640
Speaker 2: in jazz theory and inspired him to come up with

1431
01:18:55,640 --> 01:18:57,720
Speaker 2: the court changes to fifty Ways to Leave your lover?

1432
01:18:58,439 --> 01:19:04,640
Speaker 1: That wasn't an invitation. I was not giving you an

1433
01:19:04,640 --> 01:19:07,799
Speaker 1: opening there. That was very you know, actually funny story,

1434
01:19:08,760 --> 01:19:11,559
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, or plug you could say on every

1435
01:19:11,600 --> 01:19:13,800
Speaker 1: episode we've done lately. I uh. One of the other

1436
01:19:13,840 --> 01:19:16,240
Speaker 1: shows that I heard has me working on is the

1437
01:19:16,280 --> 01:19:20,040
Speaker 1: Paul Anka talk show Our Way, and his co host

1438
01:19:20,120 --> 01:19:23,640
Speaker 1: is this guy Skip Bronson, and Skip Bronson's wife is

1439
01:19:23,920 --> 01:19:26,880
Speaker 1: Edie Baskin, who is the photographer on SNL for like

1440
01:19:27,000 --> 01:19:30,560
Speaker 1: forty years throughout the show's beginning, Like all those incredible

1441
01:19:30,560 --> 01:19:33,880
Speaker 1: photos that they're like tinted in the weird ways of

1442
01:19:33,920 --> 01:19:36,880
Speaker 1: like you know how cut the commercial break and all

1443
01:19:36,880 --> 01:19:39,120
Speaker 1: those pictures of the guests, those are all her, Like

1444
01:19:39,200 --> 01:19:42,920
Speaker 1: she's super instrumental in like the look of SNL. She's

1445
01:19:43,000 --> 01:19:45,920
Speaker 1: like kind of a legend. She was dating Paul Simon

1446
01:19:46,680 --> 01:19:48,280
Speaker 1: and that's who that song is about.

1447
01:19:48,360 --> 01:19:51,160
Speaker 2: And yeah, oh wow, yeah, fifty.

1448
01:19:50,960 --> 01:19:55,360
Speaker 1: Ways Leave Your Lover is about leaving Edie Baskin. Wow. Yeah,

1449
01:19:55,439 --> 01:19:58,479
Speaker 1: I just learned that from her husband the other day.

1450
01:19:59,160 --> 01:20:01,080
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know out there that is,

1451
01:20:01,160 --> 01:20:04,599
Speaker 1: but that's apparently I hope I'm allowed to share that.

1452
01:20:04,760 --> 01:20:09,439
Speaker 1: Sorry skip. Uh So. Andy Warhol tries to persuade the

1453
01:20:09,479 --> 01:20:15,120
Speaker 1: Velvet Underground to welcome Nico into their midst, and this

1454
01:20:15,200 --> 01:20:18,640
Speaker 1: proposal was not met with complete enthusiasm. Apparently Lou was

1455
01:20:18,760 --> 01:20:24,280
Speaker 1: especially displeased, but she was eventually accepted, i'll say, into

1456
01:20:24,280 --> 01:20:30,439
Speaker 1: their ranks as a featured vocalist. Well, sure, well we'll

1457
01:20:30,439 --> 01:20:34,760
Speaker 1: get there. Despite releasing versions of Gordon Lightfoot's I'm Not

1458
01:20:34,880 --> 01:20:37,920
Speaker 1: Saying in nineteen sixty five, which features a young Jimmy

1459
01:20:37,960 --> 01:20:41,160
Speaker 1: Page on acoustic twelve string Monk Tucker would say that

1460
01:20:41,280 --> 01:20:45,320
Speaker 1: Nico quote couldn't hold a pitch and she.

1461
01:20:45,360 --> 01:20:47,519
Speaker 2: Was half yeah, she had a perforated ear drum.

1462
01:20:48,000 --> 01:20:50,040
Speaker 1: I'm half deaf. I can sing great.

1463
01:20:52,000 --> 01:20:53,280
Speaker 2: You Nico, I don't.

1464
01:20:53,120 --> 01:20:56,160
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear it. In nineteen sixty six

1465
01:20:56,720 --> 01:21:02,960
Speaker 1: War Orphans. In nineteen sixty six, critic Richard Goldstein described

1466
01:21:03,000 --> 01:21:06,519
Speaker 1: Nico's vocal sound as this is I love this, like

1467
01:21:06,600 --> 01:21:09,759
Speaker 1: a cello getting up in the morning. People.

1468
01:21:09,800 --> 01:21:13,679
Speaker 2: Really, writers really went ham on those on discussing her voice.

1469
01:21:13,720 --> 01:21:17,080
Speaker 2: I mean Andy Warhol said it was like an IBM

1470
01:21:17,160 --> 01:21:18,599
Speaker 2: computer with a German accent.

1471
01:21:18,880 --> 01:21:21,600
Speaker 1: That's also very good. Yes, God, can you imagine if

1472
01:21:21,640 --> 01:21:23,679
Speaker 1: Kubrick had that as the voice of Hal in two

1473
01:21:23,680 --> 01:21:24,840
Speaker 1: thousand and one.

1474
01:21:25,680 --> 01:21:29,720
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, David, I cannot allow that.

1475
01:21:30,600 --> 01:21:32,439
Speaker 1: I'm sure I could get some kind of like voice

1476
01:21:32,439 --> 01:21:36,559
Speaker 1: cloone thing to do that now, Oh that's so good.

1477
01:21:36,920 --> 01:21:39,960
Speaker 1: John Klee, for his part, would describe Nico as quote,

1478
01:21:40,240 --> 01:21:43,280
Speaker 1: a blonde Iceberg in the middle of the stage, surrounded

1479
01:21:43,280 --> 01:21:46,280
Speaker 1: by all of us in black. This is quite an image.

1480
01:21:46,520 --> 01:21:49,559
Speaker 1: Andy Warhol was so taken by her remote aloof beauty

1481
01:21:49,600 --> 01:21:52,160
Speaker 1: that he initially pitched having her perform on stage with

1482
01:21:52,200 --> 01:21:57,320
Speaker 1: the band while in a plexiglass box. Gross but also

1483
01:21:58,640 --> 01:22:02,280
Speaker 1: kind of great, Yeah, but also growth to Yeah, that's true.

1484
01:22:03,200 --> 01:22:05,280
Speaker 1: Lou Reid, for all of his resentment of Nico, would

1485
01:22:05,280 --> 01:22:07,599
Speaker 1: admit that they probably wouldn't have gotten the record contract

1486
01:22:07,640 --> 01:22:10,880
Speaker 1: if she wasn't so beautiful. Yeah, Nico's appearance on the

1487
01:22:10,920 --> 01:22:14,000
Speaker 1: debut album was basically a non negotiable clause in the

1488
01:22:14,040 --> 01:22:17,439
Speaker 1: otherwise very generous management deal that Andy Warhol was offering

1489
01:22:17,479 --> 01:22:20,200
Speaker 1: the group, So Lou saw it as a very bitter

1490
01:22:20,280 --> 01:22:23,880
Speaker 1: pill that he simply had the swallow, hence attempts to

1491
01:22:23,960 --> 01:22:27,720
Speaker 1: minimize her appearance on their debut album the second the

1492
01:22:27,800 --> 01:22:31,599
Speaker 1: ink was dry on their contract. For example, when Andy

1493
01:22:31,600 --> 01:22:34,120
Speaker 1: demanded that Lou write a more poppy song for Nico

1494
01:22:34,160 --> 01:22:37,960
Speaker 1: to sing, who complied with Sunday Morning, only to sing

1495
01:22:37,960 --> 01:22:41,519
Speaker 1: the song himself in what was I take to be

1496
01:22:42,040 --> 01:22:45,680
Speaker 1: an impression of Nico that I'm fairly certain was mean spirited,

1497
01:22:46,040 --> 01:22:49,599
Speaker 1: and ultimately Nico only sang three tracks on the album.

1498
01:22:49,720 --> 01:22:53,160
Speaker 2: But man, I think All Tomorrow's Parties was one of

1499
01:22:53,160 --> 01:22:55,120
Speaker 2: the first Velvet songs that I heard, and I was

1500
01:22:55,200 --> 01:22:57,800
Speaker 2: just like that was mind blowing.

1501
01:22:57,880 --> 01:23:01,760
Speaker 1: Well as a Wes Anderson, wasn't that in or a

1502
01:23:01,880 --> 01:23:03,519
Speaker 1: ton of bombs? I feel like I was definitely in.

1503
01:23:03,920 --> 01:23:07,960
Speaker 2: No, that's these days. Oh, I've been out walks.

1504
01:23:10,000 --> 01:23:13,200
Speaker 1: It's very good. That's very good. Yeah, there was a

1505
01:23:13,280 --> 01:23:16,799
Speaker 1: time I could do a really good shine it Shine,

1506
01:23:16,840 --> 01:23:19,040
Speaker 1: and now it just goes in the bowie and I

1507
01:23:19,080 --> 01:23:22,320
Speaker 1: can't It's I can't do it. Who else talk about

1508
01:23:22,600 --> 01:23:23,240
Speaker 1: was a is a.

1509
01:23:23,320 --> 01:23:25,920
Speaker 2: It's tough, a very you know, he's got a.

1510
01:23:25,960 --> 01:23:27,960
Speaker 1: Well lou in this ero when he's trying to do

1511
01:23:28,040 --> 01:23:32,960
Speaker 1: the affected euro Yeah, and he's basically doing Nico well

1512
01:23:33,160 --> 01:23:37,320
Speaker 1: in more wayted one. Interestingly, both Lou Reed and John

1513
01:23:37,439 --> 01:23:39,600
Speaker 1: Klee would have affairs with Nico while she was in

1514
01:23:39,640 --> 01:23:42,760
Speaker 1: the band, apparently at the same time. When I say

1515
01:23:42,800 --> 01:23:44,879
Speaker 1: same time, I mean never.

1516
01:23:44,720 --> 01:23:49,920
Speaker 2: Mind, they were perhaps overlapping weeks. Actually, interestingly enough, John

1517
01:23:50,000 --> 01:23:53,240
Speaker 2: kel shacked up with Edie Sedgwick. Speaking of Factory Girls,

1518
01:23:53,520 --> 01:23:56,960
Speaker 2: they were together for like six weeks as these things happened.

1519
01:23:57,439 --> 01:24:00,720
Speaker 1: Oh wow, fem Fatale and I'll Be Your were both

1520
01:24:00,760 --> 01:24:02,040
Speaker 1: written in Nico's.

1521
01:24:01,600 --> 01:24:07,519
Speaker 2: Honor are me? It was really off key but just

1522
01:24:07,560 --> 01:24:08,000
Speaker 2: like her.

1523
01:24:08,520 --> 01:24:12,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I can't imagine that. Considering how stormy lou

1524
01:24:12,160 --> 01:24:15,320
Speaker 1: and John's relationship would be in it within eighteen months

1525
01:24:15,400 --> 01:24:18,920
Speaker 1: of recording these songs. I can't imagine that this helped

1526
01:24:19,000 --> 01:24:20,599
Speaker 1: their relationship. Yeah.

1527
01:24:20,680 --> 01:24:24,200
Speaker 2: I have two minds about Nico. On one hand, Nico innocent,

1528
01:24:25,000 --> 01:24:29,720
Speaker 2: like totally constantly her whole life defined by her relationships

1529
01:24:29,840 --> 01:24:33,280
Speaker 2: with men, which we are about to do. Yeah yeah,

1530
01:24:33,320 --> 01:24:37,760
Speaker 2: and like obviously tormented by her past and not being

1531
01:24:37,920 --> 01:24:41,439
Speaker 2: taken seriously. Yeah. Yeah, her appearance was such a huge thing,

1532
01:24:41,640 --> 01:24:43,639
Speaker 2: and yeah, I mean I really feel for her for that,

1533
01:24:43,760 --> 01:24:47,960
Speaker 2: but also by all accounts, a racist and an awful mother.

1534
01:24:48,280 --> 01:24:51,559
Speaker 2: But you know, in effort to correct the thumbnail sketching

1535
01:24:51,600 --> 01:24:53,880
Speaker 2: that she often gets because I just remember everyone being

1536
01:24:53,920 --> 01:24:57,599
Speaker 2: like she was like a figurehead and the band did

1537
01:24:57,640 --> 01:24:59,120
Speaker 2: their best work when they got her out of the way,

1538
01:24:59,160 --> 01:25:01,439
Speaker 2: and just her beingmpletely short shrifted. But she was a

1539
01:25:01,439 --> 01:25:03,680
Speaker 2: fascinating woman under her own right and did a lot

1540
01:25:03,680 --> 01:25:06,000
Speaker 2: of interesting work. So yeah, But she also had an

1541
01:25:06,040 --> 01:25:09,040
Speaker 2: incredibly tragic life that also reads like a who's who

1542
01:25:09,080 --> 01:25:11,160
Speaker 2: of nineteen sixties cool. She was kind of like a

1543
01:25:11,200 --> 01:25:15,000
Speaker 2: sexy forest gump traversing the landscape. She was born in

1544
01:25:15,080 --> 01:25:18,519
Speaker 2: Cologne in Germany, but moved to Spreeworld forest outside of

1545
01:25:18,560 --> 01:25:21,760
Speaker 2: Berlin to escape the World War II bombings of Cologne.

1546
01:25:21,840 --> 01:25:26,200
Speaker 2: Her father was conscripted into the weh Maacht and literally

1547
01:25:26,240 --> 01:25:29,280
Speaker 2: no one knows how he died. Various stories have him

1548
01:25:29,320 --> 01:25:31,799
Speaker 2: being put out of his misery by a commanding officer

1549
01:25:31,880 --> 01:25:35,439
Speaker 2: after he was shot by French sniper, dyeing concentration camp,

1550
01:25:35,760 --> 01:25:39,880
Speaker 2: being hospitalized for shell shock, and later dying in a psychosis.

1551
01:25:41,080 --> 01:25:42,840
Speaker 2: But when she moved back to Berlin, she was pretty

1552
01:25:42,840 --> 01:25:45,680
Speaker 2: immediately hired for work as a model thanks to her

1553
01:25:46,000 --> 01:25:48,840
Speaker 2: striking height I think she was five point ten five

1554
01:25:48,920 --> 01:25:53,400
Speaker 2: eleven and again what the New Yorker called her improbable

1555
01:25:53,439 --> 01:25:57,280
Speaker 2: bone structure. Unfortunately, around this time she was also allegedly

1556
01:25:57,360 --> 01:26:02,160
Speaker 2: raped by a black US serviceman in Lynn, which people

1557
01:26:02,240 --> 01:26:05,679
Speaker 2: have mentioned as an excuse for some of her awful racism,

1558
01:26:06,439 --> 01:26:09,200
Speaker 2: but one biographer of hers kind of disputes the entire incident,

1559
01:26:09,240 --> 01:26:12,479
Speaker 2: saying that he went looking for records of this because

1560
01:26:12,479 --> 01:26:14,960
Speaker 2: the guy was supposedly hanged, and could not find anything

1561
01:26:14,960 --> 01:26:19,000
Speaker 2: about the execution or indeed even the trial. Anyway, Nico

1562
01:26:19,080 --> 01:26:22,240
Speaker 2: parlayed her feliny cameo ladoce vita into a bigger role

1563
01:26:22,280 --> 01:26:25,920
Speaker 2: opposite French new wave star Alene Delon, although she showed

1564
01:26:26,000 --> 01:26:28,439
Speaker 2: up months after shooting had begun and she had already

1565
01:26:28,439 --> 01:26:31,400
Speaker 2: been replaced. She then had an affair with Delon that

1566
01:26:31,640 --> 01:26:35,000
Speaker 2: supposedly resulted in the birth of her son, Christian Ari Boulon,

1567
01:26:35,560 --> 01:26:39,680
Speaker 2: though Alaine denied the praternity for his entire life. As

1568
01:26:39,720 --> 01:26:42,320
Speaker 2: I mentioned, Nico was not a wonderful mother. She pretty

1569
01:26:42,400 --> 01:26:45,400
Speaker 2: quickly abandoned the kid and he was left to fend

1570
01:26:45,439 --> 01:26:49,240
Speaker 2: for it himself at one point completely and Delon's mother

1571
01:26:49,320 --> 01:26:52,519
Speaker 2: and stepfather found him like alone an apartment in like

1572
01:26:53,000 --> 01:26:58,799
Speaker 2: horrifyingly squalid conditions. Nico's contribution to his upbringing was, for example,

1573
01:26:58,960 --> 01:27:03,160
Speaker 2: to allegedly rub heroin onto his gums to calm him

1574
01:27:03,200 --> 01:27:04,040
Speaker 2: down when he was crying.

1575
01:27:04,120 --> 01:27:05,160
Speaker 1: That's a waste of heroin.

1576
01:27:06,520 --> 01:27:08,320
Speaker 2: And then later she just took it up to the

1577
01:27:08,320 --> 01:27:10,760
Speaker 2: next step and straight up injected him with heroin. They

1578
01:27:10,760 --> 01:27:14,160
Speaker 2: did heroin together, and then he overdosed on that in

1579
01:27:14,400 --> 01:27:17,880
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. After a successful moderately successful career as

1580
01:27:17,880 --> 01:27:21,680
Speaker 2: a photographer, she met Bob Dylan in nineteen sixty four

1581
01:27:21,760 --> 01:27:23,439
Speaker 2: and had a short affair with him that produced the

1582
01:27:23,479 --> 01:27:27,200
Speaker 2: song I'll Keep it with mine, and then the year after,

1583
01:27:27,360 --> 01:27:30,080
Speaker 2: thanks to Rolling Stone, Brian Jones, with whom she had

1584
01:27:30,120 --> 01:27:33,160
Speaker 2: an affair and got pregnant by, though she terminated the pregnancy,

1585
01:27:33,560 --> 01:27:35,760
Speaker 2: recorded the aforementioned Gordon Lightfoot cover.

1586
01:27:36,120 --> 01:27:38,320
Speaker 1: Brian Jones man, he was like one of the most

1587
01:27:38,360 --> 01:27:42,640
Speaker 1: notorious sixties womanizers, an era that really fostered quite a

1588
01:27:42,640 --> 01:27:46,519
Speaker 1: few womanizers. He had five children with five different women,

1589
01:27:46,600 --> 01:27:49,479
Speaker 1: all of whom he abandoned. Ultimately, he had so many

1590
01:27:49,560 --> 01:27:51,400
Speaker 1: children with so many different women that he thought of

1591
01:27:51,479 --> 01:27:54,920
Speaker 1: was perfectly fine to recycle names, naming two of his

1592
01:27:55,000 --> 01:27:57,280
Speaker 1: sons Julian God.

1593
01:27:57,320 --> 01:28:01,120
Speaker 2: Brian Jones sucks. It is hilarious how much first of

1594
01:28:01,160 --> 01:28:04,120
Speaker 2: all for the Brian Jonestown massacre and all of their sins,

1595
01:28:05,160 --> 01:28:08,680
Speaker 2: and second of all as a human. Oh, he was

1596
01:28:08,760 --> 01:28:11,800
Speaker 2: scared of her. That was the funniest thing that Cale, Yeah,

1597
01:28:11,840 --> 01:28:13,920
Speaker 2: that Cale and all of these other people mentioned about her,

1598
01:28:14,040 --> 01:28:16,600
Speaker 2: was that like, because he was a tiny man, he

1599
01:28:16,720 --> 01:28:19,920
Speaker 2: was barely five foot five, and so people would say

1600
01:28:19,920 --> 01:28:22,360
Speaker 2: she would like come into parties and swinging London, and

1601
01:28:22,439 --> 01:28:28,759
Speaker 2: Brian Jones would be like, we'd better leave. So Nico

1602
01:28:28,840 --> 01:28:31,360
Speaker 2: next landed in New York, where she collided with Warhol

1603
01:28:31,360 --> 01:28:35,120
Speaker 2: in The Velvets, also having affair post Velvets with Jim Morrison,

1604
01:28:35,960 --> 01:28:38,439
Speaker 2: and this is mostly worth mentioning because Warhol was deeply

1605
01:28:38,439 --> 01:28:41,639
Speaker 2: in love with Jim Morrison and once gave him an

1606
01:28:41,640 --> 01:28:45,960
Speaker 2: ostentatious telephone good band name made of gold, according to

1607
01:28:46,040 --> 01:28:49,280
Speaker 2: the Oliver Stone movie The Doors, so that he could

1608
01:28:49,360 --> 01:28:50,080
Speaker 2: talk to God.

1609
01:28:50,600 --> 01:28:52,880
Speaker 1: He would later talk to God for real two years

1610
01:28:52,960 --> 01:28:57,800
Speaker 1: later in a bathtub in Paris. Yeah, she wasn't, she said.

1611
01:28:57,960 --> 01:28:59,880
Speaker 1: She maintained that she saw him the last day he

1612
01:28:59,960 --> 01:29:00,519
Speaker 1: was alive.

1613
01:29:00,640 --> 01:29:03,280
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, she saw him in like driving by in

1614
01:29:03,320 --> 01:29:05,400
Speaker 2: a Parisian taxi and like waved Tim, but they didn't.

1615
01:29:05,439 --> 01:29:07,720
Speaker 2: They didn't. Then he overdosed later, Oh, I didn't know.

1616
01:29:08,160 --> 01:29:08,599
Speaker 1: Wow.

1617
01:29:08,960 --> 01:29:11,000
Speaker 2: Leonard Cohen fell in love with her around that time

1618
01:29:11,040 --> 01:29:13,759
Speaker 2: and wrote Joan of Arc the closer to nineteen seventy

1619
01:29:13,800 --> 01:29:16,519
Speaker 2: one's Songs of Love and Hate about her, but their

1620
01:29:16,560 --> 01:29:17,840
Speaker 2: relationship is unrequited.

1621
01:29:17,960 --> 01:29:20,920
Speaker 1: Which one was That song was a lover Hey.

1622
01:29:21,200 --> 01:29:23,519
Speaker 2: It was a love song. He was struck by her

1623
01:29:23,760 --> 01:29:28,320
Speaker 2: and she did not reciprocate, astonishing considering Leonard Cohen's reputation

1624
01:29:28,320 --> 01:29:30,160
Speaker 2: as a later man and the fact that she slept

1625
01:29:30,160 --> 01:29:33,840
Speaker 2: with so many other men. Leonard did not make the list.

1626
01:29:34,040 --> 01:29:36,479
Speaker 2: She also broke a young Jackson Brown's heart. He had

1627
01:29:36,520 --> 01:29:38,720
Speaker 2: just moved to New York and was one of a

1628
01:29:38,720 --> 01:29:41,600
Speaker 2: succession of guitarists he backed her, including Tim Buckley like

1629
01:29:41,640 --> 01:29:42,680
Speaker 2: Tim Harden too right.

1630
01:29:43,040 --> 01:29:44,240
Speaker 1: Tim Harden was another one.

1631
01:29:44,320 --> 01:29:47,240
Speaker 2: I didn't find his name, but their brief affair did

1632
01:29:47,320 --> 01:29:49,960
Speaker 2: end up with These Days, which Jackson Brown wrote at

1633
01:29:50,040 --> 01:29:53,320
Speaker 2: like seventeen as one of the most incredible songs ever written,

1634
01:29:54,520 --> 01:29:57,360
Speaker 2: and which Nico recorded her indelible version of for her

1635
01:29:57,400 --> 01:30:00,479
Speaker 2: record Chelsea Girls. Although she hated the produceuction on all

1636
01:30:00,479 --> 01:30:02,240
Speaker 2: of that. She was so pissed off when that was

1637
01:30:02,240 --> 01:30:06,600
Speaker 2: done afterwards. But her first introduction to Warhol was hilarious.

1638
01:30:07,000 --> 01:30:10,240
Speaker 2: She called him from a Mexican restaurant where she was

1639
01:30:10,280 --> 01:30:13,479
Speaker 2: fishing out the fruit from a picture of sangria and

1640
01:30:13,600 --> 01:30:15,680
Speaker 2: explained to him on the phone, I only liked the

1641
01:30:15,720 --> 01:30:20,040
Speaker 2: food that floats in the wine. And they talked for hours.

1642
01:30:20,200 --> 01:30:21,880
Speaker 2: They talked for hours after that.

1643
01:30:25,320 --> 01:30:29,960
Speaker 1: We're all so weird. He's so weird. He really is, though. God.

1644
01:30:30,040 --> 01:30:31,760
Speaker 1: I wonder if that was the Mexican restaurant in the

1645
01:30:31,760 --> 01:30:34,519
Speaker 1: ground floor of the Chelsea Hotel, which I think has

1646
01:30:34,560 --> 01:30:37,839
Speaker 1: been there forever. I actually went on their website earlier

1647
01:30:37,880 --> 01:30:40,360
Speaker 1: today and tried to check this, and within ten seconds

1648
01:30:40,400 --> 01:30:43,479
Speaker 1: I saw prominent photos of Andy Warhol in nineteen sixty

1649
01:30:43,520 --> 01:30:46,280
Speaker 1: six at that restaurant, and also a prominent photo of

1650
01:30:46,360 --> 01:30:49,200
Speaker 1: a picture of Sancria with lots of fruit. So maybe

1651
01:30:49,240 --> 01:30:51,240
Speaker 1: I choose to be he was there. Yeah.

1652
01:30:51,479 --> 01:30:55,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm fully aware that I'm doing exactly what I

1653
01:30:55,720 --> 01:30:59,000
Speaker 2: said was unfair to Nico, but it is hilarious. Among

1654
01:30:59,000 --> 01:31:02,200
Speaker 2: her other paramours at various times, French actress Jean Moreau,

1655
01:31:02,360 --> 01:31:05,840
Speaker 2: and apocryphally Coco Chanel.

1656
01:31:05,960 --> 01:31:07,200
Speaker 1: Oh wow.

1657
01:31:07,360 --> 01:31:09,920
Speaker 2: Although she didn't make a habit out of sleeping with women,

1658
01:31:10,120 --> 01:31:12,680
Speaker 2: one person who knew her said she just thought it

1659
01:31:12,720 --> 01:31:14,439
Speaker 2: was briefly trendy to be a lesbian.

1660
01:31:16,000 --> 01:31:18,479
Speaker 1: Coco Chanel would have been I mean, Chanelle died in

1661
01:31:18,520 --> 01:31:19,479
Speaker 1: I think seventy one.

1662
01:31:20,160 --> 01:31:22,639
Speaker 2: Well, this would have been in the or late forties

1663
01:31:22,720 --> 01:31:26,559
Speaker 2: or early fifties when she was modeling. Uh oh, okay,

1664
01:31:27,600 --> 01:31:30,559
Speaker 2: al Ronowitz, who had some just awful things to say

1665
01:31:30,560 --> 01:31:34,800
Speaker 2: about her, and I think Please Kill Me, possibly Jimmy Hendrix, definitely,

1666
01:31:34,800 --> 01:31:36,880
Speaker 2: Iggy Pop, who claimed in Please Kill Me to have

1667
01:31:36,920 --> 01:31:41,480
Speaker 2: gotten his first sed from Nico, also probably Serge Gainesborg,

1668
01:31:42,160 --> 01:31:44,800
Speaker 2: Oh my God, Yeah, and of course most pertinent to

1669
01:31:44,840 --> 01:31:48,360
Speaker 2: this discussion Lou Reid and John kel Sterling Morrison recalled

1670
01:31:48,400 --> 01:31:50,720
Speaker 2: in Please Kill Me, which is the oral history of

1671
01:31:50,720 --> 01:31:53,960
Speaker 2: the early days of Punk by collected by Lakes McNeil,

1672
01:31:54,400 --> 01:31:57,080
Speaker 2: Nico would try and do little sexual politics things in

1673
01:31:57,120 --> 01:31:59,720
Speaker 2: the band. Whoever seemed to be having undue influence on

1674
01:31:59,720 --> 01:32:02,800
Speaker 2: the core events, you'd find Nico close to them, So

1675
01:32:02,840 --> 01:32:04,720
Speaker 2: she went from Lou to Kale, but neither of those

1676
01:32:04,720 --> 01:32:08,720
Speaker 2: affairs lasted very long. There's also the famous incident in

1677
01:32:08,720 --> 01:32:11,640
Speaker 2: which she strolled into a Velvets rehearsal very late, and

1678
01:32:11,680 --> 01:32:14,800
Speaker 2: after being greeted by Lou, I think it's Kale who

1679
01:32:14,800 --> 01:32:17,880
Speaker 2: recalls this, Nico simply stood there. You could see she

1680
01:32:17,960 --> 01:32:21,280
Speaker 2: was waiting to reply in her own time. Ages later,

1681
01:32:21,560 --> 01:32:24,559
Speaker 2: out of the blue came her first words, I cannot

1682
01:32:24,640 --> 01:32:26,080
Speaker 2: make love to Jews anymore.

1683
01:32:27,439 --> 01:32:33,240
Speaker 1: That's gonna be my text notification from you from two at.

1684
01:32:34,520 --> 01:32:39,160
Speaker 2: Nico's prejudices ultimately forced her exit from New York post Velvets.

1685
01:32:39,800 --> 01:32:42,080
Speaker 2: There was a famous nineteen seventy one incident recounted by

1686
01:32:42,200 --> 01:32:44,559
Speaker 2: Danny Fields, among others, who was a friend of hers

1687
01:32:45,000 --> 01:32:46,640
Speaker 2: and the Ramones manager.

1688
01:32:46,800 --> 01:32:47,000
Speaker 1: Right.

1689
01:32:47,439 --> 01:32:47,679
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1690
01:32:47,720 --> 01:32:51,200
Speaker 1: He was like a big punk scene stir he was.

1691
01:32:51,240 --> 01:32:52,880
Speaker 1: I think he was a pr guy. I think that

1692
01:32:53,000 --> 01:32:56,160
Speaker 1: was his thing. Like he introduced Bowie to Iggy Pop

1693
01:32:56,760 --> 01:32:58,360
Speaker 1: during Bowie's first New York trip.

1694
01:32:58,800 --> 01:33:03,320
Speaker 2: That wasn't an invitation. I just sad. The Ramones have

1695
01:33:03,360 --> 01:33:05,680
Speaker 2: a song called Danny says it might be about a

1696
01:33:05,680 --> 01:33:06,360
Speaker 2: different danger.

1697
01:33:06,479 --> 01:33:08,640
Speaker 1: No, he is the one that is involved. I don't know,

1698
01:33:08,680 --> 01:33:10,880
Speaker 1: okay what his title was, but he was involved with

1699
01:33:10,920 --> 01:33:12,040
Speaker 1: the Ramones. Yeah.

1700
01:33:12,320 --> 01:33:15,479
Speaker 2: So, at a dinner in nineteen seventy one, Nico struck

1701
01:33:15,520 --> 01:33:18,360
Speaker 2: a black singer and activist named Emmearetta Marx in the

1702
01:33:18,400 --> 01:33:22,959
Speaker 2: face with a glass or bottle. The wound needed multiple stitches,

1703
01:33:23,120 --> 01:33:29,040
Speaker 2: and Nico said, doing so, I hate black people. One

1704
01:33:29,040 --> 01:33:32,240
Speaker 2: of her biographers suggested that she preface the attack by saying,

1705
01:33:32,360 --> 01:33:35,320
Speaker 2: you don't know about suffering, and that she had become

1706
01:33:35,360 --> 01:33:38,400
Speaker 2: incensed by the suggestion that a black American could compare

1707
01:33:38,439 --> 01:33:42,280
Speaker 2: their experience with oppression and so forth to hers in

1708
01:33:42,320 --> 01:33:45,840
Speaker 2: wartime Germany. Just going to leave that one right there.

1709
01:33:45,920 --> 01:33:47,240
Speaker 1: That's a fun minefield.

1710
01:33:47,439 --> 01:33:52,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Supposedly, fearing retribution by the black panthers. Nico

1711
01:33:52,160 --> 01:33:54,960
Speaker 2: fled to France, where she fell heavily into heroin addiction

1712
01:33:55,000 --> 01:33:58,160
Speaker 2: while dating French new wave director Philippe Gerrel in the

1713
01:33:58,240 --> 01:34:02,080
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies. The incident did not make her more enlightened.

1714
01:34:02,439 --> 01:34:05,479
Speaker 2: Island Records dropped her after learning of racist comments that

1715
01:34:05,520 --> 01:34:08,519
Speaker 2: she made an interview, which she summed up as charmingly,

1716
01:34:08,920 --> 01:34:11,800
Speaker 2: I said to some interviewer that I didn't like negroes,

1717
01:34:12,040 --> 01:34:15,360
Speaker 2: that's all. I don't like the features. They're so much

1718
01:34:15,439 --> 01:34:21,600
Speaker 2: like animals, awful stuff. Nico did release a stretch of

1719
01:34:21,600 --> 01:34:24,880
Speaker 2: solo albums. Her post Chelsea Girls record, The Marble Index,

1720
01:34:25,439 --> 01:34:29,439
Speaker 2: was produced by Kale and the oppressive icy atmosphere by this,

1721
01:34:29,560 --> 01:34:34,800
Speaker 2: which is you know, that voice accompanied by a droning harmonium.

1722
01:34:35,000 --> 01:34:37,679
Speaker 2: But she was supposedly Jim Morrison was like a booster

1723
01:34:37,800 --> 01:34:40,280
Speaker 2: of hers. He was like, you know, go record your

1724
01:34:40,280 --> 01:34:42,519
Speaker 2: own stuff, like do this, blah blah blah. There's this

1725
01:34:42,600 --> 01:34:45,479
Speaker 2: hilarious picture of her in Sant Trepez with like these

1726
01:34:45,520 --> 01:34:48,920
Speaker 2: two people out on like a che chez lounges out

1727
01:34:48,920 --> 01:34:51,439
Speaker 2: in the sun, and then her all in black under

1728
01:34:51,760 --> 01:34:55,920
Speaker 2: an umbrella. I think he also told her to stop

1729
01:34:55,960 --> 01:34:58,080
Speaker 2: dyeing her hair blonde, and people have called these records

1730
01:34:58,120 --> 01:35:02,519
Speaker 2: like early goth music. Essentially they are a hard listen

1731
01:35:02,760 --> 01:35:05,840
Speaker 2: but pretty powerful stuff. By the eighties, she was living

1732
01:35:05,880 --> 01:35:09,000
Speaker 2: in Manchester, basically penniless, just doing a bunch of at

1733
01:35:09,080 --> 01:35:11,639
Speaker 2: tour dates wherever she could. I believe the famous quote

1734
01:35:11,640 --> 01:35:13,679
Speaker 2: about her time in Manchester is that she only owned

1735
01:35:14,200 --> 01:35:18,439
Speaker 2: her drug paraphernalia, a pair of leather boots, and like

1736
01:35:18,760 --> 01:35:22,040
Speaker 2: her clothes at any given time, and so she was

1737
01:35:22,080 --> 01:35:26,280
Speaker 2: sort of considered an elder stateswoman of the Manchester scene actually,

1738
01:35:26,320 --> 01:35:27,439
Speaker 2: which is kind of funny.

1739
01:35:28,280 --> 01:35:30,120
Speaker 1: So this would have been early ages, so this would

1740
01:35:30,120 --> 01:35:34,400
Speaker 1: have been like, yeah, right around Manchester. Wow, that's so weird.

1741
01:35:35,120 --> 01:35:37,280
Speaker 2: But yeah, she was. There's a documentary about her from

1742
01:35:37,320 --> 01:35:41,080
Speaker 2: this time that or or there's a dramatization about her

1743
01:35:41,080 --> 01:35:43,640
Speaker 2: at this time that I forget the name of, but

1744
01:35:43,720 --> 01:35:46,080
Speaker 2: I that I watched, and there's a very interesting part

1745
01:35:46,080 --> 01:35:48,519
Speaker 2: in it where she talks about and I think from

1746
01:35:48,600 --> 01:35:53,120
Speaker 2: a real life interview where she's like guzzling lemonchello at

1747
01:35:53,120 --> 01:35:56,280
Speaker 2: breakfast and just like shoveling in pasta because she was

1748
01:35:56,280 --> 01:35:59,280
Speaker 2: trying to destroy her looks, because she was so desperate

1749
01:35:59,320 --> 01:36:02,120
Speaker 2: to be taken soon seriously as a composer. At one

1750
01:36:02,120 --> 01:36:04,280
Speaker 2: point she said as a musician. At one point she said,

1751
01:36:04,960 --> 01:36:07,320
Speaker 2: men wrote the songs and I sang them. So she

1752
01:36:07,400 --> 01:36:09,320
Speaker 2: was trying to get out from under that that she

1753
01:36:09,400 --> 01:36:11,839
Speaker 2: just wanted her appearance to be a complete non issue,

1754
01:36:11,880 --> 01:36:14,479
Speaker 2: and she just like fully stopped taking care of herself.

1755
01:36:14,520 --> 01:36:17,880
Speaker 2: She was obviously on speed throughout the sixties, as everyone was,

1756
01:36:17,920 --> 01:36:21,759
Speaker 2: but she just drank a lot ate, a lot of food,

1757
01:36:21,880 --> 01:36:26,880
Speaker 2: and did a bunch of heroin. Eventually, she did get

1758
01:36:26,920 --> 01:36:28,960
Speaker 2: clean and took up cycling as a way to stay

1759
01:36:29,000 --> 01:36:32,000
Speaker 2: healthy after getting clean in the eighties, and then she

1760
01:36:32,040 --> 01:36:34,680
Speaker 2: took her bike to go buy weed while vacationing with

1761
01:36:34,720 --> 01:36:37,559
Speaker 2: her son Ali in Ibitha when she fell and hit

1762
01:36:37,600 --> 01:36:42,200
Speaker 2: her head. She was unconscious and rejected from four different hospitals,

1763
01:36:42,479 --> 01:36:46,000
Speaker 2: The last one misdiagnosed her condition as heat exhaustion since

1764
01:36:46,000 --> 01:36:48,040
Speaker 2: it was the hottest day of the year, and she

1765
01:36:48,200 --> 01:36:51,240
Speaker 2: died of a cerebral hemorrhage stemming from that accident in

1766
01:36:51,320 --> 01:36:53,680
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty eight, at the age of forty nine. No

1767
01:36:53,680 --> 01:36:55,960
Speaker 2: one from her New York life attended her funeral or

1768
01:36:56,000 --> 01:36:59,400
Speaker 2: even replied to her manager when informed of her death.

1769
01:37:00,360 --> 01:37:01,120
Speaker 1: That's cold.

1770
01:37:01,760 --> 01:37:03,800
Speaker 2: I you just find her such a fascinating woman, man,

1771
01:37:03,880 --> 01:37:07,280
Speaker 2: I mean, she's, yeah, a tremendous artist, fraught by all

1772
01:37:07,280 --> 01:37:12,320
Speaker 2: this male coated but also a manifestly awful woman in

1773
01:37:12,680 --> 01:37:16,960
Speaker 2: certain ways. But back to nineteen sixty six, spinning newspaper

1774
01:37:17,280 --> 01:37:21,280
Speaker 2: smash back Nico the headline of the headline of the

1775
01:37:21,280 --> 01:37:27,240
Speaker 2: New York Times. Nico still young and heroin free, and.

1776
01:37:27,160 --> 01:37:30,439
Speaker 1: Lou Reid probably has a fully functional liver, and John

1777
01:37:30,560 --> 01:37:33,200
Speaker 1: Keo was in his modal enemy and still had weird hair.

1778
01:37:34,360 --> 01:37:37,880
Speaker 1: I call this section ring Ring Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring,

1779
01:37:38,040 --> 01:37:42,200
Speaker 1: Ring Ring Banana Gramophone because it's the Banana album and

1780
01:37:42,240 --> 01:37:45,320
Speaker 1: a Grand Funds Gramma fuz the record. Yeah, well that

1781
01:37:45,400 --> 01:37:48,160
Speaker 1: was really good. That That was the best I had

1782
01:37:48,600 --> 01:37:53,400
Speaker 1: in this sweat my damn tits off out here, up

1783
01:37:53,439 --> 01:37:59,040
Speaker 1: and down the court night after night, carrying your ass.

1784
01:38:00,760 --> 01:38:02,960
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right

1785
01:38:03,000 --> 01:38:12,960
Speaker 1: back with more too much information in just a moment. Wow.

1786
01:38:16,560 --> 01:38:19,479
Speaker 1: Back to nineteen sixty six, Now builled as the Velvet

1787
01:38:19,560 --> 01:38:23,880
Speaker 1: Underground with Nico, Andy Warhol incorporated the band into his

1788
01:38:24,000 --> 01:38:28,640
Speaker 1: series of multimedia performances dubbed a truly incredible name the

1789
01:38:28,680 --> 01:38:36,040
Speaker 1: Exploding Plastic Inevitable. I love that a marriage of underground music, film, dance,

1790
01:38:36,120 --> 01:38:39,639
Speaker 1: and lights. Also assisting with these performances was the twenty

1791
01:38:39,720 --> 01:38:43,400
Speaker 1: seven year old Norman Dolph, an account representative at Columbia

1792
01:38:43,439 --> 01:38:47,280
Speaker 1: Records who moonlit as a DJ in sound man. He

1793
01:38:47,320 --> 01:38:50,479
Speaker 1: would say, I operated a mobile discotheque, if not the

1794
01:38:50,479 --> 01:38:52,400
Speaker 1: first and at least the second one in New York.

1795
01:38:52,760 --> 01:38:54,439
Speaker 1: I was an art buff, and my thing was that

1796
01:38:54,439 --> 01:38:57,400
Speaker 1: I'd provide the music at art galleries for shows and openings,

1797
01:38:57,680 --> 01:38:59,479
Speaker 1: but it asked for a piece of art as payment

1798
01:38:59,520 --> 01:39:03,040
Speaker 1: instead of cash. That's smart. That's how I met Andy Warhol.

1799
01:39:04,040 --> 01:39:06,680
Speaker 1: By the spring of nineteen sixty six, Warhol decided it

1800
01:39:06,720 --> 01:39:09,439
Speaker 1: was time to take his charges into the recording studio,

1801
01:39:09,840 --> 01:39:12,639
Speaker 1: but knowing little about such matters, he sought out Dolph

1802
01:39:12,640 --> 01:39:16,200
Speaker 1: for advice. As Dolph recalled and Sound on Sound. When

1803
01:39:16,280 --> 01:39:18,040
Speaker 1: Warhol told me he wanted to make a record with

1804
01:39:18,080 --> 01:39:20,240
Speaker 1: those guys, I said, oh, I can take care of that,

1805
01:39:20,360 --> 01:39:22,839
Speaker 1: no problem. I'll do it in exchange for a picture.

1806
01:39:23,240 --> 01:39:24,800
Speaker 1: I could have said I'd do it in exchange for

1807
01:39:24,880 --> 01:39:27,040
Speaker 1: some kind of finder's fee, but I asked for some

1808
01:39:27,160 --> 01:39:30,120
Speaker 1: artwork and he was agreeable to that. Dolf was tasked

1809
01:39:30,120 --> 01:39:33,120
Speaker 1: with booking a studio, covering a portion of the costs himself,

1810
01:39:33,400 --> 01:39:36,000
Speaker 1: co producing, and leading on his colleagues at Columbia to

1811
01:39:36,040 --> 01:39:39,320
Speaker 1: ultimately release the product. For his trouble, he was given

1812
01:39:39,360 --> 01:39:43,680
Speaker 1: one of Warhol's silver Death and Disaster series canvases. He

1813
01:39:43,720 --> 01:39:46,600
Speaker 1: would say, a beautiful painting. Really regrettably, I sold it

1814
01:39:46,640 --> 01:39:49,080
Speaker 1: around seventy five when I was going through a divorce

1815
01:39:49,439 --> 01:39:54,160
Speaker 1: for seventeen thousand dollars. Ooh. I remember thinking at the time, geez,

1816
01:39:54,280 --> 01:39:56,800
Speaker 1: I bet Lou Reed hasn't made seventeen thousand dollars on

1817
01:39:56,880 --> 01:39:59,920
Speaker 1: the Velvet Underground album yet. If I had it today,

1818
01:40:00,200 --> 01:40:03,000
Speaker 1: it'd be worth a round two million. I'm not quite

1819
01:40:03,000 --> 01:40:05,000
Speaker 1: sure when this interview was done, but I would say

1820
01:40:05,000 --> 01:40:07,280
Speaker 1: that figure is probably doubled.

1821
01:40:07,840 --> 01:40:11,320
Speaker 2: Wouldn't you be a little like I would be kind

1822
01:40:11,320 --> 01:40:13,599
Speaker 2: of pissed if I got an Andy Warhol original, because

1823
01:40:13,840 --> 01:40:17,400
Speaker 2: wasn't he just into his like at this point where

1824
01:40:17,400 --> 01:40:20,280
Speaker 2: he could have been made by someone else's hands entirely

1825
01:40:20,680 --> 01:40:23,120
Speaker 2: just and he's like here here, thank you, Hey, I

1826
01:40:23,120 --> 01:40:26,479
Speaker 2: can't do it. But I'd be tissed. I'd be like,

1827
01:40:26,479 --> 01:40:29,320
Speaker 2: what did you have an intern do this like thanks, man, I.

1828
01:40:29,320 --> 01:40:31,880
Speaker 1: Mean yeah, but I mean you know what, A it's

1829
01:40:31,920 --> 01:40:33,800
Speaker 1: how it looks, and if he liked how it looked, great,

1830
01:40:34,200 --> 01:40:36,840
Speaker 1: and b that the stuff retains its value, so in

1831
01:40:36,920 --> 01:40:40,160
Speaker 1: a way, it doesn't really matter. Man. There was this

1832
01:40:40,880 --> 01:40:43,000
Speaker 1: There was this vintage store up the street from me

1833
01:40:43,080 --> 01:40:47,080
Speaker 1: on Mantrose called Ollioxen Free and it closed and for

1834
01:40:47,280 --> 01:40:52,040
Speaker 1: years they had a original Warhol print. It was a

1835
01:40:52,080 --> 01:40:54,600
Speaker 1: poster that he had done for some event in the

1836
01:40:54,640 --> 01:40:58,160
Speaker 1: early seventies or might even been late sixties. And I

1837
01:40:58,200 --> 01:41:00,400
Speaker 1: got the whole rundown on it, and they offered to

1838
01:41:00,400 --> 01:41:03,400
Speaker 1: put me in touch with the old you know, Greenwich

1839
01:41:03,479 --> 01:41:06,200
Speaker 1: village who gave it to them to sell, and their

1840
01:41:06,240 --> 01:41:09,040
Speaker 1: acting as the broker far and I always went in

1841
01:41:09,040 --> 01:41:10,920
Speaker 1: and I always thought about getting it. It was always a

1842
01:41:10,960 --> 01:41:13,080
Speaker 1: little more money than I had at the time. And

1843
01:41:13,800 --> 01:41:16,680
Speaker 1: now I really wish i'd gotten it because it was

1844
01:41:16,680 --> 01:41:18,760
Speaker 1: so cool looking and it was just, you know, have

1845
01:41:18,840 --> 01:41:22,320
Speaker 1: a Warhol. And they were like, you know, very happy

1846
01:41:22,360 --> 01:41:23,720
Speaker 1: to put me in touch with like the guy who

1847
01:41:23,760 --> 01:41:27,120
Speaker 1: obtained it from Warhol personally. Oh I still think about that.

1848
01:41:27,960 --> 01:41:31,760
Speaker 1: So yes. Unfortunately, the co producer will say of the

1849
01:41:31,800 --> 01:41:35,640
Speaker 1: Velvet Underground Debut, passed up his chance for points on

1850
01:41:35,680 --> 01:41:38,600
Speaker 1: the album for a Warhol painting that he sold in

1851
01:41:38,640 --> 01:41:42,519
Speaker 1: the seventies way too early for a minuscule fraction of

1852
01:41:42,520 --> 01:41:46,200
Speaker 1: what it's worth today. That is not the only financially

1853
01:41:46,280 --> 01:41:50,040
Speaker 1: questionable decision this guy made regarding memorabilia acquired during this period.

1854
01:41:50,520 --> 01:41:54,360
Speaker 1: Norman Dolph apparently gave away his original assetate recording of

1855
01:41:54,360 --> 01:41:57,800
Speaker 1: the Velvet Underground Debut. It resurfaced decades later at New

1856
01:41:57,880 --> 01:42:01,240
Speaker 1: York's Chelsea Flea Market, where was purchased by a collector

1857
01:42:01,240 --> 01:42:04,400
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two for seventy five cents. The

1858
01:42:04,479 --> 01:42:07,400
Speaker 1: collector sold on eBay in December two thousand and six

1859
01:42:07,800 --> 01:42:11,519
Speaker 1: for twenty five grand and I can only imagine what

1860
01:42:11,560 --> 01:42:15,760
Speaker 1: it's worth now, and thus concludes our belongs in a

1861
01:42:15,800 --> 01:42:20,479
Speaker 1: museum segment for this episode. Norman Dolph's big contribution to

1862
01:42:20,520 --> 01:42:23,080
Speaker 1: the Velvet Underground sessions was that he found the studio

1863
01:42:23,200 --> 01:42:26,280
Speaker 1: to record the album. His day job at Columbia meant

1864
01:42:26,280 --> 01:42:28,360
Speaker 1: that he worked with a lot of smaller label imprints,

1865
01:42:28,400 --> 01:42:31,840
Speaker 1: including Scepter Records, who released records by people like the

1866
01:42:31,920 --> 01:42:35,920
Speaker 1: Cherelles and Dial Warwick. Their small Midtown offices boasted their

1867
01:42:35,920 --> 01:42:40,920
Speaker 1: own recording facility. Hilariously. This same building at two fifty

1868
01:42:40,960 --> 01:42:43,639
Speaker 1: four or West fifty fourth Street would later house Studio

1869
01:42:43,720 --> 01:42:46,200
Speaker 1: fifty four, So a lot of history of that bill.

1870
01:42:46,280 --> 01:42:49,559
Speaker 1: This is like the Ramones recording upstairs at Radio City.

1871
01:42:49,880 --> 01:42:50,440
Speaker 2: Hilarious.

1872
01:42:50,520 --> 01:42:53,800
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, the Velvets might not have known a

1873
01:42:53,800 --> 01:42:56,360
Speaker 1: lot about recording studios at this phase. They were very

1874
01:42:56,439 --> 01:42:58,640
Speaker 1: much novices, but they knew enough to know that this

1875
01:42:58,760 --> 01:43:02,160
Speaker 1: place was kind of a In the liner notes to

1876
01:43:02,200 --> 01:43:05,960
Speaker 1: the Peel Slowly in Sea Box Set, lou Red describes

1877
01:43:06,000 --> 01:43:10,320
Speaker 1: the facilities as quote somewhere between reconstruction and demolition. The

1878
01:43:10,439 --> 01:43:13,360
Speaker 1: walls were falling over, there were gaping holes on the floor,

1879
01:43:13,640 --> 01:43:17,719
Speaker 1: and carpentry equipment littered the place. John Klee recalls being

1880
01:43:17,760 --> 01:43:21,559
Speaker 1: similarly underwhelmed. It is nineteen ninety nine autobiography. The building

1881
01:43:21,600 --> 01:43:23,920
Speaker 1: was on the verge of being condemned. We went in

1882
01:43:23,960 --> 01:43:26,080
Speaker 1: there and found that the floorboards were torn up, the

1883
01:43:26,160 --> 01:43:29,120
Speaker 1: walls were out, and there were only four mics working.

1884
01:43:30,200 --> 01:43:32,120
Speaker 1: But it was here over the course of just four

1885
01:43:32,200 --> 01:43:35,600
Speaker 1: days in mid April. The exact dates are disputed, that

1886
01:43:35,680 --> 01:43:37,400
Speaker 1: they recorded the bulk of their debut.

1887
01:43:37,600 --> 01:43:39,400
Speaker 2: One of the funnier things that I was reading was

1888
01:43:39,439 --> 01:43:41,400
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, mic policeman, trying to get real

1889
01:43:41,439 --> 01:43:43,080
Speaker 2: nerdy about it, and they were like, we set up

1890
01:43:43,080 --> 01:43:45,280
Speaker 2: the microphones where there weren't holes in the floor.

1891
01:43:45,479 --> 01:43:49,360
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, yipped up. It's the record of the majority

1892
01:43:49,400 --> 01:43:51,960
Speaker 1: of their debut here, Heroin, I'm Waiting for the Man,

1893
01:43:52,080 --> 01:43:54,280
Speaker 1: and Venus and Furs were re recorded.

1894
01:43:53,960 --> 01:43:58,680
Speaker 2: In Hollywood at a studio frequented by Frank Zappa, which is, oh,

1895
01:43:58,960 --> 01:44:02,080
Speaker 2: we'll talk about that, their mortal enemy, Frank Zappa.

1896
01:44:02,680 --> 01:44:05,519
Speaker 1: And Sunday Morning was tackled at New York's Atlantic Record

1897
01:44:05,600 --> 01:44:08,679
Speaker 1: Studio that November, when the release date for the album

1898
01:44:08,760 --> 01:44:11,320
Speaker 1: got pushed back, So that was a late addition. The

1899
01:44:11,479 --> 01:44:15,320
Speaker 1: cost for this album isn't known definitively. Estimates vary from

1900
01:44:15,560 --> 01:44:20,280
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred to three grand, or fifteen thousand to thirty

1901
01:44:20,360 --> 01:44:25,479
Speaker 1: thousand in today's dollars. That's hilarious. So this Norman Dolph

1902
01:44:25,520 --> 01:44:29,080
Speaker 1: guy was the co producer, engineer, Let's say he was

1903
01:44:29,120 --> 01:44:32,639
Speaker 1: actually the guy who knew how to use recording equipment.

1904
01:44:33,240 --> 01:44:36,599
Speaker 1: But Andy Warhol was, at least on paper, the producer.

1905
01:44:37,160 --> 01:44:38,840
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Andy Warhol.

1906
01:44:39,200 --> 01:44:43,080
Speaker 2: Producer wandering into the studio looking at shiny things.

1907
01:44:43,360 --> 01:44:43,639
Speaker 1: Wow.

1908
01:44:43,880 --> 01:44:46,960
Speaker 2: Oh no, that's that's that's walking. Yeah, I know, I know.

1909
01:44:47,479 --> 01:44:49,400
Speaker 2: Andy may have returned to the building a lot a

1910
01:44:49,479 --> 01:44:52,200
Speaker 2: decade later when it housed Studio fifty four, but he

1911
01:44:52,320 --> 01:44:54,400
Speaker 2: was somewhat scarce during the recording of the album that

1912
01:44:54,520 --> 01:44:58,160
Speaker 2: he was nominally co producing. In reality, he approached his

1913
01:44:58,280 --> 01:45:01,120
Speaker 2: role more like that of a producer a film, raising

1914
01:45:01,160 --> 01:45:03,559
Speaker 2: the money and hiring a crew to do the actual work.

1915
01:45:04,120 --> 01:45:06,800
Speaker 2: On the rare occasions he did attend the sessions, Reid

1916
01:45:06,880 --> 01:45:10,080
Speaker 2: recalled him sitting behind the board, gazing with wrapped fascination

1917
01:45:10,240 --> 01:45:12,640
Speaker 2: at all the blinking lights. Of course, he didn't know

1918
01:45:12,680 --> 01:45:15,320
Speaker 2: anything about record production. He just sat there and said, ooh,

1919
01:45:15,520 --> 01:45:19,200
Speaker 2: that's fantastic. The band would later part company with Warhol

1920
01:45:19,320 --> 01:45:22,240
Speaker 2: on less than friendly terms. Reid would fire him as

1921
01:45:22,280 --> 01:45:24,639
Speaker 2: their manager after the album's release because he was sick

1922
01:45:24,680 --> 01:45:28,439
Speaker 2: of being overshadowed. The Warhole's other lasting contribution was securing

1923
01:45:28,479 --> 01:45:32,080
Speaker 2: equipment for the band, including the Vox amps that were

1924
01:45:32,120 --> 01:45:35,920
Speaker 2: known as the super Beetle Amp. Imagine a weirder pairing

1925
01:45:35,960 --> 01:45:39,160
Speaker 2: than the Beatles Velvet Underground. Actually, I'm sure, I'm sure

1926
01:45:39,240 --> 01:45:41,479
Speaker 2: the Beatles would have fronted and been like, well, this

1927
01:45:41,560 --> 01:45:43,439
Speaker 2: is such interesting events stuff that you're doing.

1928
01:45:43,960 --> 01:45:46,519
Speaker 1: You know, I've never heard them talk about the Velvet

1929
01:45:46,640 --> 01:45:49,280
Speaker 1: underground of all like the Beatles minute even for clout

1930
01:45:49,320 --> 01:45:52,040
Speaker 1: chasing purposes. Yeah, and Paul would have been the one

1931
01:45:52,080 --> 01:45:55,280
Speaker 1: because he was so into like John Cage and yeah,

1932
01:45:55,520 --> 01:45:58,760
Speaker 1: like I don't recall ever hearing them talk about him.

1933
01:46:00,720 --> 01:46:02,800
Speaker 2: Anyway. At the time, the Velvets were more or less

1934
01:46:02,840 --> 01:46:06,439
Speaker 2: content with his role as manager producer. As Reid reflected

1935
01:46:06,479 --> 01:46:08,679
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty six on an episode of The South

1936
01:46:08,760 --> 01:46:11,680
Speaker 2: Bank Show, the advantage of having Andy Warhol as a

1937
01:46:11,720 --> 01:46:14,760
Speaker 2: producer was that because it was Andy Warhol, engineers would

1938
01:46:14,800 --> 01:46:17,880
Speaker 2: lead everything in its pure state. They'd say, is that alright,

1939
01:46:17,960 --> 01:46:22,280
Speaker 2: mister Warhol, And he'd say, oh yeah, so right at

1940
01:46:22,320 --> 01:46:23,880
Speaker 2: the beginning, we experienced what it was like to be

1941
01:46:23,920 --> 01:46:26,160
Speaker 2: in the studio and record things our way and have

1942
01:46:26,439 --> 01:46:29,599
Speaker 2: essentially total freedom. They would say that Tom Wilson, who

1943
01:46:29,720 --> 01:46:33,320
Speaker 2: produced Bob Dylan in about one hundred other things at

1944
01:46:33,360 --> 01:46:35,479
Speaker 2: this time period that you love, was more of a

1945
01:46:35,520 --> 01:46:38,799
Speaker 2: producer than Warhol ever was. While Cale acted as the arranger,

1946
01:46:39,479 --> 01:46:41,800
Speaker 2: the Velvets and Tom Wilson would re team for White Light,

1947
01:46:41,880 --> 01:46:45,000
Speaker 2: White Heat, and Cal later said of Wilson's work, the

1948
01:46:45,080 --> 01:46:48,000
Speaker 2: band never again had as good a producer as Tom Wilson.

1949
01:46:49,320 --> 01:46:53,639
Speaker 2: There was the Andy Kaufman esque suggestion that Warhol made

1950
01:46:53,720 --> 01:46:56,600
Speaker 2: for the Delegate, I'll be your Mirror, that was never implemented.

1951
01:46:57,160 --> 01:46:59,280
Speaker 2: Reed recalled, we would have the record fixed with a

1952
01:46:59,320 --> 01:47:01,920
Speaker 2: built in so it would go, I'll be your mirror,

1953
01:47:02,120 --> 01:47:04,320
Speaker 2: I'll be your mirror. I'll be your mirror, so.

1954
01:47:04,360 --> 01:47:06,040
Speaker 1: That you got it. You gotta do it like you,

1955
01:47:06,120 --> 01:47:12,200
Speaker 1: gotta do it like her uh miror uh berd mir.

1956
01:47:12,720 --> 01:47:15,320
Speaker 2: That's so that it would never reset. It would just

1957
01:47:15,360 --> 01:47:17,320
Speaker 2: play and play until you came over and took the

1958
01:47:17,439 --> 01:47:22,000
Speaker 2: arm off. Hilarious. The band were also huge dicks to

1959
01:47:22,080 --> 01:47:25,799
Speaker 2: Nico while recording this track, which is sad considering the title.

1960
01:47:26,040 --> 01:47:29,439
Speaker 2: Was something that she reportedly said to Lou Reed again,

1961
01:47:29,680 --> 01:47:32,760
Speaker 2: just imagine that woman, like six feet in heels coming

1962
01:47:32,840 --> 01:47:34,679
Speaker 2: up to you and saying, I'll be your mirror.

1963
01:47:36,120 --> 01:47:37,599
Speaker 1: So that's us a little like Arnold there.

1964
01:47:37,840 --> 01:47:39,000
Speaker 2: It was just diffing into it.

1965
01:47:41,000 --> 01:47:41,320
Speaker 1: Arnold.

1966
01:47:41,439 --> 01:47:45,840
Speaker 2: As as singing Nico songs is pretty hilarious with costume

1967
01:47:46,360 --> 01:47:53,400
Speaker 2: to all Tomorrow's potties and Sterling. Morrison would later explain,

1968
01:47:53,560 --> 01:47:57,600
Speaker 2: Nico kept singing I'll Be Your Mirror in her strident voice, dissatisfied.

1969
01:47:57,680 --> 01:47:59,559
Speaker 2: We kept making her do it over and over again

1970
01:47:59,640 --> 01:48:02,560
Speaker 2: until she broke down and burst into tears. At that

1971
01:48:02,720 --> 01:48:04,760
Speaker 2: point we said, oh, try it just one more time,

1972
01:48:04,840 --> 01:48:06,920
Speaker 2: and then if it doesn't work this time, we're not

1973
01:48:07,000 --> 01:48:09,519
Speaker 2: going to do the song. Nico then sat down and

1974
01:48:09,600 --> 01:48:10,799
Speaker 2: did it exactly right.

1975
01:48:10,840 --> 01:48:14,240
Speaker 1: Eh, exactly right, like the and Please Kill Me.

1976
01:48:14,360 --> 01:48:17,240
Speaker 2: Warhol would recount the whole time the album was being made,

1977
01:48:17,360 --> 01:48:20,280
Speaker 2: no one seemed happy with it, especially Nico. I went

1978
01:48:20,360 --> 01:48:25,040
Speaker 2: to sound like Bob Dylan. She wailed so upset because

1979
01:48:25,080 --> 01:48:25,880
Speaker 2: she didn't.

1980
01:48:28,960 --> 01:48:30,960
Speaker 1: Get it. So that's a little background on I'll Be

1981
01:48:31,080 --> 01:48:33,920
Speaker 1: Your Mirror, one of Lou's best poppy tracks on the record,

1982
01:48:34,720 --> 01:48:36,639
Speaker 1: and you know we touched on this earlier. It's easy

1983
01:48:36,680 --> 01:48:39,160
Speaker 1: to forget that for all of Lou's lyrical taboos and

1984
01:48:39,320 --> 01:48:42,599
Speaker 1: fascinations with drones and punky four on the floor rhythms,

1985
01:48:43,080 --> 01:48:45,800
Speaker 1: his time at Pickwick and the Velvets early apprenticeship as

1986
01:48:45,800 --> 01:48:49,320
Speaker 1: a cover band made him preternaturally good at writing pop songs.

1987
01:48:50,120 --> 01:48:53,280
Speaker 1: The album opens with Sunday Morning, with Lou taking over

1988
01:48:53,400 --> 01:48:57,080
Speaker 1: Nico's planned vocal lead, and there was a basslide there

1989
01:48:57,160 --> 01:48:59,400
Speaker 1: that pays tribute to the Mamas and the Papa's recent

1990
01:48:59,479 --> 01:49:04,840
Speaker 1: hit Money Day, Monday, Sunday Morning, Monday, Monday, It's all

1991
01:49:04,920 --> 01:49:06,439
Speaker 1: really there are layers here.

1992
01:49:08,680 --> 01:49:09,679
Speaker 2: Sunday Morning was a name.

1993
01:49:12,800 --> 01:49:15,439
Speaker 1: Sunday Morning was written about dropping in on their friend

1994
01:49:15,479 --> 01:49:18,920
Speaker 1: at three am after a night of boozing. John Cale

1995
01:49:19,000 --> 01:49:21,559
Speaker 1: told me when I actually interviewed him for a track

1996
01:49:21,640 --> 01:49:23,960
Speaker 1: by track commentary piece I did for people for the

1997
01:49:24,080 --> 01:49:27,320
Speaker 1: fiftieth anniversary of this album in twenty seventeen, which there

1998
01:49:27,360 --> 01:49:29,479
Speaker 1: it is is still one of the coolest things that

1999
01:49:29,560 --> 01:49:32,799
Speaker 1: people ever let me do. Props to my editor, Sarah Mishaud.

2000
01:49:33,520 --> 01:49:35,120
Speaker 1: The guy they dropped in on happened to have a

2001
01:49:35,160 --> 01:49:38,240
Speaker 1: guitar and a harmonium. It was kind of manic, Cale

2002
01:49:38,320 --> 01:49:40,200
Speaker 1: added to me. I like saying that to me. John

2003
01:49:40,280 --> 01:49:43,160
Speaker 1: Cale told this to me. Anywhere you'd go at that time,

2004
01:49:43,200 --> 01:49:45,000
Speaker 1: if you saw an instrument, you'd just pick it up

2005
01:49:45,040 --> 01:49:48,440
Speaker 1: and start playing. Lou saw the guitar, I saw harmonium,

2006
01:49:48,640 --> 01:49:51,960
Speaker 1: and off we went. Writing Sunday Morning. There she goes again.

2007
01:49:52,080 --> 01:49:54,920
Speaker 1: Also draws from the top forty well, borrowing a guitar

2008
01:49:55,040 --> 01:49:59,200
Speaker 1: part from Motown, which I never noticed until I read this.

2009
01:50:00,080 --> 01:50:02,679
Speaker 1: As Cale admitted to Uncut in twenty twelve, the rip

2010
01:50:02,760 --> 01:50:05,800
Speaker 1: is a soul thing Marvin Gaye's Hitchhike with a nod

2011
01:50:05,920 --> 01:50:08,479
Speaker 1: to the impressions I'm want to splice that in here

2012
01:50:19,680 --> 01:50:45,960
Speaker 1: the leaftlace thiss she's not on the streets, there she

2013
01:50:46,080 --> 01:50:48,200
Speaker 1: goes again would earn the distinction of becoming one of

2014
01:50:48,240 --> 01:50:51,960
Speaker 1: the first Velvet Underground tracks to ever be covered. Half

2015
01:50:52,040 --> 01:50:55,000
Speaker 1: a whirl away in Vietnam. Do you know the story?

2016
01:50:55,120 --> 01:50:57,679
Speaker 1: This is insane? I did not know. So. A group

2017
01:50:57,720 --> 01:51:01,160
Speaker 1: of US servicemen performing under the name The Electrical Banana

2018
01:51:01,320 --> 01:51:03,840
Speaker 1: during their off hours, were sent a copy of The

2019
01:51:03,920 --> 01:51:06,720
Speaker 1: Velvet Underground and Nico by a friend who thought they

2020
01:51:06,720 --> 01:51:10,920
Speaker 1: would appreciate the fruit on the cover. Electrical Banana Banana album.

2021
01:51:11,080 --> 01:51:14,760
Speaker 1: Electrical Banana was I assume taken from a line from

2022
01:51:14,800 --> 01:51:19,519
Speaker 1: Donovan's Mellow Yellow. You know, Electrical Banana gonna be a

2023
01:51:19,640 --> 01:51:23,400
Speaker 1: sudden graze, which is I believe to be a reference

2024
01:51:23,479 --> 01:51:26,320
Speaker 1: to the brief urban legend from the mid sixties that

2025
01:51:26,400 --> 01:51:30,240
Speaker 1: you can speak as Yeah, zero truth to that whatsoever.

2026
01:51:30,600 --> 01:51:34,360
Speaker 1: So anyway, these gis in Vietnam in the jungle here

2027
01:51:34,560 --> 01:51:38,000
Speaker 1: the Velvet Underground and Nico and really.

2028
01:51:37,960 --> 01:51:39,920
Speaker 2: Like it and think this is what we're fighting for.

2029
01:51:40,479 --> 01:51:44,639
Speaker 1: Yes, And they resolved to record a version of There

2030
01:51:44,760 --> 01:51:47,920
Speaker 1: she Goes again. Right there in the jungle. They build

2031
01:51:47,960 --> 01:51:51,880
Speaker 1: a makeshift studio by tossing down wooden palettes and pitching

2032
01:51:51,920 --> 01:51:56,320
Speaker 1: a tent and fashioning mic stands from bamboo branches and

2033
01:51:56,439 --> 01:52:00,559
Speaker 1: plugging their amps into a gas generator. And it used

2034
01:52:00,560 --> 01:52:02,439
Speaker 1: to be on YouTube. I'm gonna check and see if

2035
01:52:02,479 --> 01:52:18,679
Speaker 1: it is. I want to plug it in. She Goes again.

2036
01:52:20,360 --> 01:52:26,920
Speaker 1: She's walking down the street again, So that's weird. And

2037
01:52:27,040 --> 01:52:29,599
Speaker 1: from Vietnam vets it's a quick jump.

2038
01:52:29,520 --> 01:52:34,479
Speaker 2: To appropriately Heroin. It's one of the oldest compositions on

2039
01:52:34,520 --> 01:52:37,800
Speaker 2: the record, dates back to Lose time at Syracuse. Lou

2040
01:52:37,920 --> 01:52:40,720
Speaker 2: had actually attempted to record this song during his days

2041
01:52:40,720 --> 01:52:43,320
Speaker 2: on the pap assembly line at Pickwick. A demo from

2042
01:52:43,400 --> 01:52:46,519
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty five was rediscovered in twenty twenty two by

2043
01:52:46,600 --> 01:52:50,360
Speaker 2: Lo's widow, Laurie Anderson. There's another home demo made with

2044
01:52:50,800 --> 01:52:53,799
Speaker 2: Caleen Morrison and reads Ludlow Street Loft later that summer,

2045
01:52:53,880 --> 01:52:56,519
Speaker 2: which sounds more similar to the final version. But I

2046
01:52:56,560 --> 01:52:59,880
Speaker 2: actually quite like his the Country the Country Blues talking

2047
01:53:00,280 --> 01:53:00,800
Speaker 2: kind of version.

2048
01:53:00,920 --> 01:53:16,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna splice that in here. You should I

2049
01:53:18,960 --> 01:53:19,840
Speaker 1: know just.

2050
01:53:21,920 --> 01:53:34,000
Speaker 3: Where I'm going. I'm gonna try for the Kingdom if

2051
01:53:34,080 --> 01:53:36,400
Speaker 3: I can't, because you know, it makes me feel that

2052
01:53:36,760 --> 01:53:40,439
Speaker 3: I'm man when I'm put to spike into my vay.

2053
01:53:40,880 --> 01:53:43,840
Speaker 3: Then you know what, things aren't quite the same when

2054
01:53:43,960 --> 01:53:48,439
Speaker 3: I'm rushing from my run and I feel like Jesus' son,

2055
01:53:48,960 --> 01:53:50,920
Speaker 3: and I guess that I just don't know.

2056
01:53:51,560 --> 01:53:53,600
Speaker 1: And I guess that I just don't know.

2057
01:53:57,120 --> 01:53:58,800
Speaker 2: They'd lock me in a room and they'd say, write

2058
01:53:58,840 --> 01:54:02,639
Speaker 2: ten surfing songs. Read told WLR in nineteen seventy two,

2059
01:54:02,840 --> 01:54:04,920
Speaker 2: and I wrote Heroin And I said, hey, I got

2060
01:54:05,000 --> 01:54:09,040
Speaker 2: something for you. They said, Monni. They said, never going

2061
01:54:09,120 --> 01:54:12,400
Speaker 2: to happen, Never going to happen. With Warhol now bankrolling

2062
01:54:12,560 --> 01:54:15,040
Speaker 2: lose artistic endeavors, they were free to do whatever they wanted,

2063
01:54:15,600 --> 01:54:19,599
Speaker 2: which included the taboo subject matter and the chaotic breakneck ending.

2064
01:54:20,160 --> 01:54:23,280
Speaker 2: The end of the track actually got so Cacoffin is

2065
01:54:23,400 --> 01:54:27,120
Speaker 2: in studio that Marien Tucker actually stopped playing because she

2066
01:54:27,200 --> 01:54:29,800
Speaker 2: thought they were finished. She says in the two thousand

2067
01:54:29,800 --> 01:54:33,120
Speaker 2: and six veelvel Underground under Review documentary. No one ever

2068
01:54:33,320 --> 01:54:35,800
Speaker 2: even notices this, but right in the middle the drums stop.

2069
01:54:36,280 --> 01:54:37,880
Speaker 2: No one ever thinks about the drummer. They're all worried

2070
01:54:37,880 --> 01:54:40,720
Speaker 2: about the guitar sound and stuff. Nobody's thinking about the drummer. Well,

2071
01:54:40,760 --> 01:54:43,040
Speaker 2: as soon as it got loud fast, I couldn't hear anything.

2072
01:54:43,120 --> 01:54:46,040
Speaker 2: I couldn't hear anybody, so I stopped, assuming, Oh, they'll

2073
01:54:46,080 --> 01:54:49,080
Speaker 2: stop too and say what's the matter mo, And nobody stopped,

2074
01:54:49,320 --> 01:54:52,960
Speaker 2: so I came back in. Many people have misinterpreted Lou's

2075
01:54:53,080 --> 01:54:56,520
Speaker 2: chillingly neutral, clear eyed depiction of drug use as an endorsement,

2076
01:54:56,960 --> 01:54:58,880
Speaker 2: and in later years, fans would approach the band of

2077
01:54:58,880 --> 01:55:01,640
Speaker 2: gigs tell them that they too shot up Heroin. This

2078
01:55:01,880 --> 01:55:04,920
Speaker 2: deeply disturbed Lou and made him somewhat hesitant to play

2079
01:55:04,960 --> 01:55:06,560
Speaker 2: the song with the band through much of the band's

2080
01:55:06,640 --> 01:55:09,960
Speaker 2: later career. Cal would later say, these songs aren't about drugs,

2081
01:55:10,080 --> 01:55:13,840
Speaker 2: They're about guys who are sick. Wow, that's a pretty

2082
01:55:14,320 --> 01:55:15,880
Speaker 2: stark stunning was.

2083
01:55:15,960 --> 01:55:19,800
Speaker 1: Cale eburnea Heroin. I don't think so. He seems too weird. Yeah,

2084
01:55:20,480 --> 01:55:22,879
Speaker 1: I can't imagine the guy who did Paris nineteen nineteen

2085
01:55:23,160 --> 01:55:23,720
Speaker 1: could ever.

2086
01:55:24,360 --> 01:55:28,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, coke, Well that makes sense. Oh, Cale no, No,

2087
01:55:28,600 --> 01:55:31,920
Speaker 2: I was wrong. Cale Cal did use heroin in the

2088
01:55:32,000 --> 01:55:36,560
Speaker 2: early days, but later switched to cocin cocin booze.

2089
01:55:37,880 --> 01:55:38,240
Speaker 1: A true.

2090
01:55:38,280 --> 01:55:44,160
Speaker 2: Well do you say speaking of heroin? Now we have

2091
01:55:44,240 --> 01:55:47,120
Speaker 2: to segue into I'm Waiting for the Man, a song

2092
01:55:47,160 --> 01:55:50,320
Speaker 2: about scoring twenty six dollars worth of heroin in Harlem.

2093
01:55:51,200 --> 01:55:53,640
Speaker 2: Reid would later say of it, everything about that song

2094
01:55:53,720 --> 01:55:58,080
Speaker 2: holds true except the price. It's not working. It's too

2095
01:55:58,160 --> 01:56:00,760
Speaker 2: it's too record executive. I don't have the Brooklyn thing down.

2096
01:56:01,080 --> 01:56:02,919
Speaker 2: It's like my panel friend Donald says.

2097
01:56:07,280 --> 01:56:08,480
Speaker 1: Let's stick a fork in the mass.

2098
01:56:09,000 --> 01:56:12,320
Speaker 2: They're done. That has some very stupid lyrics on it.

2099
01:56:12,440 --> 01:56:15,840
Speaker 2: That record, New York, New York just an incredible record,

2100
01:56:15,920 --> 01:56:18,880
Speaker 2: but also has a song about killing the last great

2101
01:56:18,920 --> 01:56:21,560
Speaker 2: American whale with a rocket launcher.

2102
01:56:22,120 --> 01:56:26,000
Speaker 1: Yes, and Beginning of a Great Adventure is a beautiful song. Godfather,

2103
01:56:26,920 --> 01:56:30,600
Speaker 1: I forgot how much that song sucks. What That's what?

2104
01:56:30,640 --> 01:56:33,160
Speaker 2: Where he talks about raising an army of of of

2105
01:56:33,360 --> 01:56:36,480
Speaker 2: weird kids to combat how boring like everything else is,

2106
01:56:36,520 --> 01:56:38,520
Speaker 2: and training them like a sleeper cell. And it also

2107
01:56:38,600 --> 01:56:40,760
Speaker 2: has one of my favorite lou prompts where he goes

2108
01:56:40,920 --> 01:56:43,520
Speaker 2: take it Lou and then plays a really blue solo.

2109
01:56:47,080 --> 01:56:51,080
Speaker 1: Wait, so he calls to himself. He does, that's that's great.

2110
01:56:51,320 --> 01:56:54,720
Speaker 1: I told you my dad did a whole illustration series

2111
01:56:55,320 --> 01:57:00,960
Speaker 1: on there is no Time. One's over my bed right now. Now,

2112
01:57:01,000 --> 01:57:03,600
Speaker 1: we got to talk about European Son and got another

2113
01:57:03,680 --> 01:57:07,120
Speaker 1: quote from John Kale when I interviewed him in twenty seventeen,

2114
01:57:07,520 --> 01:57:11,520
Speaker 1: he had this very hilarious anecdote about that song. European Son,

2115
01:57:11,600 --> 01:57:15,080
Speaker 1: in my mind, was purely for inspiration. Whenever we played anywhere,

2116
01:57:15,160 --> 01:57:16,680
Speaker 1: we couldn't wait to get to the point where we'd

2117
01:57:16,720 --> 01:57:20,080
Speaker 1: improvise and do European Son. It was always different. That

2118
01:57:20,200 --> 01:57:22,920
Speaker 1: was the fun part for us doing those improvisations, and

2119
01:57:23,040 --> 01:57:25,360
Speaker 1: those improvisations would really get the best out of us

2120
01:57:25,400 --> 01:57:27,360
Speaker 1: in the end because they go on and on and

2121
01:57:27,480 --> 01:57:29,600
Speaker 1: on and on. We'll be up there for an hour

2122
01:57:29,800 --> 01:57:32,400
Speaker 1: just improvising before we'd even get done a song. In

2123
01:57:32,520 --> 01:57:34,880
Speaker 1: San Diego, we did that. That's the kind of rep

2124
01:57:34,920 --> 01:57:36,840
Speaker 1: we had. When we got to San Francisco. In La

2125
01:57:37,440 --> 01:57:40,400
Speaker 1: Bill Graham didn't appreciate all the songs and improvisations that

2126
01:57:40,480 --> 01:57:42,760
Speaker 1: were going on. He thought we were invading the San

2127
01:57:42,760 --> 01:57:46,560
Speaker 1: Francisco Group's territory. There wasn't much love loss between us

2128
01:57:46,640 --> 01:57:49,400
Speaker 1: on the West coast. Lou was always talking about, never

2129
01:57:49,480 --> 01:57:52,400
Speaker 1: mind the flower children, give us the hard trucks. We

2130
01:57:52,520 --> 01:57:55,440
Speaker 1: were happy that woodstock ended up in mud. That kind

2131
01:57:55,480 --> 01:58:02,400
Speaker 1: of resentment was very healthy, I thought, yeah, yeah. John

2132
01:58:02,480 --> 01:58:05,120
Speaker 1: also talked to me about All Tomorrow's Parties, which is

2133
01:58:05,160 --> 01:58:07,760
Speaker 1: a song that Lou would describe as quote a very

2134
01:58:07,960 --> 01:58:10,880
Speaker 1: act description of certain people at the factory at the time.

2135
01:58:11,600 --> 01:58:17,440
Speaker 1: The factory being Andy Warhol's studio, not the tire factory. No, no,

2136
01:58:17,800 --> 01:58:21,600
Speaker 1: not the wasn't our club the factory, Oh yeah.

2137
01:58:21,440 --> 01:58:24,680
Speaker 2: That was the or you think of factory records, the hacienda.

2138
01:58:25,120 --> 01:58:27,080
Speaker 2: Oh no, there was a factory that was like a dance.

2139
01:58:27,240 --> 01:58:32,120
Speaker 2: I think there was a dance queer, yes, okay, straight way,

2140
01:58:32,240 --> 01:58:34,040
Speaker 2: guys killing it.

2141
01:58:34,600 --> 01:58:36,800
Speaker 1: Lou would say, All Tomorrow's Parties was a quote very

2142
01:58:36,880 --> 01:58:39,480
Speaker 1: apt description of certain people the factory at the time.

2143
01:58:39,800 --> 01:58:43,120
Speaker 1: I watched Andy, I watched Andy watching everybody. I would

2144
01:58:43,160 --> 01:58:46,480
Speaker 1: hear people say the most astonishing things, the craziest things,

2145
01:58:46,560 --> 01:58:50,360
Speaker 1: the funniest things, the saddest things. So it's a song

2146
01:58:50,400 --> 01:58:54,280
Speaker 1: about observation. John Klee in particular, was proud of the

2147
01:58:54,400 --> 01:58:58,080
Speaker 1: treated piano on All Tomorrow's Parties, a move that I

2148
01:58:58,640 --> 01:59:03,720
Speaker 1: want to assume so back from Brian Wilson. Absolutely that

2149
01:59:03,880 --> 01:59:05,680
Speaker 1: soundstrack you still believe in me.

2150
01:59:05,840 --> 01:59:08,680
Speaker 2: It was not one hundred percent not prepared. Piano dates

2151
01:59:08,760 --> 01:59:11,600
Speaker 2: far further back than Brian Wilson. If you can believe it.

2152
01:59:13,600 --> 01:59:17,960
Speaker 1: Oh Cale said. Kale told me, I'm gonna get my

2153
01:59:18,080 --> 01:59:22,520
Speaker 1: cred back. Kale told me. We made the arrangement for

2154
01:59:22,600 --> 01:59:25,440
Speaker 1: All Tomorrow's parties before Nico came along. That was the

2155
01:59:25,520 --> 01:59:28,240
Speaker 1: result of a year of weekend work, sitting around on

2156
01:59:28,320 --> 01:59:30,520
Speaker 1: the weekend and just playing and playing and playing and

2157
01:59:30,600 --> 01:59:33,760
Speaker 1: playing until you slowly gradually moved out of the folk

2158
01:59:33,880 --> 01:59:37,160
Speaker 1: music side of things. The Velvet Underground debut record was

2159
01:59:37,240 --> 01:59:39,720
Speaker 1: all done with just us playing. There were no effects

2160
01:59:39,800 --> 01:59:42,680
Speaker 1: involved in that. We tried a version where Nico doubles

2161
01:59:42,720 --> 01:59:46,240
Speaker 1: her vocal, but the vocal just became too heavy too.

2162
01:59:46,320 --> 01:59:49,520
Speaker 1: Nico's is too much a lot, but the noise of

2163
01:59:49,600 --> 01:59:52,160
Speaker 1: putting paper clips in between the strings of the piano

2164
01:59:52,320 --> 01:59:54,880
Speaker 1: gave it a ring that made it a little more orchestral.

2165
01:59:55,440 --> 01:59:57,640
Speaker 1: We were trying to make orchestral stuff. This is very

2166
01:59:57,680 --> 01:59:59,800
Speaker 1: interesting to me. We were trying to be phil spect

2167
02:00:00,560 --> 02:00:03,720
Speaker 1: Phil Spector with mixed Bagnerian orchestrations with R and B.

2168
02:00:04,480 --> 02:00:07,560
Speaker 1: That was a really unique combination. We had the drone,

2169
02:00:08,000 --> 02:00:10,720
Speaker 1: the viola wasn't used, so the piano became the drone.

2170
02:00:11,200 --> 02:00:13,560
Speaker 1: Whenever we try to do something, we'd always try to

2171
02:00:13,600 --> 02:00:15,160
Speaker 1: find something that would be the drone.

2172
02:00:15,400 --> 02:00:16,920
Speaker 2: I'd love the piano part on that. It was just

2173
02:00:17,000 --> 02:00:20,400
Speaker 2: such an otherworldly sound, like the first time I'd really

2174
02:00:20,480 --> 02:00:23,880
Speaker 2: heard the instrument played like that, you know, Yeah, just

2175
02:00:24,240 --> 02:00:28,520
Speaker 2: hearing that at like fourteen or whatever. Kel's viola at

2176
02:00:28,520 --> 02:00:30,880
Speaker 2: this time was deeply bizarre. When he was in the

2177
02:00:30,960 --> 02:00:33,440
Speaker 2: Theater of Eternal Music, Tony Conrad showed him how to

2178
02:00:33,520 --> 02:00:35,840
Speaker 2: install a pickup on it so it could be amplified

2179
02:00:36,080 --> 02:00:38,000
Speaker 2: to keep up with the noise of the rest of

2180
02:00:38,040 --> 02:00:42,000
Speaker 2: these sessions, and Kale explained that to Rolling Stone it

2181
02:00:42,080 --> 02:00:44,000
Speaker 2: was very ambrasive. I wish I could do an accent

2182
02:00:44,080 --> 02:00:45,720
Speaker 2: for him, but all I can think of is Waldo

2183
02:00:45,800 --> 02:00:49,800
Speaker 2: Jeffers had reached his limit just him doing the gift.

2184
02:00:50,560 --> 02:00:52,360
Speaker 2: He said it was very abrasive, and the pickups we

2185
02:00:52,480 --> 02:00:54,600
Speaker 2: had them were really not terrific. They had a lot

2186
02:00:54,640 --> 02:00:57,480
Speaker 2: of noise. It was a good racket. I've also heard

2187
02:00:57,560 --> 02:00:59,880
Speaker 2: him compared to the sound of an airplane taking off,

2188
02:01:00,560 --> 02:01:03,200
Speaker 2: and then cal gradually messed with it even further. He

2189
02:01:03,360 --> 02:01:07,720
Speaker 2: used guitar, banjo or mandolin strings because he was trying

2190
02:01:07,760 --> 02:01:10,000
Speaker 2: to get it deep and as deep as possible. And

2191
02:01:10,080 --> 02:01:13,880
Speaker 2: he also filed down the bridge so that he could

2192
02:01:13,920 --> 02:01:17,160
Speaker 2: play drones using three strings on the viola. Like you know,

2193
02:01:17,520 --> 02:01:20,000
Speaker 2: normally on a string instrument, the bridge is arched so

2194
02:01:20,120 --> 02:01:21,720
Speaker 2: that at the most you can play what they call

2195
02:01:21,800 --> 02:01:23,800
Speaker 2: double stops or two notes at once with the bow,

2196
02:01:24,040 --> 02:01:27,960
Speaker 2: because that's then that the strings don't sit flat so

2197
02:01:28,240 --> 02:01:30,800
Speaker 2: and same way on a guitar they're they're slightly arched

2198
02:01:30,840 --> 02:01:33,480
Speaker 2: when you look at the tail pieces of electric guitar.

2199
02:01:33,640 --> 02:01:36,240
Speaker 2: So he essentially broke his instrument so that he could

2200
02:01:36,240 --> 02:01:40,920
Speaker 2: play drones on three strings, and later said that it

2201
02:01:41,080 --> 02:01:42,960
Speaker 2: was ruined. You can't do very much after that with

2202
02:01:43,200 --> 02:01:47,800
Speaker 2: the instrument, but it's a great noise. And by the

2203
02:01:47,880 --> 02:01:50,360
Speaker 2: time he was done using in the velvet underground, I

2204
02:01:50,400 --> 02:01:52,800
Speaker 2: think it had gotten so unwieldy with all of these

2205
02:01:52,840 --> 02:01:55,560
Speaker 2: other instrument strings and the dtuning and all this that

2206
02:01:55,640 --> 02:01:57,480
Speaker 2: he was using a cello bow to play it at

2207
02:01:57,520 --> 02:01:58,160
Speaker 2: that point.

2208
02:01:58,200 --> 02:02:00,880
Speaker 1: Did he describe the sound of the viola drone as

2209
02:02:00,960 --> 02:02:04,160
Speaker 1: like a B fifty two coming in for landing or something. Yeah, yeah,

2210
02:02:04,160 --> 02:02:06,840
Speaker 1: I love that and he's not wrong. Nope, it could

2211
02:02:06,840 --> 02:02:08,880
Speaker 1: be a tough listen at some point.

2212
02:02:09,320 --> 02:02:12,680
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean again, you should have heard the dream syndicate. Yes,

2213
02:02:12,880 --> 02:02:13,040
Speaker 2: you know?

2214
02:02:14,000 --> 02:02:16,480
Speaker 1: All right? Sorry, one more John Cale anecdote. I'm just

2215
02:02:16,600 --> 02:02:18,160
Speaker 1: I'm so thinking he told you to him that He

2216
02:02:18,240 --> 02:02:20,760
Speaker 1: told me that. He told me Jordan run Todg for

2217
02:02:20,840 --> 02:02:24,040
Speaker 1: People magazine in twenty seventeen for the fiftieth anniversary of

2218
02:02:24,080 --> 02:02:28,280
Speaker 1: the Banana Album, speaking about Feen Fetale, John Cale told

2219
02:02:28,360 --> 02:02:33,640
Speaker 1: me Andy Warhol saw that Lou was moping around the

2220
02:02:33,720 --> 02:02:36,720
Speaker 1: factory and he gave him a list of words. He said,

2221
02:02:37,200 --> 02:02:40,120
Speaker 1: I wish I could do a Warhol voice. Here fourteen words.

2222
02:02:40,240 --> 02:02:43,680
Speaker 1: Go write songs with these words. And Lou was never happier.

2223
02:02:44,040 --> 02:02:46,200
Speaker 1: He had a task in hand and he sat down.

2224
02:02:46,560 --> 02:02:48,480
Speaker 1: That was a lot of fun for him. We had

2225
02:02:48,520 --> 02:02:51,200
Speaker 1: our own thing going before Warhol, but he showed up

2226
02:02:51,440 --> 02:02:53,680
Speaker 1: and was more of a guy helping us not forget

2227
02:02:53,760 --> 02:02:57,160
Speaker 1: who we were. Andy would always say things like, tell

2228
02:02:57,280 --> 02:02:59,920
Speaker 1: Lu don't forget to put little swear words in that song.

2229
02:03:00,560 --> 02:03:02,880
Speaker 1: He was reminding us of who we really were. I

2230
02:03:03,080 --> 02:03:04,840
Speaker 1: like that and then that really is, like we said.

2231
02:03:04,880 --> 02:03:09,440
Speaker 1: Warhol's biggest gift to this production. Apparently the title fem

2232
02:03:09,480 --> 02:03:14,320
Speaker 1: Fatale came from Andy asking lou about Factory superstar Edie Sedgwick, who,

2233
02:03:14,400 --> 02:03:16,920
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, John Kale had a six week relationship with.

2234
02:03:17,520 --> 02:03:20,640
Speaker 1: Andy said, oh, don't you think she's a fem fatale?

2235
02:03:20,760 --> 02:03:24,240
Speaker 1: Lou I thought that song was written about Nico, but hmm,

2236
02:03:24,320 --> 02:03:24,560
Speaker 1: it's not.

2237
02:03:24,920 --> 02:03:26,320
Speaker 2: She's a fetal.

2238
02:03:27,920 --> 02:03:30,360
Speaker 1: She was always really pissed off about how, you know

2239
02:03:30,480 --> 02:03:34,360
Speaker 1: American they pronounced that word because she, you know, French

2240
02:03:34,520 --> 02:03:37,240
Speaker 1: was a language she spoke. It wasn't her native language,

2241
02:03:37,240 --> 02:03:39,840
Speaker 1: but close to it. And there's a some quote from

2242
02:03:39,920 --> 02:03:42,320
Speaker 1: Lewerre He's like, yeah, I wrote this one. I'm gonna

2243
02:03:42,320 --> 02:03:46,840
Speaker 1: say it how I want. Sorry, Nica, what.

2244
02:03:47,000 --> 02:03:51,760
Speaker 2: An as all, Warhole's involvement with the band's music was iffy,

2245
02:03:51,880 --> 02:03:56,160
Speaker 2: but the visual art was naturally his purview and bored

2246
02:03:56,320 --> 02:03:59,360
Speaker 2: by the static images that al mart had been relegated

2247
02:03:59,440 --> 02:04:03,879
Speaker 2: to a peel away sticker of a pop art banana illustration,

2248
02:04:04,120 --> 02:04:07,760
Speaker 2: under which would be a peeled pink and notably phallic banana.

2249
02:04:08,520 --> 02:04:11,480
Speaker 2: Aside from the fine print above the sticker, helpfully urging

2250
02:04:11,520 --> 02:04:14,520
Speaker 2: buyers to peel slowly and see the only text on

2251
02:04:14,560 --> 02:04:17,520
Speaker 2: the stark white cover was Warhol's own name gracing the

2252
02:04:17,560 --> 02:04:21,400
Speaker 2: lower right corner in stately cornet bold, a literal co

2253
02:04:21,640 --> 02:04:24,680
Speaker 2: sign of the velvet underground. The fact that each cover

2254
02:04:24,880 --> 02:04:27,560
Speaker 2: was essentially a Warhol original print was a big selling

2255
02:04:27,600 --> 02:04:30,080
Speaker 2: point to Verve, the MGM's subsidiary that had purchased the

2256
02:04:30,120 --> 02:04:34,800
Speaker 2: distribution rights, Columbia, decline. So did Atlantic and Electra, citing

2257
02:04:34,840 --> 02:04:39,560
Speaker 2: reasons ranging from loose lyrics to the sound of Kel's viola. Verve, meanwhile,

2258
02:04:39,640 --> 02:04:41,960
Speaker 2: had no such objections and spent a fortune on a

2259
02:04:42,040 --> 02:04:46,520
Speaker 2: special machine capable of manufacturing the sticker. Most reissued vinyl

2260
02:04:46,920 --> 02:04:49,200
Speaker 2: editions of the album do not feature the peel off stickers,

2261
02:04:49,240 --> 02:04:52,000
Speaker 2: and original copies of the record with the peel sticker

2262
02:04:52,080 --> 02:04:55,520
Speaker 2: feature with the sticker on or not on, as I understand,

2263
02:04:55,800 --> 02:04:59,920
Speaker 2: are rare collectors items. Hilariously, it was the relatively standard

2264
02:05:00,120 --> 02:05:02,879
Speaker 2: back cover that would cause far more headaches for the Velvets.

2265
02:05:03,160 --> 02:05:04,680
Speaker 2: The photo depicted the band in the midst of an

2266
02:05:04,680 --> 02:05:08,400
Speaker 2: exploding plastic and everal performance at Norfolk, Virginia's Chrysler Art Museum.

2267
02:05:09,120 --> 02:05:11,760
Speaker 1: I think John Waters was at that gig. He at

2268
02:05:11,840 --> 02:05:14,280
Speaker 1: least he was in the Ta Hayes documentary and I

2269
02:05:14,360 --> 02:05:16,440
Speaker 1: think he said he was. So that's kind of nuts that.

2270
02:05:17,160 --> 02:05:20,160
Speaker 2: That's about right, I think. I mean, Baltimore is not

2271
02:05:20,240 --> 02:05:21,000
Speaker 2: that far of a drive.

2272
02:05:21,320 --> 02:05:23,920
Speaker 1: True. Oh no, it's weird that John Waters is like

2273
02:05:24,320 --> 02:05:27,000
Speaker 1: presumably in the background of that photo in the back

2274
02:05:27,040 --> 02:05:29,880
Speaker 1: of the Velvet Underground debut. I think it's cool. That's neat,

2275
02:05:30,120 --> 02:05:32,680
Speaker 1: a neat little fact. And you know that that's kind

2276
02:05:32,720 --> 02:05:33,480
Speaker 1: of what we do here.

2277
02:05:33,560 --> 02:05:35,560
Speaker 2: Kind of our old thing. That's just listening to you,

2278
02:05:35,640 --> 02:05:39,720
Speaker 2: let you try and fill dead air. There was a

2279
02:05:39,800 --> 02:05:43,000
Speaker 2: slide montage that was projected onto the stage during that gig,

2280
02:05:43,160 --> 02:05:44,960
Speaker 2: and there was the whole point of the multimedia shows,

2281
02:05:44,960 --> 02:05:48,120
Speaker 2: and the upside down image of actor and factory associate

2282
02:05:48,720 --> 02:05:52,480
Speaker 2: Eric Emerson from Warhol's Chelsea Girls film could be seen.

2283
02:05:53,240 --> 02:05:56,120
Speaker 2: Emerson had been recently busted for drug possession and was

2284
02:05:56,160 --> 02:05:58,720
Speaker 2: badly in need of money, which probably explains why he

2285
02:05:58,800 --> 02:06:00,800
Speaker 2: threatened to sue the label for the unauthorized use of

2286
02:06:00,880 --> 02:06:03,720
Speaker 2: his image. To the tune of half a mil in

2287
02:06:03,880 --> 02:06:07,560
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty seven dollars. Rather than pay Emerson his claim,

2288
02:06:07,680 --> 02:06:11,600
Speaker 2: mg simply stopped production to remove the offending image. Copies

2289
02:06:11,640 --> 02:06:14,240
Speaker 2: of the record were called in June after being released

2290
02:06:14,240 --> 02:06:18,040
Speaker 2: in March sixty seven, which doomed its commercial potential. Sterling

2291
02:06:18,120 --> 02:06:21,240
Speaker 2: Morrison would later say, the whole Eric business was a

2292
02:06:21,320 --> 02:06:23,640
Speaker 2: tragic fiasco for us and proves what idiots they were

2293
02:06:23,640 --> 02:06:26,360
Speaker 2: at MGM. They responded by pulling the album off the

2294
02:06:26,400 --> 02:06:28,400
Speaker 2: shelves immediately and kept it off for a couple of

2295
02:06:28,440 --> 02:06:30,840
Speaker 2: months while they fold around with stickers over Eric's picture

2296
02:06:30,920 --> 02:06:33,720
Speaker 2: and then finally the airbrush. The album thus vanished from

2297
02:06:33,720 --> 02:06:35,840
Speaker 2: the charts almost immediately in June, just when it was

2298
02:06:35,840 --> 02:06:38,440
Speaker 2: about to enter the top one hundred. It never returned

2299
02:06:38,440 --> 02:06:42,080
Speaker 2: to the charts. Narrator voice, it never became close to

2300
02:06:42,440 --> 02:06:46,360
Speaker 2: entering the Billboard top one hundred. He let Him, Let

2301
02:06:46,440 --> 02:06:49,920
Speaker 2: Him Live, Man, Sterling Morrison. It peaked at one seventy one,

2302
02:06:50,600 --> 02:06:53,240
Speaker 2: and the front cover also eventually yielded a lawsuit of

2303
02:06:53,280 --> 02:06:56,960
Speaker 2: its own, per Wikipedia. In January twenty twelve, So Dumb

2304
02:06:57,520 --> 02:07:01,320
Speaker 2: the Velvet Underground business partnership of which John Cale and

2305
02:07:01,400 --> 02:07:04,440
Speaker 2: Lou Reid were general partners, sued the Andy Warhol Foundation

2306
02:07:04,560 --> 02:07:07,680
Speaker 2: for the Visual Arts, Inc. In the United States District

2307
02:07:07,760 --> 02:07:09,640
Speaker 2: Court for the Southern District of New York, after the

2308
02:07:09,680 --> 02:07:13,840
Speaker 2: Foundation licensed the covers banana designs for use on a

2309
02:07:13,960 --> 02:07:18,200
Speaker 2: line of iPhone and iPad cases. The court dismissed without

2310
02:07:18,280 --> 02:07:22,400
Speaker 2: prejudiced the partnership's request. That's kind of like nice try

2311
02:07:22,520 --> 02:07:22,760
Speaker 2: but no.

2312
02:07:23,440 --> 02:07:27,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like game respects game, but no. Oh, I

2313
02:07:27,560 --> 02:07:29,040
Speaker 1: just saw Friend of the Pod. Dora is in the

2314
02:07:29,080 --> 02:07:32,800
Speaker 1: middle of reading Chaos, the CIA's connection to Charles Manson.

2315
02:07:33,240 --> 02:07:34,800
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, I just want to plug that book and

2316
02:07:34,880 --> 02:07:37,880
Speaker 1: our friend Dora. Thanks Dora. It's also worth noting that

2317
02:07:37,920 --> 02:07:40,280
Speaker 1: the album flopped due to its being banned from both

2318
02:07:40,400 --> 02:07:44,800
Speaker 1: radio and record stores because of its racy lyrics. That's

2319
02:07:44,840 --> 02:07:47,120
Speaker 1: the word I'll use, racy. I'm sure Lee would love

2320
02:07:47,200 --> 02:07:50,880
Speaker 1: that I called his lyrics racy, and also many magazines

2321
02:07:50,920 --> 02:07:53,880
Speaker 1: refused to carry advertisements for it as well for similar reasons.

2322
02:07:54,400 --> 02:07:57,480
Speaker 1: But this all leads to a bigger question just how

2323
02:07:57,560 --> 02:08:02,480
Speaker 1: much of a bomb was Velvet Underground's debut. Brian Eno

2324
02:08:02,560 --> 02:08:05,240
Speaker 1: famously said the Musician magazine in nineteen eighty two that

2325
02:08:05,400 --> 02:08:08,520
Speaker 1: while the album only sold approximately thirty thousand copies in

2326
02:08:08,600 --> 02:08:12,440
Speaker 1: its first years. Quote. Everyone knows this quote. Everyone who

2327
02:08:12,520 --> 02:08:15,200
Speaker 1: bought one of those thirty thousand copies started a band.

2328
02:08:16,200 --> 02:08:18,960
Speaker 1: Over the years, writers, researchers, journalists off him.

2329
02:08:19,320 --> 02:08:22,840
Speaker 2: WHOA, Okay, you've got something to say here, right, No, No,

2330
02:08:22,920 --> 02:08:24,520
Speaker 2: I'm just being passive aggressive, like we.

2331
02:08:24,600 --> 02:08:26,240
Speaker 1: Talk about it, totally aggressive.

2332
02:08:26,600 --> 02:08:28,560
Speaker 2: Well, okay, that's fair. I'm just saying, like, you know,

2333
02:08:29,320 --> 02:08:33,440
Speaker 2: a quote I've had to read ten million times. Couldn't

2334
02:08:33,440 --> 02:08:35,600
Speaker 2: have just sat on that one, could you, Brian? You know,

2335
02:08:35,800 --> 02:08:37,720
Speaker 2: maybe not say something that I then have to hear

2336
02:08:37,760 --> 02:08:39,960
Speaker 2: for the rest of my life. Go back to me

2337
02:08:40,040 --> 02:08:40,760
Speaker 2: in the piano.

2338
02:08:44,320 --> 02:08:46,240
Speaker 1: You know, how many times have you heard I had

2339
02:08:46,280 --> 02:08:52,320
Speaker 1: a dream? Ooh? This is a matter how many times

2340
02:08:52,360 --> 02:08:54,560
Speaker 1: you have to hear it. Sometimes it's good. It's a

2341
02:08:54,600 --> 02:08:59,240
Speaker 1: good thought, good parry, good, very nice thought. Okay. Many

2342
02:08:59,320 --> 02:09:02,000
Speaker 1: journalists over the years assumed that thirty thousand copies was

2343
02:09:02,040 --> 02:09:05,720
Speaker 1: an actual figure for how many units this album moved,

2344
02:09:06,360 --> 02:09:09,560
Speaker 1: and while the album certainly sold less than Warhol In

2345
02:09:09,640 --> 02:09:12,680
Speaker 1: the band would have hoped, according to an MGM Royalty

2346
02:09:12,760 --> 02:09:16,600
Speaker 1: statement dated in February nineteen sixty nine, the album's actually

2347
02:09:16,720 --> 02:09:20,800
Speaker 1: sold fifty eight, four hundred and seventy six copies through

2348
02:09:20,840 --> 02:09:23,840
Speaker 1: that period, which is a respectable figure for a late

2349
02:09:23,920 --> 02:09:28,400
Speaker 1: sixties LP. A music writer and filmmaker named Grant Nickfee

2350
02:09:28,640 --> 02:09:33,000
Speaker 1: also conducted investigation in the twenty twenties, and he determines

2351
02:09:33,120 --> 02:09:36,160
Speaker 1: that the Velvet Underground debut sold as many as two

2352
02:09:36,240 --> 02:09:40,040
Speaker 1: hundred thousand copies by nineteen seventy one alone, and then

2353
02:09:40,080 --> 02:09:44,080
Speaker 1: according to Nielsen Soundscam, which tracks sales, Velvet Underground and

2354
02:09:44,200 --> 02:09:47,080
Speaker 1: Nico has sold five hundred and sixty thousand copies since

2355
02:09:47,240 --> 02:09:50,960
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one. So there's a twenty year period in

2356
02:09:51,040 --> 02:09:53,560
Speaker 1: the middle that's not accounted far, but already we have

2357
02:09:53,920 --> 02:09:56,440
Speaker 1: almost three quarters of a million. So will you put

2358
02:09:56,520 --> 02:09:58,760
Speaker 1: all the stuff that was sold between nineteen seventy one

2359
02:09:58,800 --> 02:10:02,320
Speaker 1: and nineteen ninety one, This is certainly a million seller

2360
02:10:02,400 --> 02:10:11,880
Speaker 1: by this point. So got him? You know? You know it? No?

2361
02:10:12,600 --> 02:10:18,520
Speaker 1: Uh no, I don't. The tracks for The Velvet Underground

2362
02:10:18,520 --> 02:10:21,320
Speaker 1: and Nico were largely complete by May of nineteen sixty six,

2363
02:10:21,400 --> 02:10:23,480
Speaker 1: but it took nearly a year for the album to

2364
02:10:23,560 --> 02:10:27,400
Speaker 1: hit shelves the following spring. This wasn't just because of

2365
02:10:27,440 --> 02:10:29,760
Speaker 1: the cover logistics that we just talked about. The sticker

2366
02:10:29,840 --> 02:10:33,280
Speaker 1: and lawsuit and all that. There were also promotional concerns.

2367
02:10:33,960 --> 02:10:37,440
Speaker 1: The exact circumstances aren't totally clear, but the band blame

2368
02:10:37,560 --> 02:10:42,040
Speaker 1: their MGM VERB label mate Frank Zappa. They fostered a

2369
02:10:42,480 --> 02:10:46,200
Speaker 1: somewhat irrational belief that Zappa used his clout, which I

2370
02:10:46,440 --> 02:10:48,520
Speaker 1: kind of can't imagine he really had at this point

2371
02:10:48,920 --> 02:10:51,240
Speaker 1: to hold back their release in favor of his own

2372
02:10:51,440 --> 02:10:55,360
Speaker 1: with the Mothers of Invention Freak Out groundbreaking album. In

2373
02:10:55,480 --> 02:10:58,120
Speaker 1: a different sort of way, Sterling Morrison would say the

2374
02:10:58,200 --> 02:11:01,160
Speaker 1: problem was Frank Zappa and his manager Herb Cohen. They

2375
02:11:01,240 --> 02:11:03,720
Speaker 1: sabotaged us in a number of ways because they wanted

2376
02:11:03,760 --> 02:11:06,080
Speaker 1: to be the first with a freak release and we

2377
02:11:06,200 --> 02:11:08,720
Speaker 1: were totally naive. We didn't have a manager who would

2378
02:11:08,720 --> 02:11:10,720
Speaker 1: go to the record company every day and just drag

2379
02:11:10,800 --> 02:11:14,320
Speaker 1: the whole thing through production. John Kale claimed that the

2380
02:11:14,400 --> 02:11:18,120
Speaker 1: Velvet's wealthy patron affected the label's judgment as well. He

2381
02:11:18,160 --> 02:11:21,840
Speaker 1: would say, verbs promotional department took the attitude zero bucks

2382
02:11:21,880 --> 02:11:24,680
Speaker 1: for Velvet Underground because they've got Andy Warhol. Let's give

2383
02:11:24,720 --> 02:11:28,760
Speaker 1: all the bucks to Zappa. Whatever the truth may be,

2384
02:11:29,000 --> 02:11:32,120
Speaker 1: Sterling Morrison held a serious grudge against Zappa for the

2385
02:11:32,160 --> 02:11:37,000
Speaker 1: rest of his life. His interviews uh reveal this. He

2386
02:11:37,160 --> 02:11:41,080
Speaker 1: told Fusion magazine in nineteen seventy, Zappa is incapable of

2387
02:11:41,160 --> 02:11:45,840
Speaker 1: writing lyrics. He's shielding his musical deficiencies by prophetizing all

2388
02:11:45,880 --> 02:11:48,840
Speaker 1: these sundry groups that he appeals to. He just throws

2389
02:11:48,960 --> 02:11:51,800
Speaker 1: enough dribble into those songs. I don't know. I don't

2390
02:11:51,880 --> 02:11:54,440
Speaker 1: like their music. I think their album freak Out was

2391
02:11:54,480 --> 02:11:55,200
Speaker 1: such a shuck.

2392
02:11:55,840 --> 02:11:57,200
Speaker 2: That's a great derogatory term.

2393
02:11:57,560 --> 02:11:59,880
Speaker 1: Yes, And he was even more blunt a decade later

2394
02:12:00,000 --> 02:12:03,480
Speaker 1: when speaking to Slugo magazine in the eighties. Oh, I

2395
02:12:03,600 --> 02:12:06,720
Speaker 1: hate Frank Zappa. He's really horrible, but he's a good

2396
02:12:06,720 --> 02:12:10,680
Speaker 1: guitar player. If you told if you told Frank Zappa

2397
02:12:10,760 --> 02:12:13,160
Speaker 1: to eat in public, he'd do it if he thought

2398
02:12:13,200 --> 02:12:16,480
Speaker 1: it'd sold records. Sterling Morrison, ladies and gentlemen.

2399
02:12:16,760 --> 02:12:20,560
Speaker 2: He's just jealous because Frank's a way better guitarist than him.

2400
02:12:21,600 --> 02:12:24,520
Speaker 1: To quote my dear friend Alex Heigel, there's nothing wrong

2401
02:12:24,520 --> 02:12:27,160
Speaker 1: with a little Frank Zappa. There's a lot wrong with

2402
02:12:27,240 --> 02:12:31,320
Speaker 1: a lot of Frank Zappa. Lou Reid also had some

2403
02:12:31,480 --> 02:12:35,200
Speaker 1: choice words for Zappa over the years. In Nigel Trevno's

2404
02:12:35,240 --> 02:12:38,680
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three biography Bookleat of the Band, Reid refers

2405
02:12:38,720 --> 02:12:42,720
Speaker 1: to Zappa as quote, probably the single most untalented person

2406
02:12:42,840 --> 02:12:46,200
Speaker 1: I've heard in my life. Ah. He's two bit pretentious

2407
02:12:46,320 --> 02:12:48,839
Speaker 1: academic and he can't play his way out of anything.

2408
02:12:49,240 --> 02:12:51,480
Speaker 1: He can't play rock and roll because he's a loser.

2409
02:12:52,040 --> 02:12:54,560
Speaker 1: He's not happy with himself. And I think he's right.

2410
02:12:55,000 --> 02:12:59,080
Speaker 1: That's there's some savagely incisive comments in there. Yeah.

2411
02:12:59,240 --> 02:13:02,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he's by far not the I mean, Lou,

2412
02:13:04,240 --> 02:13:06,920
Speaker 2: He's not the least talented musician you've ever seen in

2413
02:13:06,960 --> 02:13:07,360
Speaker 2: your life.

2414
02:13:08,360 --> 02:13:11,000
Speaker 1: But I don't fully understand this. The pair must have

2415
02:13:11,080 --> 02:13:13,760
Speaker 1: buried the hatchet in later years, because after Zappa died

2416
02:13:13,760 --> 02:13:17,760
Speaker 1: a prostate cancer in nineteen ninety three, Lou posthumously inducted

2417
02:13:17,840 --> 02:13:19,920
Speaker 1: him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I

2418
02:13:20,000 --> 02:13:21,800
Speaker 1: haven't actually listened to the speech, no.

2419
02:13:21,960 --> 02:13:24,720
Speaker 2: Neither of I, but I found some message board posting

2420
02:13:24,800 --> 02:13:31,160
Speaker 2: that as of recording the Gift, it was supposedly Frank Zappa,

2421
02:13:31,200 --> 02:13:33,280
Speaker 2: who is like, oh, you should stab a melon at

2422
02:13:33,320 --> 02:13:35,240
Speaker 2: the end of that song and put that sound effect

2423
02:13:35,280 --> 02:13:39,080
Speaker 2: in there. That is probably apocryphal, but one thing that

2424
02:13:39,160 --> 02:13:44,040
Speaker 2: I did hear or read that was Zampa confined his bile,

2425
02:13:44,240 --> 02:13:48,000
Speaker 2: at least publicly to Nico once after she got done

2426
02:13:48,000 --> 02:13:52,400
Speaker 2: with performance a solo performance, he walked on stage immediately

2427
02:13:52,440 --> 02:13:56,280
Speaker 2: afterwards and started pounding a keyboard and reciting deadpan German

2428
02:13:56,400 --> 02:13:59,800
Speaker 2: esque gibberish into the mic in a grotesque parody of

2429
02:14:00,080 --> 02:14:03,360
Speaker 2: her whole thing, which is pretty cruel.

2430
02:14:04,080 --> 02:14:04,200
Speaker 3: Uh.

2431
02:14:05,320 --> 02:14:09,120
Speaker 2: He was supposedly disdainful of Velvet Underground's overall drugy vibe,

2432
02:14:09,320 --> 02:14:12,240
Speaker 2: but I couldn't find anything of him like dragging them

2433
02:14:12,280 --> 02:14:13,480
Speaker 2: the same way that they did to him.

2434
02:14:13,880 --> 02:14:17,200
Speaker 1: I wonder what was behind there at their posthumous makeup.

2435
02:14:17,280 --> 02:14:18,120
Speaker 1: I don't actually know.

2436
02:14:18,600 --> 02:14:22,640
Speaker 2: Oh deuezl some guy in our Zappa seven years ago

2437
02:14:23,560 --> 02:14:26,560
Speaker 2: said that Deuesel Zappa on stage said that the feud

2438
02:14:26,640 --> 02:14:31,080
Speaker 2: between Zappa and Lou was very real interesting and then

2439
02:14:31,320 --> 02:14:33,880
Speaker 2: in the name oh here we go, Wane, we're only

2440
02:14:33,960 --> 02:14:35,920
Speaker 2: in it for the money. The Frank Zappa albums, there's

2441
02:14:35,960 --> 02:14:38,360
Speaker 2: a snippet where Zappa quips I get to work with

2442
02:14:38,400 --> 02:14:41,120
Speaker 2: the Velvet Underground, which is as a group is Frank

2443
02:14:41,200 --> 02:14:44,520
Speaker 2: Zappa's group, but that was cut from the album. I

2444
02:14:44,560 --> 02:14:51,720
Speaker 2: don't know, that's wild I'll be your tweezl ah okay,

2445
02:14:51,840 --> 02:14:56,760
Speaker 2: so from Lou Reid biographer Kevin Courrier, who died in

2446
02:14:56,800 --> 02:14:59,480
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen but wrote a book about Frank Zappa called

2447
02:14:59,680 --> 02:15:05,400
Speaker 2: Danger Kitchen. A week before the induction ceremony, guitarist Eddie

2448
02:15:05,480 --> 02:15:08,760
Speaker 2: Van Halen was asked by Zappa's son Dweezl to induct

2449
02:15:08,800 --> 02:15:12,480
Speaker 2: his father. Eddie supposedly turned down the offer, saying he

2450
02:15:12,560 --> 02:15:16,440
Speaker 2: didn't give out awards. Zapa's widow, Gail, suggested the fifties

2451
02:15:16,520 --> 02:15:19,000
Speaker 2: R and B legend Johnny guitar Watson, who not only

2452
02:15:19,120 --> 02:15:21,760
Speaker 2: inspired Zappa as a teenager but also played with his

2453
02:15:21,880 --> 02:15:25,480
Speaker 2: group in the seventies. The hall refused, which, given their

2454
02:15:25,720 --> 02:15:28,760
Speaker 2: attitude towards black people, is not surprising. So as a

2455
02:15:28,840 --> 02:15:31,560
Speaker 2: last ditch effort, they came up with Lou Reed and

2456
02:15:31,800 --> 02:15:37,000
Speaker 2: Zapa's kids, Dweezl and presumably Moon Unit two were well

2457
02:15:37,080 --> 02:15:40,120
Speaker 2: aware of this rivalry between Reid and Zappa, and so

2458
02:15:40,240 --> 02:15:43,520
Speaker 2: they were dead set against it. But then Gail, his widow,

2459
02:15:43,680 --> 02:15:47,680
Speaker 2: phoned Reid to discuss this whole thing, and you know,

2460
02:15:47,960 --> 02:15:51,080
Speaker 2: he apologized, I guess, and then agreed.

2461
02:15:50,800 --> 02:15:53,560
Speaker 1: To do it. We kind of touched on this earlier,

2462
02:15:53,640 --> 02:15:56,240
Speaker 1: but the whole Zappa Vu feud is indicative of a

2463
02:15:56,320 --> 02:15:59,839
Speaker 1: weird East Coast West Coast freaks feud. In the mid sixties,

2464
02:16:00,560 --> 02:16:03,600
Speaker 1: the Velvets did not go down well in California, as

2465
02:16:03,720 --> 02:16:06,680
Speaker 1: one kind of might expect. The Warhol crew felt the

2466
02:16:06,720 --> 02:16:09,000
Speaker 1: whole hippie thing was anathma to their brand of New

2467
02:16:09,080 --> 02:16:13,640
Speaker 1: York nihilism. This love piece crap. We hated that, moth

2468
02:16:13,720 --> 02:16:16,720
Speaker 1: Tucker said in the town Age documentary Get Real, you

2469
02:16:16,760 --> 02:16:19,440
Speaker 1: cannot change minds by handing flowers to people who want

2470
02:16:19,480 --> 02:16:23,760
Speaker 1: to shoot you. Cher found herself at the band's first

2471
02:16:23,840 --> 02:16:26,320
Speaker 1: ever live show on the West Coast, when they played

2472
02:16:26,400 --> 02:16:29,040
Speaker 1: The Trip on the Sunset Strip in nineteen sixty six,

2473
02:16:29,560 --> 02:16:32,920
Speaker 1: accompanied of course by Sonny and amidst a star studded

2474
02:16:32,959 --> 02:16:36,280
Speaker 1: audience that included members of The Birds and Ryan O'Neil.

2475
02:16:37,200 --> 02:16:40,720
Speaker 1: Cher reportedly left the show early, offering this SoundBite for

2476
02:16:40,800 --> 02:16:45,720
Speaker 1: the Ages, The Velvet Underground won't replace anything except maybe suicide.

2477
02:16:47,640 --> 02:16:51,600
Speaker 1: Bill Graham, the famed San France then the godfather of

2478
02:16:52,120 --> 02:16:55,520
Speaker 1: not just San Francisco rock, I mean live rock in

2479
02:16:55,680 --> 02:16:58,720
Speaker 1: the sixties and early seventies, I should say ye ran

2480
02:16:58,800 --> 02:17:01,760
Speaker 1: the film are also hated them both because he thought

2481
02:17:01,760 --> 02:17:06,400
Speaker 1: they're long winded experimental jams and their Warhol sponsored multimedia

2482
02:17:06,480 --> 02:17:09,520
Speaker 1: show was treading a little close to the San Francisco scene,

2483
02:17:09,560 --> 02:17:14,199
Speaker 1: which trafficked in long winded experimental jams and multimedia light shows.

2484
02:17:15,120 --> 02:17:18,520
Speaker 1: Moo Tucker recalls him hissing, I hope you bomb before

2485
02:17:18,600 --> 02:17:21,320
Speaker 1: taking the stage at the Filmore, which is not kind.

2486
02:17:21,800 --> 02:17:24,520
Speaker 1: The Velvet Underground were much better received than the UK, However,

2487
02:17:25,640 --> 02:17:28,800
Speaker 1: David Bowie was passed an advanced pressing of the album

2488
02:17:28,920 --> 02:17:31,760
Speaker 1: after his early manager Ken Pitt, took a trip to

2489
02:17:31,840 --> 02:17:35,720
Speaker 1: the States in nineteen sixty six, making Bowie arguably one

2490
02:17:35,760 --> 02:17:37,720
Speaker 1: of the first people in Britain to hear The Velvet

2491
02:17:37,800 --> 02:17:40,480
Speaker 1: Underground and almost certainly one of the first Brits to

2492
02:17:40,560 --> 02:17:43,080
Speaker 1: cover stuff like Waiting for the Man in White Light,

2493
02:17:43,160 --> 02:17:46,960
Speaker 1: White Heat. Bowie would contrast The Velvet's debut with the

2494
02:17:47,000 --> 02:17:51,120
Speaker 1: standard feel good pop of the era, saying their music

2495
02:17:51,280 --> 02:17:55,000
Speaker 1: was savagely indifferent to my feelings. It didn't care if

2496
02:17:55,040 --> 02:17:59,440
Speaker 1: I liked it or not, and honestly, that feels like

2497
02:17:59,520 --> 02:18:02,520
Speaker 1: a really good line to end on. Hell yeah, that's

2498
02:18:02,600 --> 02:18:07,080
Speaker 1: not artistic purity and confidence in your own vision. Then

2499
02:18:07,120 --> 02:18:08,000
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is?

2500
02:18:09,240 --> 02:18:12,280
Speaker 2: Who are you? Jordan? Let him know. My name's Jordan

2501
02:18:12,360 --> 02:18:16,119
Speaker 2: run Tug, and I'm Alex Heigel. Thank you for listening.

2502
02:18:22,640 --> 02:18:25,120
Speaker 1: Too Much Information was a production of iHeartRadio.

2503
02:18:25,400 --> 02:18:28,640
Speaker 2: The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtalk.

2504
02:18:28,800 --> 02:18:31,640
Speaker 1: The show's supervising producer is Michael Alder June.

2505
02:18:31,920 --> 02:18:34,800
Speaker 2: The show was researched, written, and hosted by Jordan run

2506
02:18:34,840 --> 02:18:36,240
Speaker 2: Talk and Alex Heigel.

2507
02:18:36,040 --> 02:18:39,200
Speaker 1: With original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.

2508
02:18:39,600 --> 02:18:41,600
Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave

2509
02:18:41,680 --> 02:18:44,640
Speaker 1: us a review. For more podcasts and iHeartRadio, visit the

2510
02:18:44,680 --> 02:18:47,960
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

2511
02:18:47,959 --> 02:19:01,080
Speaker 1: favorite shows. Four